UrRu

This concept is an hommage to Jim Henson and Brian Froud's Dark Crystal. It is not an exact likeness of the UrRu as they appear in the film and subsequent stories.

Biology & Appearance

The UrRu are a race of bipedal, four-armed beings that look a bit like a cross between lizard and mammal. Their hands have four fingers each, including an opposable thumb. They have long necks covered in coarse hair and a snoot with teeth of an omnivore and a kind face. A tail extends from their back up to two meters long. They are in a constant crouching position, bent by age and rarely stand more than 1.4 to 1.7 meters tall but if erect would measure about 3 meters.

They all appear to be ancient with a tough, leathery, skin whose wrinkles look more like ritual scars. Indeed the wrinkle lines actually are a manifestation of their thought patterns and thus unique to every UrRu although often resembling spirals of some kind. Their skin naturally contains a high concentration of a crystalline substance that can absorb energy, converting it into beneficial processes. They are naturally force-sensitive and extremely long lived. The UrRu are vegetarians of a kind as they choose to only consume what does not struggle before it is eaten, but as their home world contained plants and animals of this kind they can be considered omnivorous when traveling around and will eat what has been prepared for them regardless of source (as long as it does not struggle anymore). They are a dying race, as they don’t breed. There are probably about two hundred left in the galaxy.

Society & Culture

The UrRu have taken up a life of wandering the galaxy in search of the Force Crystal and its possible fragments (see history section). Current UrRu society is virtually non-existent, but continues whenever and wherever two or more UrRu meet. They have long greeting rituals in which they convey their experiences and gained knowledge since they last met. These rituals can be as short as a few hours or can last several days. This communication is mostly non-verbal and exceedingly difficult to grasp for a non-UrRu. Even if someone musters the patience and has a grasp of the ancient UrRu language, he could possibly understand what kind of information is exchanged, but the full content will be beyond anybody except another UrRu.

History

Once, on the planet Thra, an unimportant world in the Unknown Regions of space, the UrSkek were a race of ancient beings that were strong with the force. They built a society based on their ability to crystalize the force and use the crystals to power their technology and even managed to travel space. But one day it went all wrong. The UrSkek had become self-righteous and arrogant and in their folly, they destroyed the large force crystal that was the mother of their culture. On this day the UrSkek seized to exist and the UrRu and the Skek came into existence. Beings, that each were the counterpart of the other, but neither of them whole. The UrRu were peaceful and kind while the Skek were cruel and ambitious. Both were left nearly powerless and slowly started to build their own societies, always knowing that while the crystal is lost and broken it can never be as before. The UrRu have started following the path of restoration. They slowly work towards the goal of finding the crystal and restoring it while the Skek want to maintain the situation as it is. The Jedi Shimura came to Thra before he broke from the order and settled on the third planet of the Nikus system (see Monks of Shimura), and maybe here he learned from the UrRu that the force had different ways than that of the light sabre. He also left the UrRu a way to leave their planet in search of what had been lost and so they wander the galaxy, each on their own until that what was broken can once again be made whole…

Home Planet: Thra

Attribute Dice: 11D

DEXTERITY 1D/2D+1

KNOWLEDGE 2D/4D+2

MECHANICAL 1D/3D

PERCEPTION 1D/3D

STRENGTH 2D/4D+1

TECHNICAL 1D/4D

Move: 7

Size: 1.4-1.6 meters height, 3.2-4.6 m long; about 2.5-3.2 m fully erect

Special Abilities

• 4 Arms - UrRu have four Arms with a four fingered hand on each one and can use all four similarly well at the same time, but suffer multi-action penalties as normal. They are adept at using the arms at one manual skill chosen at character creation, on which they receive +1 pip for each additional arm involved in the same task (+1 for two arms, +2 for three arms and +1D for all four arms applied to the task).

  Example manual skills:

  • Brawling
  • Climbing/Jumping - for climbing, not for jumping, but generally only where four arms would actually be of benefit
  • Melee Combat
  • First Aid & Medicine
  • any one Build/Repair skill
  • any one Operation skill where more than two hands may be of benefit

• Tough Skin - the UrRu skin is tough, leathery and contains a high concentration of an energy absorbent crystalline material which gives them +1D against physical and energy damage. The skin is so tough that they can even survive in a vacuum if they have a breathing mask and can survive space if they have some way to keep warm and to shield them from radiation.

Story Factors

The Skek are dire enemies of the UrRu, trying to foil their plans wherever and whenever they can while continuing their own plans of domination. The only thing a Skek will probably never do (except if his own life is as good as over) is to kill an UrRu and an UrRu will never kill a Skek.

Source

Creation by --Kurst (talk) based on concepts from The Dark Crystal.