Kobolds

Yengesae – Kobolds to the Compact – had six legs and they didn’t stand erect like most species.

They begun us neo-Luddite movement that had grown as a counter-culture reaction to what they saw as technology run rampant on their homeworld. With the aid of the necessary sins of an experimental FTL drive, they began their emigration, traveling far and wide and eventually settling on a nice, pleasantly toxic new homeworld. After some setbacks there was a schism between the technophobic purists and the technophilic reformists. The Reformists won and their obsession with everything they'd lost became reverence. Technological development was given a spiritual significance. When the Compact arrived to welcome the Yengesae into their nation, they were seen as quasi-divine beings. This outlook has cooled somewhat, but the Kobolds still see the Compact's older, more advanced races as a higher class of being and believe that with effort and time, they too will become just as enlightened and wise.

Like the species they had originally split off from, the Yengesae lived underground in warrens miles deep, the low-oxygen air filled with poisonous gases and their water brimming with heavy metals and other toxins. They were peerless when it came to subsurface construction and mining cartels often employed large numbers of Kobolds, but few people ever saw true faces the Yengesae. To facilitate communication and foster good relations with their fellows in the Compact, Yengesae ‘emissaries’ underwent extreme body modification and cosmetic surgery, often to the point that they could no longer survive in their native habitats. It was a custom that they shared with their cousins, the Askanj-saeaen (or Askanj-saean, Proximal Flame used both names), though both sides would sooner eat broken glass than admit that they had anything in common.