Pejoratively known as dog- or wolf-men, Pherro possess a canine appearance, a strong devotion to their concept of a “family pack,” and a tenacity that makes them valuable allies.
Typical Pherro
Agility 3D+1: brawling 40, dodge 3D+2, firearms 3D+2, running 3D+2
Mechanical 2D: exoskeleton operation 2D+1, gunnery 2D+1
Strength 4D: lift 4D+1, swim 4D+1
Knowledge 2D+2: bureaucracy 3D+1, intimidation 3D, willpower 3D+1
Perception 3D+2: command 4D, search 4D+1, sneak 4D
Technical 2D+1: demolitions 2D+2, security 2D+2
Strength Damage; 2D
Move: 10
Fate Points: 0
Character Points: 2
Body Points: 22
Wound levels: 3
Disadvantages: Devotion (R1), to family pack; Enemy (R1), most feline species view Pherro as a threat they must eliminate; Quirk (R1), make a Moderate willpower roll to avoid getting into situations before thinking things through; Quirk (R2), make a Difficult willpower roll to stop a project once started
Advantages: Contacts (R1), other members of family pack; Trademark Specialization (R1), gain +2D to all search: tracking rolls
Special Abilities: Enhanced Sense: Sight (R1), +1 to sight-based skill totals; Enhanced Sense: Hearing (R1), +2 to hearing-based skill totals; Extra Body Part: Tail (R1)
Pherro Package
Total creation point cost: 3
Total defined limit cost: 3 skill dice
Disadvantages: Devotion (R1), to family pack; Enemy (R1), most feline species view Pherro as a threat they must eliminate; Quirk (R1), make a Moderate willpower roll to avoid getting into situations before thinking things through; Quirk (R2), make a Difficult willpower roll to stop a project once started
Advantages: Contacts {R1), other members of family pack; Trademark Specialization (R1), gain +2D to all search: tracking rolls
Special Abilities: Enhanced Sense: Sight (R1, cost 3), +1 to sight-based skill corals; Enhanced Sense: Hearing (R1, cost 3), +2 to hearing-based skill totals; Extra Body Parr: Tail (R1, cost 0)
Physical Appearance
Pherro have humanoid bodies dominated by canine characteristics. These primarily appear in the head, which spores a snout ripped with soft, black nostrils; furry skin; pointed ears; mouth filled with teeth well-suited to a carnivore; and dark, gentle eyes. Their paws have evolved into five-fingered hands, though their feet are still soft-padded paws. A Pherro’s ears and tail often exhibit the individual’s mood: upright ears and wagging tail indicate affability, while flattened ears and a lowered tail signify hostility toward a perceived threat. They’re particularly well known for their keen senses.
Individuals vary greatly in appearance. Fut differs in length and coloration, from short to shaggy or long coats and fur of a solid earth-tone color to coats of blotchy colors (white, brown, black, reddish-brown). Like other species, Pherro rarely neglect their personal hygiene and take particular care to groom their coats. The fur is frequently indicative of an individual’s well being: Healthy Pherro have shiny, well-groomed coats, while those afflicted with physical or even mental disease have matted for or patches of mange.
Pherro cannot effectively cool their bodies by sweating through their furry coat. Instead, they perspire through their foot-paws and hands, and cool their body temperature wid1 their tongue. Pherro often have their mouths open and their tongues hanging out, giving them a somewhat lovably dopey look. In rimes of crisis, though, they often clench their jaws and grit their teeth in total concentration, giving them a tendency to overheat. Pherro also love swimming in open water, which cools their bodies.
Homeworld
Pherro hail from Shaphast, a world with varied terrain where the species evolved into the dominant life form. Communities of Pherro settled among the plains, forests, and hills where they developed a society that raised herds of kavaam, domesticated creatures cultivated for their wool and meat. Shepherds led herds to pasture, keeping them together and guarding chem against other predators. Settlements formed at the nexus between many rich grazing areas, with paddocks for community herds, large dwellings for family packs, and subsidiary support structures for weaving, storage, and light industry.
Pherro technological advancements focused on their herding economy. Primitive Pherro relied on their natural weapons, teeth and claws, to fend off predators. As they advanced, Pherro developed artificial weapons for defense. They pioneered building techniques and fabricated new substances to construct homes and herd sheds to withstand different environmental conditions, allowing them to house herds in new territory.
