Here's the approach I took to the "Aslan Problem" in a campaign I ran a few years back:
The crowd in the bar grows suddenly quiet, and, lookin gup from your conversation, you quickly see why. Three Alsan mercenaries in Darrian Border Patrol uniforms have entered the room.
They aren't pleasant to look at from a mammalian point of view. Easily two meters tall, slightly hunched at the shoulders, and a face that could most closely be compared to the prehistoric Terran great fish, Dinichthys. Their heads and faces are assemblages of bony, leather-covered plates with expressionless, armored eyes and fixed, wedge-like fangs across their wide jaws. Inside their jaws, a softer, flexible set of pidipalps flank a mouth-like analog with which they eat and speak. The "lion-like" impression that early Terran explorers got of them was due almost entirely to the manes of hair-like bristles that surround their skulls and the large, clawed hands with their almost radial symmetry. Over all, their bodies are sleek and humanoid, with a thin, whipping tail extending from their pelvises.
There you have it. One part traditional Aslan, one part Kafer, and two parts Reticulan Parasite from
Alien. As far as behavior goes, I left the traditional
Trav description intact.
With regard to the "Vargr Problem," I went with genetic manipulation and uplift. Humans started the process, then, when the proto-Vargr were intelligent and competent enough, they successfully sued for the right for self-determination and completed the process to their own satisfaction.
!i!
