 October 1, 2012 - 10:46pm | I have been a big fan of this site for years, and have been using ideas from the Star Frontiersman in my own campaign. (thank you guys!) I was just wondering about the Nagana and Bora-Kai. What have other people done with them? They have been a part of my campaign for a while now, and sometimes I forget that they are fan-created aliens. I have yet to have any of the players use them as PCs, but then I've never had anyone play an Osakar or Ifshnit either. Anyway, my players are just about to visit the area where the Nagana live, and I thought I'd see if anyone else uses them. |
 October 2, 2012 - 5:42am | Not a fan of the nagana as they have a D&D monster manual feal to me. Though a new physical description and art and I'd roll with them as a primitive minor race Like the idea behind the Bora-Kai and with some development they's make for a whole campaign arc. Especially if a player played one and his personal quest was to find his lost homeworld. I however think that sathar tinkering with this race should be more insidious. Slaves are slaves and what do the sathar care for their feelings? come up with some real bio engineering and I'd say you'd have something. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 2, 2012 - 7:13am | I'll be honest, the art work is what has put me off for these guys. The way I play SF with my kids, we use a computer and second monitor, and maptool maps. I like to have engaging pictures for my kids, especially my 9yo who understands better with pictures. |
 October 2, 2012 - 4:21pm | Not every race needs to be used. I try to work in only the races that fit in with the general theme for the campaign. One thing I think needs to be done more with is having than one culture for the races. Everyone loves it when the cowboy, the goth girl and the business tycoon get together to save the world from the alien invasion. Even in a cowboy movie you have the cowboy, the Indian and the city slicker banding together. If SF Humans are generally played differently and Yazirian have clans to keep them separate. The other races needs a little divergence. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
October 2, 2012 - 5:48pm | One thing I think needs to be done more with is having than one culture for the races. Everyone loves it when the cowboy, the goth girl and the business tycoon get together to save the world from the alien invasion. Even in a cowboy movie you have the cowboy, the Indian and the city slicker banding together. Thid formula even works in Spanish:  We do get cultural differences between traditional yazirians and Fo1 yazirians but no where else in the Frontier. I agree that it would be a good thing. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 3, 2012 - 1:37am | Nice trio, there. I agree about there being a need for more diversity within species. I noticed that years ago, and tried to do something about it. In my campaign universe, there are 2 different Vrusk cultures, 2 different Ifshnit cultures, 4 Humma cultures, and 4 distinct Human cultures. My Yazirians have a great deal of diversity between all their planets. There are subtle variations in Dralasite culture from world to world, but nothing major. Osakar have so much diversity already that they don't need any help. So, no one uses the species from the Star Frontiersman? It's true that not every race needs to be used, but doesn't anyone use ANY of them? |
October 3, 2012 - 4:21am | I used the Boon'Sheh in the Zebulon's Guide thread to explain certain canon statements about the humma and inter-species war. The Boon'Sheh look like they could have evolved in the same evolutionary tree as the humma and the humma proclivity for eating what they kill combined with the Boon'Sheh nervouse twitchiness and the racial description making them clearly a minor race makes for a nice pairing. But I just dont have a regular group so when I have had a group I dont throw too much at them to start just the core four- possibly the zebs material. For me the racial descriptions in the SFman are purely optional. They are a little thin and there are many unanswered questions in my mind that I as a referee would have to do the work to answer. Where is their home planet, what sort of ecology do they come from, History? I feel like some of the races are a good start but that more needs to be done to integrate them. In issue 18 there is a race I created quite awhile back- that is the model for what I would want to see before using a SFman race. There is enough material in that article that any busy GM could drop it into his campaign with little effort the planet is detailed to the max and two cultures, 4-5 ecologies are covered and an extensive creature catalog is included. The Boon'Sheh I would use with all the development that went on with them in conjunction with the humma in the Zeb G expanded project. The Vimh- (or rats of Nimh or I just want to use my Warhammer Skaven miniatures race) had some interesting discussion and development in some threads and I could use them as well. I just dont need to if I start up a group. the vimh work nicely as an adventure where the PCs dont know what's happening and begin to figure things out so I would not present them as "here's another race you