Pirinad

The Pirinads are a race of dragon/human hybrids who descend from the Pirinasis Calius Flight dragon flight.

Origins

During the late Sixth Age the Pirinasis Calius Flight had an arrangement very similar to that found at Kladeth. However the region they lived in was considerably more remote. While trade and communication with the Alliance were constant, the ideas and culture remained reasonably insular. And at the settlement, mixing between humans and dragons was much more common. By some quirk of genetics never fully explained, the flight seemed to produce 3-4 male dragons for every female, so taking a human girl as a mate was simply the only reasonable option for most Praxis dragons. This left the city with a very sizable population of Dragon-halfs, much larger than at Warsong even.

When the forces of Samuel Fate attacked, he had hundreds of dragon-halfs rounded up, with plans to brainwash them and turn them into elite soldiers. The captives rebelled, and brought the slave ship carrying them down on a remote planet called PRR-2088 (later named Calius). The world had previously been inhabited both in Antiquity and again before the Kamian Succession Wars, but was completely free of sentient life when the 300 or so dragon-halves crash-landed their starship there. The survivors then dismantled the wreck and obscured the crash site.

Since they had no wish to return to slavery, the surviving dragon-halves then began to form couples. No dragon-half couple had ever been recorded in history at that point, so the offspring of this entirely hybridized population were unique enough to become a new species.

The race that would come to be called the Pirinad are bipedal, tailless, and stand upright. They have two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, a nose, and a mouth; but exhibit both strong human and draconic traits. Much like dragons, there can be a wide variation in physical appearance, with the usual possible range of feathers, fur, scales, and snake-like skin also including more human skins. They are typically dark in complexion, though lighter variants represent a significant portion of the population; and like dragons a very wide array of skin pigmentations are possible.

History

Little is known about the early generations of Pirinads. It was the beginning of the Long Night and they willingly destroyed all communications equipment. There would be no contact whatsoever with the rest of civilization until they New Day, which allowed their culture to develop in a complete vacuum. Their mytho-historic beliefs were informed by the ruins both recent and ancient found across the planet, and while they knew enough not to attribute any of the ruins to themselves, they still constructed elaborate narratives around the poorly-understood remains of the civilizations that called the planet home.

Pirinad history is based mostly on oral tradition, and the first few hundred years of their existence is subject to a great deal of debate. The essence of the myth is that in the early days when the total number of Pirinads was only in the tens of thousands and genetic compatibility was a serious problem, they broke down into a series of warring tribes which constantly raided each other for mates.

They had no concept at the time of genetic compatibility, nor any notion of infertility. The head of the tribe (whether male or female) would tend to take the most mates, in a bid to produce viable offspring. This in fact further added to the Pirinad population problems, as instead of every member trying to conceive with as many potential mates as possible, you had only a few dominant members (who had a high potential of being themselves sterile) binding as many mates to themselves as possible. Exactly how many tribes existed initially is unknown; but the earliest recorded histories describe thirteen distinct "houses" from which every then-living Pirinad was said to have descended.

By about a thousand years before the New Day, Praxis had largely become a peaceful world on the whole, though violence and fighting were very strong parts of the culture. There were then thirty-seven major houses and dozens of smaller splinter groups, but they had managed to put together a workable enough society to begin advancing technologically. Though their oral histories said that they had not originated on Praxis and that other intelligent life did exist, it still came as something of a shock to them when they developed radio and discovered the next solar system over was inhabited.

From that moment forward, the entire Pirinad civilization was united towards a single goal: travel to that other planet, fight everyone on it, and claim a glorious victory. Many sources disagree, but outside historians believe this was mainly done to avert a civil war. Praxis had many severe social and economic problems at the time, problems they were ill-equipped to resolve internally. By turning their attention on an outside target, they were able to come together in a way that would never have been possible otherwise.

In two hundred years, the Pirinads went from having barely invented radio to building inter-stellar warships. Theorists are divided on how this was possible, with many speculating that technology left over from before the Long Night had to have formed the basis. However, no evidence to support this has been found. The most widely accepted theory is that while no actual technology remained, enough of an understanding of the scientific principle survived that when the Pirinads did turn their efforts towards research, they were able to advance quickly because they did not first have to overcome incorrect notions or institutionalized dogma.

The Great Crusade, as they called it, was hugely successful. They were able to send an army in the tens of millions and capturing the neighboring solar system, which itself was pre-industrial (the radio was their first advanced technology) and had a population of only a few hundred million. This began a long series of exploration and expansion; most habitable planets in the region had either small populations or technologically-regressed ones. Samuel Fate was apparently aware of the Pirinads but had not made crushing their resistance a priority.

By the end of the Long Night, the Pirinads controlled 127 star systems and 224 planets, plus hundreds of moons, orbital habitats, and other space-based holdings.

Culture and Religion

The Pirinad are a proud warrior race. Though they have gods in the conventional sense, most of their revered beings are other Pirinads from their mytho-historic record.