Description:

The Zelions are a small lizard-like race who use stealth and confusion to gain the advantage. This race evolved on a tropical planet dominated by many powerful predators. To survive, they learned to changed skin colors at will and mimic the noises of larger creatures. Having dominated their planet through trickery and deceit, they eventually advanced into the space age, with a new goal: To have every other intelligent race kneel before them (or at least the equivalent for some races) or DIE!

Like the Zelions, their ships are smaller than the other races. They have traded firepower and hull integrity for speed and sensing range. Their ships are all equipped with heat sinks and light refractor units, rendering them invisible to long range sensors.

The Zelions are always scheming and scurrying around the galaxy, so it’s impossible to get them together to decide leadership. Instead, whenever a new Decalar (Head Decision Maker) is needed, a new one is randomly chosen from a pool of accomplished Zelions. The Decalar remains in office until he/she dies or makes 4 mistakes and is then executed violently.

Race Benefits:

Master of the Diplomacy Board – Once they find and infiltrate the capital of another major faction, the Zelions can use their trickery and voice manipulation to pose as the faction and send messages to others. They also get access to the faction’s star map.

(Basically, they can pay 2x the infiltrated faction’s influence cost in order to send peace/war/trade/etc. to another major faction that the infiltrated faction has discovered. The infiltration itself gains the map of the faction they infiltrate and depending on how the infiltration type, whether it is like EL infiltration or some kind of proxy ability, they could gain vision as long as they are infiltrating. Also, the infiltrated faction would not see their “faked” message go out, but they would see the other faction’s reply. Maybe factions allied with the Zelions could see when they are infiltrated, but it’s not necessary.)

Having only played Endless Legend, I’m not exactly sure about population bonuses, but here are some smaller faction bonuses I can think of.

Always on the Go – Since the race is small and always on the move, they have evolved eggs that need little supervision and younglings to grow quickly. 25% food cost reduction on population.

Confidence building – Every time they forge a message between two factions, the Zelions gain 1 influence per population on their capital.

Sneak Swiftly – (A faction specific research for Tier 3 or 4) Upgrades ships to counter most cloak revealing technology and increases movement by 2.