Talphi

• Express your feelings through small, homemade gifts.
• Only feel at home with earth beneath your feet, or above your head.
• Always be on the move.

• Think your long naps are a sign of laziness.
• Find it easy to trust your open, friendly manner.
• Rely on you to find their way in the dark.

Talphis are bipedal, mole-like people who stand with a pronounced forward lean but are between 3 and 4 feet tall when fully straightened, and they weigh between 35 and 50 pounds. Their skin is loose, and their cylindrical bodies are covered in short, extremely fine hairs that come in shades from nearly white to dark, rust-like reds. Talphis have small, darkly colored and inconspicuous eyes, ears that are nearly invisible beneath their fur, and large noses that form a star shape, surrounded by sensitive fingerlike papillae. These specialized organs give talphis an incredibly powerful sense of smell that they can use to great effect in total darkness. Their powerful limbs appear to be very short, but this is an illusion, as their upper arm and leg joints are concealed within the loose, stretchable skin of their narrow torsos. They're surprisingly fast and agile, and their proportionately large hands and feet end in short but powerful claws capable of digging effectively through the uncommonly dense stone of their home Vesk-4.

Talphis spend most of their lives underground but don't have any natural ability to see in total darkness. They use scent to find one another in tunnels and have adopted materials from the world around them as visibility aids. There are hundreds of brightly tinted, lightly radioactive materials buried just beneath the planet's surface that industrious talphis mix with mineral oils to create durable glow-in-the-dark paints. They apply these tints to the walls of their tunnels to create maps and guidelines that are easy for others of their kind to trace. Over the centuries, talphis have begun painting their clothing and fur with these many-colored glowing hues, creating elaborate swirling patterns over their bodies that make them readily identifiable to friends and family at a distance, even in pitch-dark conditions.

Most talphis perfect their personal artistic patterns before reaching adulthood and use a simplified version of it as their signature. Talphi pups are born hairless and blind, and they're generally raised in small, mobile community nurseries called tals. Multiple sets of new parents band together to feed, clothe, protect, and teach pups with similar birth dates. These small communities are temporary, but young talphis often form lifelong bonds with their talmates and develop similar or complementary art styles.

Before the Veskarium conquered Talphiriax and renamed it Vesk-4, talphis had a very loosely structured society. They had no formal nations, hierarchical clans, or structured churches, but instead formed temporary associations based on physical proximity, biological relationships, and common goals. Talphis have had little use for weapons and warfare over their history but have actively developed advanced non-weapon technology, specializing in mining and safety equipment as well as mobility aids. They're neither territorial nor materialistic, and when rare conflicts arise between two groups, such problems are almost always solved peacefully. A time-honored favorite means of conflict resolution among talphis is called yadgon, a combination race and elaborate underground scavenger hunt in which each party hides a precious stone or crystal sculpture of their own design, and the one to find this sculpture first is declared the winner. Generally, both parties are allowed to keep the art they set out to find, regardless of the contest's result.

When the Veskarium invaded Talphiriax, a small collection of talphi solarians were the only armed resistance. The Veskarium's superior numbers swiftly overwhelmed them, and their casualties were extremely high. The rest of the talphis quickly surrendered following the solarians' defeat, and have lived in relative peace with the Veskarium for generations. A Corona Academy has since been established on Vesk-4, through which talphis have rebuilt many of their solarian traditions, but much of their specialized teachings were likely permanently lost during the short, bloody conflict.

The surface of Vesk-4 is a series of dangerous, hostile environments thanks to high gravity, frequent meteor strikes, intense tectonic activity, and traveling pockets of intense radiation, which has driven the bulk of talphi life into huge webs of underground tunnels. For centuries, the underground life of talphis hinged on the upper and lower antreways, huge artery tunnels that connect the habitable, southwestern side of the planet with the resource-rich but highly radioactive mineral deposits beneath the northeastern lodelands. When the Veskarium conquered the world, they seized control of the antreways and tightly regulated the tunnels' use, putting a stranglehold on talphi commerce.

Talphis have lived in peace with ore-eating, insectile shuzrians and ausyrs, an amphibious humanoid species who live mostly beneath swamps of the dredgelands, throughout their history thanks to their easygoing nature and willingness to solve conflicts with gift giving and goodwill. More recently, talphis have readily adapted to their new neighbors from the Veskarium, though they do mourn the loss of freedom to navigate their ancestral tunnels and the enforced stagnation that city-based society has brought them. More and more talphis have begun to leave Vesk-4 in search of freedom to roam elsewhere. High Despot Kamilzanva has recently eased travel restrictions for Vesk-4's underground residents, allowing talphis to resume traveling the antreways, and further improvements in their relationship with the Veskarium might be forthcoming.

Far from a devout, religious people, talphis have traditionally put their faith in concepts that fascinate them rather than specifics gods and goddesses. Talphi leaders preach the importance of balance in life and of communing with the planet all around them, the moons in the sky, and the stars and the great empty vastness of the universe. Perhaps the most highly-valued of these concepts among talphis is momentum. As a people, they believe that their success and longevity can be attributed to their constant motion. To remain in any one place for too long on Vesk-4 is to risk exposure to earthquakes, meteor strikes, and high levels of radiation. A talphi on the move minimizes these risks while maximizing their ability to enjoy life's pleasures.

In ancient times, talphis established philosophical orders and schools to study their link with their planet's core and embrace the power this connection brings. These orders resembled modern solarian factions, with a greater emphasis on connecting with stone, magma, and other planetary forces rather than stellar phenomena. Though their solarian population was devastated during the Veskarium's invasion, the establishment of a Corona Academy on Vesk-4 has led to a rebirth of the movement.

Though organized religion and formal houses of worship are rare among talphis, they highly value art and personal expression. Many individuals have taken to worship Meyel and Zon-Shelyn as a result, though these relationships are almost always private, individually-led forms of worship rather than membership in an official church.
Popular Edicts every place has a life of its own, find your strength in the stone
Popular Anathema stay still and grow stagnant, waste a thoughtful gift

Talphi given names are often onomatopoeic and tend to be only one to two syllables. Names are often passed along to biological descendants regardless of sex, as the Talphirian language lacks gendered pronouns. Talphi names include Bip, Drang, Elgr, Fonk, Iyar, Klikr, Mozz, Pergln, Swee, and Wurb.

6

Small

Burrow 15 feet

Dexterity, Charisma, Free

Wisdom

Additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if it's positive). Choose from the list of common languages and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent on your home world).

Your nose is hyperspecialized for tracking creatures in total darkness. You have scent as an imprecise sense with a range of 30 feet.