I've been reading my way through the Iain M Banks "Culture" novels recently, and finding them brilliant. He writes particularly good aliens, so I thought I'd have a go at writing up a couple of new alien races lurking in the Koronus Expanse, together with some linked endeavours. Here's my first attempt. I might put some more in later. Feel free to dump your own xenos here, it would be nice to have a xenos database! 
THE DERMACH
Introduction
The Dermach are a race of intelligent nomadic herbivores whose complete lack of technology belies a sophisticated and fascinating culture of great antiquity. Restricted solely to the homeworld upon which they evolved, they have only been encountered by two alien races in the course of their long history. One of these races–humanity-mistakenly believes them to be simple herd animals distinguished only by their large size. The other race, the eldar, has no illusions regarding their nature, and respect them for their abilities as storytellers and philosophers.
Appearance
Dermach appearance is very alien, and has contributed to humanity’s failure to grasp the fact of their sentience.
They are very large, with a fully mature adult male bull growing up to 10 metres in length, and massing 30-40 tonnes. At birth they are about the size of a small horse. They present the appearance of a pair of linked, low ovoids, with the smaller, frontal ovoid acting as the creature’s “head.” The rear ovoid forms a shallow dome, rising to a pinnacle at the centre.
They have eight eyes in total; these are distributed across the bulk of the entire animal, with the four most sensitive eyes mounted high at the very front of the “head” end. Two eyes are mounted at the front of the pinnacle of the rear ovoid, and two more face backwards. The eyes are tiny in comparison to the size of the animal, and are relatively inefficient. However, they have an excellent sense of smell, which is provided by various small sense-pits running along the edge of their lower shell.
All Dermachs are born with a heavy, brown carapace which must be shed every few months as the creature grows. Newly-grown carapaces appear shiny and clean, but rapidly accrue cracks, pits and splits as the Dermach encounters the predatory carnivores of their homeworld.
The frontal ovoid contains a mouth-analogue surmounted by powerful scythe-like mandibles which are capable of extraordinary dexterity. The entire mouth-analogue, together with the mandibles, can be retracted into the carapace and sealed with a shell “plug” when facing a threat. The mandible-tipped mouth has been mistaken for a “head” by human observers, but in fact the Dermach do not have a head in the traditional sense: their brains rest in the pinnacle of the larger, rear ovoid, heavily protected, and their eyes are spread across the whole body.
Locomotion is provided by hundreds of thousands of tiny limbs under the carapace. Each limb is about an inch long, and resembles the leg of a Terran insect. The Dermach move by using these limbs as a shimmering carpet under the creatures, and they enable them to achieve a surprising turn of speed.
Dermach have a fairly traditional reproductive strategy, with two sexes. They give birth to live young. There is a degree of sexual dimorphism in the race: females are about 20% larger than males. They are long lived, barring accident, and can reach 300 Terran standard years, though this is rare given the hostile nature of their homeworld. The eldar have observed that Dermach intelligence appears to grow throughout their lives, and actively court the very oldest (usually female) members of their society for this reason.
They are entirely herbivorous, though this encompasses a very wide variety of flora across their homeworld. The Eldar have observed that the Dermach are slightly psychic, with the greatest potential residing in elderly females past breeding age.
Dermach communicate through a series of very low frequency vocalisations emitted through specialised organs deep within their bodies. These produce a tightly controlled series of rumbles and groans that are so powerful they can resonate through the air and ground for many miles.
Dermach culture
Dermach culture is very unusual. They are far from the traditional “main sequence” of sentient species development, which tends to travel from hunter/ gatherer to spacefarer through a series of conceptual steps including written language, tool use, industrialisation, computers and warp technology.
The Dermach have studiously avoided this route; or perhaps more accurately have simply never considered following it. To all intents and purposes when judged by the technological standards of most other races, the Dermach are barely a “civilisation” at all.
