Index -> Playing the Game -> Race -> Omior

When you choose Omior as your deck's primary race, you get +1 destiny at the end of each turn.

Omior Racial Profile

Omior are sentient plants. This is the most basic definition of what the Omior "are". With that said, they are much like plants: they are rather peaceful, very patient, and care very much about the nurture and status of their environment. Also, being plants, they are oddly na�ve and aloof since they get their nourishment from sun and soil while most races must, on a primitive level, kill and compete for mere survival.

Omior live for about five to six hundred years and reproduce via seedlings. All Omior are hermaphroditic, and while they cannot self-pollinate (the resulting seeds are infertile), any two Omior can create a small armada in enough time.

The Omior are not mechanical creatures; therefore, they use organic material in most of their construction. When they entered the fold of the empire, at first the Omior traded exotic foods for simple craft to study, and soon found they could neither master computers, nor abide the environmental destruction need to mine alloys.

However, going into space required computers and materials capable of withstanding the void, and the Omior soon learned to make carbon alloys and simple computers. They were always dependent on trade to make their way into the stars, but since they enjoyed meeting new races so much, this trade dependency never bothered them.

Omior History

The Ferrier discovered the Omior, and their 'first contact' consisted of a mystified Omior paralyzed by wonder as the Ferrier explorer quickly decapitated the Omior, thinking it's head was some sort of fruit. The Omior quickly bustled about and the Ferrier quickly realized their mistake. The Omior, unable to speak, were at a loss with how to respond, but the Ferrier (who was linguistically gifted as all of his race have always been) quickly learned to sign with the dead Omior's fronds. The Omior were quick to forgive the apologetic Ferrier who spent five years in the ecotopia of Garden with the gracious Omior guests until finally returning to the Empire to share the news of the sentient plantmen. .

When the Gateways were destroyed, the Omior turned their attention to exploring their own area of the galaxy with everything they had learned from the Ferrier, Kej, Zhikanii and Clave. If they could no longer contact their old friends, they'd make new ones. Sadly, they first discovered the Silica, who promptly destroyed the Omior missionaries and destroyed Garden with a series of meteors (see the Harsh Mistress card). .

Garden, as the Omior came to know their homeworld, was more than just a terrestrial planet, it was a macroscopic entity - an 'elder being of Life.' The massive vegetative life on the planet had reached such a critical mass that the great, connected chains of jungle and moss behaved like the massive chains of neural pathways in the brain, and the planet was very much alive and thinking. The planet generated the Omior - mainly out of curiosity - in microcosmic images of itself. After creating the Omior, Garden stood aside and watched to see what would happen. The planet, while alive, does not process reality the way a human mind does - it thinks in ages. The Silica came and destroyed Garden in what was, to the planet, a sudden second when everything went black. The planet never did make contact with its children...

The Omior left their homeworld aboard the massive Treeship - a great colony ship filled with various plants and animals from Garden as well as millions of Omiors and giant reserves of Omior seeds.

Hundreds of years before the fall of Garden, one of the Avatars (the leaders of the Omior who are born with telepathic potential) predicted that Garden would fall, and so established the Druids - lone travelers who would wander into the stars and seek out new worlds and ready them for Omior settlers. One of the Druids discovered Earth.

When the Omior brought the Treeship to Earth, the planet was in the grips of the Zhikanii. The Omior purchased a piece of Earth from the Overlords and made planetfall - at which point they learned that Earth was very much an infant of Garden - it had been ravaged by industry and human overpopulation but it had the chemical and geolithic build of Garden, and could, someday, become the jungle world that their home once was.

The Avatars quickly sized up the situation - the Zhikanii had a mighty armada of ships but had only a few thousand actual slugs on the planet. A few Zhikanii kingpins oversaw 'corporate offices' (despotic mansions) but the Zhikanii ruled by implants and looming saucers. The Omior determined a plan that would let them save the planet and liberate these fascinating bald apes. They staged a mock attack wherein they readily abandoned ship. The Zhikanii believed they were tearing apart the Omior forces, while the Omior were simply landing an outnumbering force of troops that quickly overwhelmed the small Zhikanii strongholds in a near-bloodless battle on both sides. Not that the Omior have "blood" as we know it.

In exchange for ousting the Zhikanii, the Omior made the humans promise to preserve the environment of Earth. Since then, the two races have lived in relative peace, and two Avatars have moved in and now live with the Humans - advising some of the leaders.

The Omior have since moved on to look for a new homeworld, but they know that, if the humans get out of line, they will have little reluctance in conquering the planet and making it their new home. One Omior, the Avatar of Thorns, wishes to divide and conquer by getting the humans dragged into war, wherein they will lose, and the Omior can inhabit (by force or as the lesser of two evils) the weakened Human homeworld. Many of the Avatars are pressing for vengeance against the Silica and want to use the resources and alliances the Star Chamber might provide to conquer this aggressive foe.

The peaceful days when they could devote their lives to xenobiology and exploring new worlds are over. The Omior are looking for a new place where they can take root, and they would prefer to do it by politics and peace, but they aren't THAT naive...

Check out the strategy guide for the Omior.