Race A Community Experiement: Let's Construct Potential Races Together.

Hullo all, it’s been awhile since I've made a suggestion, over a year really, and I figured it was time to attempt something different. I’ve seen quite a few race suggestions get shot down for one reason or another, and it honestly makes me a little sad. This little experiment could either go wonderfully or totally flop but that depends entirely on the community. If we are all willing to participate and help, we could create wonderful Races that might get added. I’m all for keeping it up and running.​

​

​

​

To start off let me tell you my goal for this suggestion:
I would like us, as a community, to build and mold races to be unique, and well fleshed out. We will explore their potential themes, potential makeup, and potential lore and hopefully boil down the ideas into some pleasantly refined and balanced races. We will identify what we already have, what we want, and what could be realistically implemented into Starbound.

Please Link any race you feel is well thought out here, also list any themes that haven’t been done yet. If you have your own idea for a race or have already made a suggestion, link it, and we will explore its potential and try to match it with a fitting theme and elaborate on it.

Finally before I start listing things I would like to kindly ask all of you to please Respond with explanation and well thought criticism, By all means it can be negative, but “Lol itz the sux” Is not an intelligent opinion. If you dislike something explain why, explain what changes could make it better for you, and hopefully we can all work on a place for it in Starbound. I honestly believe the community can pull together and blow my expectations out of the water on this one. Please don’t disappoint!

View attachment 7456
Races are the biggest and most time-consuming suggestions, they include a variety of points:

Name
What is your race called?, cant think of anything? the easiest way to find a name is Google Translate an English word(s) into latin

History
The history of a race is often the most important part of any race suggestion as it gives the Player an overview of why a race looks/acts how it does what technology it uses and why
There are a number of points to cover when writing Race history:

Technological Advancement
How advanced is your race, what "Age" are they at, what are their capabilities?

Caveman No real technology use sticks, wood, fire and stone
Modern Use of basic alloys rockets, guns, helicopters
Futuristic Spaceships, lasers, cloning etc

Hostility
How friendly are they to outsiders/invaders, explorers like yourself

Historical/Defining/Notable moments
Things that happened in the past that made the race what they are;

The Good
Discoveries
Alliances
Technological Advancements

The Bad
Fatal accidents
Invasions
Plagues
Natural Disasters
Resource Depletion

Race/Player Sprites
A basic representation of what the race looks like
How the genders differ (if there are any)
Its approximate height in pixels (Humans Are 30Px)

Size Chart
View attachment 22636
Base Sprites View attachment 22637

Moving (Ill make a .GIF later)
View attachment 22638

​

Current Discussion:​

​

Let's Narrow Down Some Themes ​

​

Remember, Our goal isn't to instantly create a race, this is a process! Step by Step.​

​

Lists here we go!​

​

​

​

Current Races/Themes​

• Humans - Modern
• Avian - High-tech/Tribal? Aztec?
• Floran - Primitive/Tribal
• Apex - Orwellian Dystopia, à la the book 1984
• Glitch - Medieval
• Novakids - Western

​

​

Potential Themes​

I have some ideas but this is a community experiment:​

​

• Arctic/Polar
• Inuit
• Arabic/Aladdin/Desert
• Egyptian
• Indian/South Asian
• Aboriginal?
• Pacific/Hawaiian
• Mega-Urban (lol wut?)
• Russian
• America Circa 20's/30's/ Real Gangster Period
• 18th/19th Century
• Post Apocalyptic Fallout
• Blind/Darkness/Underground
• Anodynes ancient Greco-Roman
• Pirates/Scavenger

​

​

​

Potential Races
This is where I'll link and post in spoiler tabs the refined and potential races Let's make a massive list!

Decapods Thread

​

The Decapods are a race of crustacean-like bipeds who occupy the crystal home worlds.​

They thrive on many types of crystals, using them as armor, building resources, and clothing.​

​

​

​

​

Enthreals Thread​

​

​

Cerpine Thread​

​

The Cerpine are sentient snake beings that use metal suits that give them arms and legs.
They enjoy engineering, and are the creators of some of the galaxy's finest mechs and mechanical equipment. They hail from the desert planet of Kha'an, which is under the control of their enemies, the Closed.

Ossimer Thread​

The Ossemir are one of the oldest races in the galaxy. Long ago, they lived and thrived in their star system,
collecting and studying other organisms for scientific purposes.
They were a happy and prosperous reptillian race, but they were slow to advance.
They had no reason to rush anything.

