No Longer Human-Vodyan Race Pack
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No Longer Human-Vodyans is the fifth installment of No Longer Human: an expansive, ambitious mod series dedicated to making rimworlds much more biologically diverse, filling them with creatures that have been altered so extremely that whatever resemblance they have to the baseline human form is superficial at best.
This mod introduces the Vodyans to the galactic rim: once feral, swamp-dwelling creatures that lived on a world that was effectively an artificial alien zoo, the Vodyans gained sapience and quickly conquered their horrifying homeworld thanks to a few lucky mutations that raised their intelligence to a level far beyond most baseliners. Footage from their live-streamed, perpetually surveilled homeworld of Navia IX regularly swept most every galactic power as every step this species took on the journey from animal to sapient was documented, shown, and preserved. Trillions of galactic citizens watched in real time as Navia IX slowly but surely became Volozh, the now-officially recognized homeworld of a sapient species.
The uplifting process was slow, hectic, and discordant. The heads of the Outlander-Rustican Combine, the government whose jurisdiction included the Navia system, unanimously agreed to develop Volozh and take in the Vodyans as free and equal citizens. The media conglomerate that ran the Navia IX docuseries wasn't too happy about this decision, and made a point to constantly trap the Combine in hundreds of legal battles so they could keep the money coming in, especially considering their show was getting more and more famous every second. This wasn't just a documentary about a weird-looking artificial ecosystem anymore. It was now, "hey, let's watch the forming of civilization on Fridays at 5". Things came to a head when the media company sent down mercenary strike teams to kidnap entire Vodyan tribes and sell them as exotic pets for an extreme price.
The Outlanders considered this to be selling their citizens into slavery-a deplorable act of war. All artificial satellites around Volozh were shot down, and multiple corporate starliners were seized. Rank-and-file crewmen were simply thrown out the airlock, and corporate higher-ups had their faces branded and spinal cords severed at the neck. Then they were put in cryptosleep and sent to the media conglomerate's headquarters as a "peace offering". The Combine quickly followed through with their plans for Volozh and the Vodyans themselves after that little bit of turbulence, and they made a point to spread them throughout Outlander space, realized and potential. Many far-off Outlander colonies in the outer rim have significant Vodyan populations, and it was the Outlanders who first discovered how...unlike the rest of the galaxy the Vodyans really are.
The Vodyan genetic makeup is mostly amphibian and reptile-although traits from baseliners are present, they are ultimately surface-level. Frankly, the only thing human and Vodyan share is a similar body plan. The creatures are cold, cruel, and bereft of morality or most emotion. Simply meeting a Vodyan will tell you exactly the kind of horror the race stemmed from, and their undoubtedly alien minds have led many among them to become extremely successful when they were uplifted to the galactic stage. You need to devise new nano-machines that eat people from the inside out? Is your underworld clinic under-staffed? Did your lead scientist quit as soon as she heard the words "human experimentation?" Get a Vodyan.
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Hi, it's me, the guy who still hasn't finished Warhives yet. Thankfully, all the real-life stuff should be out of the way and dealt with now, and I can get back to click-clacking on my keyboard all day and night. The much, much smaller thing I alluded to back when I released the Warhives beta is also done now. This was the thing. It took me all month. Turns out when you don't have a lot of free time, you don't want to spend it modding....sorry about that.
Anyway, I've been playing Rimworld with a LOT of mods for...most of the time I've been playing Rimworld. And one thing that really annoyed me is that there wasn't a reliable xenotype for the Medical skill, so when I really needed a good doctor I had to look at every raider on the screen to see which one I wanted to capture, if someone skilled in Medical spawned at all. So I simply made that xenotype-one that was rooted in sci-fi. It's a bit of Salarian, a bit of Mirelurk King, and a whole lot of classic "mad scientist" villains and Cold War paranoia. The name comes from the vodyanoy, or the vodnik for the western Slavic countries. The vodyanoy's a sort of water demon that looks like a frog-man-thing, and it's the monster that inspired quite a few of the fodder enemies in the Witcher games.
So, ending off, it's a crazy Russian frog scientist that looks like a Fallout mutant. It's perfect!