While they possess a primitive written language (scratched on trees and stones using their mandibles) and a robust (if unsophisticated) hexadecimal counting system, they have never shown any inclination towards tool use. They do not even use levers or spears, perhaps because their environment and physiology render such tools an irrelevance. They have literally no technology at all; have never made fire, developed agriculture or raised livestock.
However, just because The Dermach have not followed the usual course of societal progression, this is not to suggest that they lack a culture. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The harsh conditions of their homeworld have forced the Dermach to evolve powerful brains and virtually limitless memories. Their lifestyle means that they must constantly wander from one end of their planet to the next, facing constant predation by a variety of dangerous pack animals. An evolutionary “arms race” with these predators, the constantly changing seasons and the shifting locations of seasonal food sources has forced the Dermach to remember every step of their endless journey, and to develop the ability to communicate vital information to others within their herd.
Over the millennia, Dermach have developed a planet-wide universal language, the means of communicating complex survival strategies to their offspring and herdmates, and have combined this with a rich “oral history” tradition of storytelling.
The Dermach, given their long lives, fill their available time with endless communication. This takes the form of philosophical debates, the discussion of scientific hypotheses, jokes, boasts and gossip. They are great talkers, and love a good argument. They are also calm and rational observers. Even though they have never invented so much as a pointed stick, they have reasoned out a broadly correct version of the theory of evolution, and have made many other purely intellectual leaps in fields as diverse as physics, biology and astronomy. In many of these fields, their purely theoretical grasp exceeds the practical grasp of far more “advanced” species.
Each Dermach is, furthermore, a literal living library of tens of thousands of epic stories: moral fables, comedies, tragedies, histories, and legends. They are able to listen to the equivalent of a 500 page novel and then repeat it word for word centuries later. They literally never forget something once it is learned, and they match this epic skill for data retrieval with a warm and honest humour.
Profile
Dermach are so large that it is necessary to reflect their profiles using the vehicle rules contained on page 170 of “Into the Storm”. However, “social” attributes and skills are set out as normal.
Typical Dermach: male bull, 50 years old
Type: Large sentient animal (Treat as Ground vehicle)
Cruising speed: 25 kph
Structural integrity: 20
Armour: 20 all round
Carrying capacity: If used as a beast of burden, a Dermach is capable of carrying around 1 tonne, if it is properly strapped to its carapace.
Tactical speed: 5 metres
Manoeuvrability: +5 (despite their size, Dermach are surprisingly nimble on their many, many feet)
Size: Enormous
Crew: N/A
Weapons:
The Dermach possess no technology or weapons of any kind. When facing danger, their principle tactic is a crushing charge, which is resolved as Ram using the rules on page 173 of “Into the Storm.” For the purposes of the Drive test that accompanies an attempted ram, Dermach are considered to have the unique skill Drive (Dermach) at +10. Given Dermach travel in groups of at least a dozen or so, multiple charges can be extremely effective against even very well armed opposition.
Int: 30
Per: 35
WP: 28
Fel: 30
Skills:
Awareness, Blather, Forbidden Lore (Dermach), Intimidate, Navigation (Surface), Survival, Swim, Tracking, Trade (Storyteller)
Talents:
None
Ancient Dermach Matriarch, 295 years old
Type: Large sentient animal (Treat as Ground vehicle)
Cruising speed: 25 kph
Structural integrity: 25
Armour: 22 all round
Carrying capacity: If used as a beast of burden, a Dermach is capable of carrying around 1 tonne, if it is properly strapped to its carapace.
Tactical speed: 5 metres
Manoeuvrability: +5 (despite their size, Dermach are surprisingly nimble on their many, many feet)
Size: Enormous
Crew: N/A
Weapons:
The Dermach possess no technology or weapons of any kind. When facing danger, their principle tactic is a crushing charge, which is resolved as Ram using the rules on page 173 of “Into the Storm.” For the purposes of the Drive test that accompanies an attempted ram, Dermach are considered to have the unique skill Drive (Dermach) at +10. Given Dermach travel in groups of at least a dozen or so, multiple charges can be extremely effective against even very well armed opposition.
