Happy Tuesday! I’m back on Star Trek Adventures again this week for Tabletop Tuesday, with the third of a quartet of species I fleshed out for my group playing their way through the Shackleton Expanse campaign put out by Modiphius. Two weeks ago I introduced the Nyberrite Alliance with the Nyberrites themselves, then last week I added the Balduk, and now the third of the original founders of the Nyberrite Alliance: the R’Ongovians—who are the first of these species who’ve had actual screen time (in this case, on Strange New Worlds).

R’Ongovians

TOS ERA ONWARDS

The R’ongovians are a spacefaring humanoid species native to R’ongovia in the Beta Quadrant. Their striped grey-blue and grey-white skin is distinctive, as are their brighter blue/yellow irises, pointed ears, and visibly sharp teeth. The R’ongovian Protectorate controlled a small but highly strategic region of space between the Romulan Star Empire and the Klingon Empire in the 23rd century—territory that would end up creating a “path” for the Federation to reach further into the Beta Quadrant, thanks to an alliance between their people and the Federation.

R’ongovians believe in a radical empathy: they interact with others by listening and mirroring the larger species cultural traits—with a Vulcan, becoming logical, with a Tellarite becoming argumentative—but they greatly value those willing to do the same: to understand the R’ongovian frame of mind. Seeing the universe through the eyes of others is a central cultural tenet of their people, and has aided them greatly in avoiding conflicts with even the most volatile of species.

The R’ongovians are a part of the Nyberrite Alliance (creating the initial organization alongside the Balduk and the Nyberrites; which has since been joined by other independent worlds in Beta Quadrant space such as the Halee), and while as a whole the Nyberrite Alliance are not quite as technologically advanced as the Federation, each of the species work together and their overall collective technological capabilities are about on par with the Cardassian Empire or the Ferengi. In the Nyberrite Alliance, the R’ongovians provide much of its communication, cultural, and diplomatic strengths. Multiple Nyberrite Alliance facilities exist within the original R’ongovian territories itself, and the R’ongovian subspace communications network continues to be the main communications network of the Nyberrite Alliance and many independent worlds in the Beta Quadrant. 

The Nyberrite Alliance’s neutrality comes in part from the Balduk having mutual respect from the Klingons, the R’ongovians having ongoing diplomatic relationship with the Federation, and the Nyberrites themselves having a trade relationship with the Romulans. None of the involved governments want to risk the access and relationships they have by upsetting any of the others. 

EXAMPLE VALUE: Our greatest duty lies in understanding those around us.

ATTRIBUTES: +1 Fitness, +1 Insight, +1 PresenceTRAIT: R’Ongovian. R’Ongovian eyesight is well adapted to darker environments than many humanoids, and their natural dermal striations can aid them in camouflage in darker or dimly-lit environments. As a species, R’Ongovians tend to have an elegant and thorough appreciation of sociology and psychology—and their language often contains very specific terms for the ease of understanding mental or emotional states; where a human might say “sad” a R’Ongovian would have multiple words for different kinds of sadness, each denoting a cause or the severity of the impact on the individual.TALENTS: The character receives access to the following talent: RADICAL EMPATHY

REQUIREMENT: R’Ongovian, or gamemaster’s permission.

While not a telepathic or empathic ability in the psionic sense, the keen R’Ongovian intuitive perception of another individual’s psychological and emotional state should not be underestimated. When interacting with another species, a character with this Talent gains one Bonus Momentum on any attempted Insight or Presence Task, whether successful or not. This Bonus Momentum may only be spent to Obtain Information about the emotional, psychological, cultural, or mental state of those being interacted with. 

NAMES

Like a great many species, the R’Ongovians have personal names and familial names, with a lineage denoted by a simple prefixed syllable denoting a paternal (L’), maternal (K’), or mixed (R’) line. Their species name is a reference to their origin myth, an being created by the universe in order to itself learn about the universe—Ongovia—denoting them all as children of that single line: R’Ongovia, or R’Ongovian.

Male Names: Brax, Dossex, VassoFemale Names: Rano, Thona, ElethaNongendered Names: Mir, Mek, Pleno Surnames: K’Nella, L’Gaelia, R’PerroExample names: Rano K’Nella, Rano L’Mir, Plano R’Brax

USING THE SPECIES

Only seen once in Strange New Worlds (at least thus far), the R’Ongovians were placed as holding a particularly important area of space we’ve seen quite often on star charts: the corridor between Romulan and Klingon space that connects (or once connected, depending on the map) main Federation Alpha/Beta Quadrant territory and the more isolated, smaller Beta Quadrant territory space. 

In the episode, we saw the R’Ongovians agree to an agreement with the Federation, ultimately granting them access to their territory, but since future maps didn’t really show the R’Ongovian territory as Federation territory, I decided that they took Pike’s words to heart and eventually joined the Nyberrite Alliance: a far more neutral approach to keeping what could otherwise be two aggressive anti-Federation polities from shoving at their borders. 

The R’Ongovian hallmark is their radical empathy—as a people they attempt to shift their view to understand those they’re dealing with, and greatly respect those who do the same. R’Ongovians, then, become a great way to shine a light on individual, organizational, political, or narrative qualities that perhaps the players haven’t been examining too closely. 

For my own Shackleton Expanse campaign, the R’Ongovians allowed me to flesh out the Nyberrite Alliance, as well as underline just how tenuous the connection was between that cut-off area of Federation Territory in the Beta Quadrant and the rest of the Federation at large, especially during the Klingon-Federation war of 2372-2373, when access through Klingon space was simply impossible.