Atuuk

Atuuks are a friendly race of small sapient rodents commonly found in heavily forested worlds.

Atuuks are labeled as space faring but have not develop ftl technology on their own. they, instead, prefer to mooch on other races to travel to and from their home-worlds.

Like the rodents of earth they have a high reproductive rate and are known for their communities to grow quickly requiring them to find new planets.

They have an detailed oral history reaching back hundreds of generations. They have developed a complex social order. Each individual must accept their preordained status within the community, or must face possible exile from their family.

Much like their Teekan brothers, the Atuuks enjoy hunting in the jungles of their home-worlds. Their preferred prey is the striped Caguar, a huge sabre-cat armed with razor-sharp claws. Hunting this enormous beast is extremely dangerous. Atuuks usually hunt Caguars in teams of 30-40 as their small stature can turn on them. All hunters traditionally arm themselves with primitive stone-tipped spears to show reverence to to their ancestors.

The Atuuks despite their backwards society, were a space-faring race during the ancient times. Their society was relatively the same back then only more technologically inclined. When the Shakturi first arrived in the galaxy. they sent out spies to test this new galaxy's capability to defend themselves against them. They and their first conscripts, the Gizureans, decided their first attack would be on the Atuuks. They devised a virus that would attack an Atuuk's bone structure a distort it severely until death. with this new virus, the Shakturi and its newly formed insectoid alliance rolled through their first real opponent with less resistance than expected. the surviving Atuuks fled their worlds to escape the plague and their makers. many were shunned by the other races by fear of the plague jumping species. towards the end of the war the Atuuks were close to extinction and were scattered on many planets. Some how, despite being the first species to be attack, they manage to survive well into the age of shadows. Whether or not they survived this era this next invasion by the Shakturi would be more thorough in the extermination of the Atuukian race.