Int: 40
Per: 38
WP: 40
Fel: 38
Skills:
Awareness +10, Blather +10, Command +10, Common Lore (Koronus Expanse), Forbidden Lore (Dermach) +20, Intimidate, Navigation (Surface) +20, Psyniscience, Scholastic Lore (Astromancy, Beasts, Legend, Eldar) +10 Survival +20, Swim, Tracking +10, Trade (Storyteller, Philosopher)+20
Talents:
Air of Authority, Chem Geld, Peer (Eldar),
Homeworld
The Dermach evolved in a little known star cluster locked within the cold embrace of the Ghul Nebula, five light years spinward of the Alenic Depths. Their star is a perfectly ordinary Class III yellow sun, somewhat similar to Terra’s.
Their home system is known to the Eldar as “L’crillioughfan” which roughly translates as “land of the storytellers,” though naturally this does not appear on any Imperial charts in these terms. The Imperium (as is set out below) hasn’t even bothered to give the Dermach homeworld a name, referring to it instead as GN-273 (VI).
The Dermach themselves call their world “The Land,” though the term itself is unpronounceable to anyone without the unique vocal organs of the Dermach themselves.
GN-273 (VI) is a verdant planet with a vast central savannah continent which rings the entire equator of the world. Large herds of Dermach and other, smaller and less intelligent, herbivores wander in an endless westward journey across this continent, following the major food resources as they bloom on a seasonal basis. These herbivorous herds are in turn preyed upon by an intimidating variety of predatory species who either follow the great herds, snapping at their heels, or who lie in wait with a view to ambushing them.
In many ways, the planet sits out the borderline between the Imperial classification of a death world and an agri world. Although the world is incredibly rich in potentially edible species, and has the potential to make excellent farmland, the evolutionary battles between the highly intelligent Dermach and the numerous predatory species amount to what is effectively a constant low-level civil war. Furthermore, the planet’s orbit is slightly irregular, and every 17 years the temperature plummets drastically, leading to snowfall, widespread frosts and the death or hibernation of many food sources. This 17 year cycle also passes GN-273 (VI) through a major asteroid belt, which bombards the world with deadly meteors.
The major predatory species on the world are the K’netri, a race of large, fast moving millipede-like creatures with huge curved tusks. The K’netri have, for millions of years, used fire as part of their hunting repertoire. They dig channels in advance of the great herds, then line them with kindling, lighting them and using the pits to channel their prey towards them. This behaviour has led the Imperium to tentatively identify the K’nettri as extremely primitive sentient creatures, and earmark them for xenocide.
In fact, the K’netri’s behaviour is completely instinctive, a complex predatory tactic that is akin to a spider creating a web. The Imperium have-with a characteristic ignorance and lack of empathy for xeno races-completely failed to identify the Dermach as the true sentient species on GN-273 (VI).
Encounters with other species
The Dermach have dealt with the Eldar for as long as they can remember. Given that Dermach oral histories reach back hundreds of thousands of years, this means that the two races have a long and rich history.
There are many stories told by both races of the first encounters between the two species, but most revolve around the same central plot. An Eldar traveller visits the Dermach homeworld, encounters the Dermach, identifies them as intelligent after some initial confusion (this part is often played as a comedy), then there is some mutual mistrust followed by mutual cooperation in the face of a K’netri attack (this section is often action packed) ending in a storytelling competition between the Eldar traveller and the wisest Dermach matriarch in the whole world. This final section inevitably flows into thousands of separate stories, some created by the Dermach, some by the Eldar, meaning that the ongoing relationship between the two species can in part be characterised as an extremely friendly competition.
Eldar attitudes towards the Dermach are difficult for humans to understand, but can perhaps be described as a kind of indulgent fondness. The Eldar would, of course, wipe out the entire Dermach civilisation in a heartbeat if there was the slightest chance that they would ever pose a threat to them, but there has fortunately never been any indication of this.
