Xaarb

Xaarbs are a surprisingly vicious predator race from the binary star system of Arybus. At first glance, a xaarb appears to be an innocuous spherical lump of short, dark fur. Xaarbs have large eyes and four stout appendages, which they use to alternate between walking on all fours and standing upright. When frightened or riled, however, xaarbs can open their massive mouths to reveal jaws that take up most of their bodies, filled with long, pointy teeth.
Xaarb society is based entirely on physical dominance over other xaarbs—or anyone else they encounter. Xaarbs who have established supremacy over others can demand both obedience and tribute from their lessers, which is the expected method of gaining wealth and status; having to bargain or pay for something is considered an unspeakable shame. Only wars against other sapient species in Arybus allowed the xaarbs to stay united enough to become a starfaring race. Xaarbs eventually conquered their star system, but when interstellar travel via the Drift opened up the rest of the galaxy, xaarbs found themselves encountering—and outmatched by—both The Veskarium and the Azlanti Star Empire. This sobering paradigm shift shattered xaarb culture into three major factions. “Lesser” xaarbs accept that the Vesk and Azlanti are dominant over them, and dutifully serve those races. “Greater” xaarbs muster their forces in order to some day conquer the other empires and reassert xaarb authority. “Unspoken” xaarbs—the most scattered of the species—feel that xaarb society has proven insufficient and now attempt to assimilate into and cooperate with other cultures. Unspoken xaarbs are considered the most reasonable of their kind by outside races, though their instinctual need to assert dominance at all occasionally surfaces.
Xaarbs are a species with only one gender, making gender roles a strange curiosity to them. They can understand the common languages of other species but can’t speak them. Their own language consists of a series of hand gestures and silent movements of their jaws. A particularly communicative xaarb might use a text-to-speech generator to talk to other species.