I posted this a long time ago on the late, lamented AAG Wiki page, but I felt these articles should ride again as it were.
So without further ado, here are the Shontari.
The
Shontari
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| The two Alien Mercenary Packs from Ground Zero Games work very well for the Shontari! Image taken from GZG webpage. |
The Shontari are one of
the older slave races of the Darghaur. Even the Shontari themselves do
not know how long they have served the Darghaur. Their coming is worshipped on
the homeworld, the name as yet, unknown to Human intelligence agencies. The
Shontari are a race of contradictions. They will kill armed enemies with little
mercy asked or given, but will unerringly spare women and children of any race,
and consider the act of child murder as a sin against their religion and faith.
They are a race that seeks battle, but yet, individual Shontari are known to
strike out on their own from the war host and seek more “mundane” work that can
range from longshoresmen, to florists. The Shontari have no word for “deserter”
and this decision can come, even in the midst of a campaign. But no Shontari
will make this decision in the heat of battle, as no Shontari worth his lineage
will ever willingly abandon his war brothers and sisters under such circumstances.
The Darghaur mainly
use the Shontari in the roles of assault troops to back up Marshborn troops
(for reasons unknown, the Mashborn and Shontari hate each other) or as garrison
units (The Shontari behavior amongst subject races is well known). But, their use tends to differ from horde to
horde. One thing is known, the Darghur give the Shontari wide latitude in how
they conduct themselves.
Shontari, fully
grown, are anywhere from two to three meters tall, they are bipedal with
bilateral symmetry, with two arms and two legs.
Sexual dimorphism is present, and the Shontari reproduce sexually, with
a Shontari mother typically giving birth to two or three live young. There are no sex roles in Shontari society,
and both males and females can be found in the war host. Shontari grow up quickly with age 6 being
considered the beginning of adulthood. The Shontari have extreme muscle mass by
human standards, and most Shontari can perform everyday feats of strength that
would give human body builders trouble.
There is a recorded case of a Shontari lifting and flipping over a DRPG
APC during a skirmish on Glory, but such a story could also be an example of
the Shontari Battle Rage, which will be better explained later on. Shontari
skin pigmentation ranges from dark grey, to an almost cyan and is tougher than
human dermal layers and it will slow down a blade or spent fragments.
Shontari physiology is both complex and
simpler than human norm. One good example of this is the Shontari heart
analogue, which in some cases, can actually continue to pump in a reduced
capacity even in the event of major damage to the organ and can in some of
those cases, actually regenerate the organ if the Shontari manages to rest
for a period of time. Most Shontari organs (the Brain being a singular
exception) have many of these same capabilities. Furthermore, the Shontari
circulatory system can “re-route” the Shontari blood analogue around damaged
areas to help prevent exsanguination.
Some Shontari, masters of the aesthetic religion of the Shontari, known
as Khelshelkesh (translates roughly
to Master of the Battle Rage), can consciously shut off part or all of their
pain receptors. All of this makes
Shontari very hard beings to kill, and Shontari weapons are designed with large
calibers designed to literally tear their targets apart and ensure their target
is dead.
A word about the Shelkesh or as human militaries call it,
Shontari Battle Rage (Some wonks in the ranks call it “Shontari SPAZZCON – 1”).
Shelkesh is a voluntary state any adult Shontari can enter, but the younger a
Shontari is, the less control he or she has over their actions in that state.
Younger Shontari will seek close combat with their foes, their war cries
hooting and seeking to quench their rage in the death of their enemy. Older
Shontari use the Shelkesh to keep going and keep up with the younger members of
the war host. A Shontari’s first
experience with Shelkesh is the onset of puberty at Age 5, and often, the
Shontari will go out of their way to keep males and female 5 year olds apart
until such time as the young Shontari learn a measure of control, as Shelkesh
is also triggered by Shontari sexual arousal and Shontari mating rituals often
resemble hand to hand combat, with accidental deaths common. Most sanctioned
mating thus occurs under very controlled circumstances with “death gifts” given
to the war families of the mating Shontari before hand in case of an accident.
An exception to
this is the aforementioned Khelshelkesh. They
are the closest thing the Shontari have to Human Special Operations
troops. They are aesthetics, never take
mates and spend most of their time meditating on what it is to be Shontari. They
are one of two known religions among the Shontari, and neither religion believes
in anything resembling an afterlife, believing that all Shontari should seek a
life of battle and fulfilling death when their time arrives. The amount of
control a Khelshelkesh can maintain
over their bodies is legendary, with some surviving massive head and chest
trauma that would kill other races and even other Shontari. They can ignore pain, hunger, thirst and many other forms of discomfort with a whim
that would make human practitioners of certain martial arts jealous. They can
delay the onset of Shelkesh far easier than other Shontari, yet they never mate
with any Shontari for reasons that befuddle even the Shontari themselves. They
live aloof from the rest of their race, their dark cloaks being all that
announce their presence. It is said their arrival presages great battle, and
the Khelshelkesh have a knack for
showing up just when a big fight is about to occur.
