Physical Description

Pendrick are 36 limbed insectorid myriapods with 30 body segments behind their forward thorax that evolved on a forested  high gravity world.  Highly predatory their four stalked eyes are capable of seeing all around them and can reach above the foliage to locate prey without revealing themselves.  Nerzain have dual skeletal systems, internal and external.  The exoskeleton forms a thick armor over the dense musculature below and is often brightly colored.  The head is dominated by the eye stalks, thick antennae and four articulated mouth pincers that tear up and manuever food into ther mouths.

Pendrick have six prehensile arms of three varying sizes.  The Lifting arms are the thickest and have the large pincer claws.  The Fighting arms are slightly thinner with sharp triple claws, and then the tool arms, which are the smallest and shortest with four opposable finger like pincers.

Pendrick males and females are distinguished primarily by the patterns on their exoskeletons.  Males tend to have broader stripes and spots, females narrower.  Females also have three larger mid-body segments where eggs are carried prior to laying.  Reproduction is semi-sexual where the male and female become entwined in a warm, damp nest.  During the mating embrace the male inserts his ovipositor and deposits his sperm, the pair remaining interconnected for several hects before the female lays up to 50 eggs into the nest.  The eggs are then buried, only around half will be fertilized and after 200 cycles the eggs hatch, the hatchlings will eat the unfertizilzed eggs for nourishment before digging out of the warm peat.

History

Civordin is a high gravity world dominated by thick dense forests and primarily insect life.  The Pendrick evolved from the world’s dominant predator.  This predatory nature led to numerous conflicts across the millenia with the Pendrick developing a strong militaristic society as a result.  Pendrick industrialization revolved around developing more effective methods of warfare.  Because of Civordin’s high gravity the Pendrick found aircraft to be largely impractical but due to their high gravity tolerance launching themselves via cannon proved a viable means of midrange troop deployment.

It was during a test of a long range cannon that a Pendrick was accidentally launched into space.  The accidental astronaut survived the launch and even the vaccuum didn’t immediately kill him.  The Astronaut survived for close to a hect before suffocating and later burning up on reentry.

Realizing that space offered endless opportunity for new resources and expansion the Pendrick turned their attention towards space and began to colonize their solar system.  Pendrick expansion was quick until they came afoul of a Vedekian scout fleet.  The resulting conflict lasted for over a decade as the Pendrick did not have a space fleet beyond transit ships they assembled in orbit.  However, once aboard the Vedekian ships the Pendrick’s vicisous militaristic nature proved to overcome even the fearsome Vedekian.  Any Vedekian ship foolish enough to land on Civordin found themselves grounded by high gravity despite having anti-gravity systems.  With the defeat of the Vedekian, the Pendrick reversed engineered their technology and began to build their own orbital space fleet.  

As part of their bid to hunt down the remaining Vedekian, the fledgling Confederacy sought out the various star systems discovered in their investigations of the Vedekian ships they had captured.  This brought the Confederacy to the Civordin System and the presence of stripped Vedekian ships caught them by surprise as did the growing fleet of defensive ships around Civordin.  The Confederacy made first contact, and upon relating their own history with the Vededkian made quick allies of the Pendrick and one of the first new races to join..

Since then the Pendrick remained staunch members of the Confederacy and make up a major component of the COnfederacy’s ground army.

Culture

Pendrick society is highly militaristic and compative in nature.  They believe in rigid militaristic structure and competition is fierce in all forms of Pendrick sport.

Major Religions/Philosophies

Pendrick have three major religions that continue to remain at odds with each other despite over a millenia of “peaceful” coexistence. 

• Polmic: Polytheist religion with various natural and household gods.
• Bancor: Monotheist faith that follows the teachings of numerous prophets.
• Envarism:  More a lifestyle that seeks enlightenment through competition.

Numerous philosophies that follow the basic teachings of their major religions but tend to focus on strength of self above others.

Population

As of UCSB Census Date 1000: 30 Billion across all colonized worlds.

Notables

Psionicism- Telepathic and Telekinetic abilities, most Pendrick Psionics average at a level 4, with a few level eight, though relatively few in number, the number of psionics grows with every generation.

Sub-Species

No known subspecies