Matthew Kleinman

Authored by Matthew Kleinman

Character Biography

Basic Eldarian physiology

Eldarians are a Felinoid race that live on the planet Eldaria. They come in two varieties, a furry one and then a less hairy race (sort of like the hairless variety of cats, but more akin to other humanoids. They have ears longer than that of a fennec fox, and eyes that reflect light like those of nocturnal animals. They have highly developed hearing and smell, and like Terran cats, they lack the receptors that allow them to taste sugar. If they are around other humanoids, they prefer their meat to be as rare as possible, and will only eat certain other foods. For transfusions, they require the blood of another Eldarian as they’re incompatible with other humanoids.

Eldarians that serve in the military go through a special ritual that involves the surgical removal of the tail. This removal signifies the sacrifice that the officers are willing to go through in order to protect the lives of the people they care about. In addition, Eldarians are augmented with a cybernetic computer that gets implanted in the palm side of their arm. The computer is powered by the nervous system, essentially turning Eldarians into walking biocomputers, with their brain acting as the computer’s CPU.

Occasionally, there are those that are born with a rare disorder in which the muscles of their body begins to deteriorate as they reach the end of adolescence. In order to prolong the lives of these individuals, Eldarians have mastered the art of cybernetics. They surgically remove the brain of Eldarian and place it in a cybernetic body that is a physical copy of their old body. The brain is hooked up to an artificial circulatory network that takes over the duties that supply the brain with the nutrients needed to keep it alive. The new body takes months to fully learn control, but once done, the individual is allowed to return to their lives and are accepted with the same love and care that their loved ones have showed them prior. Should they wish to become a parent, their reproductive cells are collected prior to their surgery and stored away.

Eldarian society

Eldarian society was originally based on the principles of five sects: The selfless, The Guard, The Farmers, The Knowledge Seekers, and The Lawful. The Farmers are the ones who produce the food needed for the whole population. The Lawful are the ones who ensure people abide by the laws that were set in place when their society developed. The Knowledge Seekers collect and store information about the species and the various things that the Eldarians discover. The Guard is the military arm of Eldarian society. The Selfless sect originally started out as a true division of Eldarian society that was needed when the Eldarians settled down on their new world of Eldaria. Once the colony started taking hold, the teachings of the Selfless became absorbed by the other four sects as Eldarians grew to help each other where needed.

An Eldarian born into one of the sects learn all they that they can until they reach mid adolescence, which they are given an aptitude test in order to determine what sect that they will best be suited for. Afterwards, there is declaration ceremony where the teen eldarian decides the path by which they wish to pursue. At anytime, if they feel their choice ended up not being what they envisioned, they are allowed to return to their birth sect and resume living their former path.

In order to ensure that genetic diversity is sustained in the population, Eldarian law periodically allows couples to mate with another Eldarian of their choosing. This enables families to have a diverse flow of genes. Eldarians usually give birth to single babies, but twins are not uncommon and in rare cases, triplets are born. Eldarian offspring generally remain solely on their mothers milk for the first two years of their life and then start eating solid food after this, but continue to be on their mother’s milk for another year, gradually eating more solid food and learning to rely less on milk, as their bodies decrease production of the enzyme needed to digest the sugars in milk.