Tradewaddler

Tradewaddlers are plump, flightless, 4-foot birds much like penguins: black-feathered with white chests, and stubby wings that cannot fly but can clumsily grip. They waddle, and dress in clashing outfits loud enough to embarrass a void rover. On worlds where their looks unsettle people, they hide in hooded cloaks and pass as short folk.

They know Common and a native language yet mostly talk telepathically; bonded pairs called mergers stay linked and finish each other's sentences, to everyone else's fury.

Tradewaddlers are no warriors. Their battle doctrine is handing the hired help (often hippo-headed mercenaries) another 500 gold pieces and telling them to keep at it.

Since mercenaries are not always handy, the race trains Protectors. A Protector fits a weega, a sword blade, over its beak, turning a feeble peck into a thrust for 1d6 points of damage against small or man-sized targets and 1d8 against anything bigger. Only Protectors wear armor: bulky plate, no shield, so clumsy they always act last in a round. Some ride space swine, the race's winged pigs; the elite Squealstorm air cavalry flies in squads of four with weegas and light lances, proficient in land and aerial riding, blind-fighting and tumbling, and absurdly armored in the same plate (the swine, mercifully, go without).

All of them have fangs, evolved for tough alien plants, that bite for 1d2 as a last resort; for everyone but Protectors that is the only weapon.

Managers are 6th-level casters, equally likely to hold priest or wizard magic (never as specialists), and pilot the starhelms of merchant ships. Board members and Presidents cast likewise at a level equal to their Hit Dice, so a President casts at 9th. Hating pain, casters skip combat spells for defense, divination, persuasion, concealment and above all healing.

A group has a Merchant per four members, a Manager per 20, a member of the Executive Board per 40 and a Protector per five ordinary members. In 5% of encounters the whole group is Protectors, and if more than eight appear, they are all Squealstorm riders. A cartel is 10d10+80 adults and 10d4x10 young under a President whose word is final.

They prefer arctic or near-arctic shores of large waters. Mates pair for life in a telepathic merger with a 10-mile range, forged in a turn and broken in a round; if one dies, the other goes berserk, attacking everything in reach. Females lay 1d4 eggs, called new wares, each year.

Each has ESP at will, but every round of use demands a turn of rest without mental powers (five turns of mind-reading cost five hours), and two hours is the limit.

They revere any power of trade, profit and wealth regardless of race or alignment, among them a dwarven god of greed, goddesses of commerce from several worlds and a god of business and money, and they tithe generously, perhaps as cosmic investments in divine luck at the bargaining table.

Their chaotic neutral streak shows only toward outsiders; among themselves, sure the multiverse wants them broke, they are orderly and rarely cheat each other. Everyone else meets brash, relentless greed. A typical sale: two fanged penguins talking nonstop, finishing each other's sentences, reeling off goods and offering to buy whatever the customer is carrying.

Holds carry nearly any ordinary gear, even wagons and boats, plus magic, books, scrolls, potions, components and gnomish gadgets. Any given nonmagical item has an 80% chance of being aboard; magic follows their treasure type.

They eat fish, vegetables and plankton. Liquor cannot touch them; sugar can: one apple hits like strong beer, and a few spoonfuls of honey or maple syrup leave one blind drunk. A distant arctic homeworld teems with millions of them, all haggling, though nobody has bothered to look for it. Their great rivals, the void merchants, they call simply Our Competitors.