No Longer Human-Lobsryk Race Pack
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No Longer Human-Lobsryk is the first mod of 2025 (happy new year, everyone) and the 4th installment of No Longer Human. This mod introduces the Lobsryk to the galactic rim. A race of horrifying spider-like brigands, the Lobsryk were created centuries ago to inhabit the most treacherous caveworlds ever known. These worlds were infamous for their erratic, barely functioning, and completely hostile ecosystems, where nearly every plant and animal was a bloodthirsty, aggressive killing machine. Inside the stone labyrinths of these worlds lived all manner of monsters, products of either terraforming gone awry, rampant mutation from external contact with gods-know-what, or simply Mother Nature's sadistic wrath. Not to mention the terrain: lakes of acid, jungles of poisonous fungi, crazed, destructive tectonic shifts-all of this and much, much more were features of most, if not all of the 28 worlds drafted for Lobsryk colonization. The Lobsryk were dropped into Hell. Their culture was forged within the most deadly environs found in the galaxy, and they thrived for quite a few centuries.
Then the slave ships showed up.
You see, the Lobsryk colonizations weren't exactly planned with the best intentions-a few members of the galactic elite took it upon themselves to tame the beastly, mutated frontier, simply to say they did. The Lobsryk were created, shipped off to these worlds, then quickly forgotten about once footage of the blossoming Lobsryk civilizations spread throughout the galaxy. Humanity created 28 effigies to hubris back in the Third Age of Exploration, and humanity's richest knocked them all down. We colonized places most would never dare to tread, staring Death himself in the face and knocking him upside the head with our hefty sacks full of biotech dollars. The end. Show's over, kids. Everyone forgot the Lobsryk even existed within a few weeks. After all, most in the galaxy had better things to worry about, like whether they'll be tortured to death by pirates tomorrow or if their son will survive a gnarly case of human scaria.
The coming centuries were filled with the usual bloody intra-galactic wars, government dissolutions, coups, and rampant upheavals. Naturally, lots of data was deleted in the process to leave no trace of the losers in these conflicts and to help usher in a new order-one that would probably fall apart in a few decades, like most galactic powers do, but I digress. Eventually, the elites that spearheaded the Lobsryk project were thrown out an airlock, their corporations were completely absorbed by rivals or annihilated, and their records were purged. The same could be said for every government and news publication that spoke of the Lobsryk's existence. In just a few hundred years, the Lobsryk and everything that ever surrounded the species and their existence was lost to time. When the Lobsryk were eventually rediscovered on "never-before-seen", particularly hostile caveworlds, the galaxy was abuzz-because sapient alien life was finally encountered.
It didn't take long to disappoint the entire galaxy. The Lobsryk were confirmed to be simply another species of modified human a few days after their rediscovery, and sadly not aliens as originally thought. Which means they're easy pickings for one of the galaxy's most profitable industries: slavery! The Lobsryk were defenseless against the rest of humanity: the most advanced Lobsryk civilization, the civilization that withstood the slavers' attacks the longest, was equivalent to the Sumerians in technological advancement. 40% of the entire species were taken-the rest were shot dead or forced into hiding.
The slave trade scattered the species across the cosmos. The few were worked or tortured to death, as is the fate of most slaves, but the many revolted. You can't keep a species that used to beat up bat-wyverns and insects the size of tanks with sticks and rocks in chains for very long, and quite a few of the galaxy's elite learned that the hard way. The descendants of these slaves now inhabit the fringes of known space, working mainly as pirates. After all, their only other option is to die in a mine somewhere.
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Solely made possible by my gratuitous autism, I bring to you good people the finest off-brand Mass Effect race you've ever seen. I really did a good job on this one, I dare say it almost looks original! Almost.
Jokes aside, really enjoyed making these guys. Rimworld didn't have a sci-fi spider people race. Of course, sci-fi spider people are not to be confused with fantasy Drow, which are MUCH less hot.
I figured I'd give the "space pirate" races a good send-off with the Lobsryk. Yep, I'm not adding any more pirates after this. The pirate gang faction now has the diversity and fearsomeness it should, especially when paired with other xenotype series mods. They now look like a proper gaggle of alien space pirates like the ones in Mass Effect or Star Wars, or the Ravagers in Guardians of the Galaxy. If I added any more races to the faction, I don't think baseliners would spawn in most mod setups, since every new race takes away from baseliner spawn chance. The next time I add "enemy" races, they'll most likely have their own faction and be much more fleshed out than NLH Race Pack races.
I also don't know what else I'd ADD for space pirates. I already did big mutant monsters (Grendels), Asari/Orions/Twi'leks (Kaekrices), Kig-Yar/Sangheili/Nikto (Challanids), and now Aqualish/Batarians (Lobsryk). Batarians being one of the most iconic space pirate races to ever be in a video game minus the weird Metroid crab people and the "new Covenant" groups from Halo (as well as the entire Jackal species). Batarians also being a race I actually liked and wanted more of rather than them just being chaotic evil orcs with 4 eyes. Hence why I made the Lobsryk.
Of course, if you want your Rimworld colonists to take the same approach Colonist Shepard did...well, Rimatomics is right there. Also if you lack any nerve gas to fill your chambers with, bug spray might work. Remember, people. 300 thousand is rookie numbers. Do better this time.
And before you go into the comments:
-The name generator is not broken. I wanted the names to sound really harsh and gurgly, like old 50's sci-fi baddie "evil alien" names. Lzaarr, Zargax, Kvtgrk, etc.
-They can speak, even with spider fangs. We talk by vibrating our vocal chords. The Lobsryk talk by vibrating their chelicerae. This does give them a noticeable "accent", if you can call it that...
-The four-eyed head now has a graphic in the gene editor. What the screenshot shows is a bug caused by a typo in the code that got fixed last-minute.
-Lobsryk also comes from butchered old languages, particularly Old English and Old Gothic. Lob-Old English for "spider". Reik-Old Gothic for "king". Why did I spell "Reik" with a "Y"? Well, my friend, it's because I'm a filthy American idiot who's probably going to name his son Jhaxxxtynneigh if he ever has one, simply to spite him for being born. In theory, and nothing else, Lobsryk means "king of spiders".
Even if I'm not adding races to the pirate gang, there's still much more to come, including in the enemy department. If another famous video game pirate alien is on your mind, don't ask for it in the comments. It's coming. Just not in the pirate gang, since the social structure of that race is much more sophisticated and frankly more creative than a simple band of outlaws (a trope done to death in sci-fi at this point). And...their social structure is really all they have left of their civilization, sadly.
L H P X O W G.
the late emperor knew his stuff
damn shame he kept bad company
