Eikiphir

Eikiphir
Original conceptual artwork
Species Origin	Amphibianoid
Rarity	Least Concern
Alignment	Neutral Good
Vulnerable To	Cold environs
First Appearance	Battle Royale
Latest Appearance	Kid Spuid
UFCL

Eikiphirs are a species of minuscule sapient amphibianoids indigenous to an unspecified homeworld. In comparison to most other spacefaring races in the Kyklos Galaxy, they are physically weak and small, which many others find charming, especially due to a wiggling waddle when they walk; however, wanting to still possess a foothold in both galactic space as well as the overall galactic community, they utilize powerful machinery which they have built.

Background History

Eikiphirs were the focus of consumption my many of their ecosystem's predators due to their tiny size and overall inability to defend themselves against claws, teeth and barbed tongues. At first their species evolved into r-strategists, but much later on they began to develop more potent brains to better escape their predators as well as aid in their capture of their own prey.

Eventually they hit sapience, and entered a tribal stage. Customary masks were created both for social behavior as well as an attempt to frighten away some predators. Fans were invented though they were little more than leaves, which every Eikiphir used to fan themselves during their planet's warm summer months, partially in an attempt to keep from desiccating in the heat (though they did not yet understand that they were causing evaporation anyway through this method). It was during these years that the Eikiphir first began to try to really outsmart their myriad of predators, although it would be several thousand years before they had developed tools enough to permanently thwart one of their stupider predators, leading directly to its extinction. Shocked but unanimously pleased with this outcome, they spent years laying traps for their own foes to try and lead to the extinction of other races, although few were unable to eat enough Eikiphirs to die out completely. However, these ideas led straight towards the Eikiphir inventing civilization.

Civilization led to a sudden increase in capabilities, and within only several hundred years, they were able to begin to successfully cause the extinction of increasingly larger numbers of predators in large part to further protect themselves. This however was upsetting the entire balance of their ecosystems and other creatures began to overpopulate, which in turn began leading to waves of famine. This was eventually realized, and a new occupation was born - that of the wetectors, a sort of "extinction police force". Their mission was simple: To protect the world from devastation by enforcing laws against poaching and outright species genocide. Over only a couple of centuries, faunal populations began to steady, and with the realization that balance was an important aspect of life, the wetectors were able to successfully unite all peoples within their nation in only a few short decades. This effected their overall culture, and the species as a whole had developed into an ecological one before they reached space.

Now an interstellar society, the Eikiphir have all but done away with their weaknesses as a race utilizing powerful machinery. Technicians for instance are equipped with a harness possessing a pair of robotic arms that they can use to build and tweak technology to their liking; these mechanical limbs are controlled by special helmets and provide a significantly longer reach than their natural stubby arms could ever hope to achieve. Another example, the Operators, are a powerful attack force that are instead equipped with a heavy weapons harness for battle, using their mechanical arms to carry weapons the could not normally hold; extra legs have also been attached to the harness in order to keep them steady during active fire.

Common members of the UFCL, they pilot large capital ships known as Arcolonies, which properly recreate their home environs within the vessels, including the entire ecosystem - they choose to clone animals from their homeworld as opposed to directly remove specimens due to the number of ships they have out in the traverses of space and the significant impact taking even just one of every species from the biomes into each vessel would have on the environment as a whole. Another reason is because the Eikiphir have grown to have a common societal concern about a creature from their homeworld being killed off by their own means leading to, thousands of years down the line, a vast number of potential individuals of that species who would not have survived - therefore, cloning procedures were conceived as an easy way to bypass this concern and keep all citizens happy with the outcome. The large cargo bays - essentially the entire first level of the ship - is built to be able to be partitioned by heavy mobile bulkheads and then filled with proper atmosphere to allow for alien cargo. The Eikiphirs flagships also are bristling with fighters, tiny 1-eikiphir vessels that are almost impossible to hit by conventional weaponry as they are no bigger than the length of a man while the smallest most fighters get are around the 15-20ft range. Despite their small size, the fighters are equipped with typical weaponry, and therefore possess roughly equivalent to what many other fighters possess.

Appearances

Battle Royale

Eikiphirs make their first appearance in a Lunatic Entertainment game in Battle Royale. However, as no named Eikiphir have ever been named, they only appear as a sort of background cameo, occasionally seen roaming around wetland areas or in the orbiting space station. However, Lunatic Entertainment has officially declared that the moment a named Eikiphir character emerges, they will patch the game to include them in its massive roster.

Amalgam Online

Eikiphirs appear in this epic 2D MMORPG as a playable race. Their small size makes them physically weak and they can only naturally wear equipment that is "Minuscule" in size and use items that are minuscule or lower size without taking it to a 3Drox Copier first.

Eikiphiri missions primarily focus on keeping an eye on and cataloging non-sapient races, providing care for sick creatures, hunting down poachers, fighting off the Chaos Legions, et cetera.

