Salarian

SALARIAN

''“Not always been a doctor, can handle myself. Advantage of being Salarian. Turians, Krogan, Vorcha all obvious threats. Never see me coming.”'' – Mordin Solus

RACIAL TRAITS

Average Height: 5' 4"-6' 0"

Average Weight: 130-170 lb.

Ability Scores: +2 Intelligence, +2 Dexterity or +2 Constitution

Size: Medium

Speed: 7 squares

Vision: Low Light Vision

Languages: Basic, Salarian

Skill Bonuses: +2 Perception, +2 Gather Information

Amphibious: As amphibious creatures, Salarians can't drown in water. In addition, Salarians do not suffer any movement penalties when swimming or moving in water (penalties wearing heavy armor still apply).

Natural Reflexes: A Salarian gains a +1 racial bonus to his Reflex defense.

High Speed Metabolism: Salarians only require one hour of sleep each day. This does not give them the healing benefits of an extended rest in only one hour, only mitigates the need for 6 hours of sleep. Natural healing still works as normal. In addition, your healing surge value is equal to one-quarter of your maximum hit points + your Constitution modifier.

Photographic Memory: You can use Photographic Memory as an encounter power.

Photographic Memory * Salarian Racial Power

''For a mere millisecond, you try to recollect something you heard or have seen, or even witness before regarding your current predicament. It may just save your life right now.''

Encounter

No Action Personal

Trigger: You make an attack roll, a saving throw, a skill check or an ability check and dislike the result

Effect: You add 1d6 to the triggering roll

Known for their observational capability and non-linear thinking, Salarians are the scientists, engineers and researchers (and in times of war, spies and saboteurs) of Citadel space. This manifests as an aptitude for research and espionage. They are constantly experimenting and inventing, and it is generally accepted that they always know more than they are letting on.

Play a Salarian if you want. . . Overview
 * To be an intelligent and crafty specialist who favors brain over brawn.
 * To be part of a race that celebrates performance, good tactics and cunning strategies.
 * To be a member of a race that favors the Engineer, and Infiltrator classes.

The second species to join the Citadel, the salarians are warmblooded amphibians native to the planet Sur'Kesh. Salarians possess a hyperactive metabolism; they think fast, talk fast, and move fast. To salarians, other species seem sluggish and dullwitted, especially the elcor. Unfortunately, their metabolic speed leaves them with a relatively short lifespan; salarians over the age of 40 are a rarity.

Physical Qualities

The salarians are a bipedal race of amphibians, with tall, elongated bodies suited for their high metabolism. Their heads are long and thin, and have a pair of horns protruding from the top of their skulls. Salarian skin varies in color, but is mostly a shade of blue or grey. However, this does not apply to all salarians, as some are brightly colored, ranging from light red to green. Salarian eyes are large, oval and have thin membranes in place of eyelids. Salarians blink upwards, rather than downwards as humans do. The pupils are a wide slit, oriented horizontally, and iris colors - while normally not visible - include green, purple and brown. Salarians have more cartilage in their skeletons than many other Citadel species, such as humans.

Salarians are noted for their high speed metabolism, which allows them to function on just one hour of sleep a day. Their minds and bodies work faster than most sapient races, making them seem restless or hyperactive. The drawback of this active metabolism is a short lifespan of around 40 human years. The salarians are amphibian haplo-diploid egg-layers; unfertilized eggs produce males and fertilized eggs produce females. Once a year, a salarian female will lay a clutch of dozens of eggs. Social rules prevent all but a fraction from being fertilized. As a result, 90% of the species is male.

Salarians have photographic memories and rarely forget a fact. They also possess a form of psychological ‘imprinting’, tending to defer to those they knew in their youth. Salarian hatching is a solemn ritual in which the clan Dalatrass (matriarch) isolates herself with the eggs. The young salarians psychologically imprint on her and tend to defer to her wishes. During the hatching of daughters, the Dalatrasses of the mother and father’s clans are present at the imprinting. This ensures the offspring have equal loyalty to both, ensuring the desired dynastic and political unity.

