Tor' Mel

Once a mountainous world of white-capped beauty orbited by three moons, the planet’s surface of elaborate valley cities became uninhabitable due to the emergence of long-dormant, worm-like parasites — released from below by relentless resource mining — whose toxicity quickly killed off much of the stalwart, humanoid Tor race.

The Tor who survived used their penchant for building to erect floating cities, utilizing the natural “gravity wells” on the planet, as sanctuaries above the reach of the parasite legions. But in the decades it took the Tor to salvage their world, the dwindling race was no longer the dominant species on the planet.

An ambitious and aggressive avian race, the Rav, seized the opportunity to elevate their status. With their genetic immunity to the parasites and an army of winged warriors, the Rav seized control of the floating cities and enslaved the Tor, forcing them to become servants to the avian invaders in the very grand palaces they had built.  

But while the Rav revel as the newfound ruling class, the Tor are quietly plotting revolution to retake what they believe is rightfully theirs. 



Drasilig: Worm-like parasites with writhing yellow bodies that emerged from the core of Tor' Mel. They communicate telepathically, siphon energy from all available nearby sources, and possess biochemicals, impossible to synthesize, that are capable of neutralizing an atmospheric neural network (see Zyzyxs). They can sense almost any form of energy, electrical or chemical, and feed from it.

At some point in the past, the Tor's mining operations uncovered the drasilig, trillions of parasitic worms that soon began to cover the entirety of their world. The Tor sought help from their friends, the Yrz of Zyzyxs, who responded by sending instructions to develop anti-gravity generators capable of lifting entire cities into the air. The plan was originally a stop-gap measure to save the Tor until a better solution to the problem could be reached. However, the subsequent Great Fracture cut off all communication between worlds.

In the 300,000 years between the Great Fracture and Malcolm Orion’s journey through the rediscovered Discovery Lander that christened The Second Cycle, the Tor began to adapt to their new lives of living in the air. However, evolutionary trends saw the rise of a far weaker planetary race, the Rav, more avian than the humanoid Tor and better adapted to life in the air. A brutal war of supremacy began in the centuries just before the Second Cycle. By the time Tor 'Mel was contacted again as part of the Reconvergence, the planetary balance of power had shifted toward the Rav, who asserted their right of dominance on the planet and insisted on being the planetary representatives to the Merge.

For over a millennia, the other planets of the Merge accepted this reality. But the Tor made their plight known, and travelers through the Mass-O network managed to expose the brutal realities of the Rav regime, sparking outcry among the Merge representatives. Various Merge councils have worked hard to play down the disturbances on Tor' Mel and its cultural problems, but as more Tor refugees have escaped to Helios Nexus through the Mass-O, galactic sentiment toward their plight has only grown, and other races have traveled to Tor' Mel to serve as mercenaries and freedom fighters. Generally, the Rav have managed to put down such disturbances, and they’ve responded by lodging formal protests with the Merge, accusing them of allowing the Tor dissidents to have too much sway.

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The Rav are vulture-like creatures with alien features. The Tor are a subjugated humanoid/avian hybrid slave race. Those who are slaves under the Rav have had their wings torn off. The few hundreds, possibly thousands, who are not slaves — the rebels — have been hiding closer to the planet’s surface in the trees and still have their wings and the ability to fly.