can try" but rather as something they encounter and they could easily end up with one as an adventure companion sort of a Chewbaka without any of the class or the outright ability to rip a robot's arm off. I get that some people like the Star Wars creature cantina setting and I've championed Zebs which pushes the setting in that direction but there really are too many sapient species in too a narrow section of space, thus I like the Boon'Sheh evolving with the humma as once you get one species evolving in an environment its not such a stretch that a second species could evolve there too- in this case the Boon'Sheh were simply very good at running away from the humma thus they survived unlike the neanderthal did on Earth. The Vimh cast as an engineered race, the product of bio engineering by an "evil mega corp" is an adequet enough explanation to include them for me. All the primitives on Volturnus being the product of eorna manipulation is ok too but by and large I'm cautious to introduce more into the setting. I suppose I just want a patina of believability. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 3, 2012 - 6:37am | I'm open to using any new race in SF. There are a couple caveats though. The player that wishes to use something other than a core 4 race must provide me with all of the applicable racial background (planet of origin details, etc). And... The player must also provide me with a character background to explain how that new species came to be in the general population of frontier space. If those two conditions are met, I see no reason to limit any player in my campaigns. The whole point behind an RPG is to have fun - and more limitations on players equal less fun imo. :) Of course I side with Jedion's school of thought on this as well - I tend to enjoy a bit of realism in my fantasy. That is why I don't just allow anything willie-nillie and why my two caveats exist. I don't have to outrun that nasty beast my friend...I just have to outrun you!  |
October 3, 2012 - 11:52am | So, no one uses the species from the Star Frontiersman? It's true that not every race needs to be used, but doesn't anyone use ANY of them? My campaign with my kids is still pretty new, so I haven't gotten to them yet. The Rim is just now opening up to them, so I plan to introduce the ZG races to the PCs very soon. |
October 3, 2012 - 11:56am | The Boon'Sheh I would use with all the development that went on with them in conjunction with the humma in the Zeb G expanded project. The Vimh- (or rats of Nimh or I just want to use my Warhammer Skaven miniatures race) had some interesting discussion and development in some threads and I could use them as well. I just dont need to if I start up a group. the vimh work nicely as an adventure where the PCs dont know what's happening and begin to figure things out so I would not present them as "here's another race you can try" but rather as something they encounter and they could easily end up with one as an adventure companion sort of a Chewbaka without any of the class or the outright ability to rip a robot's arm off. I get that some people like the Star Wars creature cantina setting and I've championed Zebs which pushes the setting in that direction but there really are too many sapient species in too a narrow section of space, thus I like the Boon'Sheh evolving with the humma as once you get one species evolving in an environment its not such a stretch that a second species could evolve there too- in this case the Boon'Sheh were simply very good at running away from the humma thus they survived unlike the neanderthal did on Earth. The Vimh cast as an engineered race, the product of bio engineering by an "evil mega corp" is an adequet enough explanation to include them for me. All the primitives on Volturnus being the product of eorna manipulation is ok too but by and large I'm cautious to introduce more into the setting. I suppose I just want a patina of believability. Great idea on the Boon'Sheh. I think in my campaign, I'm going to have the Vimh be the product of a Gamma World or Metamorphosis Alpha kind of scenario. I really like them most of all the SFman races. Also, I agree on the creature cantina thing. In Star Wars, they're in this vast galaxy with jump ships. For SF, I'm thinking the amount of "Class M" planets in the Frontier already strains credibility. I plan to introduce races as my kids start going "off the map". |
October 3, 2012 - 2:32pm | So people ARE using some of the alien species from the Star Frontiersman. I guess that's what I wanted to know. |
October 3, 2012 - 2:58pm | Love the Vimh, they are Rats to start and very mysterious. Can easily see them as an escaped slave race or engineered experiment who got away. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
October 3, 2012 - 3:05pm | The Vimh seem to be based on The Rats of Nimh. I loved that book. Had more of a cool Watership Down feel to it. The Don Bluth cartoon movie was kind of a disappointment. Yeah, in the book they are experimented on, and manage to escape. They come across as very cool & mysterious. Hmm, maybe I should put the Vimh in my game somewhere... |
