The massive Torgoth (TORE-goth) are an enigma. They come from a gigantic planet which has very low density. They evolved in a low gravity, high radiation environment, which has made them highly resistant to radiation, but vulnerable to g-forces. They are twice the height of members of the other races, and four times the mass, but have hollow bones like birds.

Although Torgoths are highly intelligent and are governed by a representational democracy, much like the USFP, their elected leaders are warmongers who keep constant conflicts going in order to remain in power. A lot of their economy is geared towards war, although not as much so as the Skaraans. Their ships are as enormous as the Torgoth themselves, and dwarf TSN ships. Their cruiser class the TSN has named Goliath, their battleship class Leviathan, and their dreadnaught Behemoth. All Torgoth ships maneuver very slowly, to make it easier to shield the crew from rotational g-forces.

Conversely, the Torgoth Base Stations are a fraction of the size of most space stations. It is in keeping with the Torgoth philosophy of war to have a few large, tough ships instead of hundreds of small ones. Their military outposts, however, are small, but numerous, and heavily shielded and armed. The Torgoth homeworld, and even some of its colonies boast hundreds of floating cities, so it is thought that their bases are an extension of this architectural design.

The Torgoth love of battle and natural aggressiveness leads to an interest in blood sports and hunting. Torgoths particularly like trophies, and will often seek out debris from the battlefield as a reminder of a battle well fought. Torgoth captains particularly love to hunt space whales, and will display parts of their gelatinous bodies in a trophy case on their ship. This naturally infuriates Arvonians, who love the majestic creatures.

Surprisingly, Torgoth rarely engage in ritual combat with each other. This may be because their bones are too brittle and their bodies have trouble dealing with sudden shocks and crushing forces. Despite these inherent weaknesses, no other race would dare challenge a Torgoth to hand to hand combat.

Torgoths are extremely xenophobic, and do not allow outsiders onto their homeworld, although some have been granted access to meeting places on their floating cities. They tend to be extremely literal-minded, to the point of not understanding jokes or humor. Their love of collecting trophies may be related to an obsession with gathering, sorting and organizing things. They are conscientious engineers, and their technology is some of the best in the galaxy. In fact, it is not known who first built the common drone that all Torgoth ships and some Skaraans use. The Torgoth insist that they invented it, but the Skaraans filed most of the patents on the technology and own most of the factories that build them.

The word "Torgoth" is both singular and plural. However, "Torgoths" is a commonly accepted alternative, especially when clarity is required.

From the Terran Stellar Navy Academy Tactical Manual:

The Torgoth homeworld is a massive, rocky planet with relatively low density. Despite its colossal size the planet has lower gravity than Earth. This has yielded a spacefaring race with twice the height, four times the mass, and ten times the radiation resistance of a human. 

Though they vaguely resemble bipedal elephants, Torgoth biology is closer to dinosaurs than any other Earth creature. The Torgoth are supreme in hand-to-hand combat, with the ability to kill a human by simply stepping on him. 

As alien as the Torgoth are, their government is a representative democracy, much like the USFP. 

Unfortunately, the Torgoth Parliament is currently dominated by warmongers. It is obvious to everyone in the galaxy – except the Torgoth citizens – that the warmongers in Parliament never intend to win any war. They simply keep the wars going so they can get re-elected over and over. 

Torgoth ships are as massive as the Torgoth beings. The smallest Torgoth ship weighs almost twice as much as the largest TSN vessel. Nevertheless, high gee forces are deadly to Torgoth so their ships only make the most gentle maneuvers. 

Torgoth enjoy slaughtering space whales for sport and will sometimes break off a pursuit to chase a whale. If a Torgoth slaughters a space whale, all Arvonians who witness the act will immediately withdraw from battle to report that their ally has committed an atrocity.

