Taz'arans
Starshatter Glossary
Following my yesterday’s fruitful discussion with The Brothers Krynn about good and evil fantasy races, we decided that it would be best if I publish part of my extensive glossary here on Substack. You can find the essay titled The Necessity for Good Races, here:
The Taz’arans are a fair green-skinned humanoids, whose hunger for conquest and domination of other peoples is nigh insatiable. They are of average height, between 5.5 and 6.5 ft tall and often possess excellent eyesight and constitution. One of their most striking features is the lack of ears; instead their race has ear-holes. They have brown, black, orange, and red eyes, oftentimes grow bushy unibrows and thick facial hair. The color of Taz’aran hair is predominantly black, but there are rare people with silvery and gray hair. The Taz’arans evolved (or were uplifted) from a species of bipedal amphibians, who gradually lost their gills and lived primarily on dry land.
The Taz’aran Imperium is vast and occupies hundreds of star systems, beyond Fringe space, which is considered one of their forgotten borders. Being great lovers of autocracy and authoritarians at heart, the Taz’arans created one of the most corrupt bureaucracies in this part of the Galaxy. If something can be achieved by bribe, coercion, and/or outright assassination – then they will plot a way.
In Taz’aran society, only those rule, who can achieve domination over their peers via any way available to them. High-nobility in various sectors of their Imperium is oftentimes permeated by inbred, obnoxious fools. Said inept morons are quickly “promoted” and sent to “govern” one of the Imperium’s Fringe Space sectors as border counts. This way, when they screw up, the damage would be fairly minimal and the resources needed to fix it, few.
Generally, Taz’arans of humble means, but greater skill or better brains, find ways to advance. Women and men could sell themselves either into a profitable marriage, long-term corporate job or in the military/navy. This is more than acceptable and oftentimes, a highly-efficient way to escape poverty.
Taz’aran relationships are based on the domination dynamic. Either the man or the woman wins a highly-traditional, ritualistic game of word-blades and pheromones. Whoever won that dance, they’d have their mate under complete control – until they did something very, very foolish and ruined their dominant position. Then it was traditionally acceptable for their mate to either leave or, if they acted a fool, assassinate them. For most Taz’arans, to defy or worse yet, abuse the natural order of things, was considered to be a form of extreme degeneracy.
In every facet of their society, even the military and star navy, those who are willing to spend a lot of money, are given headway. Naive high-born officers of modest cerebral means could purchase rank, command, and even pick their battlefield. That, however, soon leads to their doom since no intelligent Taz’aran soldier would miss his or her chance to shoot these morons in the backs.
The same happens to fool soldiers who are inept and insufficiently vicious. Very quickly, these die in their millions, leaving all of their equipment lying around for other, much more industrious Taz’arans to pilfer. Therefore, the Imperium has an “inbuilt” mechanism to deal with its morons, no matter where or which social strata they stem from.
Few of you may know, but the cover of my first story collection, A Mandate Of Sword And Railgun, it sports a Taz’aran heavy trooper, clad in his exoskel armor, armed with a particle-beam repeater…
