NPC race: Enemies and Allies
Onai:
” Onai sick bastards, someone really had a sadistic streak when they created those monsters, never fought them, but I’ve seen themes they leave behind. I still see it when I go to sleep after ten years. We didn’t bother to try and salvage the colony or clean up the mess the Colonel just ordered us back to the transports and left a Plasma warhead behind to sanitize the area. Anyone left behind probably would have rather died than survive…we were doing them a favor.
Overview:
Once described as a cross between a nightmare and a mad scientist’s failure, Onai are usually misshapen and distorted versions of other races. No one knows where the Onai came from or who is responsible for their creation, but genetic studies indicate they are the result of genetic manipulation and out of control mutation. Onai vary radically in appearance and abilities but they all have one thing in common, they are strong and tough with some sort of natural attack and a surprising resistance to damage. Some experts believe the Onai are the source of the mythical oriental Oni, a race of grotesque creatures that delight in tricking and tormenting humans.
Onai seem to have a deep-seated hatred of most species common to O’sahdii space and relentlessly aid and harass planets and shipping along their borders, and deep into space not strongly patrolled by local defense squadrons.. Onai worlds are often only borderline habitable. Even if those worlds were at one time lush and productive Onai industry and exploitation rapidly reduce the worlds to toxic and ravaged mockeries of their former state.
Onai often serve as Mercenaries and enforcers throughout O’sahdii space. They seldom achieve any real wealth or station and those that do are incredibly dangerous, spiteful, paranoid and petty. Usually making their fortunes as hire killers, crime lords and, drug runners and weapons dealers.
Onai tactics are surprisingly cunning; their Leaders often display patience and cunning, using a target’s vices, weaknesses and enemies to their own advantage before striking. Onai are not satisfied with a quick victory or kill, they prefer to inflict lots of damage and prolong the fear, suffering and destruction they inflict to increase the satisfaction of their final victory. Onai tend to operate in company size raiding parties, operating from two or three corvette sized ships, several fighters to clear out the defenses and soften up the target. Once the attack ships dispose of the defenders and take out ground batteries they employ armed freighters to land troops and to carry away prisoners and loot captured in their raids.
Anyone caught in an Onai raid is in real danger, they kill indiscriminately and often mutilate and erect grisly totems of mutilated corpses, severed limbs and heads to mark their victories, escaped prisoners and slaves report that torture, experimentation and cannibalism is often the fate of anyone taken by the Onai. They also report that children are often taken away only to return a few months later as Onai themselves, barely recognizable and totally changed by what ever happened to them in their absence.
Military
Freelance Onai raiders often carry a wide range of weapons and gear scavenged from former victims, or manufactured from scrap and spare parts, all Onai weapons are modified by their owners adding spikes blades and bayonets to ranged weapons, and numerous scalps bits of bone and sometimes even severed hands to their melee weapons to increase the physiological impact of their viscous sudden assaults.
Organized Onai units tend to be a bit less colorful than their freelance counterparts, but they still use stylized armor and masks to make their naturally grotesque appearance even more horrific, or to compensate for their natural deformities and mutations. A sergeant shouting, kicking and using a cattle prod to direct individual solders under the direction of the Platoon leader often controls a “disciplined” Onai unit.
Onai ships tend to be fast, Maneuverable and heavily armed, but lack sophisticated defensive systems or armor. Onai ships often carry several boarding shuttles and large numbers of armed crewmen who serve as marines either to defend the ship or to board ships disabled and grappled by their ship.
Onai do not hesitate to use chemical, radiological, or biological weapons, many colonies and outposts have collapsed after being discretely infected with Bio weapons or targeted from orbit with Nukes and well aimed meteors towed out of the local asteroid belt and sent hurtling toward the target planet.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:57, Mon 18 Feb 2008.