Index -> Playing the Game -> Race -> Ferrier

When you choose Ferrier as your deck's primary race, you begin the game with an additional citizen at the Star Chamber.

Ferrier Racial Profile

The once great rulers of the contemporary galaxy, the Ferrier are clever beings of great longevity, memory, and physical strength. They have powerful vocal and reasoning abilities, allowing them to master language and counting systems with ease.

Physiologically, the Ferrier are massive avians. Despite their reptilian appearance, they are warm-blooded. Their unique characteristics include prominent, elongated jaws, solid-colored eyes, and a head ruff that combines the features of a stegosaurus' scale plates with a cockatiel's head plumage.

Ferrier skin tones come in hues of red and brown. The primary joints of their legs bend in the opposite direction of a human's, and they loath to wear footwear unless donning a space suit or armor.

Most humans find the Ferrier giant in stature. They stand at least seven feet tall, usually closer to eight or nine. The Ferrier physique isn't designed to carry much fat on their bodies, but they do have high densities of muscle mass. Ferrier dignitaries are often seen in flowing robes, great headdresses, and carrying giant walking sticks both ceremonial and functional.

The Ferrier get their name from their ancient mastery of interplanetary trade. Their ships today hold to that cargo-transporting heritage. Blocky in design, Ferrier vessels tend to have a bulbous or brick-like chassis with a simple tail structure,and possibly wing mounts for extra weapons and engines. Imperial ships are always in the same red-brown hue of the Ferrier themselves.

Humans find Ferrier to be one of the less "alien" of the intelligent races. Ferrier are quite anthropomorphic in their speech and mannerisms. As a generalization, they are far more cerebral and do not have glandular human emotions like lust, wrath, and fear, but the Ferrier do have (and display) intellectual emotions: envy, hatred, and anxiety.

While the Ferrier are physically powerful creatures, they lack a disposition for physical violence. They are not, however, incapable of war - in fact, many enjoy the tactical challenge. They just prefer space battles to getting their hands dirty.

Ferrier History

The common Ferrier believes himself to be genetically superior to the other sentient races of the galaxy. The origin of this belief can be traced to the start of their recorded history. Their own annals tell of the emergence from a sublight vessel that crash-landed on their nominal homeworld, Tyrrhia. The earliest Ferrier described themselves as descendants of the stars.

That vessel, if it ever existed, has long been lost to time. What is known is that the Ferrier are not native to their home system. This is confirmed by both modern genetics and archaeological studies. While uncannily compatible with the indigenous ecosystem of Tyrrhia, the Ferrier did not evolve there.

Since the "emergence", the Ferrier have carried the idea that they are remnants of a once-mighty society. This idea pervades their entire culture. The Ferrier revere their ancestors. They are voracious students of history, and current events are often analyzed in terms of the words and reflections of past great leaders.

The Ferrier are traditionalists, and their political society contains structures and institutions that date back for millennia. One such institution is the office of Emperor, which has ruled over the united Ferrier species since before they encompassed their homeworld and took to colonizing the other planets in their system.

Their first contact with another race was with the Kej. The Kej, due to references in their databanks, mistakenly believed the Ferrier to be their creators, the Atok. This was received with great enthusiasm. It was only natural for the Ferrier to be linked with the ancient race that once constructed the Gateways and whose footprints still straddle the galaxy. Even after the Zhikanii discovered that the Ferrier were not the same race as the Atok, the Ferrier still held to the idea that they were somehow descended from the Atok, and thus inherited their legacy.

Indeed, when the Kej re-opened the gateways to interstellar travel, the Ferrier began binding together the disparate worlds into a star-spanning Empire. While much of this was accomplished by diplomacy, enabled by the Ferrier's innate ability to understand and use alien linguistics, Emperors often resorted to brute force and manipulation.

It was often said that the Ferrier Emperor speaks first, and then opens both hands. When diplomacy failed, the Emperor relied on the twin "hands" of Ferrier rule: the Imperial Fleet and the Fell Drumonj. The Fell Drumonj is an ancient organization that, in its humble origins, guarded the pack-animal caravans of the first Emperors. When the Ferrier reached for the stars, it evolved into an interstellar intelligence agency of immense breadth and scope.

It was in this way that the major races were bound together into the first Galactic Empire. And it was in this way that the Empire perpetuated itself for a thousand years prior to being torn asunder by civil war.

After the period of Isolation, the time in which the different sectors of the galaxy were cut off from one another after the destruction of key Gateways, the Ferrier re-emerged onto a different interstellar stage. Some of the old races had been destroyed, and some new races had emerged. The Imperial Fleet was still mighty, but its power was no longer unchallengeable. The Fell Drumonj remained, but their reach had grown weak in the long Isolation.

Furthermore, few of the other races were willing to accept a return of the old Empire. Some of the new races never knew its touch, and many of the older races were embittered by the damage wrought by the civil strife. Yet it was universally recognized that the destruction of the Gateways could not be repeated.

And so it was that the Emperor devised the Star Chamber, voluntarily abdicating some of his power in a grand gesture to inter-species dialogue and universal representation. It was to the Star Chamber and its multi-racial Peacekeeper fleet that the task of protecting the Gateways fell.

Not all Ferrier accepted this decision. The idea of the Ferrier merely being the equals of the lesser races was abhorrent to the nobility. However, it soon became clear that while all were "equal" within the Star Chamber, the Ferrier themselves were the first among equals.

Time will tell how long the arrangement will last.