According to Inheritor teachings, N’8ght are the race most closely related (genetically) to the Progenitors. Other alliances reject this, asserting that false records were inserted during the memnetic plagues to reinforce disreputable family lines. Whoever their actual patrons were, the N’8ght were among the most aggressive species to populate the early Galaxies. They seem bitterly frustrated that the Progenitors did not leave clear evidence that they are rightful heirs and owners of the Five Galaxies.
A note about the coalition organized to suppress the “Lions,” of which the N’8ght were members, refers to several races having to forcibly stop the N’8ght after they destroyed sapients not directly associated with the “Lions.”
Originally, after Uplift, the N’8ght defied the “live lightly on the land” tenet. Expanding from world to world, they decimated ecologies filled with potential Uplift clients. Later, faced with threatened retribution, they appeared to repent. In place of the destroyed environments, N’8ght built beautiful, intricate worlds. Indeed, having three intelligent sexes, each with a distinct aesthetic sense, might have resulted in a likable, diverse, and interesting people, if they weren’t so aggressive and paranoid.
Try to avoid contact with any N’8ght at all.
Fierce and warlike, proto-Tandu were found by the N’8ght roughly 27 million years ago on a rocky and forbidding homeworld. Astonishingly, though proto-Tandu hives had barely any culture, they were already engaged in uplifting clients of their own—domesticated animals bred for various traits, including raw intelligence and psychic ability. The Uplift Institute regards this early, unsupervised start as one reason why these clients seem quite insane.
Like their N’8ght patrons, the Tandu have a predilection for violence. Since achieving adult status, they have happily taken part in all major Galactic purges.
PSYCHOLOGYTandu are six-legged, warm-blooded insectoids—though unlike insects, they possess a completely efficient respiratory and circulatory system, allowing them to stand, on average, 3 meters tall. Their coloring ranges from tan-gold with brown markings to blue-green with black markings. Their mantis-like bodies walk on the back four legs, using the front two as manipulators. Chitinous armor is tough but brittle. Extremities, including heads, have the ability to regenerate.
Each of six eye-pods holds a brain. These work in tandem, coming to a “consensus” on decisions or concepts. When an idea results in an especially bad outcome, the brain that originated it is nipped off and a new head-bud is grown, hopefully to think more productive thoughts. Like many Terran insects, Tandu communicate by racheting and rubbing body parts together.
Being sexless, they lack some of the joyful charms of their N’8ght patrons. Instead, Tandu are hermaphroditic, exchanging genes by eating the spore-pods of dead Tandu who won credit in campaigns against infidels.
Everybody is an infidel.
Tandu are extreme xenophobes, even toward their own patrons and clients, who are tolerated rather than liked. Around other species, Tandu often engage in nervous pacing and leg-scratching.
This is a case where Terragen agents should practice a little xenophobia of their own.
Tandu are among the last species to follow tenets of the Inheritor Alliance, a pseudo-religious philosophy based on belief that the Progenitors willed control of the Five Galaxies to their most closely related clients—those leading down to the N’8ght Clan. Inheritors see themselves as holy warriors, chosen to cleanse the universe of heretics—at which point the Progenitors will return to pass judgment on the Five Galaxies. Since all other clans are heretics, some say it is only a matter of time before they attempt a “cleansing.” Only the essentially lawful nature of Galactic society, and the Tandu’s fearsome reputation, has prevented other alliances from ganging together to make these terrifying creatures extinct.
Some worry that things could easily go the other way around.
CONTACT WITH EARTHLINGSProto-Tandu were pack-hunting carnivores. To this day they prefer to dismember live game, and have been known to do this to members of sapient species, often condemned criminals that other clans trade to the Tandu in exchange for Aivvern spice or Gloor. Tandu almost always volunteer for war parties called up by the Galactic Institutes, to help chastise wayward races for violations of innumerable codes. Their overenthusiastic participation has at times contributed to the “unfortunate” extinction of several species.