The Eldar Farseers see the Dermach as a perfect instructional tool to open the minds of young Eldar rangers to the possibilities of other species. Certain rangers who are seen to have a future involving interaction with other intelligent species are occasionally sent to the Dermach homeworld without being told of the nature of the Dermach themselves, as a test of their ability to empathise with and form sympathetic alliances with aliens.
The Dermach, for their part, are always delighted to encounter the Eldar, as they always have so many interesting new stories of their travels throughout the galaxy. Over the millennia, the Dermach have become possibly the galaxy’s greatest repository of stories regarding the Eldar race, their belief system and their legends. Given the fact that they play no part in the wider galaxy, this is in fact their greatest asset, if they only knew it. Imperial Xenoscholars would pay almost anything for the literally priceless information every Dermach matriarch holds about not only Eldar history, but the history of the entire galaxy. The average Dermach knows far more about Eldar history than even the most rabid Imperial scholar, though much of this information is in the form of stories, fairy tales and legends.
The Dermach have also encountered humans, but only once.
In M41 555, the Adeptus Mechanics Explorator fleet of Magos Solus Kanceme travelled through the Ghul Nebula, chronicling its worlds, and naming the Dermach homeworld GN-273 (VI). They sent a single lander down to the world for just over a week. The small staff of Explorators conducted a series of vivisectionary operations on local fauna, took samples of some of the local flora and then left. This whole operation was observed with some curiosity by local Dermach, whose attempts at communication were completely ignored by the Mechanicus explorators, who simply regarded them as noisy and irritating herd animals. The explorators left the Dermach unharmed, having totally failed to identify them as the dominant sentient species on the planet. They sent a binary-coded astropathic relay to Port Wander briefly describing the world as potentially suitable for use as a agri-world. The only mention of the Dermach was as a potentially exploitable local food source.
Magos Kanceme’s fleet was subsequently lost, so no humans have since returned to act upon his reports. The Dermach formed no strong views of humans based upon this encounter, though some of the Eldar stories have recently – in the last ten thousand years or so – featured humans in a variety of unflattering scenarios. The Dermach are not particularly judgemental, and tend to take as they find, so they have reserved their position on humanity depending on how the next encounter goes…
Endeavours
Exploit the resources of GN-273 (VI), a lost agri world
Greater endeavour, +3 Profit Factor
The Imperium is hungry. Its hive worlds suffer food riots on a daily basis, and humanity is never more than three meals away from total anarchy. Sensible management of the galaxy’s existing ecologies is not the Imperium’s strong suit, so there is a fortune to be made by the individual able to bring a whole world suitable for farming into the Imperial fold. You have received word of just such a world, and now seek to ruthlessly exploit this golden opportunity.
Objective 1: Locate the lost star chart of the Adeptus Mechanics Explorator fleet of Magos Solus Kanceme
Themes: Criminal
While engaging in R&R in the fleshpots of Port Wander, the explorers are approached by a known disreputable gossip-broker, who claims to have information pertaining to the mission reports submitted by the lost Explorator fleet of Magos Kanceme more than two hundred and fifty years ago. The Explorators must follow up this rumour, steal the reports from the datavaults of the Port Wander Mechanicus, and escape with their lives.
Objective 2: Travel to GN-273 (VI) and survey the world
Themes: Exploration
The explorers travel to the only world they have nav-coordinates for, a promising sounding agri world identified as GN-273 (VI). Upon arrival, they encounter bizarre millipede-like creatures using fire to hunt some very large local fauna. How will the explorers deal with these creatures?
Objective 3: How best to exploit?
Either:
Eldar Incursion
Themes: Military
For some reason, the Eldar seem anxious to prevent the explorers from properly exploiting the world! It’s as if they have something to hide….the explorers must defeat the Eldar militarily, and bring the world under the influence of the Imperium.
Or
The Storytellers
Themes: Exploration
The players discover the nature of the Dermach through empathy unusual in the 41st Millenium. Now they must decide how best to profit from the situation. The information the Dermach have upon both Eldar and Galactic history would fill whole libraries, and keep scholars squabbling for centuries. And the Dermach may also have useful information about other sources of income in the Koronus Expanse…
