Hadrogaans are renowned for their efficiency with processing information, making optimal decisions, and reacting. Their talents are only possible because they're a symbiotic people: long ago, hadrogaans began implanting living, telepathic crystals into their bodies to survive a natural disaster that ruined their home world, Hadrogess. They've resided on its moons ever since, but they're often found lending their intellect and muscle to allies among the worlds of the Vast. Even a solitary hadrogaan can be a tremendous asset to a crew, as each hadrogaan carries within them a living neural network.
Physical Description
Much of hadrogaan history has been lost, but a leading theory holds that ancient hadrogaans were once a physiologically uniform species, many of whose characteristics survive in the two types of hadrogaans who now exist. Like their ancestors, hadrogaans are about 8 feet tall, and they have three-fingered hands and two legs that culminate in elongated cloven hooves. Their heads are broad and set with four eyes, with one pair halfway up the face and a second, larger pair of eyes set higher and further across the brow. Their overall complexion ranges from bright red to light purple, whereas the skin along their palms, throat, chin, inner sides of their limbs, and so on typically ranges from forest green to pale cyan. Unlike their predecessors, modern hadrogaans are born with numerous irregular hollows in their body, typically several inches across, but sometimes longer and shallower when located along a limb. These hollows are specially adapted to accommodate the crystalline symbiotes known as kallestrine. In addition, hadrogaans are now a dimorphic species—likely a change catalyzed by the species' longtime crystalline symbiosis— with each child born as either a luma or doluma. Hadrogaan dimorphism is strictly a physiological difference, not a genetic one. Not only are doluma and luma hadrogaans able to reproduce together without any issue, but also the parents' identities don't seem to affect whether their offspring are doluma or luma.
Lumas average slightly taller than dolumas, with narrow bodies that are heavy-set with kallestrine. Lumas tend to have about a dozen individual kallestrine settings throughout their bodies. While most are set along limbs, the chest, and the spine, every luma has one cluster of kallestrine in less commonly occurring locations, such as along the throat, between the eyes, on the knuckles, or around the knees. While the increased amount of kallestrine facilitates rapid thought and action, their quantity often leaves clear vulnerabilities in the hadrogaan's body as well as causes pain later in life since kallestrine placements grind against tendon and bone.
Dolumas tend to be slightly shorter with comparably shorter limbs and stouter statures. Dolumas have broader shoulders, thicker hips, and bulkier legs to support their frame. Their bodies tend to have about half as many kallestrine settings as do luma bodies, and these settings are often shallow and protect vital areas, such as the lower back, along the underarm, or over the solar plexus. With fewer symbiotes drawing on their energy and displacing musculature, dolumas are typically strong and tough by comparison, though they have less robust neural networks compared to lumas. Kallestrine augments taxes a hadrogaan's physiology in numerous ways.
Home World
Hadrogaans originate from Hadrogess, a planet that's currently uninhabitable. Based off what little of hadrogaan history that survives, Hadrogess was once a habitable planet, though never a verdant one. At some point in the planet's history, a disaster stripped it of its atmosphere. Though the details of this cataclysm are lost to time, accounts of the years that followed indicate that the disaster was incremental, not sudden. Whether the planet's molten core cooled to the point that its magnetic field faded, industrialization triggered irreversible ecological damage, warfare devastated the landscape, or some other misfortune, hadrogaans banded together in two key ways: symbiosis and evacuation.
Miners on Hadrogess accidentally encountered kallestrine early in this disaster, and the magically adept hadrogaans sensed and contacted these crystalline beings buried deep underground. Both had detected the impending crisis and hoped to survive the fallout, and together they experimented with merging their minds and bodies to best develop ways to avoid extinction. The details are largely lost to ancient history and the Gap, but what's apparent isn't just that the kallestrine transformed the hadrogaans, with each new generation becoming better adapted to integrate and cooperate with kallestrine symbiotes implanted in their bodies shortly after birth, but also that, together, the now-symbiotic species traveled to, terraformed, and colonized Hadrogess's three moons: Ghanzid, Urorohss, and Hadhi. Modern Hadrogess is a nearly lifeless world with a toxic atmosphere, upwellings of radioactivity, and a handful of tenacious (and often aggressive) organisms that narrowly adapted to the dying world.
