by Tom Verreault
Note: the following is simply a quick primer for a new player who his considering playing a yazirian but unsure how to play this alien species. This document is not a replacement for the species description in the rulebook.
Yazirians look like a cross between a tailless monkey and a flying squirrel. They are 2.1 meters tall, light boned, and have a mane around their head and neck. On each side of their body is a skin flap or pataguim that stretches between their arms and legs for gliding. A yazirian can glide at gravities of 1g or less.
Battle rage is an ability that a yazirian can invoke during melee combat that provides him with a +20 bonus to all melee attacks. It may only be attempted once per combat. This ability is improvable with experience points.
Yazirian society is arranged in clans with each clan having traditional enemies and allies. Clans have become less important as yazirians have moved to space; they are well able to cooperate with each other and other species.
Typical clothing styles are brightly colored capes and tunics with a waist belt or crossed bandoliers over the chest. When required they will wear mitten like shoes.
Occasionally a yazirian will choose a life enemy. In the past it might have been another clan but now it’s not unusual to find a yazirian scientist who has chosen a disease as life enemy or a yazirian businessperson that has chosen a competing company as life enemy. Those with powerful life enemies gain more respect but there is no set point in a yazirian’s life when he must choose a life enemy, it’s simply considered unlucky for a yazirian to die without having chosen his life enemy.
The yazirian honor weapon is the zamra, a throwing disk (think Frisbee with a sharpened edge) that requires wearing a metal gauntlet to use the non-practice variety. A yazirian with a life enemy will carry a special red zamra that he will only use against his life enemy. Details about the zamra were published in Ares magazine #17.
The Family of One is a yazirian religion that dominates yazirian society since its arrival in the Frontier. It is predicated on the belief that all yazirians are one. It bars all non-yazirians from landing on the planet Hentz, its headquarters in the Frontier. The Family of One is vary autocratic and tightly controls the population on Hentz requiring everyone to wear a uniform that denotes their job and social position. Not all yazirians adhere to the beliefs of the Family of One
Over the decades fans have developed new material to expand our understanding of the core species in the game.
Richard Rose a.k.a. Shadowshack developed a series of tables for generating yazirian clans for yazirian characters in Star Frontiers. Each clan has a brief note, name, and clan symbol. This material was published in issue 8 of the Star Frontiersman fan magazine.
I headed a collaborative effort to write up a more detailed explanation of the Family of One. This material was published in issue 2 of the Frontier Explorer (The Family of One, p.1 - http://frontierexplorer.org/book/family-one [1])
Mathew Crymble noted that the yazirian honor weapon, the zamra failed to take advantage of the battle rage ability. He further reasoned that the yazirians would have a melee weapon that would do so and it would be suited to their lighter body structure.
What he came up with was the kha’dan. It’s based on the Gurkha kukri knife but is of sword length. With its forward sweeping blade it’s the kind of weapon that would have allowed a yazirian to lop off a limb and end a battle quickly. This makes a lot of sense since yazirian ability modifiers have a penaty to STR/STA and a bonus to DEX/RS and a yazirian warrior with lower than average stamina will desire to end a battle quickly.The weapon functions exactly the same as a sword in the game rules but a yazirian attempting to enter battle rage while holding his clan’s kha’dan gains a +5% bonus to the attempt. It can be thrown at limited range but loss of a kha’dan brings great shame.
Links
[1] http://frontierexplorer.org/book/family-one