Salarian sex drive and reproduction appear to differ from that of humans, with claims that it is not hormone-based. They are, however, attracted to the asari.

Playing a Salarian

Salarians excel at invention, preferring to use cutting-edge technology rather than settle for anything less. For example, their GARDIAN starship defenses put emphasis on high performance over reliability even though a malfunction could cost lives. The salarians see information gathering and even spying as a matter of course when dealing with other races, but this is not underhanded: they simply embrace the dictum of "knowledge is power". Alliance counterintelligence agencies are constantly uncovering salarian agents and cyber-warfare incursions, but there is little they can do to stop them.

Normally, the rare salarian females are cloistered on their worlds out of tradition and respect. Powerful female Dalatrasses are dynasts and political kingpins. They determine the political course of their respective regions through shrewd negotiation. Though male salarians rise to positions of great authority in business, academia, or the military, they rarely have any input on politics, though the salarian representative on the Citadel Council is male. Due to their method of reproduction, salarians have no concept of romantic love, sexual attraction, or the biological impulses and social rituals that complicate other species' lives. Male-female relationships are rare (due to the scarcity of females) and more akin to human friendship. Sexuality is strictly for the purpose of reproduction. Ancient social codes determine who gets to fertilize eggs, which produces more daughters to continue the bloodline. Fertilization generally only occurs after months of negotiation between the parents' clans, and is done for purposes of political and dynastic alliance. No salarian would imagine defying this code.

The salarian race also includes the Lystheni "offshoot." How the Lystheni are distinct from mainline salarians and why they are currently unwelcome in Council space is unrevealed. Lystheni salarians may be found living among batarians, exiled quarians, and other galactic refuse at Omega.

The salarian economy is the smallest of the three Council races, but still far larger than the Alliance. It is based on "bleeding-edge" technologies; salarian industries are leaders in most fields. They make up for a lack of military quantity by holding a decisive superiority in quality.

Salarians are not notably religious, but as free-willed sentients there are exceptions. One of the less favored salarian religions (which the Council deems a "cult") worships a goddess, and claims that a certain pattern of overlapping craters in the southern hemisphere of Trelyn resembles her. Liara T'Soni comments that many salarians believe in a wheel of life, which Mordin Solus likens to Hinduism due to a shared belief in reincarnation. Salarians celebrate "Betau," the first day of their New Year. Traditionally, it marks the end of winter in the southern hemisphere on the salarian homeworld, Sur'Kesh. During this occasion, they repay debts, and petition favors from one another.

In every war the salarians have fought, they struck first and without warning. For the salarians, to know an enemy plans to attack and let it happen is folly; to announce their own plans to attack is insanity. They find the human moral concepts of 'do not fire until fired upon' and 'declare a war before prosecuting it' incredibly naive. In defensive wars, they execute devastating preemptive strikes hours before the enemy's own attacks. On the offense, they have never issued an official declaration of war before attacking.

While capable of defending themselves against most threats, the salarians know that they are small fish in a universe filled with sharks. As a point of survival, they have cultivated strong alliances with larger powers, particularly with the turians. Though the relationship between the two species was rocky at first due to the krogan uplift fiasco, the salarians take pains to keep this relationship strong enough that anyone who might threaten them risks turian intervention.

Biotics are virtually unknown in the salarian military. Those with such abilities are considered too valuable to be used as cannon fodder and are assigned to the intelligence services.

Names: Salarian names are quite complex. A full name includes –in order – the name of a salarian's homeworld, nation, city, district, clan name and given name. For example, a salarian on Feros is named Gorot II Heranon Mal Dinest Got Inoste Ledra, but he would be called either by his clan name, Inoste, or his given name, Ledra.

Salarian Adventurers

Two sample salarian adventurers are described below.

[To Be Completed]