Ghanzid: As the first of the moons to be colonized, when hadrogaan terraforming techniques were still limited, Ghanzid's populated areas are largely subterranean. Underground, they could more easily craft stable microhabitats. As hadrogaans continued excavating, these microhabitats expanded into districts and later into a complex network of subway tunnels, industrial elevators, and settlements. With numerous shops, artisans, and syndicates that have histories dating back centuries, Ghanzid is an anthropological jewel that preserves many of hadrogaans' oldest traditions.
Ghanzid's infrastructure and mineral deposits make it the most industrial of the three moons, yet a healthy fraction of the profits fuels a vibrant arts scene. For each new tunnel or depository that's built, another gets vacated, leaving space for gatherings, celebrations, and spontaneous performances. Ghanzid's food culture, on the other hand, is widely considered inferior to that of the other two moons. Its limited biodiversity shaped a bland diet meant more for survival than pleasure, though contemporary chefs have begun both importing offworld ingredients and innovating exciting ways to spice up old recipes.
Urorohss: Only settled after terraforming technology improved, Urorohss was the first moon where hadrogaans produced a fully breathable atmosphere. Urorohss is heavily forested, and its parks rival its cities in size. With so much space, nature, and biodiversity, universities have mostly relocated to new facilities on Urorohss. This idyllic world has fueled a growing philosophy: that the traditional methods of self-restraint when a young hadrogaan is acclimating to kallestrine are backward and that only by indulging and experiencing strong emotions can the two organisms form a proper bond. The moon's inhabitants often poll as being the happiest of the three and exhibit powerful neural networks, yet they also suffer the greatest rates of kallestrine decoupling, where the two beings' consciousnesses snap apart when under extreme stress.
Hadhi: Hadrogaans settled the third moon only after encountering other spacefaring people. From its inception, Hadhi was designed as a sprawling military base, artillery platform, and shipyard to ward off what hadrogaans saw as a largely hostile galaxy. Although this perspective has softened considerably over time, Hadhi remains a sparsely populated and heavily surveilled world of mountains, river-carved gorges, and broad valleys carpeted with grass. Its inhabitants experience high rates of effacement, a process in which one's kallestrine gradually subsumes the hadrogaan's consciousness, inadvertently suppressing skills, memories, and idiosyncrasies. The process is reversible with time and care, yet the moon's stark social and natural environment provide little room to heal. The old syndicates of Ghanzid have begun to raise the alarm about conditions on Hadhi but have faced resistance from Hadhi's recently instated military hierarchy.
Society and Alignment
The moon's limited resources, their planet's final gasps of life, and no known interstellar neighbors to trade with fueled a culture driven by scarcity, survival, and cooperation. Even as living conditions improved over generations and revolutionaries challenged the austere measures their forebears had embraced, the culture that emerged emphasized unity: just as kallestrine crystal interlaced their bodies, so too was each hadrogaan part of a larger, sacred network like one glorious organism.
After a series of conferences attended by each of the major hadrogaan industries and institutions, the First Hadrogaan Federation (FHF) was born. By building a society around workers' syndicates, the FHF expunged entrenched bureaucrats and owners of industry, as both siphoned and wasted wealth at the expense of workers. In the beginning, they easily eliminated most of these hierarchies because with such a small population, few luxuries, and the shared labor required to transform Ghanzid into a stable home, there were few ways for moguls to hide. Yet, as prosperity returned, interstellar visitors introduced new ideas, and hadrogaans colonized the other moons, hadrogaan society increasingly diverged from the FHF's overarching designs. Ghanzid's communities still uphold a less restrictive version of the FHF's vision, whereas the people of Urorohss and Hadhi have incorporated many different (and in some cases, imported) mentalities. Recent generations dissolved the FHF, restructuring and reuniting as the Hadrogaan Moons Coalition (HMC), which focuses on galactic policy, diplomacy, and helping organize its constituents to compete in the interstellar economy. With limited raw materials, the HMC has focused instead on developing hadrogaan service and manufacturing industries— anything from education, construction, and military consulting to medicine, arcane services, and thinktank contributions. To this end, it coordinates large labor contingents contracted for a period of months or years, ensuring the workers have their passage, housing, and other basic needs covered in addition to good pay. Nobody is drafted or compelled to participate, and hadrogaans instead sign up for the fair compensation and opportunity to see (and sometimes stay in) the many worlds beyond their own.