October 3, 2012 - 7:42pm | Love the Vimh, they are Rats to start and very mysterious. Can easily see them as an escaped slave race or engineered experiment who got away. Totally. I read somewhere here on the site someone had a series idea about finding them on a space station. Probably Jedion's idea. It was cool though. PC's start with a mystery, end up finding evidence of something living in the bowels of the station in the crawl spaces, turns out to be a group of Vimh. |
 October 3, 2012 - 10:03pm | While I do allow any race from any of the sfman issues, I find most players in my games tend to pick Humans and Yazirians. lol Most of the races make appearances in adventures or are a focus in entire campaign arcs. As for how "lite" the races are, I believe they are typically as detailed as the race descriptions in the core AD book. Of course, with Knight Hawks and Zeb's Guide, along with the many adventure modules, the core rulebook races have become much more defined. But as for content, I would say that any of those submitted races have about as much meat in their text as a vrusk or dralasite or yazirian. Just standing up for the submitters (I was the one who submitted more than a few). :-) Don't forget that anyone can submit content geared towards integrating any of these races more into the frontier. Also, maybe if we beg enough we can try to get someone like Shell to put together some additional art showing these races in scenes of sci fi goodness. Some of that art was done by me and I'm no artist (both races in question in this original post were drawn by me in fact). Maybe more life could be breathed into them. Hey Tom - you're EXCELLENT at broadening the definitions of the core four... how about tackling one of these races and seeing what you can do? Would be a good article for the Frontier Explorer or for Star Frontiersman :-) 3. We wear sungoggles during the day. Not because the sun affects our
vision, but when you're cool like us the sun shines all the time. |
October 4, 2012 - 5:20am | Hey Tom - you're EXCELLENT at broadening the definitions of the core four... how about tackling one of these races and seeing what you can do? Would be a good article for the Frontier Explorer or for Star Frontiersman :-) I've done this already in the Zebs G project for the zebs races and the Boon'sheh and in the regular forums for the Vimh. Kind of busy right now though. However, it wasn't just me, as both of those examples benefited from a community collaboration and even though I get into it whole hog I actually feed off other peoples idea and none of those efforts to broaden the appeal of a race or deepen its background would have been half as good as they ended up without the collaborative effort of everyone involved- even if someone didn't actually contribute an idea but simply commented critically on the ideas in discussion it was important. What I did do was delve into the available material and pose questions and ideas and consolidated the ideas and materail the group came up with. I can remember a time when I wanted to be in charge of a project and run it my way (ghosts of my mother) but now I find that the collaboration and inclusive model of group thinking and talking out ideas to do these expansions on the various races and or other elements of SF really produced sollid material far better than if I did it alone. Will the Stampede, like him or hate him, was a good sounding board for this process, sure he had ideas many of us did not like but he brought a lot of idea and often as not thought critically about what was being discussed which I found sharpened my ideas and helped plug holes the material. I'm always available to comment and post ideas on material and usually do and would help to ushur along a project. But with a fledgling magazine that will publish quarterly still in its infancy a lot of things that I wanted to do with the SF setting have been pushed to the back burner- a lot of writing project have been derailed. Not cancelled just had the brakes put on. The new magazine is one step in the right direction toward fixing that and I'm very excited about some of the irons Tom and I have in the fire that we're not talking about right now. I have invested some thought into the nagana though and they are one race I may yet do another tackling on- probably within my hitchhikers project as any work on them will go hand in hand with deepening the planetary brief on Groth which was described as their home world. I've got an idea for new artwork of them that looks more animalistic (no D&D centaur motiff) basically more eel like and catfish head like with small arms. My take is a primitive race from a world with a lot of water that probably would never have advanced far into industry or a space age on their own but since the dralasistes and vrusk have made contact with them they have increased their tool use and such and even gone off planet- I'd prefer a different story to the classic primitives fair poorly do to contact with a colonizing advanced culture. EDIT: If I have not said it before I very much appreciate all the collaboration on the various projects and especially the projects that generate writen material that has ended up published in the magazines. Heart felt thanks to everyone who has posted ideas or commented- people seem to think I do good stuff but really I just steal ideas from everywhere. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 4, 2012 - 4:07pm | maybe if we beg enough we can try to get someone like Shell to put together some additional art showing these races in scenes of sci fi goodness. Some of that art was done by me and I'm no artist (both races in question in this original post were drawn by me in fact). Maybe more life could be breathed into them. Hey CCR - I hope I didn't accidentally offend you by my comment on the art. Sometimes I don't completely state a thought and then expect people to understand me. The way I play in MapTool, I use what are called 'tokens' to become virtual figures on the map. I like to have as many different pictures of a race as possible, so that their tokens look different and the kids can identify a character by their token. So when I said the art is what kept me from actively going after them, it was because of the limited quantity of drawings, etc. which would give me little to use for different tokens. I hope I didn't come across like I was slamming the art or anything like that, because it was not my intent. I can barely draw stick figures... All that said, my wife is pretty artsy and I've been asking her to take a stab at some of the rim races first... |
October 4, 2012 - 4:13pm | I would love to see more development of the Nagana, and any other SFman species for that matter. |
October 4, 2012 - 4:29pm | During the Second Sathar War, it was discovered that the Sathar had been using several species as willing or unwilling allies. The Zuraqqor of course, were a major part of their offensive, as well as various species that had been converted into mindless cyborg warriors over the centuries. However, one species raised a number of questions. During the war, a Sathar ship was shot down, and it was found to contain dead Sathar, as expected, but also another species. These dead individuals were muscular humanoids with grey skin. Naturally, it was assumed that they were willingly working with the Sathar. Susequent incidents raised the possibility that they may not have been. By the end of the war, quite a number of living individuals were apprehended. They were of all ages... men, women & children. They offered no resistance to UPF forces. Currently, they are in a special facility constructed to house them, and are being treated as prisoners of war. So far, they have shown no special loyalty to the Sathar, and have demonstrated a willingness to be cooperative. They have stated that their homeworld was destroyed by the Sathar more than a generation ago, and that their people (who evidently call themselves Bora-Kai) have been enslaved ever since. It is possible that this is a ruse, and that they wanted to be captured, gain sympathy & then be set free. Once released into the general population, they may act as sleeper agents & destroy the Frontier from within. We just don't know. At the moment, they are not at the top of the UPF's list of priorities, and it is possible that it may be some time before they are properly dealt with. |
 October 8, 2012 - 4:06am | A few thought on the Nagana and Bora-Kai. I do not actively play SF except a little bit here and there online with w00t. I live out west and have not found anyone to play yet. when I saw the Nagana the first time it reminded me of the capt. in Alien Legion. I think they make a good npc race. The Bora-Kai though I thought was a good writeup for a pc. It has all those elements that make them the lone traveller, but one would make an excellent npc that shows up once in awhile to save the pc's. |
October 8, 2012 - 4:34am | I should clarify- I like the nagana just not the art work so much for a sci fi theme if this had been for fantasy then the nagana rock and roll. I think that they could be redrawn with a less human like body from the waste up. The artwork as is is great just not the flavor I desired for a sci fi product. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 8, 2012 - 6:43pm | Karxan, I wouldn't mind seeing some more representations in our games. All the new players to Star Frontiers pick humans. Noobs   What you say we meld the current story arc, have the current PC's go on a mission with Doc McGee and find ______ SF race. Then have them join the crew. You can then switch PC's. I promise you won't be hunted by The Anti-Satharin League.... x my fingers and hope to loose all my oil. |
October 8, 2012 - 6:48pm | Of course Mark wants to get his ship running.  What if Marks ship requires a part from the Unknown regions. We'll create a sapient ship like in FarScape, the part comes from an area of space connected through a wormhole. I would LOVE to run the ships voice, have it talk back to Mark. haha. |
October 8, 2012 - 7:35pm | I can just talk back to Mark anyway. :) But that would be good to switch races. Wee will have to include that the next time. |
October 10, 2012 - 12:17am | Karxan, thanks for the feedback. Whenever I add something new like that, I try to have it make some sense. Hopefully I've done that. I like how others have incorporated the Vimh or Boon'sheh. Since re-reading the Vimh, I did find a place for them in my game. I put them on one of my post-apocalyptic planets, as the result of ancient genetic experimentation. |
