And so the Klixians are born . . .

One of the playtesters pointed out that I didn’t have an insectoid race in the game, or at least not a playable one. He suggested that type of race was common in most sci-fi games, etc. I’m really not sure why having an insect race never occurred to me, since they’re usually pretty cool. Although I don’t plan to include such a race when the game is published, I have been thinking for awhile about what to include in a future expansion. For a long time I’ve thought about having a supplement focusing on the planet Rochan, so it occurred to me that I could include a new playable race in that expansion. They would fit together well because I’ve always envisioned Rochan as being crisscrossed with mining tunnels beneath the surface. Perhaps the insect race would also live underground (to escape Rochan’s inhospitable environment), and come in contact with the miners (perhaps in conflict).

So this week I started brainstorming about this new race. I found a nice model on the Daz3D site and from that I starting thinking of a name. I went through several ideas, but ultimately decided (at least for now) on the name Klixian. The name comes from their language, which is a series of clicking sounds. In other words “Klix” sounds like “clicks”. I like the use of the letter K and X in the name also because it gives it an alien quality.

As for the racial stats, those are still up in the air, although I’d like to incorporate some psionics, perhaps even a so-called Hive Mind. Right now only the Dahl have good PSI skills, so it would be nice to have another race to give additional choices for players. Also, while doing research on insects, I found that ants have something called the Metapleural gland which secretes antibiotics. By adding that to the Klixians, I can give them a high Disease resistance modifier. I will likely give them a decent Radiation resistance as well.

While I’ve been thinking about the new playable race, I’ve also been working on the game itself, adding changes based on playtester comments. I plan to publish a new draft (verison 0.4) next week. I’ve also been doing new renders for the paper miniatures (see image). I’m thinking about calling the product Cardboard Citizens, or something like that. ;-)