Excerpted from "A Catalog of Races of the Starmourn Sector"
The Decheerans are among the least-understood races in central Starmourn. Unisexual and spawning new Decheerans via budding rather than sex, they are nevertheless allied with the races of the Song Dominion.
| Home System | Atria |
|---|---|
| Homeworld | Orpheon |
| Capital | Sabiak, though it's not really a city. It's a giant forest-sized sprawling of groups of Groves (see below). |
| Physical Description | The Decheerans are large biped beings that appear to be sentient trees. |
| Relationships | They have no concept of romantic love and reproduce asexually by budding. A Decheeran who is willing spends some time meditating in a forest or other suitable location, and sheds and arm or a leg when it wants to spawn a new Decheeran. The proto-Decheeran roots itself to the ground, and that's the last intentional contact a Decheeran has with its "children." They don't recognize or care later who spawned them, or whom they spawned. The proto-Decheeran then spends ~30 years growing, slowly, gaining in sentience until one day, it decides to unroot and move, at which point it is considered an adult Decheeran. |
| Lifespan | 1200 years |
| Diet | They're strict vegetarians who also require ultraviolet light in order to survive, though they're able to go long periods of time without it. |
| Likes/Dislikes | They have a strong dislike of total darkness, which feels like mildly drowning to them, albeit non-fatal except over long periods of time. |
Another type of Decheeran.
One type of Decheeran.
| Family | They don't have families or any concept of one. What they do have are groups of Decheerans called 'Groves.' These are completely voluntary associations of Decheerans who bond with each other by rooting in a group together for a period of time, after which they are closely allied and can very vaguely feel the emotional state of other Grove members. It is possible to voluntarily cut off your connection with a Grove, but it's not possible to eject an individual unwillingly from a Grove. |
|---|---|
| How do they treat 'others' in their society? | To a Decheeran, there are only Decheerans and non-Decheerans. There are no 'others' in their society. |
| Social mobility | Immense, as the Decheerans place no importance on parents - indeed, they don't have them - and all new Decheerans start without wealth, possession, or power. |
| Views on technology | The Decheerans have an interesting view on technology generally. They certainly use it and are actually quite adept with it. They live in their native forests with technology, but it's usually blended with or accompanied by significant organic material. That might be anything from having living trees on their starships to deep bonds between nanotech and organic tech in their planet-bound dwellings. |
| Entertainment | They have an analog to smell, and have a very keen sense of it. They can smell layer upon layer of scents simultaneously, combining into a kind of aroma symphony. In particular, they love the deeply subtle scents of forests and swamps. |
| Government | They don't have a government as such, though they do have those who speak for the will of the majority of Decheerans, called Speakers. There's also a First Speaker, who will speak for them in the most important cases, but these are not leaders as such. |
|---|---|
| Religion | They don't have a formal religion, but they do speak reverentially of the force they believe allows them to form Groves - called the Tal. It's not a god as such, and it dictates nothing for them behavior-wise. They don't personify it either, choosing to simply revere the idea of it. |
| Architecture | On their home planet, most of their tech is hidden underground or confined to spaceports or defense installations. They prefer to feel as if they're living among nature, and where possible grow dwellings out of living trees. |
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