The Pfhor Empire spans a great deal of the galaxy, and these three-eyed humanoids' racial goal is complete domination of the known universe. They take pride in their long and glorious tradition as slavers, and control many other species. At times they have even mastered sentient races such as the Nakh and the S'pht.

    The Pfhor Empire is extremely large and consequently difficult to control. Local governments are therefore given a great deal of freedom in determining laws as long as they provide taxes and conscripts to the interstellar government. The 29th century may indeed prove to be the twilight of this most great empire, as Pfhor military strength has been sapped by the upstart human empire and the S'pht, a powerful fighter species that was recently wrenched from their slave camps by the humans.

    The Pfhor live in a strict caste system, with officially outlined laws for each caste. There is some mobility within castes; great heroes are occasionally promoted and criminals are sometimes demoted. But in general the decadent upper classes wish to live their insanely extravagant lives in peace, without being "invaded" by the lesser Pfhor. The caste system is perhaps best illustrated in the Pfhor language: although there is one standard Pfhor language with some local dialects, the differences between "High Pfhor" and "Low Pfhor" language are staggering--many Pfhor have some real difficulty speaking with members of castes far removed from their own.

    To live as a Pfhor is to be an inconspicuous member of the most populous race in the galaxy. To die as a Pfhor is to be immortalized by the cleansing fires of battle.

 

Species Overview

    The Pfhor are fully organic, carbon-based life-forms. They have two arms and two legs and breathe oxygen (their surprising similarities to humans are a topic of great discussion in the scientific communities of both species). The Pfhor are heterotrophic, eating other life for their energy. Their diet consists primarily of plants, but also includes a few small animals. Their drink of choice is water. The Pfhor are affected by human chemical weapons, as their general physical structure--skeletal, circulatory, respiratory, etc. is nearly identical to the humans'. They weigh slightly less than humans and are a bit taller, as they are optimized for planets with three quarters the gravity of Earth. They speak in a high-pitched, tonal language because of their oddly-shaped vocal cords.

    Although Pfhor society is highly structured in terms of the different castes, competition inside castes is encouraged. Often different slave drivers within the same caste fight small wars between each other over territory or slaves. The Pfhor economy is very primitive by human standards; it is reminiscent of medieval human society, in that lower-ranked Pfhor give large donations to higher-ranked Pfhor, existing almost as feudal serfs. Still, amounts of wealth vary greatly within castes. Generally the Imperial caste members are the richest; the Command caste's honor comes from bravery and not wealth. The Pfhor economy remains healthy only through constant conquest of other nations.

    The Pfhor are quite creative artists, scientists, and actors, but they put an emphasis on military might and feel that the primary goal of the race is to maintain a constant war for conquest across the universe. The Pfhor are capable of compassion, love, and a sense of beauty. However, they show chilling scorn toward all things alien. Their polytheistic religion worships a motley assortment of warrior gods.

    The Pfhor are capable of both individual expression and selfless devotion to their Empire, giving up all luxuries to help arm their great battle fleets.

 

The Pfhor Castes

    The Pfhor have a strict hierarchy of castes. The following is a list of the castes and their descriptions.

    Conditioned. Slave races, humans, and extremely vile criminals. Considered to be useless scum.

    Aggregate. The common, "base" caste of the Pfhor. Many aggregates are warriors, lab scientists, laborers, and low-ranking officials in local government.

    Willful. Usually low-level military officers and mid-level officials in local government.

    Attentive. High military officers, famous scientists, legal experts, and explorers fill the ranks of the Attentive caste. Some war heroes are recognized with promotion to Attentive level.

    Imperial. Planetary overseers and higher government officials within the interstellar Empire. They live a lavish life and are revered by commoners.

    Command. High generals and admirals in the military. Some are in direct contact with the Hindmost Creche, the mysterious emperor of the Pfhor worlds. (See next page.) They are responsible for dealing out the orders of the Hindmost Creche to the Imperial and Attentive castes.

 

The Hindmost Creche

    "The Hindmost is of an intelligence so vast, it encompasses the span of the Pfhor, and to those privilege to serve Her, appears insane. That is the final function of the Commanding Rank, the thought that we keep forever in our minds, that we deny our selfish, willful needs, so that the Empire will survive."
    -Tycho

    The Hindmost Creche is the ultimate ruler of the Pfhor, a figure both revered as superhuman (or superpfhor, rather) and obscured from the public view. Almost nobody knows exactly who She is; Her actual identity is unknown to all but the highest of the Command caste.