From "Xenomorph Biology" by "Gryphon": (Some of this information may be speculation)

Torgoth reproduction requires an external aqueous medium of very particular specifications; Torgoth attempts at reproduction outside of the oceans of their home world, Ttor, have met with very limited success. The Torgoth have an absolute taboo against allowing any off-worlder to set down on the surface of their home world, so our knowledge of their biology comes primarily from examinations of those killed in combat and from a tiny population of deformed, possibly mutated Torgoth colonial expatriates collectively known as the Outcasts.

Genetically, Torgoth have many characteristics in common with Terran birds and dinosaurs. The adults are partially cartilaginous and hollow-boned, and appear to be incredibly long-lived, with potential lifespans that may extend for centuries. Terran exobiologists are not in agreement on how many gender states Torgoth experience, but autopsies of Torgoth corpses killed in battle have revealed that individual Torgoth possess both male and female sex organs. The Torgoth themselves appear to regard any inquiries concerning their own personal gender identities as deeply offensive, and an offended Torgoth is a very, very dangerous being.

It is known that juvenile Torgoth spend a portion of their early lives as aquatic beings, shielded from radiation by the waves until their skin and internal organs develop their famous resistance. Torgoth “families” are not based upon genetic relations or parent/child bonds, but are more like a “graduating class.” When a Torgoth speaks of family, it is referring to those other Torgoth who crawled out of the surf and onto the same beach on the same day as itself. This social unit often spends many years on its own on the planet surface, with only minimal guidance from their cloud-city dwelling elders. The deep bonds of kinship that form among the members of this family appear to last for the rest of their very long lives.

Torgoth Physiognomy & Psychology: An ordinary adult Torgoth usually stands well over 11 feet tall and may be up to 8 feet wide. They are bipedal with no upper limbs, but have a pair of extremely strong and flexible three-fingered trunks that extend from the sides of their proportionally large heads. Their skin is thick and segmented into scaly, leathery plates except on the much thinner and flexible undersides of their trunks. The have a pair of wide breathing slits directly above their trunks and two pairs of small round eyes facing forward and to the sides. Torgoth are hairless, but adults have a spectacular thick ruff of fine, fern-like feathers that runs around the back of the head down to the outer sides of the trunks which gives them a distinctly elephantine silhouette to Terran eyes. Full-sized adults are uncomfortable in gravity fields above 0.5 g, although the smaller Outcasts which sometimes turn up in Terran space aboard Skaraan trading and raiding vessels appear to be able to tolerate fields up to 1.5 g.

Torgoth are considered by Terran xenopsychologists to be among the most xenophobic star-faring cultures in the known galaxy. Torgoth society is notoriously hostile to direct association with off-worlders, although their government is not above making alliances of convenience with other species, provided that Torgoth colonies are not obligated to share solar systems with planets populated by other intelligent races.They appear to be able to kill the members of virtually any other species without compunction and are known to enjoy collecting trophies of their kills.

Torgoth are infamous for being literal-minded in the extreme and having absolutely no sense of humor. It is surmised that Torgoth brain architecture may not permit the formation of concepts such as metaphor, irony, mendacity, or paradox. Their morality appears to center around notions of loyalty, fairness and equity within society, and they have a long-established tradition of representative democratic government, but they also define membership within society very narrowly. For example, with Torgoth, size matters.

A certain percentage of Torgoth, especially among those populations spawned in the experimental breeding seas of Torgoth colony worlds, develop into a stunted adult form barely taller than an average Terran male, a mere 7 feet or so. These beings are labelled “Ch’thotgh” (defective offspring) and are utterly barred from association with typical-sized Torgoth from the moment they crawl up onto the beach as terrestrial juveniles. Ch’thotgh, therefore, are deprived of the kinship bond that forms the core identity of typical Torgoth, apparently making them capable of actions unthinkable to ordinary Torgoth, like seeking out the companionship of off-worlders.