Pherro herbalists and physicians researched ways to improve their own health and that of the kavaam. Engineers created sophisticated looms to weave kavaam shag into fabrics of varying textures.
By the time off-worlders made first contact, the Pherro maintained quite an advanced society. Although they hadn’t developed their own form of space travel, they had communications grids, transport networks, and mechanized industries for weaving, food production, and general manufacturing. Despite possessing little heavy industry themselves, the Pherro quickly found a place among the stars traveling with traders who visited Shaphast to purchase kavaam wool, woven goods, and other Pherro commodities.
Today, Shaphast remains an idyllic homeworld for the Pherro. Small herding communities cover entire continents, enjoying many technological conveniences while still at their heart remaining simple herding settlements Modern transports enable them to bring herds or wool in bulk to commercial centers or the planet’s starport, Gateway Port.
Interaction with off-worlders have given the Pherro exposure to the greater galaxy. They’ve acquired their own system defense fleet and organized a volunteer militia to protect themselves and their homeworld against threats. Pherro take an active part in intergalactic commerce, trading their natural resources such as kavaam wool, woven fabrics, and automated looms in exchange for commodities to benefit their own society. The promise of a future among the stars also influenced generations of young Pherro, who satisfied their wanderlust joining ship crews in search of adventure and fortune before seeding down on Shaphast or in one of the many Pherro herding enclaves throughout the galaxy.
Gateway Port
Gateway Port serves as the main liaison point between Pherro and off-worlders. The most cosmopolitan city on the planet provides most of the amenities and services offered in any other starport in the galaxy. Several institutions promote Pherro industry and commerce, encouraging interstellar traders to help bolster the economy.
To minimize consumption of potential grazing ground, the starport covers a vase hilly region in the shadow of a nearby mountain range. Leveled and reinforced hills serve as landing platforms, while the city proper rises on the mountainous high ground. Most travelers spend their time visiting several key sites.
Off-worlder District: Beyond the docking platform hills stands the neighborhood catering exclusively to the needs of visitors, spacers, and merchants. Here they find accommodations ranging from luxury hotels to large boarding houses offering simple rooms. Restaurants and shops feature food, goods, and services from Shaphast and around the galaxy. The planet’s permanent off-worlder population settles here, giving the entire quarter the atmosphere of any intergalactic city. Both off-worlders and Pherro interacting with visitors offer an affable attitude with an eye toward providing the best goods and services at a fair price.
Kavaam Exchange: Trade in kavaam and raw wool takes place in the immense, domed Exchange. Here, traders seeking to export the herd beasts or large quantities of their shorn shag negotiate with local and galactic agents. The entire Roor reeks of the creatures and the pungent scent of untreated wool. Paddocks separate different sellers’ herds, while raised platforms display heaped bales of shag from different communities. Sellers graze flocks going to market in the high mountain pastures and open plains nearby, driving them through the starport streets to the Exchange on sale days.
Weavers’ Emporium: A long, covered avenue serves as the central marketplace for finished goods manufactured from kavaam wool. Weavers from across the planet rent arched bays on each side of the street where they display their wares for sale to individual visitors or traders seeking to export bulk quantities. Warehouses behind each arcades call store additional stock. Typical woven goods include kavaam woven coats (see sidebar) and other outwear, blankets, decorative tapestries, draperies, and carpets.
Pherro Spacers Agency: This extension of the Pherro Starfarers Academy matches qualified Pherro pilots, navigators, gunners, engineers, loaders, and mercenaries seeking passage off planet with spacer crews who have vacancies to fill. Most academy graduates sign up with the agency to quickly fu1d jobs that rake them off planet and around the galaxy to satisfy their wanderlust. Starship captains who want to fill open positions on their crew or hire additional crewers contact the agency knowing the institution accredits only Pherro who’ve passed the academy’s rigorous training programs.
Engineers’ Guild: A complex of vase repair hangars stands along one edge of the starport landing platforms. There a consortium of Pherro – former spacers who served as technicians aboard starships during their years wandering the galaxy – operates the largest maintenance and repair facility in Gateway Port. Guild members have reputations for fixing or modifying nearly any starship system on any model craft. For light repairs, engineers travel to individual docking pads in hover trucks equipped as small machine ships. Their prices for labor and materials are comparable to repair facilities in other busy starports.
