Overview of Kardon
The Kardonian Empire is an interstellar superpower founded from the planet Haltzeon.
Homeworld conditions
Haltzeon is a large Earth-like planet of 1.622 Mg with a radius of 7350 km, orbiting an orange dwarf star known as Serrę́t’ao (literally "mother of all"). A day on Haltzeon is 27 hours 44.5 minutes on Earth, and its year is 279.91 Earth days long.
These mean Haltzeon has a higher surface gravity than Earth, at about 1.2g. This is partially to blame for some characteristics of the armorkin species, detailed below.
The other worlds which armorkin live on have different characteristics. Jiaman, for example, notably has a longer year than Haltzeon, since its star is more massive and it orbits further out; a Jiaman year is approximately 371.1 Earth days. Seoped and Karoubey are closer in line to Haltzeon, being slightly higher-mass than Earth (but still lower than Haltzeon) and having year lengths between Haltzeon and Jiaman. Karoubey, the latest Haltzeonian colony to become a Kardonian core world, is also somewhat close to Amaterɏ, the star parent (as opposed to a stellar object) of Tukisagya.
Sapient species
Armorkin, also called Kardonians, are a sapient species that developed on the planet Haltzeon. On Nguhcraft, they are found in New Maeksikeo. They are the primary species of the Kardonian Empire.
Biology
Kardonians are a bipedal, anthropomorphic species. They somewhat resemble humans, but most notable among their differences is dermal plating that covers the back side of the arms and hands, and usually their upper back as well, though not their shoulders. This plating is what gives them the specific endonym xasjelaedzí, translated as "armorkin" in English. Armorkin also have four digits per hand. The plating on their arms actually extends beyond the important parts of their fingers, thus they come to a point that can be sharpened.
Armorkin are potentially the shortest sapient species on Nguhcraft[citation needed], with an average height of 4'0" (123cm). However, they do have a decently wide range of sizes, but heights above 5'3" (160cm) are considered giant. This is partially because their large size range has to do with their interplanetary range: on other worlds, armorkin tend to grow taller on average.
While contact between the worlds is common, the kind of contact evolution cares about is not as common. Therefore, there are notable differences between armorkin from different planets, particularly for their first colony, Jiaman. Jiamanian Kardonians are significantly taller, lighter and redder hair colors are more common, and their skin tends to be darker, potentially with their plating having a more ashy appearance. Seoped and Karoubey were colonized by a mix of armorkin from both planets, and so have less differences on average. However, Seoped is notable for having few of the calcium-rich food sources required to build armorkin plating, and thus Seopedian Kardonians tend to have thinner plating by default, though of course they can build stronger plating based on diet.
It's plausible that in the future, each planet's armorkin population will further diverge, eventually reaching subspecific or specific level with relation to each other. However, as it stands, there is still no biological constraint regarding armorkin populations' ability to breed together. They just do not do so that often, and those that do so, often are on Haltzeon, not the colonies.