Nicassar

A drawfag's version of a Nicassar.

The Nicassar are an alien race from the Warhammer 40k setting. They are an ally slave valued client race of the Tau Empire and were the first outside race to join it. They only appear in the game Battlefleet Gothic, specifically their Dhow spacecraft.

Dhows are small yet elegant yachts propelled by the Nicassar themselves; they have psychic powers, mostly telekinesis. The Tau, aware of the Imperium's phobia toward psykers, and especially alien psykers, have carefully hidden the existence of the Nicassar from the humans. Their ships have no interstellar capacity, and are reliant on the Tau for this. Alternatively, they will travel slowly for centuries while in hibernation. Often for longer journeys a number of Dhows will join together to form a larger community, with the crew alternating between hibernation cycles. The race lives and dies in space, and has adapted to thrive in this environment at the cost of being less capable on the surface of planets. This makes them less than optimal soldiers in ground-based operations, so they serve the Greater Good by providing auxiliary ships to Tau fleets, primarily for scouting and exploring.

The Nicassar are driven by an insatiable curiosity to explore and travel; they are semi-nomadic and most content only when traveling. They are very slow to act, but very wise. Much like Ents, the running gag is that the Nicassar are so slow to act that they were conquered before they even realised the Tau had turned up. Though models of their ships are available, no models or official artwork of the race has been produced, though Jervis Johnson described them as "sort of like very flat polar bears". Which is certainly different. Anon doesn't care if this is correct, because it's pretty fucking funny either way.

The Nicassar are a surprisingly stable Psyker species, having seemingly never been troubled with the issue of daemonic possession. Although they are aware of the denizens of the Warp, referring to them as predators and usually advising their Tau allies to steer clear of them, they seem to be adept at preventing the more negative influences of the Warp from gaining purchase on them. The Nicassar are also one of the more prestigious species within the Tau Empire, perhaps just beneath the Kroot themselves. They are represented among the Kindred Souls, a special representative office for members of the Empire who are not Tau.

Gallery

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  A fleet of Nicassar Dhow.

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  Note the butter.

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  Totally Mathematical!

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  Dhow Pilot. Note the chair.

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  Big, alien bears. These aren't very flat.

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  More floaty, dragon like space bears.

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  By Tiuku from the Advanced Tau Tactica Forums.