Kavaam Woven Coat
The kavaam woven coat stands as the universal Pherro garment. This long-tailed coat covers the wearer from shoulders to the knees, with a mantle that can be raised as a hood to fend off chills. Pherro weave the fabric from kavaam wool in such a manner that it insulates against cold and allows air to circulate to alleviate heat in warmer climes. Chemical treatment makes the fabric water-resistant. Embellishments include dying the wool in fashionable colors and sewing decorative embroidery along the collar, cuffs, and hem.
When fully closed, the coat allows the wearer to ignore the detrimental effects of environmental heat or cold for 2D hours. It does not provide any armor protection in combat, nor does it alleviate the effects of sudden temperature changes, such as those caused by explosions, flamethrowers, or magma.
Most Pherro on Shaphast or in off-world enclaves own two coats, one for everyday wear and another, well- decorated one for special occasions. Space-faring Pherro eschew these coats as impractical garments in starship environments, though they pack a personal blanket woven from the material that has the same qualities.
Such coats become popular imports on worlds with primarily cold or hot environments. Pherro enclaves don’t usually manufacture enough coats for bulk export; sup- pliers can find large quantities of the garments available for sale only in the Weavers’ Emporium on the Pherro homeworld of Shaphast. Cost: Moderate (616 credits) for a simple coat, Difficult (2,954 credits) for a ornately ornamented coat.
Pherro Starfarers Academy
Young Pherro have always found the herding way of life boring and unsatisfying, and they dream of traveling to the stars like many restless shepherds before them. The smart ones save their money and enroll for a few terms at the Pherro Starfarers Academy to learn viable trades and acquaint themselves with political, economic, and cultural aspects of various galactic species and regimes.
The Academy campus stands along one side of the vast range of landing platforms at Gateway Port. Its facilities include do1mitories, classrooms, flight bridge simulators, computer libraries, shooting ranges, and engineering laboratories. Most students opt for a single six-month term of general study that gives them basic training in a variety of duties useful aboard starships. After one term of basic instruction, a few enroll for one or two more semesters to specialize in more intense classes aimed at training for a specific role aboard ship.
Instructors all graduated from the Academy and spent much of their careers serving aboard intergalactic starships. They apply their practical experience to lessons and advice offered to students.
Applicants must pass a basic intelligence test to gain admittance to the general program (by making a Moderate Knowledge roll}; graduates who seek more specialized training must pass the advanced entrance exam (requiring a Difficult Knowledge roll). The Academy charges nominal tuition for Pherro students (a Moderate Funds difficulty or 875 credits). Many families in Pherro enclaves on other worlds save their money to send their children to the Academy for a proper education. A few off-worlders enroll, drawn by the institution’s reputation in providing a well-rounded spacers education; they pay a slightly higher tuition (requiring a Difficult Funds roll or 3,365 credits).
Capital Graze
While Gateway Port serves as a meeting place for Pherro and off-worlders, Capital Graze stands as Shaphast’s capital city. Its offices, halls, assemblies, and records archives administer the planetary government and pursue policy to improve the lives of Pherro and their herding industry. Few off-worlders venture here, as it offers no business opportunities that can’t be found in Gateway Port, and Pherro frown upon foreigners meddling in their domestic affairs.
A massive tower houses the planet’s communication array, which helps government organizations maintain contact with every settlement on the continents, starport control in Gate- way Port, and the defensive militia fleet guarding the system. Major industries cluster along the city’s edge, most engaged in constructing new dwellings for Pherro and their herds or researching medicines and technology to protect the pastoral way of life.
Nearly every Pherro visits the capital when they come of age, at which time they undergo training at the Defense Service Academy to learn the military and technical skills needed during their service terms with the militia. After a six-month semester, able-bodied Pherro serve one month a year in their regional militia units that enforce laws in larger communities, cities,and the starport, maintain order, and crew the in-system defense fleet.
Intergalactic Newsfeed >
Plague Infects Kavaam – CAPITAL GRAZE, SHAPHAST – The Pherro Estate
Assembly announced today that a plague has struck the planet’s major domestic animal, the kavaam, raised for food and wool. The disease consumes the beast’s respiratory system, leading to labored breathing and eventual death after three days. “While scientists hastily try to find some cure and inoculation against the terminal disease, the government’s Ministry of Commerce has taken several steps to limit the spread of the kavaam plague. It has. closed the Kavaam Exchange in the planet’s main Gateway Port, quarantined herds spread throughout Pherro settlements, and asked other intergalactic Pherro enclaves to isolate their herds. The Assembly also prohibited sales of kavaam or shorn wool by individual herding settlements to off-worlders. Despite this measure, several traders reported a black market subculture forming among Pherro desperate for credits in the face of economic disaster.
