 February 9, 2010 - 4:18am | Dralasite society is very respectful of the individual. The freedom and independence of the person is paramount in the dral mind. Drals typically live alone in small houses with a common court yard. They use this communal places for social gathering. They are very fond of gathering and discussing anything and everything. Having differing opinions is sign of a strong mind and true independence. Meals are prepared and shared in the common. The dwellings are typically occupied by parents, sibling buds, pre-parents (males in gender terms), and elders (neuter drals). A parent may have two or three buds dwelling around the common. Other parents, pre-parents, and elders may not be related. After the parent bond, the most prominent social structure in a drals life is its social school. Social schools are groupings of drals that share common opinions, beliefs, interests, and humor. Debate is the central activity of the social school. The dral parent has a strong influence in a young dral's initial choice of social school. Typically the parent presents its young bud to the school currently favored by itself. Further experience in life and formal education tend to alter a dralasites choice of school. Rare are dralasites who have not been members of dozens of social schools in their life. Membership is granted by common consent and rarely revoked. These schools typically number about a dozen individuals in active membership. Elder drals tend to be the defacto leaders of these schools and when the elder dies the group commonly divides into several groups. Much like human families the social school takes on the care of the young and elderly dralasites. In the school is where a dralasite will celebrate life events such as their budding memory, reception of community speaking rights (gaining one's voice), and death. A dral in need may turn to its companions in all the schools of which it is a member for a little help here and a little help there. Hence the value of many memberships. Young drals wander briefly after budding enjoying their new found freedom and are then naturally drawn back to their parent seeking guidance and parenting. This is the time that a dral is introduced to the parent's school for membership. Education is pursued separate from the social school in large rounds with professional teachers. A few years after budding formal education is begun. Young dralasites advance through progressively formal rounds for about ten years until they have been deemed by their teachers to be educated enough to keep up with society. Specialized training, if any, is undertaken after one's rounds. Dralasites are fond of traveling far, even off world if they can work up the means, to pursue their specialized training. What are some other ways people see dralasite society? I'm sure there would be cultural variation. -iggy -iggy |
 February 9, 2010 - 10:07am | Iggy your house description sounds like a circa 1st century rural jewish house in palestine. I'll work up some maps of your description and upload to the architecture project later this week. nice work. in fact I have a budding idea to show the evolution of a dral house as its built up to include more and more rooms. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 9, 2010 - 2:32pm | YES! Modular architecture, build as you grow is a total dral way of thinking. I picture round and ovoid stuff like the picture posted here: Refer to: Ancient Dralasite Cryo-pod Discover! -iggy |
 February 9, 2010 - 9:20pm | It's a solid foundation... I like the social school idea. However, I would like to reduce the role of the mother if possible. It's a little too... human? But, let's run with the school idea and deal with that later. The Social School could be the run-up to the Stoa. The Stoa are the political arms of Dralasite society. There are many roles within the Stoa, and the bonds built in the Social Schools condition all Dralasites to participate. Thus the Social Schools are a key component of actual political connection, though in a very informal way. Through these contacts, popular (usually hilarious) Dralasites are selected to serve on the Stoa. Every Dralasite gets their turn, eventually. In essence, Dralasites live in a series of hundreds of thousands of "village republics", which generally rule with a very light hand. Positions within the Stoa are uniquely... Dralasite. There is always some sort of Minister of Jokes or Vice President in Charge of Hilarity. In some cases, these positions have great influence and wield a measure of actual power, especially if the Dralasite filling that role is especially funny. Like most things, Dralasites do not take the Stoa too seriously. Power is not lusted after like with the other Frontier Races. Most Dralasites view a Presidency or Prime Ministership as a hassle and a burden. They are happy to demote themselves or even leave the Stoa. The last attempt to unite the Stoa by force failed centuries ago. Friendships formed in the Social School are critical for service in the local Stoa. In the Social School, the Dralasites mingle and meet each other, always trying to be the best at debate and entertainment. Some Dralasites emerge as better debaters, others are comical. The most esteemed are those that have both abilities in abundance. Of course it must be noted that Stoa service is not the only role in Dralasite society. There are thousands of businesses and companies for employment. Social School connections are vital in these cases, as well. |
