Kemlae

A sophont species native to Kemlos. They are the largest non-Human demographic within the Corellan League.

Description

A fully grown Kemlae resembles a purple worm 2.0-2.5 metres in length and 40-50 centimetres in diameter. It has twelve tentacle appendages, six surrounding the "head" and six surrounding the "tail". A large circular mouth lined with plate-like "teeth" is surrounded by a ring of six eyes on short stalks interspersed with six "noses", which support respiratory, olfactory, auditory, and speech functions.

Kemlae locomotion usually involves a fast crawl supported by three or more tail tentacles, with two or more forward tentacles providing fine guidance. The remaining tentacles, on both ends, carry items or interact with the environment.

Kemlae vision is heavily skewed toward the infrared, with color vision being able to discern 0.5 to 12 micrometer wavelengths of light. Kemlae clothing serves a ceremonial purpose, with the long torso covered in tight bands of linens and leathers denoting rank, age, and life history. Unfortunately, to Human eyes, many of these colorful bands look black or brown.

Lifecycle

The Kemlae species has a complex lifecycle of serial metamorphosis, the Keeltiru.

• A Kemlae grub, known as a Kuru, emerges from an egg and spends nearly two standard years as an unintelligent caterpillar-like creature, subsisting on rotting vegetation.
• The Kemlae stage is in fact a pupa. Initially it has about the intelligence of a Human or Vargr infant, but matures physically and mentally, within six years reaching two metres in length and gaining enough intelligence and experience to pass a series of trials and rituals to become admitted into Kemlae society.
• Before the age of fifty standard years, and subject to diet and other variables, the urge to transform out of the pupa stage becomes too great. The Kemlae spends 2-3 standard weeks in a chrysalis -- a Kuftu.
• The final reproductive form, a Kessa, is a flying unintelligent hermaphrodite. Unable to eat, the Kessa breed, lay eggs, and die within a week..

Society

Resistant to change in their long-established social order, the Kemlae are meritocratic and opposed to any form of cultural imperialism, though on the level of the individual they expect conformity to cultural norms.

History & Background (Dossier)

Kemlae civilization persisted at an advanced agrarian level for hundreds of thousands of years. In the past 5000 years civilization advanced due to population pressures, driving the race into an industrial age. When contacted by Corellan explorers in -1531, the Kemlae numbered in the billions and had begun early exploration of space.

Since contact with Corella, the Kemlae have been enthusiastic members of the Corellan League and open to interactions with other races and cultures, though few of them actually travel off planet. Society has remained mostly static since contact, with medical treatments to control the urge to begin Kuftu being one of the few technological changes widely adopted.

Astrography

This race is primarily located in the following areas:

• Beyond Sector
  • Corella Subsector

Homeworld

The homeworld of this race is:

• Kemlos

References

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Geir Lanesskog. The Spinward Extents (Mongoose Publishing, 2022), .