My Sourcebook has just hit shelves!
Well, I have completed about half of my Qenfani project. This is the first draft so bear with grammar and spelling! Still want to finish some neat little aspects like Laws and the holy Scripture. But here is most of the text. I say most and not all because some still needs to be written;). Please leave comments, good or bad, would you download it or not and why!
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Introduction:
The Qenfani are a custom-built race that I thought up while lying on my couch thinking about a mission idea. This mission idea turned into a whole series concept. The Birth of Star trek: Eclipse came from this idea. As I write this though I am, young and a dedicated fan of the Star trek Universe. I also am a fan of role-playing games, especially Decipher’s new Star Trek RPG, CODA. The Qenfani were made for this game and all stats below have been done in CODA using the Narrator’s Guide. I appreciate the time you are taking to read this and I sincerely hope that you will be able to use this for something useful instead of just throwing it away. I will begin by introducing you to the Qenfani in general and then move on into their planet, systems, ships, and technology. Here is a quick guide to what you will be seeing in this book.
The Qenfani are a group of humanoid life forms that occupy the Quano system, specifically Quano Prime. The Second planet in the system, Quano II, does not have any lifeforms on it although it is Class-M. The Quano system is on the border of the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants. The Qenfani are not so different from the humans that inhabit the Sol System, Sector 001.
They are a people of peace, love, and spirituality. Spirituality takes precedence over all else. They feel that they must uphold the laws put forth by their god, Zena. They also must destroy what they can of anything created by Xefran, or the devil.
Zena wrote scriptures that are now considered holy by the Qenfani people and they live their lives trying to uphold the moral standards by which she set forth. The Qenfani are also a technologically advanced culture with weapons, sensors, and ships. They have roughly the same technology level as the Federation in the year 2378. The Qenfani are not part of a greater government unlike Earth and Vulcan. They do not have slavery in any form. Everyone that works, with the exception being the Religious life, is paid to do his or her work.
The Qenfani have two sexes, male and female. They have the same basic organs as the male and female humans. They also have the same roles in child rearing, the mother gives birth, and each is needed for conception.
The Qenfani live in a system called Quano, they inhabit a nice planet that is the closest to the sun. It is called Quano Prime by outsiders, from the Qenfani though it is referred to as Qeni. This is just as Sol III is also known as Earth. The sector of space that the Quano system is located in is sparse. The sector contains about seven star systems. They are: Quano, Wegga, Farren, Sharnok, Kanrou, Magroki, and Shivan. Little is known about these systems as of yet, that is for another time and place. The Qenfani are explorers just as the humans are. Please note that this race is balanced for player characters!
Chapter One: Culture
The Qenfani are a nice people for the most part. As with most civilizations they do have people that are questionable. They also possess religious extremists and terrorists. Unfortunately these are the downsides to almost any culture except those the go through genetic resequencing of genetic cleansing. The Qenfani are a deeply religious people that place religious beliefs above all else. Their god, Zena, wrote spiritual texts that the Qenfani base all of their laws and actions on.
The Qenfani are a personable people that have many friends spanning many species. Most, although there are exceptions, Qenfani have quite a few friends. Each family has gathering for all of the major occasions in one’s life, such as Birthdays, Weddings, Funerals, Coming of Age, Religious Conversion, election, and acceptance into the Religious Life. Being social really helps them make first contact with alien species. They tend to make more alien friends that are allies because of this.
The Qenfani control certain emotions like the Vulcans, although not to the Vulcan extreme. The only emotion that the Qenfani find can hurt is anger and jealously. These emotions are kept in check by the broad consensus. They are not a warring culture either but have been involved in two interstellar wars, one of which was a war against a devilish culture. The other war was against the Interstellar Empire, which the Qenfani won.
The Qenfani do have a social structure. They consider all laymen to be one class and all in the Religious life to be a higher social class. The clerics study to learn about Zena as best they can. The working class work and explore the universe. They want to incorporate others into being friendly and have trading agreements. First Contact is the second goal in the Qenfani ideals. Their first is religion, and third is Exploration.
Each Qenfani are very different but each shares the same basic belief structure on how they approach life and social situations. Rarely would anyone see an introvert or reclusive Qenfani.
