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TetrahedronCaptain (PCG)
- Join date : 2014-05-27
Faction : Phoenix Command Group
Posts : 1012
Location : Classified
Character sheet
Faction: Phoenix Command Group
Species: Khent-sa
The Official Draugr Reference Bible
Wed Oct 28, 2015 10:19 pm
Draugr Outline:
So, considering how complicated the Draugr are, and how I’m probably going to very quickly get annoyed at having to constantly reexplain them, I decided to write up this quick outline of the Draugr species as a whole: their basic history, motivation, tactics, design style, that sort of thing. The idea was, if you’re not familiar with the race, or if you need refreshing, this topic would be for you.
What ended up happening was the whole thing ballooning massively- brevity isn't my strong suite, evidently. So here you go: a semi-comprehensive guide to the Draugr, as explained by yours truly. 
.
...Now that I’ve finished that, I’ve realized we basically just reversed Homeworld’s story. heck, basically everything about them is heavily homeworld-styled- mostly by complete accident/coincidence. Whoops. ...Well, Homeworld is one of the best sci-fi universes evar IMHO, so I can hardly say that’s a bad thing.
Anyway, questions, criticism and the like are welcome as always. If there's anything anyone wants specifically cleared up, post it below; otherwise, I'll just keep doing whatever I'm doing.
So, considering how complicated the Draugr are, and how I’m probably going to very quickly get annoyed at having to constantly reexplain them, I decided to write up this quick outline of the Draugr species as a whole: their basic history, motivation, tactics, design style, that sort of thing. The idea was, if you’re not familiar with the race, or if you need refreshing, this topic would be for you.
What ended up happening was the whole thing ballooning massively- brevity isn't my strong suite, evidently.
So here you go: a semi-comprehensive guide to the Draugr, as explained by yours truly. .- History and Backstory:
- The Draugr were initially raised to sentience and bred as a slave race to the Masters― essentially, your local Forerunner-esque super-advanced alien race. Unlike most slave races, the Draugr (mostly) maintained their free will and independence― placated with promises of eventual glory and ascension to equality with the Masters. This was a lie, of course, and their entire race was discarded when a better candidate for slave was found. Exiled to a barren, inhospitable desert world we call Gehenna, the Draugr swore revenge- soon starting a rebellion that would ravage much of the Master’s outer empire. Becoming irritated with the upstarts, the Master empire dispatched its elite Fleet of the Inferno to Gehenna. Easily punching through the local defence fleet, the Fleet of the Inferno spent three days glassing the planet― killing over 95% of the Draugr population. Redoubling their blood oath, the rebel remnants vanished into deep space― vowing to return and take their vengeance on former Masters.
(See here for the full details, as we understand them).
- Command Hierarchy:
- The closest thing that could be referred to as the race’s central government is the Dok Hawl To-cha Vagal DrauKar, which roughly translates as “Great Ancient Council of the Clans”. The Vagal DrauKar holds very little power, serving mainly as an inter-Clan adjudicator, coordinator of the rare multi-Clan effort, and decisionmaker of when the diaspora fleet― much of the true power is held within the Clans themselves. Clans are the backbone of the Draugr; each is effectively a self-sufficient, nomadic nation-state. Clans are segregated based on the subspecies created by the Masters as part of their genetic manipulation program; each Clan represents another one, accounting for the biological variation between them.
Although the specifics differ widely, all Clans have the same basic structure. Clans are broken up into Houses, with each House performing a specific function― building capital ships, training fighter pilots, maintaining FTL cores, etc. Houses are then further broken up into Tribes, or extended families, who oversee the internal affairs of each other and the Clan as a whole. Relatively recently, Houses have begun to group themselves into Guilds, based on their general role: those responsible for supplying or conducting warfare join the military guild, those in that maintain the Phantom Fleet (see “FTL and the Phantom Fleet”, below) in the domestic guild, etc. However, Guilds are, as of yet, somewhat unofficial constructs, and not entirely solidified within the hierarchy as of yet.
Leadership positions within this hierarchy are based on honor (see “Concept of Honor”, below). The leader of the most honorable Tribe becomes the leader of that House (or Tetrarch), and the leader of the most honorable House becomes the leader (Tetrarch-eminent) of the Clan. The most honorable House then becomes the lead House, bringing with it much in the way of influence. the lead House will often refocus the Clan towards whatever that House traditionally specialized in; for example, my Clan (Clan Acraenos) is currently led by the mining-focused House Semtek― resulting the primary focus of Clan Acraenos being mining.
