The principal range of the Kozrond race is sector V-6. They are nomads with no permanent home, roaming for the most part across the free planets on the fringes of the sector.
Among the civilised countries of that sector the race is notorious as pitiless raiders and killers.
The reason for the raids is religion. The Kozrond bow to the Blood God, and he demands sacrifices without pause — with sentient races counted as the finest offerings.
The accession of a new tribal chieftain or the birth of a firstborn must be attended by a bloody orgy, and the nobler the family, the greater the sacrifice it is obliged to make. The need to replenish this “stock” of victims is what drove the endless raids on free planets and civilised states alike.
In practice the race is divided into four tribes. A temporary head of the race is elected only when a raid on a dangerous enemy is decided upon; the rest of the time the tribes are independent of one another.
Their ships were either seized on campaign or bought through front men in other sectors. The Kozrond level of development of their own was sadly low.
The Kozrond are held to have broken away from the main branch of their race for religious reasons. Failing to find a world that suited them, they turned to a nomadic life.
From time to time a wish arises among them to be reunited with their kin and let old grievances go — though those kin are hardly likely to welcome these fanatical killers.
Sector V-6 can scarcely be called developed, and nomadic civilisations such as the Kozrond go on troubling its peaceful countries. Their blood enemies were the KVL — a peaceful and prosperous state of the Klunartsy whose territory the raiders combed for fresh victims for their god.
Incursions come regularly, and if they are not stopped at the very outset the consequences are dire. The Kozrond have no state as such: no capital is reckoned to them.
A Kozrond is a shaggy, hoofed creature covered in thick ochre fur, with two long ribbed horns and a pale facial mask around its red eyes. Its hands are violet, tipped with long claws.
In the illustration he wears crimson ceremonial dress — a broad strap over the shoulders, a chest pocket worked with zigzags and a long slanted skirt — and holds one hand raised in a ritual gesture.