Codex: Suulas
Colloquially known as “sirens” for their singing voice.
Name (Singular): Suula
Sexes: Male, female, and hermaphrodite (Evenly split between the three.)
Height: 6’ to 8’
Hair: Suula hair is composed of extremely slender, soft feathers. In terms of style and texture, they closely mirror human or ausar hair, while remaining aerodynamic and water resistant.
Skin: A suula’s skin is composed of a layer of extremely smooth, soft scales. Similar to that of a Terran shark, a suula’s epidermis is highly advantageous for swimming. Common colors range from blue, red and green, to purple, gold and silver. The skin is often marked with stripes, and most suula have a paler coating on their bellies and chests. Their digits are slightly webbed, and their forearms bear a thin coating of vestigial feathers.
Eyes: A suula’s eyes are black, with vertically slit pupils. Irises come in a variety of colors, predominantly green, gold, blue, and red.
Feet & Legs: Suula legs are clawed, with four digits and a dew claw on the heel. Their toes are rather dexterous, able to grip and hold objects nearly as well as their hands, though they lack precise motor control of species such as the simii.
Wings: Each suula is born with a pair of sprawling feathered wings growing from his or her upper back. These wings are strong enough to enable short bouts of flight in Terran-standard conditions, or for extended durations in their native atmosphere on Valdera.
Appearance
Suulas are tall, powerfully built predators built for hunting both underwater and in the air. Combining a mix of avian and aquatic traits on a humanoid frame, the suula are considered by many to have both a threatening and alluring physiology. Most members of the species are colorfully-skinned, with broad feathery wings and figures best described as voluptuous. However, they also possess angular faces bearing a double row of rending teeth and a foot long prehensile tongue. Suula digits are clawed, and each has a finned tail capable of delivering hammer-like force. Their ears are tall and finned, and their forelimbs are coated from the wrist to near the shoulders with brilliantly-colored feathers.
Given their dark, predatory eyes and unique markings across their smooth, scaly flesh, it’s no wonder many confuse suula for a very primal race. While this couldn’t be further from the truth, many suula warriors are quite happy to take advantage of their fearsome appearance. Others prefer to sedate such impressions using attractive silk garments, flashy jewels, or/and holo-technology.
Sexuality & Reproduction
Suulas come in three sexes: males and females, who bear the galactic norm for sexual arrangement, alongside hermaphrodites. All three are fairly feminine in appearance, with males being the physically smallest and slightest of the three—though they also have much larger genitalia than hermaphrodites of the species by some 25% on average. Male suulas also have disproportionately large external testes, often grapefruit sized or larger, attached to masculine endowments of some foot long at average. Of all the sexes, their venomous penile-tendrils are the most potent.
Similarly, female suulas have considerably larger hips, breasts, and buttocks compared to the other sexes: the average female is quite voluptuous by Terran/Ausar standards, with cup-sizes averaging at F or larger and hips made for rearing large clutches of young. Females are also the largest of the sexes in terms of height and physique, best described as “amazonian” by other races, as they are capable of reaching over eight feet in height and among their own kind were the primary hunters and bread-winners in ancient times, meaning they possess fearsome physical strength.
In most respects, then, hermaphrodite suulas fall in between their pure-sexed siblings. They are of average height, usually around seven feet, and have roughly human proportions in terms of sexual endowment.
Suula genitalia is positioned in the usual place for a biped, though the shape and contents are comparatively unique. A suula’s vagina is comparatively tight but elastic, and filled with hundreds of small cilia that are constantly in motion during intercourse. The entrance of the womb is surrounded by somewhat larger tentacles that wrap around a penetrating penis and pull it deeper to insure fertilization.
The masculine organ is long and thick, with a bulbous crown. Tentacles line the penis, each tentacle able to sting their partner with a potent mix of aphrodisiacs and fertility enhancing drugs. At the tip, six smaller, thinner tentacles lay waiting to sting and to help pull open the entrance to a female’s womb. At the base, six larger, longer tentacles wait to tease and stimulate a female inside and out, helping to bring about orgasm and relax her womb’s entrance. These tentacles will even caress and sting a male’s member before sex on instinct, necessitating he reach maximum hardness and sensitivity to help with repeated potent orgasms during sex. Between their tentacles and venom, suula copulation can last hours and dozens of climaxes.