It should be noted that the dominant House is only that― the dominant House, not the only one. All Clans possess the same basic Houses ―such as a naval-warfare House, a shipyard House, an agricultural House, etc.― it’s simply a matter of which has the most clout. Dino doesn’t have a monopoly on combat personnel, I don’t have a monopoly on miners, Niko doesn’t have a monopoly on CnC, etc.; it’s just that these are the Houses leading our respective Clans.
- Concept of Honor:
- The Draugr have a rather unique definition of “honor”― really, the word would be better defined as “excellency at a skill”. Unlike most cultures, Draugr honor does not necessarily connotate martial prowess or trustworthiness; instead, it is a way of representing that that particular entity has proven highly skilled at the craft of their House. For example, a mining House which has proven itself highly skilled at extracting ores would be considered much more honorable than an incompetent piloting House.
Like most aspects of Draugr culture, this odd concept of the term is largely derived from their time as slaves to the Masters. During this period, each Draugar was assigned a role at birth, as determined by its subspecies. Those who showed great proficiency at this given task were promoted higher in the pre-banishment hierarchy (and, thus, more “honorable”). Due to the species’ need for skilled specialists in their respective positions, the tradition was retained as an incentive measure; over time, it has become imbedded as a bedrock of their society.
- Psychology and Society:
- By any proper definition, the Draugr are a race of sociopaths. They don’t distinguish between combatants and noncombatants, have no sense of unethical treatment against sub-Draugr, have no qualms about descending below the belt; in their eyes, all others are simply below them, more obstacles than fellow sentient. They are not sadists*, however, and do not seek killing as an end; it’s merely a means to acquire the supplies and materiél necessary to continue their crusade. The Draugr are more than happy to leave those civilians huddled in a corner of the station’s main magazine as they cart off the ammo; on the other hand, they will provide no warning or aid when they begin to violently deconstruct said station, exposing those onboard to the vacuum of space. Likewise, they don’t use all those chemical/radiation-based weapons because they love to see their victims writhe in agony, but because it’s the most economical way to safely slaughter all the crew who might otherwise resist their boarding attempt.
By the same reasoning, however, the Draugr are also predisposed to peaceful trade; whenever they first arrive in an area, they will analyze whatever part of the local culture they can and train their traders in the local language and customs. Indeed, Draugr “merchants” are more akin diplomats, negotiating for supplies they can’t salvage in exchange for intel on a rival’s movements, an adversary’s weapon prototype, a temporary ceasefire, etc. Most Draugr military vessels are equipped with large cargo holds, and act as freighters during the exchange of goods (see “Ship Design”, below). While engaging in trade, all Draugr involved are tied to a strict set of rules they refer to as the Merchant Code of Honor, devised to prevent hostilities or trade disruption between them and their partners. The Draugr themselves see no issue with this dichotomy, though it is often rather offputting to other races.
Much of modern Draugr society is devoted towards minimizing waste. Ship design and other engineering tasks tend to emphasize efficiency above all else, often including actual quality; gunners are trained relentlessly in accuracy, to ensure that virtually every shot hits its mark; salvagers doggedly wring vital scrap from twisted slabs of metal anyone else would dismiss as unuseable. The tendency has even infiltrated their speech patterns: there are sixty words in the Draugr language for “wasteful”, including nine expletives, with each differing in severity and connotation. Efficient, meanwhile, has fifty-one meanings, with a similar breadth of implied meanings (including four words believed to by a sort of reverse-expletive, having a severe but positive meaning).
As a carryover from their glory days as a slave race, however, the Draugr have a strong sense of nobility― almost as if they feel entitled to stand among “proper” civilizations, as denied to them by the Masters. This is their one break from an otherwise complete sense of devotion to waste-reduction: while normally spartan, events such as the succession of high titles or rites of passage are relatively lavish, with all the pomp and ceremony of a royal coronation. Some Clans maintain a special Tribe, often a member of one of the administrative Houses, dedicated wholly to overseeing and preserving the various traditions associated with important events; such is the gravity of these affairs for the Draugr.
- Biology:
- The Draugr are somewhat unique, in that they have a more avian-like biology, as opposed to the primate-based one we're used to. You can read the full details here.
- Ship Design:
- Draugrii ship designs actually have very simple origins: as were were creating the race, Arik said to the effect of “We’re doing Homeworld 2 ships,” , to which I essentially replied “k” ()― and so the matter was decided. In particular, Draugr ships generally resemble vessels of the Vaygr and Hiigaran capital ships (particularly the former).
