 February 19, 2014 - 12:48pm | In another thread, I mentioned a character I have in my campaign. It is a Zethra bartender in the city of Port Loren, on Gran Quivera. You can gain almost any piece of information from it, as long as you have something interesting to tell it in exchange... I would like to make this character available for others to use. In my own game, there are many details about this character that are specific to my own universe, so I post this here in order to present & develop a more "generic" version that can be used in anyone's game. If anyone would like to draw some relevant art, please feel free. Of course, please don't reinvent the Zethra species. Jedion suggested (in passing) the name Zeek, and I rather like that. So let's call this generic version "Zeek". Although Zeek is technically genderless/hermaphroditic, people usually think of it as a "he". Zeek arrived in the Frontier several years ago, from his homeworld (see the Zethra article from Dragon magazine for their backstory), and has been roaming the Frontier gathering information ever since. He knows a tremendous amount, on subjects as minor as Dralasite ool-melon recipes, to detailed floor plans for remote Sathar bases. He eventually settled down on Gran Quivera, which he considered a nice central location for gathering more information, which is his main hobby. He found that this particular bar in Port Loren (insert a name from your own game) is busy enough to suit his needs, and the owner found that Zeek could make just about anything, and always remembers regulars and what they order. He does not "speak" in a conventional manner, but can direct a synthetic voice to come out of any speaker he is in physical contact with. It is important to remember that Zeek does not give away information for free. The main reason he has chosen to place himself here is to acquire more information. He does not care about credits or material goods, and cannot be paid in the normal manner. He wants new information - the more obscure the better. He does not care what the subject matter is, and it could be something that most people would find trivial or useless. If it is common knowledge, he will reject it. Zeek is a noncombatant, and will avoid fighting if possible. He demonstrates no fear, and has been known to behave normally during a bar fight, as if combat is not happening around him at all. He cannot be threatened or bullied. He will defend himself if necessary, and possibly others he considers friends. He does not use conventional weapons, but relies on his natural electrical attacks. Although capable of disintegrating others & absorbing their energy, he will not do so due to his deep-seated ethical code against eating intelligent beings. Zeek has average stats for a Zethra, as per the original article. Once we have fleshed out Zeek some more, I think it would be fun to post him in an issue of the Star Frontiersman or Frontier Explorer, as Jedion has suggested. |
 February 19, 2014 - 1:31pm | I like this as I like the zethra. It states in the article fron Dragon that zethra can communicate via electronics such as polyvoxes. Thus I surmise that they can decode and encode signals in electrical communications. I see Zeek as working in the bar as the owner pays him with free access to a network data connection. Zeek is free to all the information he wants from the plant mainframe net and any other net he may find his way into. This is secret between Zeek and the owner as government authorities, both planetary and UPF, are suspicious of zethra. The Dragon article has a bit to say about government suspicions toward the zethra. One benifit Zeek derives from the net is the ability to cross examine information. Zeek uses this to catch lies. Zeek does not like lies and will work to determine ignorance from deceit. Those guilty of the latter are punished in one way or another. Usually in a way that does not hamper his prospects of attaining future information but sure to teach a lesson. Thus Zeek is unlikely to publicly fry someone or such, but a good shock is possible. Zeek may be more lenient with dralasite offenders, but that is hard to proove or explain. Zeek has been know to discretely drain the energy out of offenders devices. -iggy |
 February 19, 2014 - 5:54pm | Some people might be leary of letting a strange alien like Zeek touch them in order for him to touch their chronocom or polyvox (usually depicted around someone's neck) in order to communicate. thus I could see the bar having an intercom mounted on its surface (closer to the bartenders side) every other barstool so that Zeek need only touch it to ask questions or speak. Naturally there is a master panel as on a starship which is hidden under the bar and Zeek thinks nothing about listening in on conversations through touching it or any of the other coms. He's been known to prompt patrons who told some interesting snippet in oder to get the whole story. One funny incident involved a woman that let slip some interesting piece of information that led to Zeeks prompting her for more and in exchange he revealed the truth about the extra workouts her significant other had been engaged in and the true nature of the personal trainer and from said work out which oddly to Zeek said personal trainer completely lacked and qualifications for personal training unless sex encounters were considered a vallid form of exercise. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 1, 2014 - 11:29pm | Maybe we should add a picture. Any volunteers? |
 March 2, 2014 - 3:40am | There's a very nice illustration here: http://starfrontiers.wikia.com/wiki/Zethra |