Immortal Greed series

The Eikiphirs are one of the fifty playable races in the Immortal Greed series.

In the first game, they are members of the United Federation of Celestial Lifeforms who have arrived in the stellar cluster to mine covetanium and help extract the Precursor technology found within before the area is destroyed by the formation of a black hole. Initially they are closely bonded with the other ten UFCL races who have arrived on the scene: the Voiasenso, the Commati, the Hushians, the Klenxixian and their parasitic Xixixian, the Terrans, the Tauntars, Kyisziqan, the Yothrak, and the Zolacian. However, like the rest of the races in the game, they splinter off into an alternate faction in Immortal Greed 2: Unrest, joining the Commati's resistance force. Finally they become a freelance race in Immortal Greed 3: Chaos as the various races become desperate.

In-game as well as in all media featuring them, they are minuscule amphibianoids. They are easily the smallest playable race in the game (standing at a mere 2½ feet tall), yet this comes at the cost of physical frailty; they can only survive one to two direct attacks before perishing. To compensate for this they utilize energy shields that can take a small amount of extra damage before temporarily short-circuiting. They are relatively quick on foot and are even more so in water, and their weapons do a surprising level of damage, mainly consisting of sustained lasers. As amphibians, they have a special bar that will slowly diminish, and once it reaches zero they will begin to take damage. To avoid this they must step foot into water at least once every 12 hours—time spent logged off will not count towards diminishing this bar (as that would be a cruel game tactic).

They have a secondary targeting reticle that will keep an effective eye on the enemy character who has killed the most amount of creatures in the local zone, which Eikiphirs abhor. They deal 150% damage to this character. Because of their hatred of creature killing, killing "animals" in PVE combat will provide negative faction points towards their own group, the Wetector Initiative, though it will not affect their faction status with other members of their group in any manner not congruent to normal progression. To compensate for this, their small size allows them to have a significantly smaller agro radius around aggressive creatures, and they can use tranquilizers to knock a creature unconscious temporarily.

Monster Space

The Eikiphirs again appear in Monster Space. Here they serve as NPCs, having their own small base in the deep wetlands and providing player characters with quests that fit in with their personalities. They serve the Voiasenso in trying to cease the catastrophe from growing any worse and by trying to close the interrealm portals for good.

Dangerous Wilds

While the Eikiphir appear in the sequel to Monster Space, their role has changed somewhat. It is revealed that they failed to close the portals until it was too late, inadvertently leading to the collapse of Earth's society. They continue to seek to stabilize the environment but now must use guerrilla tactics. Their old base of operations can be located, but has become a derelict as they were driven out by various swamp monsters. Now they are spread out more, yet are in thinner clusters, making their jobs a significantly uphill battle. One member of the species, if spoken to, will indicate that he believes they have no chance to win this war and that they are only slowing down the inevitable.

Urth

By the time of Urth, the sequel to Dangerous Wilds, the Eikiphir on Earth (now known as "Urth") have been entirely wiped out when most of the land grew arid and much of the lower lands were swallowed up by shallow seas. However, there is an optional mission that will take the player into a deep cavern, where they will discover descendants of the Eikiphiri people, known as Dire Wetectors. These beasts are no longer intelligent, and have become large and aggressive.

Lore found during this quest line indicate that the Eikiphirs, realizing they were defeated and slowly dying out as the world was flung into an Armageddon scenario, chose to flee into the caverns of the world. However, still seeking to halt the problems the world faced, they used Eugenics to alter their own DNA and transform themselves into great monsters to more easily combat the large swathes of monsters they would need to face. They eventually discovered that they still could not stop the monsters and would come to accept the planet's fate, diminishing to a life of mere survival. As the millennia went on, they lost their need for intellect and became "mere animals" in the process.

Long Story

During the events of Long Story, the party are asked to seek out the Wetectors by the Lar'cie, a group of flying amphibians in the nation of Myrebog that the group are currently aiding against the warring factions of King Nodh of the Amphorians and Emperor Ghaag of the Lorc. These turn out to be the Eikiphirs, who note that they have been at war with the Amphorians before, and readily join forces with the small resistance force. However, the lead Eikiphir soon discovers that the party have slain many non-sapient creatures in their journey and reveals that he does not like working with them. While he and his people openly aid the Lar'cie, they will ignore you. Ultimately this leads to a situation as they will not heed your warnings about a growing problem elsewhere. Because of this, the party must make penance for the creatures they have slain along the way to regain the Eikiphir's trust. Once this is done, they listen and are able to lend a hand in the defeat of the local vampires. After this quest line finishes, they are not seen again, choosing to stick to the wetland to protect it.

Kid Spuid

The Eikiphirs are set to return in the more child-friendly adventure game, Kid Spuid. As the game is still in development however, the nature of this inclusion has not been revealed.