Mridone

Mridone     The Mridone are a primitive, arboreal race that lives on the world of Korjuun. Standing around 1.8

meters tall, the Mridone have a light, wiry build. They are partially quadrupedal, with opposable toes.

The Mridone are covered with a layer of sleek grey fur that is coated with a water repellant oil. This

fur covers their entire bodies, with exception of the fleshy pads on their hands and feet, and their

large, sharply pointed ivory horns, that extend back from the front of their foreheads, then around to

the sides and front. The Mridone have retractable claws on their hands and feet, which they use for

climbing and combat. Mridone have brilliant blue eyes that give them a wide field of vision high detail

vision, though their distance vision is not nearly as good as that of humans. The Mridone have a fairly

long, non-prehensile tail with a black tuft on the end.  The Mridone have a temperament that is nothing

short of homicidal, and even those Mridone that have seen planets other than their homeworld have been

known to erupt into sudden rages when they feel that their territory is being invaded. The life of a

tribal Mridone revolves around the clan, that is ruled by the strongest and canniest of it's members,

regardless of that individual's gender. The Mridone tend to spend their lives in trees, and on the

move. They hunt the other members of their forest, and are in turn hunted by some of the more powerful

denizens of their world. The Mridone have no great fear of the ground, but they love the trees, and are

superlative acrobats, leaping and running from tree to tree at full speed without the slightest

hesitation. They are highly flexible individuals, capable of doubling over backwards with ease, and

this flexibility helps them enormously in their exploits.      In many ways, the Mridone are creatures of their jungles, and they have a great knowledge of the

various othermembers of their ecosystem. They use this knowledge both to find prey animals, and to distill poisons

that enable them to better kill the prey they find. Certain tribes of Mridone have been known to

regularly anoint their claws and horns with poisons, but most just coat their weapons with a wide

variety of poisons from a number of sources. These poisons are used against both food animals and other

Mridone, and have a wide variety of painful and deadly effects.
                                              Stats
     Attribute Dice: 13D
     Attribute Min/Max
     DEX: 2D+2/6D+2
     KNO: 2D/3D+1
     MECH: 1D/2D
     PER: 1D+2/6D
     STR: 1D/5D
     TECH: 1D/2D
     Move: 11/16
                                        Special Abilities:*Climbing: Unlike many other species, Mridone are born in the trees, and live running from one to the

next. In natural surroundings, a Mridone halves the difficulty of climbing/jumping attempts, and can

use the running skill while in the treetops.        * Poisons: Mridone on Korjuun have access to poisons of just about every nature and effects.

When away from the familiar sources of their poisons, they cannot distill them as easily. However, they

are able to detect the presence of poisons in natural surroundings with great skill, and can often

determine the best methods of extracting and distilling them without any prior experience with the

poison's sources.      * Natural Armor and Weapons: The horns of a Mridone add 1D to their ability to resist physical

damage to their headregion. Their claws (hand and feet) inflict STR+2D damage, and their horns and bite

causes STR+1D+2.      * Temper: When a Mridone feels that his territory has been invaded, or that their tribe has been

threatened, they must roll a check against their willpower to avoid being seized by a consuming rage.

The difficulty of the check varies with the intensity of the threat, but Mridone have been known to go

off after the slightest of infractions. In that state, they gain a +1D bonus to all STR and DEX skills,

but may not cease combat until the object of their rage is either dead or out of reach. A Mridone that

wishes to end his rage may make a very difficult Willpower check every third round of combat to do so.
                                         Story Factors:     * Sleep Patterns: The Mridone tend to snatch their sleep while they can, sleeping around 6 hours

out of a standard day. As they are an arboreal species, they can sleep on just about any surface, and

because a fairly large number of Korjuun's species hunt the Mridone while they sleep, they awake

quickly, at the slightest disturbance. These are all admirable traits in space, and many freighter

captains have found Mridone to be unmatched as watchmen.      * Loyalty: The Mridone are extremely loyal to their tribes, defending them to the death against

all threats, no matter how deadly. Those Mridone that leave Korjuun usually have either lost their clan

and adopted a group of explorers as a new tribe, or were taken off-world very young, and imprinted on

other individuals. When this fact is combined with the Mridone's ferocity and natural fighting

abilities, they are much sought after as bodyguards, and a young Mridone will bring a high price on the

open market.
                               Common Weapons of the Mridone:     Awarchi Spear: This wooded spear is designed to keep enemies at bay, after the point lodges. To do

so, a heavy crossbar is affixed about 30 centimeters down the meter and a half long shaft. The point of

this spear is almost always coated with a poison of some sort, and the crossbar is used to hold the

target back while the poison takes effect. If a target is hit with one of these spears, they cannot

come any closer to the target then they already are.      Throwing Spear: The primary weapon of the Mridone, they always carry at least three of these

spears at all times. The range of these spears is substantially improved by the use of an atl-atl, or

throwing stick, but when that is used, they can only fling one spear a round.      Blowgun: Though they do not inflict much damage, the short Mridone blowgun can be used in much

more constricted areas than the throwing spears. They are also a very effective method of poison

delivery.
Weapon  Damage Short Medium Long
Awarchi Spear 2D N/A N/A N/A
Throwing Spear 1D+2 1-5 25 40
Blowgun  1D 1-4 12 20
     Here are some of the poisons commonly used by the Mridone:
Poison  Difficulty of  Onset
 Type:  Stamina Check Time EffectLyrdome  15  3:00   2D damage,    no possible STR Check

to resist.
Kharamsool 12  1:05:00 Death
Gorass Juice  20  6:00     -1D from STR and DEX
Mikkith  7  24:00 Paralytic
Aspic Venom 16  4:00 Blinds target
Ulkith Poison 19  :30 Death
L'Norn  14  2:30     Hallucinogenic     In addition to these, the Mridone use a wide variety of other poisons, with similar effects. The

more effective poisons are often harder to get, especially the Ulkith Poison, which the Ulkith is

notoriously willing to donate to Mridone, though seldom in the manner that the Mridone desire.