February 9, 2010 - 9:58pm | YES! Modular architecture, build as you grow is a total dral way of thinking. I picture round and ovoid stuff like the picture posted here: Refer to: Ancient Dralasite Cryo-pod Discover! LOL that looks familiar ancient israelite houses were boxy mud brick and rubble rectangular afairs but I'll play with the ideas and work something up by friday. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 9, 2010 - 10:37pm | However, I would like to reduce the role of the mother if possible. It's a little too... human? I have fought with the term mother in reference to dralasites since I gained a sense of them. Hence I say parent. I'd love to come up with a dral word that means parent but with out the human extra bonding that mother holds. I see young buds sticking around the parent until another social school peaks their interest and they move out to be close to their friends. I like the Stoa idea and name. I have always viewed debate as the foundation of dralasite political structure and this paints it in natural vivid color. I think we ought to come up with a similar type name for the social schools. Positions within the Stoa are uniquely... Dralasite. There is always some sort of Minister of Jokes or Vice President in Charge of Hilarity. In some cases, these positions have great influence and wield a measure of actual power, especially if the Dralasite filling that role is especially funny. Like most things, Dralasites do not take the Stoa too seriously. Power is not lusted after like with the other Frontier Races. Most Dralasites view a Presidency or Prime Ministership as a hassle and a burden. They are happy to demote themselves or even leave the Stoa. I love this, especially the view of Prime Minister being a hassle. Remember the debates hold more sway than one dral in a formal position. The last attempt to unite the Stoa by force failed centuries ago. I have a legendary dralasite leader named Mol Upan who is considered the source or dralasite debate practices and is credited with unifying all dralasites. Mol Upan is lost in history kind of like Author and Merlin. Of course it must be noted that Stoa service is not the only role in Dralasite society. There are thousands of businesses and companies for employment. Social School connections are vital in these cases, as well. Yes, let's explore this. I see dralasites being very accepting of professions. It is hard for a dral to look down upon another for choosing a profession. The dralasite who chooses a profession as a moss garden shaper is as interesting as a dralasite in interstellar business. The two are very likely to enjoy discussing each other's profession. Dralasites are genuinely interested in each other. Dralasite companies are not typically as large as the other races. As companies get large they tend to divide to keep a balanced dialogue in the company. Those companies that become large are admired by dralasites because they recognize the difficulty and details involved in achieving a balanced dialogue at a large scale. I'd also love to come up with a non gender pronoun to use in the place of he, him, his, etc. Using 'it' doesn't feel right. There are Visayan pronouns that are non gender that show what I mean. Siya ~ him/her and Niya ~ his/hers. -iggy -iggy |
February 9, 2010 - 10:42pm | ancient israelite houses were boxy mud brick and rubble rectangular afairs but I'll play with the ideas and work something up by friday. I don't see dralasites using many corners because it is less like their environment. I also se then having a general opinion that corners are unsafe, sharp. -iggy -iggy |
 February 10, 2010 - 5:52am | ancient israelite houses were boxy mud brick and rubble rectangular afairs but I'll play with the ideas and work something up by friday. I don't see dralasites using many corners because it is less like their environment. I also se then having a general opinion that corners are unsafe, sharp. There were a couple of guys that got together and had come up with some ideas concerning Dral society. They had decided that sharp lines and angles were amusing. They would keep finding jokes in Human architechture. The one player had some joke about bi-latteral species that was ammusing, but I sure cant recall it now. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
February 10, 2010 - 8:32am | Concerning pronouns: in an on line game I joined once the game master kept refering to drals with the pronoun Id, I quickly picked this up and started posting, "Give id five" while my dral stood on one hand and held 5 other appendages in the air. I kind of like Id as a universal pronoun as it carries no gender- I would see drals using a pronoun like this irrespecive of gender as they'd have a fluid view of gender and not really see it as important: "Gender changes but its the ideas of the dral that is important." Also concerning pronouns a plural word that conveys "they" would be nice maybe something the was dervived from the stoa or social school concept. Since the dral bonds with the social school the plural pronoun developed from that would be "us" and "they" would come from either a plural form of social schools or the stoa. Also I find myself using the term "being" to refer to people in the setting since it could be any of the races that your are refering to. Personally I would not get to bent out of shape over the "mother" term, yes I agree a uniquely dralasite term would be good and I too use parent or refer to the family "line" BUT as my dral character has been known to say, "Drals bounce" meaning they're flexible of mind and I would see the drals themselve adopting human terms too for the sake of communication as the term mother comes close (despite the obvious differences) and they'd likely use the term for the sake of the idea behind it. What would be interesting would be the same dral could use the human term "mother" then later in the discussion use the purely dralasite term to emphasize a different shade of meaning. I'm actually interested in the idea that drals would put more stock in the meaning or idea represented by a person or concept then the actual person. What I mean is that if they have been swayed by the arguement for the idea they would respect this. Suppose the Id that proposed that latter died or latter became a criminal or latter reversed his position- it wouldn't really change the respect for the idea. Circumstances change, individuals change, the universe changes but when a dral finds a truth it remains. further debate is just a crucible where that truth ungoes greater refinement. Dralasites would be not be prone to the human condition that when a trusted politician or public figure is revealed to be a shuckbag then everything crashes instead they would embrace the truth that that person is a shuckbag but the idea they proposed 10 years ago is still valid. I think this view of them would lead them to be more forgiving of failures and more likely to give second chances than humans. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 10, 2010 - 8:49am | Concerning Social Schools- I'd like to propose a term: scholion/scholia. If you wikapedia it you'll find it was an ancient greek practice of inserting a comment into a written text and that succeeding generations of copiest/scholars would even revise the scholia (scholion is singular and scholia is plural but I like the sound of scholia more) The act of joining and being apart of a social school could be viewed as adding to the central truth and the debate involved would refine that idea that is central to the school's emphasis. as members join and leave and more join the central ideas will evolve and refine like ancient greek scholia plus the word sounds like school: scholia EDit: Secondly the term skolion/ skolia is the songs sung at Greek banquets to extol the gods or heros and were often improvised on the spot and were accompanied by a lyre which was passed from singer to singer. This is interesting in that drals could have some lyre (or conch shell) they pass from speaker to speaker in the social school I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 10, 2010 - 8:40am | If I may, since we've been tearing up the forums with 2 threads on dralasites: we might consider starting a project on dralasites to work on society and biology and possbily philosophy and other things I looked at the Races of the Frontier and beyond project but it didn't seem suitable. perhaps a : All Things Dralasite project should be created? BTW this thread is getting interesting. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 10, 2010 - 9:35am | Iggy your house description sounds like a circa 1st century rural jewish house in palestine. I'll work up some maps of your description and upload to the architecture project later this week. Interesting; that's how I envision drals building spaceships, too. In my variation of drals, they are an aquatic race, but their society is pretty much what has been described by Iggy. Everything is build by adding pods - homes, buildings, vessels, starships - all construction starts small and builds more as needed.nice work. in fact I have a budding idea to show the evolution of a dral house as its built up to include more and more rooms. Long live the Frontier! |
February 10, 2010 - 9:44am | jedion - Feel free to roll all this into the Core Four project. Yes, I think we are going somewhere with this. By the way Iggy, I like the housing idea with the central atrium for meals and socializing. That way, we can stay in canon (that Dralasites "live alone" from Alpha Dawn) and also have a reasonable social interaction in the home. So essentially, Dralasite communities would simply be large blocks of these small houses connected by atriums. However, I would also add a central steam bath as well. I imagine that many Dralasites would take their dinners IN the steam bath after a hard day's work. Envision a sort of daily buffet where anywhere from 3 to several hundred Dralasites, whose homes all connect to the atrium, kick back and eat and clown around. Kind of like a condominium property organization that people actually participate in! (Funny how those things never really take off... Anyway...) |
