Novus Lore

No known record remains of the Novus’ genesis. They have existed unchanging for eons and spread farther across the stars than any of them know.

The secret to their success is multifold. Part is their ability to survive in almost any environment. The range of gravity, atmosphere and magnetic spectrum they can thrive within makes habitable planets plentiful.

Inverse is their resistance to genetic drift. Remains of Novus billions of years old are typologically and genetically indistinguishable from contemporary Novus.

Being an evolutionary constant would be the doom of any other species. Yet, their niche is the infinite expanse of the universe. Their intelligence and social learning makes evolution nothing more than a hindrance.

Society: Novus are alone in the universe, trapped with their own species by the limits of their experience.

Naturally occurring life is a statistical certainty in the infinity of space. Only a sliver of a fraction of planets develop life, but it happens none the less.

Yet, even the most intelligent of such life is too alien to connect with Novus society. Neither side can understand the mind of their counterpart, so both are animals to the other.

The closest to an exception is the Hive, organisms so adaptive that they less understand the Novus than become them.

The species evolved on its own planet before discovery by the Novus. However, it is more accurate to see the Hive as a disease.

They merge with Novus. The resulting creature is a Hive. Yet, it can be said to be a Novus as well. In such a way, these exceptions only prove the rule.

Of course, this truth is easy to overlook. The Novus have engineered countless species in their image.

Such creatures range from subordinate species to artistic creations or simply accidents. Some outlive the Novus civilizations that created them. Yet, all burn out while the Novus remain.

The Novus have no unified society or nationality. They long ago seeded the galaxies with countless civilizations. Those rise and fall, much of what they learned and created being lost when they collapse into anarchy.

Civilization grows from the remnants left behind by older societies. They gain order and advancement, learning from the forgotten past or making discoveries themselves.

Those that advance inevitably spread. The planet will be dominated, then the star system, then beyond. Other Novus are often found and merged into the new society, peacefully or violently.

Novus civilizations often span galaxies before beginning to fray at the edges. It happens in many ways, but the fall or division is inevitable.

Ecology: Novus are tool using creatures that rely on engineering and social learning to overcome any challenges before them. Yet, their biology is crucial in colonizing new planets.

Novus can survive and reproduce in any level of gravity they can support their own weight under. They can process and neutralize nearly any environmental toxin, given time to adapt.

Planets without a strong magnetic field to stop radiation are harmless to their radiation resistant biology. Only the most extreme temperatures cannot be survived.

As long as water and base elements that can be processed into organic tissue are present, the Novus can inhabit the planet. This is highly dependent on their ability to produce Novus buds.

Each Novus produces a bud once per month, but buds are not their only food source. In fact, they can develop the ability to digest anything with roughly the correct elements and weak enough structures.

However, they rarely eat anything other than the fruit their buds produce. This gives a way to easily supply sufficient nutrients and optimize the atmosphere.

The only reason a Novus would not produce a bud for over a month is if the bulb is fertilized and grows into a new Novus instead. Novus have a single sex, but possess paired markers on their own gametes that prevent accidental self-fertilization.

However, an easy to produce enzyme can neutralize this effect for a short window. For the rare Novus couple who coincidentally have matching markers on their gametes, such medication can allow them to reproduce together. For emissaries of their species hoping to populate new worlds, it can allow a lone survivor of the mission to start a colony.

Their immunity to genetic degradation makes them immune to the complications of incest. As a result, they are often raised communally without knowing which Novus are related to them.

The spawning of a fertilized bulb that immediately follows fertilization is the main incentive for a Novus to mate. Their body rewards them for successfully mating, so Novus as a species often breed faster than is entirely practical.

This leads to rapid expansion and a need for more territory. The rapid growth is beneficial while first expanding, but often results in a single nation overreaching and fracturing.

In a state of limited technology and resources, Novus rarely live over a century. However, sufficiently advanced healthcare and wealth can extend their lifespan indefinitely.

Appearance: Although a human observer would be more likely to mistake a Novus for female than male, they are naturally androgynous in appearance, and those with the Labor Mutation Feature develop a more masculine build. Humanoid in form, Novus lack the hair, lactation or live birth that would give any connection to terrestrial mammals.

Their pigmentation adapts to the range and combination of radiation they are exposed to. This means that a Novus will change skin color within a few weeks on a new planet. All Novus living in a given environment will have the same pigmentation.

Game Play: On an intergalactic scale, Novus are the base clan that is synonymous with interstellar life. As a result, it may be practical for players to not even write the Novus clan Features on their character sheet. Instead, all are just assumed to apply and can be referenced if needed.

Of course, the Game Master may choose to include the Allseed, species created by the Novus that lack the Features of the Novus clan. These may think and act similar enough to the Novus, and therefore humans, to be part of society.

In this case, there may be players who choose to be Allseed. This can give an equivalent of the slightly alien (but mostly not) aliens from common media.

Alternatively, the Game Master may choose to make true aliens that evolved to be similar to the Novus. This can give a very different feel from the isolated in the cosmos theme that the Novus normally have, but is an option available to the Game Master.

The assumption for the rules and lore is that true aliens, having evolved without the Novus’ interference, are always animals. This does not stop them from being just as or more intelligent than the Novus.

However, the intelligence of species completely separate from the Novus is often less similar than a dolphin’s intelligence is to a human’s intelligence. It is possible to understand how a dolphin thinks and behaves.

But, they will never experience life as a human does and we will not experience what they do. Similarly, true aliens are not part of the Novus’ society and would not truly want to be.

This differs from the common idea of aliens in major sci-fi media. In many, aliens are as different from humans as one human culture is from another.

They are often stereotypes of one or another real world cultural group. Add a costume or makeup, and you have some standard sci-fi aliens.

Our intention with the Novus is to avoid the rebranding of humans as aliens. Novus are the distant future of post-humanism.

In the same way humans are the only species fully part of the human experience, Novus are the only species fully part of the post-human experience.

The Game Master is recommended to use one of two explanations if they ever need to define why the Novus cannot evolve. Of course, they may alternatively use any reason they want.

First, the purely scientific explanation is that the creators of the Novus built in nanotech that resets the genome of Novus offspring. These nanites are so advanced that no Novus civilizations can undo it.

Second, the psionic explanation. The Servitor Seed Feature hints that the Novus’ creators had unworldly help in creating a species capable of dominating the universe. The influence of What Is Not Created may still remain in every Novus and keep them true to their design.