Two weeks ago we revealed a brand new Starfinder core race, the reptilian vesk, leaving us with just one mystery race left. Now, at long last, we're revealing that final core race: the insectile shirrens!

Shirrens were once part of the Swarm, a monstrous, locust-like race that traveled from world to world, consuming all it encountered before moving on. Generations ago, however, a mysterious mutation caused an entire subcolony to break from the Swarm's hive mind, with each of its members gaining a sense of self. Addicted to the new drug of individualism, these renegades rejected the Swarm's mindless consumption, forming a new race called shirrens that eventually came to settle within the Pact World system.

Illustrations by Remko Troost

Shirrens are arthropods with chitinous exoskeletons, large compound eyes, and sensitive antennae that aid in their telepathy. Unlike many arthropodan races, they walk upright, manipulating items with three-clawed hands. In addition to their two sets of main limbs, they also have two sets of smaller limbs growing from their thoraxes. While often displayed, these “mating arms” are extremely weak and used only for ceremonial and reproductive purposes—to use them for mundane activities would be seen as grotesque and shameful.

Shirrens have three sexes: male, female, and host. During reproduction, female and male shirrens provide the initial eggs and sperm, and hosts incubate the fertilized eggs while also adding their own genetic material and immunities. Shirren young spend their first 2 years in a tiny, wormlike larval form, and are often carried around in protective containers to let them safely observe the world.

Shirrens define themselves by their individualism. When they left the Swarm, they assumed partial control over the neurological pleasure and pain systems by which they were formerly directed, and even generations later, making choices for themselves can literally flood them with pleasurable neurotransmitters. While this ability is not always beneficial—some shirrens deliberately drug themselves this way, becoming “option junkies” blissed out on sequences of trivial decisions—freedom of choice is crucial to shirren identity. At the same time, shirrens remain highly communal, and are valued as collaborators by other races due to their ability to foster teamwork and put the goals of the group first.

All 7 of the core Starfinder player races—humans, androids, kasathas, lashuntas, vesk, shirrens, and ysoki—are joined in the core rulebook by updated versions of Pathfinder's core races, and even more playable races will be following shortly behind in the Alien Archive. Now that the core rulebook is off to the printer, you're going to be seeing a steady stream of Starfinder-related preview blogs right up through the game's launch at Gen Con, so keep your transponders on and open to future transmissions!

James L. Sutter

Creative Director