Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #24

231. Draedans. Draedans are sapient amphibians who apparently have skin that ranges from silver to green, can survive in fresh or salt water to a depth of two kilometers, and can live on land as long as they stay moist.

Why they still look so much like humans (albeit with fuzzy-looking tails) is anyone's guess.

They're explicitly mentioned as lacking access to hyperdrives, meaning they have trouble leaving their homeworld. They're also described as usually being "high-strung."

Rating: 2/5. If their appearance was more creative, they'd have gotten at least one more point, but looking that human when they apparently have so little in common lifestyle-wise is, well, increasingly bothersome to me.

232. Draethos. Draethos are apparently very long-lived, with a lifespan ranging as high as a thousand or more years, and aren't considered elderly until they're roughly 700 years old. They are naturally predatory and also naturally possess telepathy which apparently can only be used to communicate with each other.

They also have the funniest-looking mouths ever.

Rating: 4/5. Their rather grandiose uberalien nature contrasting with their goofy overbites makes me smile.

233. Draflago. Apparently, the Draflago enjoy dips in mud tanks.

Rating: 1/5. Are they pig people, amphibious, or something else? We don't know, because all we know is that they like mud.

234. Drall. The Drall inhabit the planet Drall in the Corellian system, i.e. the same solar system where Han Solo was born. They are short, furry, and known for being orderly, serious, and apparently usually a bit stuffy.

Rating: 3/5. Drall have appeared in a few different books, and they are clearly a reasonably complex society. Their insular nature (the whole Corellian system is itself isolationist, and none of the system's inhabitants really like each other, either) means we don't know too much about them, though.

235. Drells. Drells build starships, and apparently these starships are frequently used by pirates. Enough so that a Drell ship is obviously a pirate ship most of the time? Who knows?

Rating: 2/5. At least it explains where pirates might be getting their ships, I suppose.

236. Dressellians. Dressellians are kinda ugly. One was, at least according to Expanded Universe material, going to be the leader of the Endor strike force before Han Solo was chosen for the role; he apparently figured that it was racism against Dressellians that motivated Han's selection, as he was a skilled guerrilla from the protracted subversive warfare that had occurred on Dressel, and there's no way that Han Solo could have the same skills he did.

Also, the old action figure nickname they gave Dressellians was "Prune-Face."

I guess I'd be bitter too, if I was called that.

Rating: 3/5, if only because that one story is kind of funny in a slightly grim way.

237. Drivoks. They come from a planet called Faket, which seems like its name might be inappropriate to say aloud. They apparently are hairless and mauve-skinned, and have no apparent gender distinctions that humans can detect, and also can "sense others," whatever that means, and are often bounty hunters or trackers.

Rating: 3/5. There's not too much substance, but some of the details (their planet's name not matching theirs, the fact that their sensory abilities cause them to be happily employed in certain jobs) add some value.

238. Drochs. Woo hoo, the drochs!

This one is great, okay? The drochs are widely believed on the planet Nam Chorios to be mostly harmless (though intensely repulsive) parasites. And on Nam Chorios, this is largely true. Just get a little sun, and you'll be fine, even though the little blighters dig under your skin and stay there-in fact, they'll die, and you'll actually derive nutritional value from them.

However, drochs also have a dark secret. Anywhere else, they're so darned deadly that the symptoms of their parasitism are called the Death Seed plague. And nobody knew this until there was a modern resurgence of the plague.

That's not even the best part: Drochs get significantly bigger as they age and feed, and they can apparently naturally reach a size comparable to some of the larger land crabs. In areas of Nam Chorios where the sun doesn't shine, they get darned big. And the big ones are smarter than the little ones, and guide them to attack larger prey en masse.

And it gets even better-one droch that appeared was actually a mutant droch genetically engineered by an insane cook (seriously) that could, thanks to a mask, robe, and drapey clothes and stuff, pass as human.

It doesn't get much more awesome than that.

Rating: 5/5. This doesn't even go into just why the drochs were harmless on Nam Chorios, which may or may not have actually been their real homeworld. And yes, there's a reason more complex than "they don't like this particular sun," which has always been kind of a dumb reason for that sort of thing anyway.

239. Drovians. Drovians are big ugly brutes who got addicted to another species' cake flavoring agent, and then turned said cake flavoring agent into a more hardcore drug.

Rating: 3/5. I don't like planets of hats, especially when the hat is something negative like drug addiction, but this one makes me laugh enough that I'll forgive them a bit.

240. Druulgothans. They resemble lizards somehow, and they have an awesome name.

Rating: 2/5 for the name alone. I suppose I should be forgiving of a race created for a pick-a-path book... Nah.

-Signing off.

No comments: