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| Bogan's Brown Nafen |  |
| The winged rodents known as nafen are found on planets throughout the galaxy, but Bogan's brown nafen, one of the largest and most unwholesome species (commonly called "butterbats" by the galactic media), are only found on planets that are primarily tropical.
Like all nafen, brown nafen primarily consume insects and other small, flying creatures, and gather their food while flying through the air. This behavior would cause many to consider the nafen to be beneficial creatures, but any benefits accorded by the nafen are countered by the risks that are created by a large population of the creatures.
While the nafen consume large numbers of insects, they also provide an extremely efficient method for the transmission of disease. The Hardan plague that resulted in the deaths of 98 percent of the inhabitants of Dagelin Minor was traced to a single shipment of brown nafen that were imported in an attempt to control an infestation of dhuru flies.
The venom and fangs of the nafen are primarily a defensive measure, meant to be irritating, not fatal. However, like many avians, nafen are extremely territorial, and the entire swarm will gather together to attack any creature that enters their breeding area. While the attack of an individual nafen is of little concern to most predators, the attack of an entire swarm - and the amount of venom delivered by the resulting bites - is often fatal.
Juvenile nafen are tailless, quadrupedal rodents that are rarely seen because they are extremely small (no more than two centimeters in length) nocturnal herbivores, who often feed by burrowing through the soil and eating roots and tubers.
At some time, a currently unknown trigger causes the juvenile nafen's rate of hair growth to increase substantially, and it burrows deeply into the ground. Its skin begins excreting an extremely sticky sebum, which, when combined with the thick, oily fur, produces a cocoon that soon envelopes the nafen. While in the cocoon, the nafen grows wings, and its fangs and glands develop, so that the creature that emerges from the cocoon and digs its way to the surface is a fully developed adult nafen, ready to take its place in the first swarm which it encounters. Nothing preys on the mature nafen, but many small predators feed on the non-flying juvenile nafen. Juveniles are also considered delicacies by many reptilian sentient species. While it is illegal to import any species of nafen into many systems (whether in the juvenile or adult forms) because of the number of diseases that they may carry, there are many other systems that encourage the importation of nafen because of the amount of insects that they can consume. | |
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Special Abilities: | ||
| Disease Transmission: | All characters who are bitten by a nafen must make a Moderate Strength roll to avoid becoming diseased. Diseased characters automatically become wounded at the time of the onset of the disease (6-15 hours following the time of the injury). Curing the disease is an Easy medicine task, requiring access to common pharmaceuticals. | |
| Venom: | Nafen produce a relatively weak venom, but they attack in large numbers, and the cumulative effect of large numbers of nafen bites can be deadly. Characters who are bitten by less than 10 nafen will not be harmed (with the exception of the slight stinging sensation that accompanies each bite). However, characters who are bitten by 10 or more nafen must make a Very Easy Strength roll to avoid being affected by the poison (this roll should be made following every tenth nafen bite). Characters who fail their Strength rolls become drowsy and suffer a -lD penalty (cumulative) on all actions. If the penalty being suffered by the character becomes greater than the character's Strength, then the character becomes incapacitated, and falls asleep. The effects of the nafen's poison can be cured by the successful application of a medpac, or by six to 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep. | |
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