If that isn’t enough, Arik basically spelled it out for us in a short monologue, reproduced here:- Arik's Ship Design Outline:
- -Boxy/Rectangular: They're fairly utilitarian. They're not going to have exotic bug mandibles, super-curvy hull sections, and stuff like that. It's too much work to fit it into the design. And on the note of utilitarian, think lots about what stuff they'd put on it. Do they need cargo containers for holding trade goods or supplies? How would they put on the weaponry to make it the most effective (or making it able to function at all)? How would they get the modularity they need to attach either a captured warp nacelle or that ion engine they scavenged onto the same base chassis/frame?
-Scavenged look: This should be obvious. They get almost all their building materials from half-exploded enemy ships. They don't have time to individually pull off every wire, screw, console display, armor bulkhead, pipe, and fluffy captain's chair from the big hunk of command bridge they just blasted off, so they slap it onto a ship, do some welding or whatever, and send that newly-built ship into battle.
-Armor: They need armor, of course. Probably what this would consist of taking big sections of armor plating off ships (or maybe making their own) and attaching it around a ship. Personally, I love the look of greebles exposed between gaps in the armor plating, so I'm gonna play that for all it's worth. Everyone else do whatever they like.
-Alien Tech: I assume that most of their tech would be stolen from the Masters, or else taken from people groups they've attacked and scavenged from. So their tech would be a mix of super-advanced Master tech, some bits of tech from other galaxies they've visited during their travels, and stuff they've stolen from factions in our galaxy. I figure the Masters' tech would be clean/simplistic-looking and super-advanced, maybe like Halo's Forerunners, then we could have fun with making other galaxies' tech.
-Paintjob: Something to keep in mind everyone. This was once a race who, though servants, were probably very proud of their work and service to the Masters. Chances are they had a strong sense of nobility and grace before they were simply discarded. And now more than ever I think they would take every chance to try and mimic their former glory.
...In other words, don't totally toss out the idea of adding nice paintjobs, decorative or sentimental details, etc. as being too impractical for such a utilitarian species.”
A few more things of note: by and large, Draugr combat ships do more than just fight. They also act as freighters, transports, or whatever auxiliary role the Phantom Fleet needs when not engaged in raiding (see “FTL and the Phantom Fleet”, below). As a result, they often mount large, external hardpoints than can be configured with a multitude of different modules, as seen on my Acacia class; their ship designs should reflect their utilitarian, multirole nature.
The insides of Draugr military ships are also markedly different from those of their civilian vessels. Instead of small hallways and rooms, civilian vessels have massive, open corridors. These vessels harvest a bacterium that naturally aggregates on the hull during FTL travel to feed an internal ecosystem― respite with small animals and birds, plant life, moss and other lifeforms which flourish in the relatively confined shipboard spaces. Food-producing crops are harvested in a much more controlled fashion, aboard special industrial farming vessels designed for this.
On military vessels, however, such internal design would be a major structural liability. Because their unique methods of raiding allows them to strike out, loot, and return home within the space of a week, Draugr vessels are able to greatly minimize any nonessential systems― often even forgoing crew quarters, as individual Draugar are capable of going without rest for days at a time. After returning, the crews of these vessels often rest on their Clan’s civilian vessels as maintenance and repair teams prepare their ships for yet another incursion into civilized space.
- FTL and the Phantom Fleet:
- I want to move onto tactics, but it’s difficult to properly discuss them without delving a bit more deeply into Draugr technology and fleet composition**― so please indulge me for a bit.
The Draugr FTL drive is interchangeably referred to as the Naglfar drive or Shadow drive― and it is almost certainly the primary reason for their success. The Naglfar drive works by slipping a vessel or group of vessels*** into a dimension that mirrors our own― albeit with distances massively compressed. Using this technology, a Draugr fleet can cross the gulf between galaxies in a month at most, and cross the galaxy in days― effectively putting the entire Milky Way within striking range. What makes this drive truly terrifying, however, is its inherent stealth: it’s utterly impossible to see them coming, short of any deus-ex-machina plot devices we may need.