    The simplest and most popular understanding of the Hindmost is that She is the current matriarch of a royal family that rules over the Pfhor. There are also rumors that she is an ancient Pfhor Command caste hero kept alive through cybernetics and heavy doses of strange chemicals.

    Another popular theory is that "She" is really a council of high-level Command and/or Imperial caste officials who were promoted to the Hindmost secretly, their deaths having been faked by Pfhor officials. There is even growing suspicion among paranoid types that the Hindmost is really a small oligarchy--a secret, top caste in the Pfhor social hierarchy that puts forth an "insane genius" public image to hide the truth.

    If a GM is playing a scenario in which players will see the Hindmost, he or she should choose one of the above theories as the truth. However, chances are this situation will not come up unless players somehow end up as Command caste members.

    Interrogation of Command caste officials will certainly never reveal Her true nature, and most Pfhor citizens speak of Her only in hushed tones, for those who have been too arrogant in discussing Her have disappeared mysteriously in the night, never to be seen again. Understandably, few deny her supreme knowledge of the universe and the infallible truth in her guidance of the Pfhor race.

 

Roots of The Pfhor

    The very early history of the Pfhor is clouded in mystery. Pfhor religion holds that the first major empire of the race was formed around 15,000 B.C. in what is now the deep Anti-Spinward sector of the Empire. This early empire was created under the great leader Cgsana, who, according to Pfhor religious leaders, created the caste system based on a divine revelation from the war gods.

    Around 10,000 B.C. the empire fell into disunion after a military coup. It was split into many nations, with each nation's citizens swearing fidelity to a different high general of the Cgsana Empire. These nations fought amongst themselves for another 4,000 years. At this point, the Pfhor began to travel to other worlds and enslave alien life forms. By 5,500 B.C. there were several major Pfhor empires vying for power in incredibly bloody conflicts.

    But then a terrible enemy, the name of which cannot be uttered under Pfhor law, began to destroy outer Pfhor colonies. This race of shadowy carnivores threatened the very existence of the Pfhor race. A hasty alliance between all the empires was forged, and soon the enemy was defeated.

    In the Great Year of Reckoning (around 4,750 B.C.) the "Unspeakable Ones" were eradicated forever. However, old animosities were beginning to flare up. Heated arguments between the various empires about how to divide up lands conquered in the war were already breaking out, and rioting among Pfhor citizens become more and more common.

    Lord Tfaelzah, a Command caste hero of the Kibashajh Empire, became concerned for the future of the Pfhor. Knowing that the shaky alliance between the empires might fall, he quickly allied with sensible members of the Command castes of two of the most powerful empires, Nikpfhor and Ioq. Along with his following in the Kibashajh empire, he created the Great Triumvirate of Kibashajh, Ioq, and Nikpfhor. These three empires used their political pull in the rapidly disintegrating union to form a large federation controlling the entire Pfhor race: The Federation of Pfhor Nations.

    The early successes of the Federation of Pfhor Nations in enslaving other species were so remarkable that the government actually stabilized over time. By 4,500 B.C., the Federation had simply merged into one huge nation without any distinctions between sub-nations and empires. Over the next 1,000 years the Pfhor continued to pillage other planets under their one great government, which was naturally ruled by the ancient Imperial caste. Soon an entire corner of the galaxy belonged to the Pfhor.

 

Mysteries of The Past

    A good deal of early Pfhor history comes from ancient religious texts of the Pfhor. Many accept this as relatively reliable historical information. However, as the Pfhor do not take their religion terribly seriously (possessing neither the zealotry and active worship of some humans nor the reverence for ancestors of the S'pht), much of these texts are dismissed by Pfhor historians as myths and legends.

    The question still remains open: was the so-called imperial founder Cgsana a real Pfhor with a real empire? Only intense archaeological missions, the funding for which would never be provided by the militaristic Imperial and Command castes, could ever prove the origins of this ancient race once and for all.