​

The Platt Thread​

They spent their entire lives under the ground, never seeing the sun.​

The few that left were instantly barraged by sound and wind. Many of these had gone insane within seconds.​

But the most durable, the strongest, the most adaptive, left their home planets.​

Their resources had run dry: they mined their planet into a shell. Their resources were somewhere else, taken by traders or being used by their population.​

So they had to leave.​

​

​

The Boketai Thread​

When the frigid cold of the north met the biting gales of the south, they contested which was the more potent foe. Their dual angered the ground so grievously he proposed a contest: Whichever was able to kill three incarnations of the ground would be the most powerful. First, the ground made his incarnations lean and small to evade his foes, but whilst they dodged the wind, the cold froze them in place. Second, he gave his incarnations bulk, but whilst this kept the cold at bay, the winds sapped them of their strength. Last, the ground made his incarnations with hair. The cold could not penetrate their bulk and the wind could not penetrate their armour. As the winds howled and the cold crackled, the ground roared its laughter and dubbed his incarnation the Boketai, those born of strength.




The Moxey Thread

Moxies have horns not unlike that of an ox. They can vary significantly, even in colour. They grow to be very large.​

Their fur is usually brown, but can be grey, orange, red, and many other earthy colours.​

All Moxies are female.​

Their favoured weapons are the labrys, sickle, and scythe. They are also competent javelin throwers.​

Despite breeding asexually, they have been seen to form deep compassionate relationships with each other.​

They have very thick fur which can grow to be multiple feet long.​

They are very good with the water, and can walk across the bottom like hippos.​

They are remarkably bulky and tall.​

Unlike most desert creatures, the moxies have a thick layer of fur. This makes them very hot, and they convert the heat into energy.​

​

​

The Liberi Thread

Hailing from a cold, heartless world, a race of strong and generally peaceful creatures rose, taking up challenges and mantles as they went, enduring events which would normally stop any normal being, this child race races through the galaxy of its ancestors, searching for the truth.
Born to the world of Leis, a world plagued by cold winter 12 months out of the 16, these creatures have grown used to harsh and desolate climates in their struggle for survival. They achieved many great things in such a short span of time, civilization came easy to them, but so did war. A war that tore their order to shreds.

​

​

Refined Races
This is where I'll post, in a list/Spoiler What we refined and Constructed from the above two.

​

Keep it clean and let's see what comes out of this!

 

I like this idea. I'd like to put forward the Decapods and the Ethereal, which both need more fleshing out, but are both unique and well thought out races that maintain the feel of the game without delving into mary sue/self insert/furry fandom territory. I'm basically advertising them at this point, but they show a lot of promise.

 

Fantastic idea. I propose we start with the theme/cultural aspect before even touching what the creature itself is. It's a bit backwards but I think an issue with a lot of race suggestions is a lackluster cultural stance, from there you can ponder what kind of lifeform lives under that culture.

 

Goodie! So we can start listing some potential themes then. Feel free to run a little wild, we'll iron it out as we go!

 

What about a race based off the Inuit?

 

There isn't a polar race yet isn't there? Could have some soviet/hard labor and industry going on with them gathering resources in harsh and desolate worlds. That might be too similar to the Apex's dictator regime though. Has there been any interest in norse/viking society? I saw a race of Scandinavian-esque bear people in another thread.

 

That's it!, if we keep brainstorming like this, we'll eventually come up with something good. Nice idea OP

 

Find um and link them if you can! I'd love to add what i can

 

I've always wanted an Arabian/Aladdin-y/Desert race in the game.

 

Added that one to the list. If I recall correctly didn't you make a post looking for potential themes?

 

An Arabian themed race

 

With matching baggy pants! Logically some lizard race would fit that bill, but we should think outside the box!

 

Exactly! instead of thinking of it like this "let's make a cat/dog/fish race. Let's think outside of Earth's biology!

 

Some Potential Themes:
Egyptian
Arabic
Indian/South Asian
Aussie, Mate (aboriginal?)
Hawaiian/Pacific
Mega-urban
Mongolia, China
Russian
South African
Great Depression, Booming 20's
18th and 19th century upper-classmen
Latino

 

Whenever I thought of ideas for the race, I always thought that a snake race would be a good choice for it. I just like the idea of reptilian Arabians.

 

I've always liked 20-40's culture, I dunno why.

 

I'll try not to those I feel are too similar, but if i don't put one on and you guys totally disagree call me out on it please!

 

Here are my races!

http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/meet-the-cerpine-year-of-the-snake.8741/
Speaking of snake races, WHICH ARE ARABIC, NO LESS, here's mine!
Currently getting a revamp, but a lot of stuff will stay.

http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/meet-the-ossemir.16227/
And living fossil dinosaurs!

 

If we had a middle-eastern race, I'd propose them to be insectoids, preferably beetle or mantis in nature. As interesting as the crustacean race is, the Hytol have beaten them to the punch in the race for an aquatic species.

 

Egyptian culture is far different from arabic. At least, I think it is.
South African is really me thinking about apartheid being within a race.
Too meta?