However, the Naglfar drive has several huge weaknesses. Every Clan has at least one vessel, known as the Pret Toba Khor-bak (roughly “Hyperdrive Forge Ship”), purely dedicated to the manufacture of Shadow drives cores, and yet still they are always in short supply― the Draugr (understandably) lack the production capacity of their sedentary counterparts, making the construction process comparatively slow and difficult. Furthermore, the drive’s massive bulk and energy drain means that it can only be mounted on elite capital vessels or dedicated “Motherships” (more on them later; specifically, “Ship Conventions”, below), making these ships somewhat of an Achilles’ heel of a raiding flotilla. In addition, it takes hours to recharge for the long-range jump back to the Phantom Fleet; even a quick flit back to a designated safe zone can take over twenty minutes of charging and jump calculations― meaning that once committed, it’s effectively do-or-die for all vessels involved.
With the Shadow drive fully established, we can now discuss the Draugr “Phantom Fleet”. Being a nomadic race, around 90% of Draugar spend all or almost all of their entire life on the Fleet― a massive flotilla consisting of almost every ship in a Clan’s civilian fleet. The core of this fleet, the Gacho Toba So (roughly “Hearth vessel”), is a massive construct (more akin to a semimobile station than a proper ship) which acts as the Clan's capital― its military, administrative, and industrial heart all rolled into one. Most Gacho Toba Sos are Masters capital ships captured before the Draugr began their great crusade― though most have been heavily modified, often possessing entire new sections or even other vessels grafted on as the Clan deemed necessary. Each of these flagships has a modified Masters Long Jump Naglfar drive, allowing them and their entourage to stay “submerged” in compressed space for eons if necessary― though the fleet will occasionally re-enter realspace for various reasons.
Although the Draugr do create temporary terrestrial colonies for various reasons(mainly because it’s cooler that way), the vast majority of the of most Clan’s operations take place aboard these ships― everything from salvaging new weapons to the construction of new vessels to the growing of necessary foodstuffs to adjudication of inter-Tribe disputes. The Phantom Fleet is the soul of the diaspora, its engine, the one reason the Draugr still exist to terrorize wayward merchants and fringe colonies like the stuff of so many ancient legends.
- Ship Conventions:
- Although we discussed ship design earlier, we failed to really cover the general trends Draugr military vessels follow. Combat ships can be broken up into three types ―warships, support ships, and Motherships― and each of these must be tackled individually.
Motherships are the heart of every Draugr raiding squadron. They’re mainly built around Shadow Drives, albeit almost universally packing additional support subsystems. As mentioned earlier, only a few vessels can carry these drives, due to size, power, and manufacturing restrictions; carrying and activating them is the Mothership’s primary purpose. Motherships range from simple cruiser-sized “drive tugs” to full on supercapital-scale mobile battlestations respite with advanced CnC equipment, cavernous hangar bays, extensive EW systems, repair facilities, etc. As they’re generally the only source of FTL propulsion, Motherships are jealously guarded and well protected: even the aforementioned drive tugs are equipped with several feet of armor and banks of PD weapons. It’s very difficult to simply “snipe” a Mothership; it generally requires breaking through the thickest part of the fighting and hammering it down with heavy anticapital weaponry for several minutes while holding off the reinforcing ships.
Warships are, unsurprisingly enough, wildly different. Compared to the fleets of most Alpha/Beta-quadrant races, the Draugr emphasize large amounts of extremely fast glass cannons: minimal survivability and short range, but also quick, highly maneuverable, low cost, and with plenty of teeth. As discussed earlier, most Draugr combat ships are able to get by with only the bare minimum in noncombat-related systems― allowing room for even more guns and ammo (see “Ship Design”, above). Their warships also tend to have large, modular sections, allowing different components to be swapped out as necessary. Mass-based are favored, followed by energy weapons; missiles are relatively rare****.
And last, yet not least, are the support ships. Support ships provide functionality similar to those of better-equipped motherships― albeit on a smaller, specialized and more cost-effective platform. These vessels range from corvette-size jamming corvette to capital-sized carriers to just about every role in between. Outside of their replacement of weaponry with noncombat systems, however, they largely follow the same outline as warships.
- Tactics:
- Lemme preface this with the following: I would’ve put earlier on, but I can’t really talk Draugr tactics without getting everything in the last four spoilers out of the way first. This isn't because their tactics are particularly complicated or anything; they’re just inextricably bound to the previous topics. Arik and myself developed the Draugr to suite our vision of them (psychopathic, merciless raiders― space pirates turned up to eleven with vengeance-driven blood oaths, if you will) and so designed almost every aspect of them towards that idea.