February 10, 2010 - 1:44pm | @ Rum Rogue Yes many drals do find sharp lines and angles as used by the other races amusing. And I can see a whole string of debates and jokes themed on the subject of bi-lateral species. @Jedion Concerning Pronouns: There would be something in native dral dialects that would be cumbersome to other species. That may escape us humans, but there would be a modified form incorporated into Pan Gal that we could hit upon. Is Id short for individual? I'm mulling the word scholia around. I don't see dralasites thinking of social schools as “school” and not as a club either. They are similar to families, fraternities, congregations, etc. but not. To seek education they do attend school but not as sit down, lecture hall, take tests style as humans. @Gargoyle2k7 I see dralasites as preferring wet environments but more boggy / swampy without getting into super tropical jungle. I don't see dralasites liking deserts or snow. jedion -Feel free to roll all this into the Core Four project. I initially looked at posting in the Core Four. We've all gathered into a good size discussion circle. Maybe we should do so now. I have some ideas on vrusk that I'd like to do later when I get out of the dral mind set. Vrusk is an entirely different way of thinking. Core four would be the appropriate place for a vrusk conversation too. I like the addition of atriums to the courtyard concept. Dralasites would add the comfort factor when means permit. I can also see these as themed to different environments. Let's hang out in a desert, dralasite style. Let's enjoy a little snow without freezing to death. Steam bath dinners. This has to be the traditional formal meal location. The practical meals could be in the courtyard/atrium. The steam bath likely takes more resources to put together, so maybe there is one steam bath to a group of common houses, and an even greater steam bath for the community, etc. Maybe they just prefer a larger group for the steam bath. I would guess yazerians try to avoid being invited to a formal dral dinners, but humans and vrusk likely enjoy it. Condos with home owner associations would be the natural choice for dralasites working on a human world. I can see clauses about, “No Dralasites Allowed” like some bars put up sign saying the same. Ever notice that the dralasites in the bar picture with the no drals sign seemed small for their size. I picture them as young buds out a wandering for a few months after leaving their parent. -iggy -iggy |
 February 11, 2010 - 5:03pm | I really like these ideas you guys are putting in here. We should start a duscusion like this on the core four races. Have one person open a project and be the gatherer of the agreed upon information and accumulate it into a doc to post for an all to see and get this into a form that will only advance the whole game with more character to the races. I see each race having a group that is different from the main stream. These would be the outsiders that keep the races appraised of what is going on elsewhere as to what the others are doing and anything that could become a problem to the race colonies and respond to them accordingly. I have always seen the Drals as, if the home-world or a recognized colony of Drals was in jeopardy, they would rally together to get through anything that has befallen it. I am not saying they are fearless but they have a sense of duty to the Dral communities. I have played them as a whole as being passive to many things this is why they have the least colonised worlds unless there is something that threatens the race example Sather attacks. This is so cool to read. Keep posting. This stuff is good. |
 February 11, 2010 - 6:16pm | Gilbert, I'm really enjoying this thread for the content as well as the sand-box approach. Everyone is doing great! :-) Imperial Lord created the CORE FOUR project. There is a lot of information in there already and is a good place to discuss races. We have the Yazirian and Vrusk article coming out in #14. And in the future we can look forward to an article from Iggy! Additionally I understand that Imperial will have future articles on the races. All good stuff. /me so excited. Dralasite wakes up from surgery. He looks over at the nurse and smiles, she's kinda cute. The nurse is taken back, "Err.. May I help you sir?" "Ya.. what are you doing tonight." "Oh I'm...uhm. I'm sorry I only date my own race." "You what?" "My own race." "We are the same race." The nurse moves a mirror closer. The dralasite takes one look and screams. He was supposed to transport organs to a donor but somehow the dral is now a human who looks like Brian C. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" hehe.  |
February 11, 2010 - 11:09pm | some feed back needed on the building floor plans- I played with circular shapes and one thing was obvious that trying modular circles and ovals would generate a "flower" looking floor plan. and I didn't find it appealing. I'm considering a building that is a large oval with an oval atrium in the center and the outer edge would be sectioned off rooms (kind of like pizzia pie cuts) this leads to some straight wall. could do that idea of an oval atrium within an oval building and circular rooms within the outer ring but the down side is wasted space the oval within an oval is not very modular either - though I guess modularity could be sacrificed. Anyone have ideas? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 12, 2010 - 8:09am | A concept drawing for a modest dralasite home. The front three (top) provide bedrooms and entertainment areas, the center is the kitchen. The smaller rooms are for storage, bathrooms and steam room. - I missed the front door. - Need inside details. - Need a larger map showing how this home fits with others in the community around a common area.  |
February 12, 2010 - 11:48am | Why does everything have to be an oval or circular? I would imagine Dralasite architecture to be a hodge-podge of all kinds of different styles and moods. They would use the oval, but not exclusively. Dralasites would get bored with one type... |