Kavaam meat serves as a staple in the Pherro diet, but the shorn shag from the creatures serves as raw materials for the profitable Pherro textiles industry. The plague threatens the main kavaam herds on the Pherro homeworld of Shaphast, although numerous Pherro enclaves around the galaxy have not yet reported any outbreaks. The disease has already crippled commerce in Gateway Port, with the Kavaam Exchange closed and che vendors in the popular Weavers Emporium running low on stock. Upon hearing the announcement, spacers rushed the Emporium and purchased as much material for export as possible, at already inflated prices. Costs for goods woven from the warm kavaam wool have already soared in markets elsewhere.
The Estate Assembly has allocated emergency funds to the Ministry of Science and Research to analyze the nature of the plague, find a drug to neutralize or cure its effects, and search for a vaccine to prevent such a catastrophe in the future. Until then, commerce on Shaphast will continue to suffer, and the price of kavaam-shag imports will stay high.
Pherro Enclaves
Not all Pberro return to their homeworld from their youthful wanderlust. Many remain among the stars, too accustomed to the spacer way of life. Most settle down far from Shaphast in Pherro enclaves where they pursue industries related to herding and starfaring.
Enclaves typically form near hub starports frequented by itinerant Pherro or on planets with lush grasslands for grazing kavaam. Spacers settle where they can make a good living doing what they know: engaging in businesses that support starfaring trade, or raising kavaam imported from Shaphast to weave doth from their shorn wool. Starport enclaves consist of Pherro who value stability but still crave the starfaring life. They manage shipping and warehousing companies, create engineering guilds, and serve as middle- men in supplying spacecraft with basic necessities. Those choosing the more pastoral life bring their herding culture to other planets, supplying raw wool, kavaam meat, and finished shag products to regional industries.
Space-faring Pherro find welcome respite in these numerous settlement enclaves on planets throughout the galaxy. Sometimes they settle down, bur more often they enjoy the company of their own kind before setting off again into space.
Society
Pherro society revolves around the concept of the family pack, a social unit frequently formed by the members of extended families. Females give birth to litters of two to six pups, leading to rather large familial groups. Luckily Pherro are generally easy-going, affable, and sociable among their fellows and nearly every alien species. Until presented with an open threat, they assume anyone they meet has good intentions and deserves respect in fair dealings. To avoid in-breeding within communities, Pherro males typically go to live with their wife’s family pack after marriage. This also creates ties between herding settlements and forms like-minded political factions that run loosely along pack lines.
Starfaring Pherro form strong bonds with their friends and crewmates, essentially adopting them as their own family pack. They treat these comrades with the same warmth, affection, and devotion as they would their own kin. The Pherro means of conflict resolution – whether between rival packs, political or corporate factions, or individuals – reflects the affable pack mentality. They prefer to settle disputes by debate, discussing or even heatedly arguing a point until reaching some consensus. When these dialogues degenerate into irresolvable arguments, Pherro first call a recess (several hours or even days) to allow cooler heads to prevail. In the most dire cases, they resort to a test – often a game or a feat of strength, agility, or endurance – between a representative from each side, the winner of which everyone agrees to recognize as prevailing in the debate at hand.
Pherro communities on Shaphast appoint two leaders by general consensus. The pack leader serves as the head of the community, helping to resolve disputes, working with neighboring settlements, and ordering priorities for the town’s survival and prosperity; all with the assistance of trusted aids. The pack delegate travels with a small party of advisors to the Estate Assembly at Capital Graze to work with others in resolving world wide crises, setting policies for dealing with off- worlders, regulating the economy, enacting laws, and generally governing the planet.
Most Pherro statues deal with respect for property and person, fair trade, and general order in everyday affairs. The Estate Assembly considers breaches of such laws trivial violations or minor infractions, though in cases involving serious personal harm or property loss, offenders receive treatment as if incurring a major infraction. In addition to any fines or prison time, lawbreakers must often compensate victims fur some degree of loss. Local pack leaders resolve criminal charges in their own settlements, though for serious cases or appeals, a legal advisory committee of the Estate Assembly passes final judgment.