With that out of the way, let’s get down to business. The Draugr primarily emphasize “Shock-jump” tactics to seize the initiative: reemerging from their pocket dimension right on top of the enemy fleet, eliminating the need to close the range while blinding the sensors and jamming communication of any ships remotely nearby for several minutes due to the resulting tachyon cascade. These few minutes present a window for the Draugr fleet to quickly form up, reposition, and commence their attack well before the enemy can even begin to calculate a targeting solution.
Once the raid is underway, strategies diverge depending on the scale of the engagement. In smaller skirmishes, vessels will often break up into two or three prongs and attack from multiple directions; medium-sized battles will often feature a central thrust powered by squadrons of lighter ships backing up cruiser and occasional capital assets, while other lighter forces attempt flanking attacks; and in larger engagements, corvette, frigate, and destroyer formations will engage hostiles in a close-range melee, while heavier elements coordinate with bomber and ranged support to methodically engage and destroy priority targets.
Although these may seem overly strict or predictable, keep in mind that the Draugr have been living as nomadic raiders for forty generations now; you don’t get that far living like they do without learning how to think on your feet. This is doubly so in their case, as attacks tend to be less well-organized that that of local races; outside of individual strike groups or strictly-disciplined combined-arms groups, there’s virtually no overall unit cohesion. Necessity has trained their entire race to be master improvisers, capable of quickly adapting to the situation as required.
- Miscellaneous :
- Members of the Draugr race are called Draugar; the adjective form is Draugrii.
...Now that I’ve finished that, I’ve realized we basically just reversed Homeworld’s story. heck, basically everything about them is heavily homeworld-styled- mostly by complete accident/coincidence. Whoops.
...Well, Homeworld is one of the best sci-fi universes evar IMHO, so I can hardly say that’s a bad thing. Anyway, questions, criticism and the like are welcome as always. If there's anything anyone wants specifically cleared up, post it below; otherwise, I'll just keep doing whatever I'm doing.
- Asterisk Notes:
- *The exception to this is the Valyn Clan; they were originally an honor guard to Masters VIPs, then the bulk of the Gehennan defence fleet. As time passed, the Valyn have grown outright genocidal― more than willing to massacre any sub-Draugr they can, making no discrimination between furthering their race’s quest and mindless slaughter. However, these tendencies are generally kept in check by the other Clans, due to its inherent wastefulness; only in times of desperation are the full fury of the Valyn loosed.
**As I said, we put in a lot of effort.
***A single small Naglfar drive can transport an entire squadron of ships; several large ones working in conjunction can bring a Clan’s entire navy to the fray.
****The Draugr can neither easily collect nor manufacture the delicate circuitry required for a missile’s guidance systems, and what little they do have is generally needed for onboard ship systems. Although they have been known to use heavy cruise missiles, large banks of unguided rockets, or even the occasional salvaged/jury-rigged ordnance, these are very uncommon outside of larger assaults― the kind involving multiple capital assets and dozens of dozens of ships on both sides. What we would consider standard torpedo-esque missile weapons are virtually unheard-of.
- TetrahedronCaptain (PCG)
- Join date : 2014-05-27
Faction : Phoenix Command Group
Posts : 1012
Location : Classified
Character sheet
Faction: Phoenix Command Group
Species: Khent-sa
Re: The Official Draugr Reference Bible
Sun Nov 01, 2015 10:59 pm
...I have no idea why it says I only edited this twice; it's more like seven or eight, at least.
Anyway, finalized version is up now; I'm done with this, unless there's anything else someone wants me to explain in-depth. Happy Draugring!
Anyway, finalized version is up now; I'm done with this, unless there's anything else someone wants me to explain in-depth. Happy Draugring!
TalmidCommander (PCG)- Join date : 2013-07-12
Faction : United Federation of Planets
Posts : 838
Location : Earth
Re: The Official Draugr Reference Bible
Mon Nov 02, 2015 1:06 am
Tetrahedron wrote:...I have no idea why it says I only edited this twice; it's more like seven or eight, at least.
Anyway, finalized version is up now; I'm done with this, unless there's anything else someone wants me to explain in-depth. Happy Draugring!
I think if you edit it shortly after another edit or after posting it, it doesn't count as an edit. Or it only counts as an edit after someone else views it. I'm not sure, but I've edited things too and it doesn't count.
- TetrahedronCaptain (PCG)
- Join date : 2014-05-27
Faction : Phoenix Command Group
Posts : 1012
Location : Classified
Character sheet
Faction: Phoenix Command Group
Species: Khent-sa
Re: The Official Draugr Reference Bible
Mon Nov 02, 2015 1:29 pm
Mmmm, that would make sense, then.
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