February 12, 2010 - 12:46pm | Agreed. Dralasites would vary their use of shapes. I just find that they don't like sharp corners/edges. I view this partly from a safety point and then from a mid set point. If you can shape your body into almost any form then you would be interested in exploring that. But I do not see dralasite skin forming sharp edges and corners. Thus their mind set for fashioning their environment would smooth the corners and edges. Concerning the safety side I see cuts as potentially very lethal to dralasites. Sure they probably coagulate better than human blood does, but a large enough cut is a bad leak situation where your insides quickly end up on the outside. Hence they are very conscious to any sharp corners and edges that would create a large gash or puncture. I'll take a crack at doing a w00t style dralasite common house and see if I can show how I imagine the compound to look. Just a final thought. I don't think I have ever imagined dralasite architecture using stairs much. I always seem to image ramps. -iggy BTW, Can we add words like dralasite to the spell check?  -iggy |
February 13, 2010 - 11:21pm | OK, this is how I was imagining the common house. 1 meter per square. Side image of a single unit shown on bottom. -iggy -iggy |
February 14, 2010 - 6:15pm | Iggy, nice job. The common center area may contain;
Can't wait to see the final project. "Oh ya, it's all comin' together." --Kronk |
February 14, 2010 - 6:35pm | w00t, Bingo on number two. It's a discussion bowl. Please describe Shmoolak, Flubbra, Opho, and Flat Circle. We're taking ideas from everyone. -iggy -iggy |
February 15, 2010 - 10:20am | Please describe Shmoolak, Flubbra, Opho, and Flat Circle. We're taking ideas from everyone Getting Drunk! Star Frontiersman #2-p9 The drinks are not described afaik - consider adding those to the article. :-) |
 February 15, 2010 - 5:45pm | A possible dralasite Outpost. A very quick rendering I did, probably not a residential area most likely a backwater mining station or outpost |
 February 15, 2010 - 7:56pm | Awesome art work! It could be Outer Reach during a vulcanic lull. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
February 15, 2010 - 10:21pm | Wow! I like your work. This would definitely be an outpost. The gold dome is a green house. The tint is filtering like on the Apollo astronaut helmets. The other high dome is likely a community chamber with large discussion bowl for the stoa. Maybe this is a more hospitable Venus like world. The atmosphere is not breathable, but unlike Venus, storms are not constant and it doesn't rain acid. Thanks for the work. -iggy -iggy |
February 21, 2010 - 10:59pm | In terms of the Dralasite compounds, I would be more along the lines of a haphazard formation with paths and gardens. The diagrams shown seem more of an urban environment - i.e. space considerations force a set pattern. However, if possible, the Dralasites would incorporate different patterns, levels, shapes and zig-zags. These aren't Vrusks - they want houses and layouts with personality! I see Dralasites as purposely AVOIDING patterns to their housing and their compounds. Customization is key. Funny shapes rule the day. |
February 22, 2010 - 12:04am | Thanks for the different view point Imperial Lord. I must admit I was focusing on the common dralasite and not even considering the dralasite with few resource boundaries placed on it. As for the layouts for the common house, w00t's and mine, both are valid options. I see patterns used in the design of a common house, but the common house next door is definitely going to be different. I picture a dralasite city looking more like the older cities of the world I have visited. The roads wander all about and making a mental map can be boggling at times. Now, the common house I have described is what the common citizen can afford to live in. These are likely designed by whomever is putting up the money. Now, I suppose there would be common houses built by committee that have less symmetry than what we have shown above. However, if the group building the common house is too divided in their architectural vision they likely would not succeed in getting the project off the ground. I suppose there would be common houses that were half built because of that or that evolve over the years. One thing that I may not have expressed or implied in my vision is that dralasites are apt to pick up and move from one common house to another just for the hey of it. They bond with the community as a whole. They do not segregate themselves to one common house. As for rich drals, I like the vision your sharing of them building to amuse themselves and others. I can see them doing community projects just to express themselves. Maybe we should collect some layouts of common houses from everyone and try to assemble a modular town. We would also need some other architectural element, the parks, work places, lecture hall, debate halls, assembly halls, etc. Eventually we may even come up with styles of architecture that reflect various dralasite social school views. This would be the closest analogy to human cultural architecture. -iggy -iggy |
February 22, 2010 - 1:06pm | My dear gentle beings! If you have enjoyed this thread please take a look at the threads going on in the Core Four project. Refer to: Dralasite Physiology Refer to: Dralasite Arts (was Shadow Theatre) Refer to: Vrusk Love - Identity -iggy -iggy |
