Str 4 Dex 6 Int 6 Will 6 Psy 6 Cha 2

CV 5, Initiative 12, HP 40, SV 8, MR 6, Pedhetl 6

Attributes: High Pedhetl 2, Resolute 1, Emotional Control 2

Defects: Ugly 3 (Hideous, horrible smell), Fragile 1, Xenophobe 2

Skills: Sword 1, Shield 1, Light XBow 1, Thrown Weapon 1, Polearm 1, Teamwork 1, Running 1

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The Shunned Ones in fact use real plastics made from actual mineral oil; their cities are built over ancient oil wells drilled millennia ago by their ancestors, and many of the structures inside are copies of ancient refineries and industrial plant kept working by an order of hereditary chemical engineers. These worthies also maintain the atmosphere of the Shunned Ones cities and prepare the gas tanks that enable them to survive away from their sealed environments. Their clothing is nylon and much of their equipment is Teflon and fibreglass.

The atmosphere of a Shunned One city is heavily tainted by chlorine as well as chlorofluorocarbons, and any non-Shunned One breathing it will have weeping eyes (-1 to any visual task), breathing problems (Fragile 2 defect and Stamina roll or additional -1 to all tasks) and a whanging headache and some disorientation (Indecisive 1, Will save every 5 minutes or lose 1 Int and 1 Dex). In Str x 5 minutes the character must make a Stamina roll or pass out completely, and will lose 1 Str per failed roll. When Str equals 0 the character is dead.

The Shunned Ones for their part find the atmosphere outside their domes nearly as unpleasant. When on a mission each Shunned One carries a plastic canister under his robes with a valve which puffs lovely cold chlorine into his face every 20 seconds or so, more frequently during combat, and it is this as much as anything else that creates the infamous nasty Shunned One smell. The canister will last a day, and on extended trips the Shunned Ones will carry spares. Deprived of this equipment the Shunned One will become disorientated and panicky (-1 Int, -1 Dex) unless they make a Will roll every ten minutes. After Strx10 minutes the lack of chlorine will really start getting to them and they will lose 1 Str over 10 minutes there after unless they make a Stamina roll, eventually falling into a coma and dying. 

Note: No one on Tekumel knows anything about this! On such occasions when Shunned Ones have been slain and their bodies searched the breathing gear has been classified as some bizarre necklace, and has usually been discarded. If this fact becomes known, cunning PCs might well be able to stab the bulges under the Shunned One robes with a Decisive Blow, be able to rip off the gear in close combat or just disconnect it in a sneak attack. Steal their supply of canisters from their camp and life will become very hard for them indeed, and you might even force the bastards to negotiate.

This reliance on oil and chemicals is what has made the Shunned One valley the desolate hellhole it is - centuries of pollution have made the ground unable to support much plant life and most of the animals there have cancer or respiratory illnesses. The pollution is slowly poisoning Lake Parunál and the human and Nyaggá populations dependent on it. The Shunned Ones themelves do not care. They grow all their food hydroponically in algae tanks, supplementing it with synthetic vitamins concocted from mineral oil.

Shunned Ones hate everyone else on Tekumel,  even the Ssü and Hlüss, regarding the whole motley crew as animals to be exploited and used. More than any other species they realise how far they have fallen from their old high tech state and blame each and every one of all the other species on Tekumel collectively and personally for the disaster. However, they can be spoken to. Use of Benignity, forcing them into a corner where they have no chance of escape before their chlorine runs out and use of the Amulet of Safety Amidst Putrefaction will force them to become more reasonable, and their magi will use Telepathy to open negotiations. They will offer bribes of gold and gems, but it will take a lot to force them to hand over any technological or magic devices and they would rather die than be taken captive or reveal their secrets. Shunned Ones sent out on a mission all have vitamin B pills, a deadly poison to their metabolism.

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The Shunned Ones have been in the Tekumel system since the Ssu were in short pants; they lived (and quite possibly still live) on one of the moons of Shichel, an unpleasant oily iceball much like a warmer version of the moon Titan. What plans they had for the Ssu are unknown, but even before the great disaster the Shunned Ones could use other-planar forces and perhaps hoped to enslave the psychically gifted Ssu population as one vast magic battery for some nefarious scheme. The humans beat them to it however, destroying the Ssu and taking over Tekumel before the Shunned One plan could come to fruition.

Even now they plot. They would very much like to reterraform Tekumel to their own specification and know that this is possible, if only they could penetrate the deep caves where the machinery (and possibly the pariah deity The Other One) still lurk. They only managed to reach their current enclave on Tekumel from their icy hideout some ten thousand years ago (quite long enough for the locals to say ‘they have always been there’, ignorant amnesiac barbarians that they are) using nexus points. They have set up advance bases to scavenge what high tech items remain and to search for the entry to the bowels of Tekumel. They do have a scheme to sterilise Tekumel of at least some of its inhabitants by releasing loads of organochlorides into the atmosphere and destroy the ozone layer, but it is taking a long time. Still the skin cancer rate among the Loruni and N’luss is increasing, and the mutation rate round Lake Parunal is soaring.

Ideally they want to find a nexus point that will connect to a planet they can call their own, but luck has not been with them and they have not been willing to come to  any compromise with the various deities and demons of this dimension.

The Shunned One population has been declining almost since the isolation of Tekumel. They always needed some food imports when living on their isolated moon, when these stopped they had to bring in a crash plan of food synthesis that never has fully worked. Dietary deficiencies have drastically reduced their fertility, and they need to cannibalise their dead comrades in recycling tanks to recover vital nutrients. The five sexes of the Shunned Ones are merely variants on the basic male and female. There are infertile males and females whose sex organs have never matured due to diet deficiency and outright neuters whose deficiency goes deeper still. Only members of the highest magico-technical castes get vitamin supplements as a matter of course and even then most of their offspring lack the intelligence to qualify as members of these castes. There is still a nexus point to the last city on the Shunned One's moon, though this city is now all but abandoned.