Tandu have a regimented, hierarchical society. The Inheritor Alliance invests its priesthood with total life-and-death control. This follows in genetically manipulating their clients to blind, subservient roles. Acceptors and Episiarchs are considered mad by Galactic standards, incapable of surviving without Tandu guidance.
Ideally, you should not converse with a Tandu without witnesses—or at all. They sometimes bite impulsively, and justify it later. A Tymbrimi or Kanten companion can help reinforce your status as a patron-level sapient. A Thennanin can give even more clout. Tandu fear no other race, but they do respect the Thennanin, Soro, and other high-ranking warrior clans.
If contact with a Tandu seems inevitable without witnesses, your safest bet is to prepare a vodor programmed with a standard apology in Gal Eight, lay the vodor on the floor, set to replay, and exit as quickly as possible.
The Tandu have closed all files concerning their clients, declaring religious privacy reasons. Fifty-seven clans and alliances have filed appeals with the Library Institute, protesting this flagrant abuse of privilege. A preliminary injunction against the Tandu is expected in less than a thousand years.
For the time being, there are no openly accessible Library entries on Acceptor biology. In fact, there have been few actual sightings of this unique species, though Intelligence reports that Tandu genetic manipulation accentuated their psychic abilities at the cost of other sapient traits, in violation of standard Uplift practice.
Acceptors are rumored to be 1.75 to 2 meters tall, quadruped, without tool manipulators (another Uplift violation). Their carapace is sectioned in three parts, like Terrestrial insects, with legs branching from the joints between body sections. A spiral sensing organ on the end of a proboscis may be scent-related.
One Thennanin noted that Acceptors move with a gangly, uneven gait, suggesting they are perpetually off balance, perhaps due to their skewed perception of reality. Acceptors may play a major role in the Tandu probability-based star-drive by taking in, psychically, all that is going on around them. They can read radiation from star systems as well as minds, making hardly any distinction between the two. It’s all the same—random input—to an Acceptor.
Acceptors reportedly have no society of their own. It is unlikely you will ever see one, but organic samples of Acceptor tissue are on the list of Priority 2 Desiderata. If you gain access to a Tandu-owned Library branch, copy all files relating to their clients.
The Tandu have closed all files concerning these clients. This is under appeal. (See Acceptor.)
Sightings of Episiarchs are rare. They resemble white, shaggy bears, with almost featureless faces. We know the creatures are psi adepts of extraordinary force, whose talents appear rooted in a powerful, ego-driven rejection of reality as-is, provoking causality-probability fluctuations in their vicinity.
One Terragen agent recorded an encounter with an Episiarch under Tandu control. The creature appeared to be materializing a space-time portal by psychic projection alone, enabling its master to escape an unpleasant social function.
On a larger scale, Episiarchs apparently play a role in the Probability Stardrive. Thennanin scholars suggest that the Tandu may even have attempted to jump an entire planet through N-space, using a cluster of Episiarchs, en masse. They doubt that the test succeeded.
Episiarchs reportedly are separated from their mothers before their eyes open, and thus they have no society other than serving the Tandu. When sighted, Episiarchs are often held in check with a harness, leash, or some kind of neural probe. After an Episiarch reaches maturity, it is kept much of the time in “chambers of delusion” to keep it distracted.
The only time you are likely to encounter an Episiarch is if you are being trailed by a Tandu hunting party. Try to survive, and report about the experience.
As with other Tandu clients, records about Incrementors are sealed. Probing through a Library branch on Tanith did uncover one piece of information—Incrementors were the first race the Tandu uplifted. Yet, in formal introductions they are listed last, suggesting a demotion in status.
Incrementors have been seen only twice, at a distance, by Terragen agents. They resemble multi-legged dandelions with sensory nodules circling below a globe of soft fuzz. Thennanin claim the Incrementors’ tentacles have minute barbs along the entire length, for grasping and manipulation.
Incrementors are likely to be as insane as the rest of their clan. They seem to be given a wide berth, even by other Tandu clients, and are sure to be psi-adepts. We don’t know how they serve the Tandu, and that makes them especially frightening. If you encounter an Incrementor, with or without its patron, back away and try to observe quietly.