The Girug'kagh are a Minor Non-Human Race with a humanoid appearance that evolved on the planet Kagh'kir in the Ruupiin Sector, of the K’Kree Empire, the Two Thousand Worlds. The Girug'kagh originally called themselves the Savezitaisoh, and called their home world Saviztah, but their conquest by the K’Kree changed all that. The Girug'kagh are descended from omnivores which inhabited the coastal regions of Kagh'kir and developed intelligence due to climatic change and increased population growth. They fed off burrowing animals and sea creatures gathered from rock pools and, later, nets. Competition with amphibious and aquatic carnivores led to co-operation and to the rise of civilization.
They were a comfortable tech level 2, when the K’Kree arrived and descended on them like gods. The choice was changing their dietary ways and reject the consumption of meat or be destroyed. Unsurprisingly, the Girug'kagh bowed their knee to the K’Kree and have served them for the last four thousand years. In time they were rewarded with Subject Status which conferred upon them a limited amount of self-autonomy and home rule. They also gained the right to travel to other worlds and to be visited by K'kree ships and those of other subject races.
They are roughly humanoid, upright bipeds, homeothermic, standing 1.5 meters tall and 65 kg in weight. They are mostly hairless, with a faint scaling always visible. The hands have long, delicate fingers; the seven digits include three grasping fingers that are mutually opposable to all the other digits, and four shorter, stubbier, thumb-like members.
The K'kree-imposed government and social system is a loose caste system. Rules, services, and various other functions are litigated by a guild structure which, though not completely dependent upon birth, does tend to limit social mobility. One of their few links with the past and a point of great pride to the Savezitaisoh people is the practice of scale Dying, in which Girug'kagh dye their scales in various colors to indicate rank and status through patterns of different sorts. Physically, the race is undistinguished; mentally they seem subservient, easily cowed, and almost totally without spirit. Some have gone so far as to describe them as a slave race. The Girug'kagh have been instilled with an absolute conviction that they are second-class citizens, utterly inferior in all things to their K'kree overlords. Though they no longer regard their masters as gods, there is still an intense feeling of awe and reverence characterizing all of their attitudes towards the K'kree. Equally, the Girug'kagh feel a superiority over other non-K'kree races. They were the first race to attain full subject status, and consider themselves to be a sort of next step down in an interracial caste structure. The K'kree nobles, merchants, and servants come first, then the Girug'kagh, and then the rest of the universe.
The Girug'kagh are often found as translators and intermediaries among the K'kree, particularly those K'kree who must deal outside the Two Thousand Worlds. Less easily offended by the smell of meat-eating outsiders, and more capable of racial tolerance and enclosed spaces than their masters, they frequently are very useful at conducting negotiations and other functions requiring close contact between K'kree and outsiders.
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