Fra'al

Fra'al
Capital	Unknown
Official Languages	Fra'al Lexicon
Power	Minor Power
Size	Unknown
Head of State	Council of Satraps
Head of Government	Council of Satraps
Governmental Structure	Nomadic Decentralized Council
State Religion/Ideology	Mercantilism, Piracy
Demographic	Fra'al
Military Force	Fra'al Forces, Fra'al Fleets

"Of all the vices you Imp’ral possess, I find the one you call ‘greed’ most fascinating. That you would sell your secrets, betray your kin’blood, and even enslave your own race to us, and for what? Mere trinkets and toys — for the least of our crafts. Most amusing..."

– Master Vray, Fra'al Satrap (not willing he's still being cheated by humans, because none of that stuff matters to something as massive as the Imperium)

The Fra'al are an elusive and mysterious xenos species usually found on Segmentum Obscurus. Very little is known about them, though the Imperium of Man mostly knows them as both raiders and as merchants. The name generally refers to the stereotypical "grey alien" and appears as such in D20 Modern, although this need not be true here.

Contacts with the Imperium

It is widely believed between the Ordo Xenos that Humanity's first contact with the Fra'al goes back to the time of the Dark Age of Technology, though more details on that are beyond scarce. The first recorded contacts with the Imperium were during the Great Crusade. Apparently, the Astartes Legions fought many Fra'al outposts and spaceships. At the very least we know that the Salamanders, White Scars, Word Bearers, Death Guard, Night Lords and Alpha Legion fought them during the Imperium's expansion. We even know that the Fra'al were powerful enough to cause frequent casualties for the astartes, with many of those wounded being entombed in Dreadnoughts.

Post-Heresy, Mankind has rarely had contact with them, though they can be frequently be heard of as piratical raiders, attacking civilian vessels and lightly-protected military vessels for whatever resources they could find. They can also be found as merchants, doing business with Rogue Traders, selling their weird alien tech and whatever valuable resource they managed to steal on a previous raid. This trade is heavily watched over by the Inquisition as it's done inside the borders of the Imperium.

Society

The Fra'al are a nomadic species, though it's believed that they held a small empire within the Gothic Sector. While being both an empire and nomads at the same time might sound counterintuitive at first, and has caused a decent amount of skubbed debate, keep in mind that this has happened in real life. The best example of this is the Mongol Empire.

Other than that, not much is known of the Fra'al's society. We know that they are a psychic species and that their technology is highly advanced and they have a taste for messing with humans every chance they get, but to be fair, that's a hobby shared with every denizen of the galaxy, humans included. The lack of contact with the Imperium offers little chance of knowing them.

It is unknown why a psychic species has been permitted to continue existing. The Eldar get a pass because they're useful, but the Fra'al are mostly pirates, sooo.....

Technology

The Fra'al's technology is considerably advanced, and in many aspects it is superior to their imperial equivalents (outside of the Mechanicus, so more like they're a little more advanced in some ways than what the Imperium considers shit but doesn't admit it to the poor saps said shit is issued to because the Mechanicus are selfish asshats unwilling to simply teach people how to maintain advanced technology). Their most important discovery is Ether technology, with which they constructed their feared Fra'al Battlecruisers. These monsters are rarely seen, but they are rightly feared by any other space faring species that has found them before. The Ether technology powers their Ether Cannons, weapons that throw beams of pure corrosion that cannot be blocked by neither void nor power shields. This basically means that the target's innards start corroding from the inside out, which can cause such funny things as breaking the Warp Engines and causing a small warp tear inside of the ship, or making the oxygen generators break, suffocating everyone inside. For the most part, though, this serves to burn down the ship's shields so as to attack them with barrages of lance fire afterwards. This technology is so good that Chaos is trying to replicate it, it is that effective. Suffice to say, the Adeptus Mechanicus desperately want to get their hands on one of this ships, to try and study them, and go to great lengths to find and capture them if possible.

Outside of Ether technology, other pieces of Fra'al technology include Fra'al night shards, shards that are often used as divination foci by some imperial psykers, and Fra'al glass knives. The knives appear as jagged, dagger-like blades that appear to have been carved from a single piece of smoky crystal. Despite their primitive appearance, they are sharp enough to cut through ceramite, and they keep their sharpness by continually fracturing tiny shards from their cutting edge, with the shards often finding their way into the wounds the knife makes, turning cuts into agonizing injuries.