Editing Empire of the Petal Throne (section)

===The Neutral Races===
Those species whose relationship to humans is complicated.
====Ahoggyá====
A species of barrel-shaped people with four arms, four legs, and four faces. They have eight sexes, and absolutely no one has figured out how the hell they reproduce. They can be argumentative and difficult to work with. They are originally from the star Achernar.

====Chíma====
A race of bipedal seafarers with elephantine noses. The Chíma have only recently come into contact with the Five Empires, and are a decidedly aesthetic culture, fascinated by the fashions of other species.
====Hláka====
Furry brown creatures with large bat-like wings. The Hláka are, in the opinions of most other species, massive pussies. This is exemplified by their tendency to flee combat whenever possible, and the absolute terror that open bodies of water inflict on them. They don’t make good slaves or soldiers, so humans generally leave them alone, which suits the Hláka just fine. For some reason, likely related to how completely harmless they are, the Hláka are the only non-native race that the Ssú and Hlüss haven't pledged to exterminate.
====Hokún====
From a distance the Hokún look like strange but beautiful sculptures of glass. Up close, these sculptures will probably stab you. The insectoid Hokún have a transparent carapace, allowing you to see their organs, and have an ant-like society, with every Hokún being part of a “group-mind”, and there’s even a separate caste of larger, dumber Hokún that the others use as mounts. This species has a very complicated relationship with humanity, eating them in some regions, enslaving them in others, and being enslaved by them in yet more.
====Mihálli====
The titty-lions. The Mihálli are a species of shapeshifters whose default form is a lion headed biped with four breasts. They came to Tékumel disguised as humans, but after the planet got stuck in the pocket dimension they discovered that they were like, really, really good at magic, the best in all of Tékumel. And so they decided to use this newfound power as an excuse to openly rule over humanity. This resulted in a long war between Mihálli and humans that ended in the humans dropping an atomic weapon on the Mihálli capital city. After losing their homeland the Mihálli nearly went extinct, and survived by using their shapeshifting abilities to hide amongst human society. They have gotten so good at this that most modern humans believe the Mihálli to be a mythical species made up to scare children. From the perspective of the other sentient species, the Mihálli are all completely insane with incomprehensible goals, because they've made like Billy Pilgrim and come unstuck in time.

====Nyaggá====
Found exclusively in a single lake in northeast Tsolyánu, the Nyaggá are an aquatic race who cannot survive on land for more than an hour. Despite their fishy appearance, the Nyaggá are warm-blooded and more like Earth’s mammals than its fish. They react violently to anyone trying to penetrate their watery empire. Despite this, they do have a strange trading relationship with the local humans. The Nyaggá will leave sculptures and valuable corals on the beach, and humans will take these and leave things they think the Nyaggá will like. Some say that the Nyaggá can interbreed with humans to create a race of [[Deep One|Fish-People]] with gills and pallid flesh, but these are probably just rumors.

====Páchi Léi====
Four-armed, four-legged reptile men, the Páchi Léi have a strange six-sense that lets them better detect traps, hidden doors, and the like. They are psychologically closer to humans than most species, and as such are better at integrating into human society compared to other species, save perhaps the Pé Chói.
====Shén====
The Shén are beaked bipedal lizardmen with a tail they can use as a mace. They are commonly found in human armies due to their skill as warriors and excellent discipline. Despite this, the Shén have shown no desire to expand their nations, and when at home focus mainly on defense. For some reason they really hate the Ahoggyá, and will often attack them unprovoked when in the wilderness, though they are polite enough not to do so in human cities. They are originally from the star Antares.

====Urunén====
Vaguely Orcish bipeds who primarily live in polar regions. Due to their isolation, they have only just recently established contact with the Five Empires. Statistically identical to humans, as if to underscore how similar they and the people of Tekumel are even as they figure out what to do with each other.