Peol

The Peoly (//, singular "Peol") were a violent, carnivorous race from Yuclawav in the. They were enemies of the Ousan and briefly subjects of the Golden Empire before their lust for Ousan blood and flesh led them to betray the Empire and renew their war, to their own ruin.

Biology and appearance
Heavily built, Peoly had stocky frames. Their chests and backs were protected by shell-like plates which were stronger than many armors, and could stop blaster bolts and most physical projectiles. Their angular heads had numerous hard, bony spikes made of similar material; spikes jutted out of Peol faces without consistent arrangements, but most Peoly had at least three spikes on the crowns of their hairless heads.

A Peol's mouth extended from his face in a short muzzle, and opened horizontally rather than vertically. The muzzle was lined from the hard, chitinous lips all the way to the throat with sharp teeth. The inside of the mouth was tough enough to resist being penetrated by the teeth on the other side, but the teeth were strong enough to shred meat.

To accomplish the task of feeding, the Peoly evolved unusual arms. Their arms ended in powerful hands with hard claws which could be used to fight or dig if needed. However, each arm sprouted two longer "fingers" with hook-shaped talons from mid-forearm as well. Once a Peol had hold of its prey, the hooked long fingers would slice through flesh and dig out muscle, drawing it into the mouth. The muscles of the mouth could slowly pull more and more flesh off the body of the prey.

The Peoly had poor hearing; xenobiologists theorized that this trait evolved because, if they relied on their hearing, the screams of prey and victims (which Peoly often ate live) would drown out their surroundings and leave them vulnerable. Peoly had powerful olfactory senses, and could smell blood (of many different species) with particular acuity. Their vision was slightly sharper than the average of other species. Peoly eyes were large in proportion to their faces and curved down from high on their foreheads to the levels of their snouts; humanoid observers described them as looking "mournful".

Peoly gave birth to live young after a gestation period of nine standard months. Newborn Peoly had soft, spongy chests and backs; their hard shells developed over their first few years of life. The Peoly reached physical maturity around the age of thirty, and could live nearly three centuries.

Society and culture
At the time of their demise as a culture, the Peoly were governed by a monarchy. The leader of the race, called the Hunt King, commanded all other Peoly with absolute authority. Peoly society supported numerous trades and occupations, but science and war were both of primary importance. After their first exposure to offworld culture, the Peoly placed increasing emphasis on technological innovation.

Violence was an expected part of life, and families or even whole villages could be made to suffer or die for the crimes of one member. Peoly had little sympathy for the weak, either sentient or insentient, and regularly ate prey live. Markets and grocery stores sold live animals to families for sustenance. The poorest Peoly sometimes killed and ate their neighbors to survive. This sort of cannibalism was usually met with "disapproval" rather than outright disgust, although cannibalism by those in better economic straits was viewed more harshly.

History
The Peoly were the apex predators of their homeworld as far back as their own researchers and xenobiologists could determine. Their hard, shell-like chests and backs were believed to have evolved in response to some of their prey animals, which had sharp claws, powerful horns, or other means of defense.

Organizing into tribes for mutual convenience in hunting, the Peoly were nomadic for millennia, following herds of prey animals. Agriculture developed as a way to sustain larger herds after initial attempts at domestication failed without means to sustaining animal populations. Despite this move toward city organizations, hunting was still a favorite pastime of the Peoly, and calling a Peol a "master hunter" was considered high praise.

As cities grew and competition for resources grew with them, warfare became frequent. Trade was unusual; most Peol city-states and nations were ferociously self-reliant, and when they wanted resources held by others, they preferred to gain them by conquest. The planetary monarchy gradually expanding over Yuclawav's single, meandering content, subjugating every state in its way.

Some time before the, Peoly society was stagnating. Even the massive farms and their flocks of livestock were not enough to allow unchecked growth of the Peol population. Several Hunt Kings were deposed in coups and rebellions by dissatisfied courtiers or ambitious relatives, all trying and failing to solve the problem. However, a strange sort of fortunate struck when the Peoly, who had by this point developed firearms and other pre-laser projectile weapons, were visited and attacked by slavers from Quadia. Having utterly subjugated the Qua centuries before, the coalition of aliens expected another easy victory. They landed in force, but were repulsed by the Peoly. Cut off from their ships, the invaders were hunted through Yuclawav over the following months, slowly caught and eaten one-by-one.

Meanwhile, the Hunt King ordered his scientists to study and replicate the aliens' starship technology. Over the course of several decades, the best physicists and engineers gradually produced working replicas of the alien ships. Among the duplicated technologies was a. A few initial tests failed, but eventually the Peol hyperdrives were properly calibrated.

The alien s had not been translated, so an attack on Quadia was not possible. However, Peoly astronomers plotted a course to the nearest inhabited system. When the scout force arrived at Oourb'Rest, the Peoly took to being the invaders with gusto. The initial plan was to enslave the native Ousan, forcing them to grow food animals for the Peoly on their world, and consequently allow the growth of the Peol population. However, this place was completely derailed when some of the scouts ate Ousan.

Ousan blood acted as a powerful on Peoly, leading to fantasies, feelings of ecstasy, and pleasurably enhanced senses. However, it was also addictive. When Ousan were exported to Yuclawav and consumed by the royal court, the demand for Ousan blood skyrocketed, and the Peoly began the Ousan-Peoly War with the intention of turning the Ousan themselves into livestock. Ousan blood was the most expensive commodity, used as everything from a recreational drug to an aphrodisiac.

The Ousan resisted, fighting for nearly two decades against the invaders. In 89 ABY, the Golden Empire came across Oourb'Rest and put a stop to the fighting. Queen Rin Sakaros was willing to take both planets into the Empire and maintain the peace between them; faced with the Empire's clearly superior Armada, the Hunt King grudgingly conceded. When withdrawal from Ousan blood became too great to bear, though, he authorized a renewal of the war, and his subjects were only too happy to take up arms.

The Empire repelled the invaders, but the Hunt King, now frenzied and facing a riotous population, authorized an attack on Zorabos too. A furious Rin took the war to the Peoly, bombarding their homeworld into ruins and slaughtering the species to the last being.