Of all the beings they've encountered thus far, hadrogaans have developed a mutual fondness for dwarves. In addition to their shared expertise in mining and appreciation for ordered societies, hadrogaans especially appreciate the dwarves' Quest for Sky, which parallels their own ancient call to action and journey into space.
Kallestrine
Kallestrine are crystalline organisms native to Hadrogess's crust, typically growing several hundred feet below the surface. Historically, kallestrine developed vast spindle grids that interlaced the bedrock like a mycelial network, which they use to exchange minerals and ideas as they slowly grew and pondered their lightless existence. Thanks to this network, the kallestrine community sensed its planet's gradual demise. Thus, when hadrogaan miners unexpectedly unearthed several shards, these accidental ambassadors were happy to explain their plight and coordinate the two species' union.
A kallestrine's psychology has little sense of self, more or less treating themself as a single being despite being comprised of many fragments with different minds. When merged with a hadrogaan, the various kallestrine fragments form new connections throughout the body, allowing the fragments to act with one mind in parallel with the hadrogaan's. This unification usually involves fitting smaller kallestrine shards into a youth's body and then giving them several weeks in which the shards grow to fill their allotted space, during which time the two entities develop and test their lifelong bond. Rarely, this process ends in rejection as the crystals detach and fall free in an emotionally traumatic separation.
Assuming the process works, the two become literally inseparable; tearing kallestrine free causes intense psychological harm and can even erase some of a hadrogaan's essential life functions. Likewise, kallestrine can fracture like a bone and can heal in a similar way, though the damage can impede concentration or even cause memory loss. As a result, despite their kallestrine often reinforcing their bodies' weak points, hadrogaans usually don't employ their crystalline components as defensive tools.
A hadrogaan benefits from the arrangement thanks to their kallestrine's intellectual discourse, providing another perspective in analyzing any problem and a degree of neurological redundancy. In addition, a kallestrine lacks visual senses but does perceive their surroundings through touch, sensing their environment without the need for eyes and empathically sharing this information with their partner. In return, the hadrogaan provides a home and nourishment for their crystals, which draw on some of the body's heat and require a steady diet of sundry minerals. This symbiosis often triggers surprising food cravings for hadrogaans, leading them to chase after some magnesium- rich vegetable or sprinkle aluminum-fortified salts on their meals.
Once a hadrogaan has bonded to kallestrine, it's extremely difficult for new fragments to be transplanted without triggering rejection, as the various unfamiliar psyches fight with each other. The more closely aligned a donor is with the recipient, the better the odds of acceptance, though previously unbonded kallestrine often clash with their previously bonded body. Thus, it's rare for anyone but family, dear friends, and lovers to share symbiotic material. That said, hadrogaans occasionally chip off a small piece of their kallestrine to give to a true friend, who's expected to incorporate the offered kallestrine into their body. This quantity isn't enough to trigger mental distress and instead is a symbolic gesture of entrusting part of one's own self to another.
Names
Hadrogaan names often provide context for an individual's life. Full names include a personal name and family name but might also include a name related to their syndicate (Tenth-District Engineering, shortened to “Tenth”), the place they were raised (Urorohss-blossom, shortened to “Blossom”), rare placement of kallestrine in their body (Ankle-set, Ear-hollowed), and so on. Hadrogaans savor these unique aspects of someone's personal history, family history, or background, which all enrich the greater social organism hadrogaans see themselves as being part of. In general, a hadrogaan's kallestrine symbiotes don't volunteer or even require a name, though occasionally a network develops an acute sense of self, creates a name, and adds that to their hadrogaan host's own.
Sample hadrogaan names include Akhig, Caalriu, Fermoul, Khiri, Metenck, Rhouu, Soriuss, Sutaadh, Tephys, Umepht, and Yorrit.
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