Jazekii

The Jazekii are a burly, ancient race, inducted into the Collective early in its lifetime.

Appearance
The Jazekii are around eight feet tall and massively built. Two arms, two legs and a lot of muscle. Additionally, their fingers and toes are clawed. Their skin is smooth and hairless, though they still sport some hair on their heads, as well as small horns. Their faces are flat, with a stout nose and large jowls.

Biology
The Jazekii evolved to be optimally suited to their homeworld of Karazn, where the gravity is comparably high for other Collective races. Karazn used to be slightly cooler in the past, hence the Jazekii's hair, but they lost their body hair as the star grew hotter and brighter. Their head hair became a good way to indicate health, so selective breeding helped them keep it. Their horns are thought to be an evolutionary deformity in the skull, as they are vestigial, but like their head hair, became a point of attraction and they were kept. The claws on their toes and fingers, however, serve a purpose. Karazn is a hot world, mostly rocky desert but dotted with large swaths of oases. The claws are digging tools, used for digging underground shelter when no oases are nearby. Their legs were evolved for support, instead of speed, as said support was needed on a high-gravity world.

History
The Jazekii have a long history, most of it sullied by war. The Jazekii first gained the hallmarks of intelligence hundreds of thousands of years ago, when Karazn was a milder, wetter world. A slow evolution led to a slow burn of intelligent thinking, and Jazekii clans skirmished often over the dwindling resources of the planet.

When the Jazekii entered the stone age, things calmed for a while as the clans focused more on infrastructure than they did resource-gathering. As the planet heated and the livable areas shrunk, the Jazekii became more desperate. They developed a sense of spirituality, and prayed for salvation from their gods of the seasons.

Their faith brought them to a new era of living. Monks wandered the deserts, in search of answers. Builders constructed massive walls around their territories. Scientists attempted to increase the area of their arable land, to some success. Either way, the Jazekii began to grow, and form increasingly complex social structures.

As their kingdoms prospered in the oases, they began to look outward, at their neighboring kingdoms, the size of their land, what gods they prayed to, and to the resources they had. Soon, Karazn was rife with bloody, inter-kingdom wars. Many Jazekii were slain over the course of thousands of years, as their technology slowly grew better and warfare became more and more violent.

Eventually, after much bloodshed, the Jazekii's wars began to decline in violence, as the respective sides grew tired of sacrificing the lives of their people to endless war. There was an extensive period of cold war as competition between kingdoms resulted in a increase in technological prowess, and spirituality declined.

The Jazekii became harder, more brazen, in this postwar period, raising the values of family and clan to higher and higher heights. Great palaces were build to house entire clans. Eventually, hostilities began to decrease, and peace talks began between nations. A trade network began to form between kingdoms.

As the trade networks began to provide wealth for all kingdoms, the Jazekii realized the power of the network, and began forming other networks; of knowledge, of technology, and of clan. It was at this point in time that the Collective discovered the Jazekii and contacted them.

Unable to resist the wealth of resources, knowledge, and comfort of the alien alliance, the Jazekii accepted the Collective's offer and abandoned their ancient feudal system in favor of the Collective's government. Their only request was to keep Karazn as it was, and rejected any offers of terraforming. Many Jazekii have migrated from Karazn, but it is still considered a highly sacred place to the clans.

Culture
Modern Jazekii culture is based around family, clans, and the networks of knowledge they have formed. They would argue that joining the Collective has increased the character of their culture from what it was pre-Collective.

The Jazekii clans still build their palaces on the outskirts of cities, and prefer desert-like worlds as it serves as a reminder of home. They are very mindful of their history, and as such many Jazekii are historians; not just of their own history, but the histories of all the species of the Collective.

There are some Jazekii who enjoy exploring the wilds of different planets, and will travel in expeditions into the wilderness, without returning for several days.