The Raxene

I've recently created a design I'm happy with for the raxene (singular raxin), one of the two playable nonhuman species in Ark Frontier.

Design

This has evolved through a few rounds of sketches. My initial concept was of humanoids covered in short fur. I was tossing up between human-like plantigrade legs or more animal-like digitigrade legs; in the end, I went with digitigrade legs ending in hoof-like pads. This feature, and their species name, is inspired by the real-world hyrax.

As you can see from the first sketches below, I was originally experimenting with a muzzled face, but the image I really had in mind was closer to the flatter human-like face shown in the bottom centre. However, I wasn't entirely happy with the look of that sort of face and head entirely covered in uniformly short fur.

There's a fine line to walk when coming up with an "alien" species, between creating something that readers can relate to, and avoiding just making a funny-looking human. To that end, I've given the raxene a combination of unusual features. They appear mammalian, being furry with rabbit-like ears, but also whisker-like antennae and hoofs. In addition, the females lay eggs which hatch well-developed young, so they don't breastfeed.

In this next round of sketches, I worked out the proportions of the legs (I'm not an expert at digitigrade legs on humanoids) and other body features, and experimented with motion and body-types. They have a fairly rotund egg-shaped torso. I got around the uniform face-stubble problem by introducing a short tufty fringe.

I've made sure there's a wide range of possibilities for individuality — different ear shapes and positions (floppy, raised, swept back...) and different fringe styles are the obvious ways to distinguish individuals, aside from face-shape and build.

Species Modifiers

In the PowerFrame RPG, raxene have the following "racial" modifiers:

Ability Modifiers

• Avoid +1 (because of their size and agility)
• Move +1 (because their legs are adapted to run)
• Hunting -1 (because they evolved from herbivores)
• Stealth -1 (because of their hoofs)
• Strength -1 (because of their stature)

Traits

• Dark Vision (reduce all Darkness Penalties by 2)

I have considered giving them Acrobatics +1 instead of or as well as the Avoid bonus, since Acrobatics would increase their utility as explorers, but the Avoid bonus gives them an edge in combat that makes up for their reduced Strength. If I want to include Acrobatics as well, I'll need to come up with some other penalty.

Physiology

Apart from the features already described, raxene are notably swift and agile. They evolved from herbivores whose main defence was outrunning their predators. They are slightly smaller than humans on average. There's very little distinction between the sexes, except that mature females have wider hips.

They lay largish eggs only when fertilised, which take a few months (probably three?) to hatch. The young can eat soft foods straight away, and grow rapidly. They are soon able to move about on their own.

Society

Before the Phantom Storm, the raxene and vaion formed Aratene society together. Due to physiological differences there are roughly twice as many raxene as vaion, and this often leads to the raxene being viewed as the "default" in Aratene society. Raxene are traditionally seen as builders, farmers, warriors, and other physical occupations, although stereotypes are frequently broken.

Raxene have an ingrained respect for eggs and nesting sites. Nests themselves are sacrosanct and can only be entered with permission. There's an order of egg-priests who visit nests to check on the eggs and advise families, and indeed the egg is a sacred symbol in Aratene culture — a symbol recognised by the vaion too, even though they don't lay eggs. A small group of egg-priests have begun preaching that the Ark itself is an egg, from which the children of Arat are about to hatch.

Arat isn't a monoculture, although the Phantom Storm means that mostly members of the local egalitarian culture were rescued by the Ark. Given the relative similarity between the sexes, and the sacred role of the egg, it's likely that several nearby societies were matriarchal in nature and perhaps held eggs in even higher regard. Unless pockets of refugees have somehow survived for the past 18 years, though, it's also likely that most such cultures have been wiped out.

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I'm still working on the design for the vaion. I know I want them to be a unisex species, but I've yet to figure out how they reproduce. They also have a connection to Arat's magical field, meaning they are at once skilled in manipulating magic but also vulnerable to it.

The Price of Money

I'm really not much of an economics guy. Seriously. But a few days ago I started thinking about money in Ark Frontier, a society with thousands of refugees stuck on board a sealed ark-ship for nearly two decades. Here's what I came up with.

Oh, by the way, I've come up with a name for the world: Arat. The two native intelligent species, the vaion and the raxene, are collectively referred to as the Aratene.

The Ark was designed to become a self-sufficient arcology city, able to indefinitely support nearly 50,000 people. So the day-to-day needs of everyone on board can be met with only a little effort in production, maintenance, and distribution. Even with the population growing since the doors closed, there's little danger of exceeding the Ark's capacity for quite some time.

Everyone on-board receives a basic ration of essentials, has quarters assigned, and receives a small basic income of credits, the currency used by the human colonists. Those who perform additional services (maintenance, making and selling goods, policing, government, and so on) receive extra credits.

Of course, the reason credits are the basic currency is because the Ark turned up and saved people from the teeth of a worldwide apocalypse. When the Aratene came onboard, most of them had only the clothes on their backs, and only a few had decided to grab their life-savings in the face of imminent death. This means that the supply of gold pieces on the Ark is severely limited, which has inflated their value considerably. In addition, it's an unofficial currency mostly used by the underworld and the black market.

Now, all of that is about to change, as the Ark's doors are finally opened.

While the Ark will continue to subsidise and support  the colonists as settlements are established and life returns to normal, as the settlers become self-sufficient that support will be rolled back, allowing the Ark's resources to be saved for emergencies or used where they are most needed for the overall benefit of the colony.

Perhaps more importantly, as gold pieces are recovered from the ruined settlements and cities now devoid of life, the shadow economy will be rocked as the market is flooded with gold coins. I can see this having several effects.

The relative value of gold will begin to drop. By the time gold returns as a standard currency, it'll likely be worth a tenth of its former value.

Crime bosses, whose wealth currently comes from gold and a captive population, will need to react quickly if they want to maintain their hold on power. They'll need to send teams out to secure gold before someone else finds it, meaning some of the first registered Blazer teams may actually represent criminal syndicates. This will likely result in the frontier becoming treacherous and lawless, and bandits who can look after themselves in the Phantom-infested wilderness may become a real problem.

What do decent folks think about recovering gold from ruined cities — cities occupied by their kin only eighteen years earlier? Is it pragmatic, or grave-robbing? I can see strong opinions forming here, although the naysayers are likely to be powerless in the face of economic reality. Some people are going to be driven to collect the coins, and once they enter circulation there's not much you can do.

It also gives Blazer teams the chance to amass a lot of wealth, if they're willing to overlook the moral concerns. Will adventurers become the nouveau riche?

The more I dig around, the more details I uncover. I can feel Arat coming into focus... although it's still a land in flux. I'm actually planning to detail several potential points in the colony's timeline, to plot a sort of road-map for the colony's likely development and also provide additional game launch-points. But that's a topic for another post.