 

Defeat and Reprisal

    The Nakh, a productive and independent-spirited Pfhor slave race (a client race of the Jjaro, much like the S'pht; see "S'pht History"), rebelled after five hundred years of service to the Pfhor. After the gory execution of Pfhor Imperial caste planetary overseers in the Nakh sector, the ability of the Nakh to defeat the local Pfhor capitols in their region of space was assured. The Pfhor Command Council reluctantly gave the order for the deployment of the trih xeem, on the Nakh systems. This device, which uses complex fusion and warp technologies to make an average G-spectrum star burn billions of years worth of fusion fuel in mere hours, resulted in gigantic supernovas that wiped out the Nakh systems. For the first time in their history the Pfhor, famous for never wasting a good biological resource, had caused the complete genocide of a sentient species. This way of dealing with slave revolts set a very dangerous precedent that would come back to haunt the Pfhor after contact was made with the humans.

 

The Fall of the S'pht

    In 1811 A.D. the S'pht homeworld of Lh'owon fell to the Pfhor. The S'pht became the greatest and most productive of all Conditioned caste species, and the Pfhor cherished this great acquisition. Like many races enslaved by the Pfhor, the S'pht were forced to fight for the Imperial Army.

    The S'pht remained in Pfhor hands much longer than the Nakh primarily because of their internal divisions and the tyranny of the Pfhor over their slave races, which had risen massively, in part due to the humiliating Nakh incident.

 

The Great War

    In the 28th century, the Pfhor made contact with their greatest enemy since the Unspeakable Ones--humans. They initially made contact with the humans because of the insane AI Durandal, who summoned them to the Tau Ceti colony by causing mysterious rhythmic pulses on the sensors of a nearby Pfhor explorer vessel doing a sensor sweep on the area. Soon a Pfhor army arrived in FTL ships and the war between the Pfhor and the humans began. The Pfhor were eventually forced to use the trih xeem on Lh'owon and retreat in shame, allowing the humans and S'pht to recover and build up their armies for the coming conflict. The Empire was facing the first real threat to its existence in over ten millenia.

 

The Tip of the Imperial Iceberg

    The Pfhor have many different types of settlements, from huge cities to small rural outposts. They live in houses of various sizes much like humans, and travel about in car-like ground vehicles. Their economy is fairly prosperous, especially during large wars. Still, the 29th century may very will be the last for the Pfhor Empire--or it could be the the first century of a new Empire. The humans and the restored S'pht forces, reunited with the S'pht'Kr clan (see the S'pht History section), are proving to be a very dangerous threat to the Empire. So far Pfhor admirals have prevented the capture of any Imperial worlds by the humans, but their border garrisons are wearing thin.

    Nevertheless, the Pfhor have long been used to a permanent military economy, whereas the humans are notoriously quick to tire of war. And if the humans allow a cease fire or treaty, they will surely fall, for the Pfhor have ruled the galaxy without interruption since before the human agricultural revolution and do not wish to give up any time soon.

    Perhaps the greatest threat to the Empire is its corrupt Beaurocracy, in which planetary overseers often rob the citizens for luxury's sake.

    Many clones of the AI Tycho, who betrayed the humans to join the Pfhor after the Marathon incident, have been created to help the Pfhor in their military efforts. The hope is that these clones will make up for poor Pfhor computing technology.

 

The Vastest Empire

    The Pfhor Empire is absolutely gigantic. Its exact size is often fluctuating, as it spans a great part of the galaxy. There are an estimated one million Pfhor settlements, and about one hundred thousand Pfhor-populated systems. Population estimates are very difficult as many settlements are lightly populated, but there are definitely trillions of Pfhor out there.

    The Pfhor empire has a much larger volume-to-population ratio than the human worlds. The reason for this is that the Pfhor have had the privilege of picking only the best systems and planets to populate thanks to their advanced FTL technology.

    Humans, however, have until quite recently been severely limited by their slower-than-light starships, which forced them to settle for somewhat inhospitable systems near Sol. This difference both hurts and helps the Pfhor; their colonies tend to be more productive because of the "Pfhor-friendliness" of their settlements, but their thinly spread Empire is very inviting to corruption and a lack of rapid, unified action.

 

Iron Fist or Liberty?

    The Pfhor Empire most certainly has repressive laws and strict controls. They have a controlled feudal economy and a rigid social system, but their ability to enforce their laws in peripheral sectors of the Empire is limited. Many dispossessed Pfhor become space pirates, harassing outer settlements with ease and viciousness.

    For example, the Pfhor Empire strictly outlaws powerful weapons to regular civilians. However, this does not stop many survivalist settlements on the fringes of the Empire to acquire potent ballistic and energy weapons, as well as other advanced technologies that the upper castes would like to restrict.

    The Pfhor Empire proves once again that there is a big difference between what one is allowed to do and what one is able to do!

 

 

 

 

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