The Qenfani believe in schools for everyone and hold no one back from any school. The top highest educational college is Frean. The military academy is called Imperium, and the Religious school is called Venti. All of the schools are open to everyone. It depends on what life that you want to lead.
The smallest currency is a Jeda. It is equal to a slip of latinum. The Hefa is equal to one strip of latinum and the Jedfas is equal to a bar of latinum.
The military defense force/exploration force is called the Imperial Defense and Exploration Force. The Religious council is called the Venti’Shal. The governing council is called the Great Shanti. The Venti’shal determines whether things are devilish or holy. They have final say on all laws. The Great Shanti is the governing council. It has four seats. Three of which are from the Venti’shal. The other one seat is an elected official. This official, the Chancuy, is elected by the people of Qeni. This elected official represents all of the people of Qeni.
The Qenfani government also has one more group of people. They are the Shin’anti. They are the ambassadors of the Qenfani race. There is one on all ships that are stationed for exploration. They are not on any defense ships.
Chapter 2: Physiology
The Physiology of the Qenfani is somewhat similar to the human systems. The Qenfani males all range from 6’0” to 7’0” and weigh between 150-200 pounds respectively. Most Qenfani keep themselves in respectable shape. The Females of the species also keep themselves in reasonable shape and range between 5’0” and 6’0”. They weigh around 100-150 Pounds respectively. Their skin is toned slightly toward the greenish-blue side but is hardly noticeable. The most distinguishing mark on their bodies is the wrinkled cheeks. They have three small, tight wrinkles in each cheek on their face. They look similar to the wrinkles that Bajoran have on their noses. They are not telepathic in anyway whatsoever.
The Qenfani evolved from an indigenous species called the Ferna. The Ferna is a mammalian monkey. They are quite large. Ranging from 9’0” –12’0” in the wild. The Qenfani have gotten smaller and it seems that they are wanting to get taller and taller through the generations. All Qenfani are allergic to anesthezyne. Not only will they fall unconscious, but will start having seizures when subjected to their gas.
Chapter 3: Language and Law
The Language of the Qenfani culture is called Qenta. It is easy for an outsider to learn. It is very basic and has a total of 26 characters like the English alphabet.
The laws must be upheld. They are not too terribly complicated. Things such as do not worship the devil and do not kill are at the top of the list. These are all punishable with a life long term in prison. The Qenfani do not believe in corporal punishment (The laws will be detailed much further on the following page.)
The Foreign policy for the Qenfani is very simplistic. They believe that any and every alien species should be given a chance to be allies, unless the use some form of devilish technology (More Detail in chapter 4, Religion). The Governmental structure of the Qenfani is a cross between a democracy and theocracy. Three fourths of the Great Shanti is theocratic and one fourth is democratic. The lone representative is the representative of the people. The other three are representatives of Zena. The Chancellor of Law governs the law; it is similar to a constitution. It is listed below in full detail. These are not the General orders of the Defense Force.
Finally had time to read it
Hey Matt,
Nice notes. On the whole I like it and hope to see the detailed version soon!
I'd have a few remarks... I hope they help ;)
- I would encourage you to get some distance from the established Trek archetypes or, more important, from our own earthly archetypes. For instance, why having made their alphabet 26 letters "like in English"? This sounds too much like "oh, it's like at home" (and moreover, boom, no sense of wonder :) ). Why not make it 28 letters plus 2 accents for example? Not much more difficult to learn :) And why disruptors? Each time I see a civilization in Trek using phasers or disruptors I feel, "not again"... There's no reason to believe every civilization in the galaxy has only found two modern weapons, disruptors and phasers... Call it something else, male a different visual effect while retaining the rules, and the players will think: "Hey, this is something new!"
- I like the Qenfani PC workup, but I miss a "funky" ability, something out of the ordinary.
- Something that seems contradictory IMO: the Qenfani do not want to build a vast interstellar civilization, believing they shouldn't use too much space, then why will they want to fight "devilish" civilization? Why do they call themselves "Imperium"? This surely calls for expansionism...
- One last point: they all seem too perfect for the moment. I miss more "downsides", weak points that could be exploited to build stories. We have for the moment, Vulcan control without the downsides, Bajoran mysticism without the occupation, Terran technology without the boldness... All this is too perfect IMO :) If these people are so perfect, why should my players get interested in them?
Some food for thought... Just take what you want :)
Anyway it's still a great job overall.