March 2, 2014 - 8:43am | That's the original Dragon magazine art. -iggy |
April 2, 2017 - 5:23am | Ok Necro posting but i was looking for a place to post some observations and ask a few questions about the Zethra In the article on them some individuals are listed: Hhon of Prengular Stulta of Dramune Mlaqaq of Truane's Star Urloth and Vrendu of Cassidine Some observations on: All of those systems have two habitable planets All of those systems have mega corp headquarters (all told 7 mega corps: PGC, Streel, Galactic Task Force, CDC, Synthetics Corp, Interplanetary Industries, and NET) All of those places have major military presence from either Space Fortresses to Space Fleet task forces to large militias Could there be something to the suggestion in the Zethra article that these aliens who love to gather data have some sort of plan? and said plan may be nefarious? I started with wondering why they all had settled in systems with two planets simply because I was adding them to files on specific planets as a famous resident but you have to surmise which planet they reside on. Gran Quivera is the obvious in Prengular but Morgaine's world would be of interest and with the regular shuttle flights back and forth Hhon could easily visit both. Triad is obvious too with 3 mega corps and the NET main frame computers being there as well as the fan created Triad Institute of Technology. Truane's Star is fairly easy, I'd bet my credits that Mlaqaq resides on Pale. Dramune is harder. Inner Reach has Synthetics Corp, a trading station and a safer society but Outer Reach is an open port for pirates and has Dark World station. I can easily see Stulta residing on Dark World as the being in the know. On second thought the Trading station over Inner Reach would have a lot of commercial activity and a constant flow of ships in and out. The Zethra article also suggested that the zethra originated on a planet without industry but that they located a vrusk exploration ship the Sarsk. The phrase making planet fall was used in connection to the zethra use of this ship which suggests a small ship: HS3-4 IMO. This begs the question of how many zethra can you cram on a HS 3 ship? They are exploring the galaxy dropping off individuals here and there and they've dropped off 5 possibly 6 individuals in the Frontier sector. What happens when they encounter the sathar? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 2, 2017 - 7:34am | I like the zethra so I would say they hate sathar due to their lieing and deceit. A sathar is likely to get fried by a zethra. Zethra can't move fast so they place themselves only where they feel safe and that others will help them. From this I would put the zethra on Inner Reach. I see zethra on their home world as being in constant electrical contact and communication with each other. They are not a hive mind but rather like a Beowulf cluster. They think a lot. They debate AND solve complex problems by shared reasoning and distributed computation. This is how they figured out the vrusk ship and discovered space flight and artificial electronic communication. Artificial electronic communication is liberating to the zethra because it allows individual zethra to leave the cluster and have periodic long distance communication with the cluster. This was a brave thing to board the vrusk ship and leave with such a limited number of zethra. It is even braver still to go solo on another world and trust solely to artificial electronic communication as a means to stay connected to a cluster. Zethra are secret about this to protect the cluster. What their agenda is in the frontier is still secret to them. They are information driven and that is easily deduced but if they have other group goals is unknown. I like to think they are judging the races and governments of the frontier before revealing their wishes and home world. I'd like to counterpoise them to the malevolent mechanons but keep them more rare and neutral. They align more with biologicals than artificial life but struggle with the individuality of biological sapients due to their own cluster capably. They struggle with the fact that individuals can be untrustworthy and hide it inside. They ponder that the frontier communication networks may the frontier race's saving grace as the systems compensate for the lack of transparency caused be inability to cluster. They ponder that other races subconsciously need to cluster and hence create these artificial electronic communication networks to compensate. So I would think that they would be really bothered by the sathar. -iggy |
April 3, 2017 - 3:20am | Well the sathar will have the very typical reaction of "How can we use this species?" 1. client species 2. raw meat for the bio engineering programs sathar slime has to make for the conduction of electricity EDIT: If you had a zethra in your campaign then you might also want a human politician or star law agent that is alarmed in the extreme over the zethra and is plotting to round them up or get the proof that they should be rounded up etc. sort of like the guy chasing the A Team in the old TV series or even Sherrif Roscoe in Dukes of Hazzard. It becomes some side drama and perhaps the zethra turns to the PCs for some aid. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 3, 2017 - 11:04am | I do have a zethra in my campaign with my kids and brother. It is the astrogator of my brother's ship. It also hacks the planetary networks for the captain (my brother) and the crew (my kids) during their missions. It stays on the ship and is a secret because of the various governments and organizations that don't trust it's kind or what it for their own purposes. -iggy |