Shontari psychology
is far more difficult to explain. The Shontari are best described as “happy
fatalists”. They believe their lives are predestined from the moment of birth
by the forces of the universe. This is not a religious belief, or even a
philosophical belief, but more of a seeming instinctual thing. This instinct is
seen at times, such as their battle rage, or the mating of Shontari, or even
when a Shontari strikes out on his own for a while. Shontari are nothing if not
enigmatic.
One thing that will upset Shontari is the deaths of non-combatants, especially children. The
Shontari do not speak on why they have this cultural taboo, considering the
role of their own females, but the death of a Shontari child in a war family is
enough to bring that war family, or even host to a halt while the Shontari are
paralyzed with grief. As near as some xenopsychologists can speculate, the Shontari religion(s) believe that all lives are predestined, and children still
have much of their lives left to live, and come to understand their place in
it. If a child is killed, it is because someone upset the balance of the
universe, and as such, that person must die. This prohibition applies to all
races, sometimes much to the chagrin of the Darghaur. The reproductive controls
of the Darghaur have made this prohibition more pronounced, and the Darghaur
are careful not to “cull” the offspring of other races in front of their
Shontari troops. Many a Darghaur liaison officer found out his “oafish”
Shontari troops moved well enough to show said Darghaur their own internal
organs as they died by breaking this taboo.
Shontari parents
are also very attentive, and go to great lengths to educate, and protect their
children. This prohibition has also led
to some odd situations in combat with human troops, with the Shontari fighting
to the death to protect Human children in schools and day care centers from
Human troops. It was only after the humans promised to not hurt their own
children that the Shontari would surrender (a foreign concept to the Shontari,
as most other races the Shontari encountered have neither given nor asked for
any quarter, thus the Shontari had to be taught how to surrender in some early
engagements).
Shontari society is
one of several war families numbering from 18-21 making up a War Clan. Several
(usually 4-6) make up a war host. There are at least 10 known war hosts. These
hosts are the decision making body for the Shontari. They elect a Shontari
Warrior King, or Btar. No human has actually met a Shontari Btar and it is
thought they never leave the Shontari homeworld.
The Btar is advised by and rules with the consent of the heads of the
War Host and their delegations, though, if the Btar feels that there is an
issue with a particularly pesky host leader, he can call for a Kilmek
(translates to “stand test”) where the rest of the delegation must stand as a
whole with their host leader, or the Btar may take his life, on the spot, and
appoint a new Host leader. This works both ways, as a coalition of Host leaders
can also challenge the Btar, and force him to fight their champion to the death.
That champion is not automatically named Btar if he wins as the Host leaders
will often have other choices in mind, and thus a lot of debate and some combat
will occur. If however, the Btar survives the challenge, he may again call a
Kilmek against all the host lords who called for his head.
As for the Shontari
on campaign, rarely will an entire War Host depart on campaign anywhere, except
to fight another host on the Shontar homeworld. If the Darghaur need Shontari
troops, the request is made through the Btar. He then asks for bids from the
hosts for how many clans is he willing to send away to fight. The Host lord then returns to his clans, and
announce the levy asked for by the Btar. The Clan elders will then consult and
choose how many clans will answer the levy. If the levy cannot be filled, then
the entire campaign is called off, as the Shontari believe it was probably
predestined to fail anyhow.
As for the War
Family, which is the organization most Human soldiers will encounter, it is
some 18-21 individuals analogous to a Human platoon. This is usually subdivided
into three alkars (roughly translated
to “fingers”) of 6-7 Shontari each. There are no defined roles in a Shontari
unit, no specialties. All Shontari seem to know how do to any job at any time.
Again, this isn’t something easily explained by the Shontari themselves.
As for Shontari
captured by Human forces, oddly enough, many have settled on a marginal world
near Albion, and have begun to setup a mirror society of the one left behind.
Some of the new Shontari war families forming there have begun to form
mercenary units and have offered themselves out to smaller, beleaguered colonies
in return for seemingly odd forms of payment (One Shontari War Family defended
a small colonial town on Glory to the death when one of the residents promised
to share with the head of said War Family her prize winning Chocolate Chip
Cookie recipe). Some well-meaning species rights and development organizations,
such as the Interstellar Bank, and Doctors Without Borders have attempted to
help the Shontari discover such a thing as a modern economy and health care,
but the Shontari politely listen, and then go back to their own ways once the
well-meaning humans leave.
In short, as one
human soldier put it “Shontari fight like hell, but they’re weird.”
Attributes for Shontari in TW:
Hard to Kill (D6 for most
Shontari, D8 for Khelshelkesh)
Animosity towards Mashborn
(it’s mutual)
Berserkers (involuntary for
most Shontari, for Khelshelkesh its
voluntary)
Intimidating
Poor Initiative (Shontari are
very dependent on their leaders when not in the grips of Battle Rage)
Natural Weapons
Old School
Pain Resistant (Khelshelkesh only)
Unpredictable (versus Humans)
