"This is outrageous!"
Everyone knows the voice — the nasal, sputtering indignation of Viceroy Nute Gunray as another scheme comes apart around him. Behind that voice is a whole species: the Neimoidians, the merchant-bureaucrats who ran the Trade Federation, blockaded Naboo, and bankrolled a droid army entirely in the pursuit of profit.
Meet the Neimoidian, the newest playable species in SWURPG.
Duros blood, and the grub
Neimoidians are an offshoot of the Duros. A Duros expedition under Chal Haan settled the world of Neimoidia near the dawn of the Republic, and across long, isolated millennia those colonists drifted into a separate people — greyer where the Duros are blue, and far more anxious. They keep their ancestors' hairless, sloped heads and the wide red-to-pink eyes whose pupils split the iris in a flat horizontal band, but their skin runs anywhere from grey to green to a sickly yellow, and it can shift over a lifetime.
What actually makes a Neimoidian is the grub. For their first seven years the young are kept as maggot-like larvae in communal hatcheries and deliberately underfed, left to fight over a food supply that will never stretch to all of them. The ones who hoard, steal, and outlast their siblings survive; the rest starve. A Neimoidian carries that lesson for life — which is why, in their culture, greed isn't a vice but a virtue, proof you were strong enough to live.
Greed as a virtue
That upbringing turns out shrewd entrepreneurs and tireless administrators — and, to everyone who has ever been on the wrong end of a Neimoidian contract, treacherous cowards who will sell anyone to save themselves. For a generation the face of the species was the Trade Federation, whose blockade fleets and battle-droid armies let it bully whole systems over tariffs, all the way to a seat on the Separatist Council. But the Federation was never the whole story: their "cowardice" is really a cold, percentages-first survival instinct, and Neimoidian senators, captains, weapons-makers, and fixers turn up wherever there's money to move, count, or hide.
The build — a face, a fixer, and whatever else you want
On paper the Neimoidian is the galaxy's negotiator, and the kit rewards that: +2 Intelligence and +1 Charisma with proficiency in Knowledge: Galactic Lore make you the party's dealmaker, appraiser, and schemer.
- Slant the Deal — once per long rest, reroll a failed Deception or Persuasion check in a negotiation and take the better result. Nobody walks away from the table having beaten a Neimoidian on the first try.
- Hoarder's Eye — grub-bred to spot value, you always know the fair market price of goods, art, and tech, with advantage on checks to appraise worth or haggle a price.
- Duros Heritage — a little of your spacefaring ancestry survives as an easy way with machines: advantage on Use Computer checks.
- Self-Preservation — survival first. When you Disengage you can move up to half your speed as part of it, though the same instinct gives you disadvantage on saves against fear. A Neimoidian's first plan is always an exit.
The −2 Strength and that flight reflex tilt the species away from the front line and toward winning encounters with the ledger rather than the blaster — but look back up at that gallery. A Neimoidian knight in plate, a sniper in clone-cut armor, a hooded assassin, a robed adept with a red blade: the "cowardly bureaucrat" is a reputation, not a rule, and building against it is half the fun.
Build a Neimoidian in the Character Builder →
Play the smooth operator who always has an angle — or the one nobody saw coming.