Uteni - No mouth or nose but they have a mean sales pitch?

[Sentient_Mind]

Reading the Uteni R.C.C entry in the Anvil Galaxy (p50-51).

I noticed that the race has no mouth or nose (They breathe through their skin). However, it was never listed how they actually speak languages. I know they could limited shape-change a mouth but this seemed against their flavor. So I adopted the below house rule for them. I hope you like it:

How Uteni speak (House rule)

Speech/Sound occurs from a special set of vibrating membranes around the Uteni's throat.

These special membranes have pockets for air that can be filled as they 'speak' meaning they never need to stop talking. (air used for these pockets is only used to make sound, they breathe through their skin).

It is a common tactic for Uteni to keep talking at length and take advantage of 'mouth breather' tendency to wait for someone to breathe before they interrupt them. This allows them a much longer "sales pitch" at least to people not familiar with Uteni.

These membranes are actually better able to produce sounds than most specie's vocal chords and give all Uteni a +10% bonus to language rolls by producing perfect sounds and accents. The only real limitation is that their loudest "yell" is about half the decibel limit of a human yell.

They typically make up for this with loudspeaker technology, tiny button sized devices on their neckline that can increase their speaking volume up to 120 decibels and also act as 24/7 audio/video recorders.. to be able to prove you did say "Yes" to their deal.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Hmm. I always figured they just shapechanged a mouth to be more natural looking around humans who can be prickly, but that's not a bad system.

[taalismn]

Works for me.
I'm waiting for the frustrated Uteni salesman dealing with obnoxious customers to shout out "I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM!".

[eliakon]

*Headcanon accepted*
I like this. A lot.
The subtle 'mouth breather' bit, the horrifying thought of a used car telemarketer that never has to stop talking.....its just so perfect.

[SolCannibal]

Well, in my group we have worked with something like this, though we have also toyed with the idea of Uteni vocalization system being based on something similar to cetacean singing, blowhole in the back and all.

[SpiritInterface]

It's the probe...






You know what I mean...










If not, watch Paul.