The Pherro maintain a free-market commerce system, openly trading live kavaam, shag, meat, wool textiles, and finished garments for profit. Merchants export about half the planet’s goods off world, giving Shaphast a modest place in its regional economy. Subindustries provide inhabitants with additional food, utilities, everyday items, dwellings, entertainment, and other services. Given the large, renewable population of kavaam (females breed litters of three to six calves every five months), the economy remains healthy, with burgeoning textiles industry fueling a steady stream of exports. Successful Pherro enclaves on other worlds also profit from their albeit smaller herds and weaving endeavors.
The Pherro pour much of their profits into improving their lives withour becoming slaves to technology. They expand settlement ranches and herding/ shearing facilities, invest in husbandry research, improve port and government facilities, support the defensive militia, and maintain communications and transportation networks. Pherro do not consider themselves rich unless their entire family pack possesses and shares wealth.
KV-6 Inoculation
The Pherro Ministry of Science and Research relies on a general vaccine to protect Shaphast’s kavaam herds from common disease and most agricultural pesticides that might accidentally poison herd and farm animals. It manufactures, distributes, and sells doses to kavaam ranches across the planet and Pherro enclaves with kavaam herds. The inoculation also works on many domesticated animals throughout the galaxy, fueling Shaphast’s pharmaceutical industry.
Kavaam Inoculation: +1D to domesticated herd animals’ stamina rolls to resist the affects disease and poison. Cost per dose; Very Easy (20 credits).
Religion
Pherro do not practice any formal religion. Although they’re not an overly suspicious people, they observe a general sanctity for life and respect for one’s property. With much of the population having wandered throughout large regions of the galaxy, itinerant Pherro have been exposed to many different religious belief systems. Some pick up colorful bits of these dis pa rate creeds, muttering protective prayers, swearing vehement oaths, wearing symbols of faith, and otherwise enjoying the trappings of religion. Many view this behavior as an affectation toward off- worlder customs acceptable among those who wander the galaxy.
Entertainment
Spontaneous play and entertainment help foster the calm attitude characteristic of Pherro. As an easy-going people, they particularly enjoy social games. Family pack pups play in massive groups, engaging in games that prepare them for adult life. They pretend they’re herders seeking lost kavaam, or starship travelers visiting distant ports and strange, faraway planets. Adults play a number of board games whose components fold or roll up for easy storage or transport. They also maintain a rich storytelling heritage and play music on a variety of instruments collected on their travels around the galaxy. Pherro do not engage in any leisure activity without including as many other members of their family pack as possible.
Technology
The Pherro do not have much reputation for pioneering any special technology. They focus on researching new methods of promoting animal health, designing more efficient buildings for settlements and herd shelter, and developing new technologies for processing and weaving kavaam wool Pherro scientific institutions maintain a reputation as leaders in the animal pharmaceutical industry, manufacturing vaccines for known diseases, cures for general ailments, and treatments for common health conditions. Construction engineers design architecture particularly suited for farming societies, merging living quarters for both people and domesticated animals with service areas for storing feed and harvested product. The Pherro textiles industry relies on machinery to reline raw kavaam shag, weave it into a variety of textiles, and fashion garments and other fabric commodities. Although incredibly bulky, automated looms prove profitable exports to those who can ship them off planet.
Pherro import most other technology from other societies: hover vehicles for transportation, communications arrays, specialty items from other worlds, and armed in-system starships for their defense militia.
Other Pherro Roles
Not all Pherro conform to the pastoral herder or wanderlust starfarer stereotypes. After many years traveling the galaxy, some settle down into other professions. Some Pherro become involved in the criminal underworld, where they fulfill a variety of roles: resource management, smuggler crew, bounty hunters, enforcers, or even crime boss. Such networks appeal to their sense of the family pack that provides for and protects its members in return for great devotion.
Pherro have a small community of scholars, scientists, artists, and philosophers, as any civilization cultivates. At periods in Shaphast’s distant past, such elite have risen to prominence in both government and society to dominate the population and shift cultural emphasis away from other endeavors. Some Pherro enclaves still stress these ideals, developing as universities, research centers, or retreats for both Pherro and aliens seeking a different way of life.
Past starfaring experience predisposes Pherro to pursue more specialized lines of work involving space travel. Some join scouring expeditions or form survey companies of their own, always with the assistance of other Pherro. Others pool their resources and found merchant consortiums, plying the space lanes with freighters and profitable cargoes. A few work out their aggressive tendencies as mercenary warriors in elite Pherro units or as permanent members of Shaphast’s militia.