After a successful mating, suulas will carry their young for six months before giving birth to live offspring. Birth is comparatively painless for the race thanks to their cilia-lined vaginas, which help to move the offspring out quickly and easily. Most suulas prefer to give birth in shallow water, as this helps to open the newborns’ gills early—as well as easing their own physical burdens due to the pregnancy. Suulas invariably give birth to twinned offspring (so twins, quadruplets and sextuplets are their equivalents of singletons, twins and triplets). Clutches of four are the most common, meaning a mother suula becomes quite gravid during pregnancy.
Because all suula pregnancies result in multiple births, and the race is quite active in terms of reproduction, so-called “womb siblings” are considered the closest form of relationship (perhaps even stronger a bond than mates or parents), and later in life it is quite common for womb-sisters to share lovers, or even take common mates. Suulas are quite naturally polyamorous, and while most females choose only one “stud” to sire her children, suulas of all sexes commonly enjoy the attentions of several partners. Between womb-siblings’ tendency to share and the race’s naturally high libido, suulas have developed something of a reputation for sexual excess and orgiastic behavior.
History & Society
Suulas hail from the oceanic, mountainous world of Valdera, located within the current borders of the Gryvain Heartland Republic. A thick-atmosphere, stormy world, Valdera has little in the way of solid land—and what there is, is extremely rocky and unforgiving, with little vegetation. Because of this, it’s little wonder the suula evolved from predatory fish (believed to be similar to Terran tiger sharks) before acquiring the means to take to the air.
As they adapted to sapience, and eventually civilization, suulas primarily constructed coastal settlements, combining underwater segments of their cities with vaulting halls dug into the sides of the mountains and cliffs, protected from their homeworld’s violent storms. From these halls, the suula began to mine for crystals and gemstones—to this day, ornamentations of jewelry is culturally significant, both as status symbols and as ornamentation for mating rituals, friendship bonds, and other cultural touchstones.
Valdera was discovered in the 10th Great Planet Rush, during which time the suula were in a roughly medieval state of technology and social development. Their upliftment process was difficult, between the species’ surprising shyness in the face of alien contact, compounded by both a spiritual awakening around a latent psionic who claimed the “power of the crystals” to repel the invaders and a rapidly growing war-like sentiment once rushers began strip-mining certain landmasses. It took several decades for Confederate diplomats (and a small force of Terran-Space Coalition marines) to finally bring the various queens and warlords of the planet to the table and begin the uplifting process in earnest.
Naturally, Valdera’s rich supply of gemstones and precious metals, especially sheradine, has since made the world a fairly profitable destination for trade and mining corporations. Post-First Contact, Steele Tech and Aegis are the primary interests on the planet, with Aegis operating a massive in-atmosphere shipyard on the planet’s watery surface. Hundreds of thousands of suulas are employed by the foundries and yards sprawling across their worlds’ southern ocean.
As mentioned, Valdera currently resides within the domain of the G.H.R. A very close neighbor of the gryvain homeworld of Vendiko, Valdera’s similar atmosphere and the two races’ similar physiologies suggest a possible shared heritage — though scientists currently cannot make a certifiable connection that would prove one or both races are descended from a common, terraforming-capable ancestor. Relations between the two species are quite amicable regardless, though each insists that, should there be a shared ancestor, their race was clearly the original. Unsurprisingly, gryvain-suula hybrids are an extremely common occurrence.
Suula themselves are best known throughout the galaxy for their singing voices. They were originally called “sirens” by the spacers that first encountered them for good reason: suulas have haunting, song-bird-like voices that carry an enchanting beauty, and among spacers who work and live with them, their voices have taken on an almost mythic quality. Across the rest of the galaxy, suulas count hundreds of best-selling pop icons, opera singers, and even symphonic metal vocalists among their ranks — any genre where a soulful woman’s voice can make its mark.
Despite their predatory nature, modern suulas are often described as being quite gentle and fun-loving. Indeed, they are quite famous for a strong romantic streak: most suulas admit to thinking quite frequently about their partners, especially on matters of settling down and raising children. Romantic bonds are exceptionally important to the suula, especially those made with their “mates” (and between a female and her “stud,” or the sire of her children). They are a peaceful race, with no record of major interstellar conflict since their upliftment.
Technology
Modern suula technology is galactic-standard, primarily influenced by gryvain and terran trade. Their dedicated military forces are relatively small, operating a few dozen warships to counteract piracy as part of the planet’s Guardian Force, supplemented by G.H.R. and Confederate Peacekeeper protection for the species’ handful of newer colonies. Like the gryvain, the suulas heavily supplant their military and worker force with V.I. drones. Most suula-made technology is highly decorative (and expensive) but functional, incorporating gold and gemstones liberally into their designs.