In recent years, a few of these Ch’thotgh have been “adopted” and put to work by the ever-pragmatic and opportunistic crews of Skaraan trade vessels. By the time these beings reach Terran space, they are experienced trading vessel crew members. Terrans call them Outcasts when they wish to be polite, and Runts when they intend insult. Common racial slurs for Torgoth among Terrans are Jumbos, Dumbos, Squidheads, or Bulls (this last is usually reserved for the truly formidable Torgoth DSF power-armored ground troopers.)

Torgoth, even Outcasts, are virtually impossible to stun. Torgoth Outcast characters may ignore stunner hits, and any other race attempting to brawl with an Outcast character automatically loses. They are, however, extremely susceptible to kinetic damage from concussion or shrapnel weapons like grenades, as well as ultrasonic devices tuned to the correct frequency. Their loyalty, size, lack of social imagination, and stun resistance make them popular bodyguards and mercenary troopers, while their famously high resistance to radiation exposure makes them sought after as Damage Control technicians. Their love of schematics and of sorting and categorizing objects makes them conscientious Engineers. Their attention to and retention of even the tiniest details, coupled with their obsessively systematic combinatorial experimentalism, means that they are sometimes capable of extraordinary design achievements.

Torgoth love to gossip and memorize facts, but their literal-mindedness means that a person of another species has to be very careful in phrasing any information presented within earshot. The urge to collect and hoard information and trophy items appears to be one of the central drives of Torgoth psychology. They appear to have a need to fondle, sort, collect, categorize, arrange, and label any items given to their charge and have been known to spend days happily sorting and resorting their personal collections of bolts or burnt-out impellors or colored bits of wire or rat skulls while reciting the history and compositional details of each item as it is touched. The not-entirely-exclusive-to-Torgoth obsession with collecting and displaying the skulls or other body parts of animals they have slain in the hunt may be the reason why otherwise disciplined Torgoth warships have been observed to veer off into hunting Space Whales even in the heat of battle.

From Arrew's Guide to the Alien Races: (Some of this information may be speculation)

Torgoth are very large bipedal humanoids, twice as tall as an adult Terran and with four times the mass. They have short stumpy legs and two arms that end in hands with four thick fingers arranged in an X shaped claw. They breathe through two long flexible tentacle like tubes in the centre of their flat faces just above their mouths.

The Torgoth homeworld is an enormous rocky world with a mostly barren surface. The core of the planet isn’t particularly dense and contains very little iron so, despite its colossal size, it has very low gravity and little protection from the solar radiation that bombards the surface.

In these conditions the Torgoth evolved and have a number of distinct characteristics as a result. Most prominently their big bones are surprisingly brittle, and their internal organs rupture when put under pressure of anything stronger than standard gravity and moderate G-force. Torgoth have a resistance to radiation ten times greater than Terrans. Their thick leathery hide also serves them well in hand to hand combat where they usually use their great weight to crush opponents under foot.

The fauna that grows on the Torgoth homeworld is tough and hard. Less than half a dozen creatures evolved across the whole planet that are capable of eating and digesting the plants, and the Torgoth, who are carnivorous by nature, eat them. A staple of the Torgoth diet is the Fledge, a fat dog sized rabbit creature with circular ears and a corkscrew tail that breeds rapidly.

Fledge are still farmed in pens like they have been for hundreds of years. Like most animals for eating they’re crushed and then strung up and left to age. The blood is drained and congealed into cubes. The cubes are boiled and served with spices as a delicacy. When the Fledge carcass is practically rotting it’s taken down, roasted and eaten.

The Torgoth fondness for eating near rancid meat is the source of a string of Terran jokes that all begin with an opening similar to, “A Torgoth goes into a restaurant and...”

Like their choice of cuisine Torgoth music is best left to those for a stomach for such things. The loud and not quite rhythmic banging of large drums is the Torgoth artistic expression of choice but many other races find enduring it unpleasant and painful. But their low gravity has given rise to a number of artistic innovations in regard to architecture that are quite renowned. Using anti-gravity and buoyancy techniques to levitate platforms, buildings and entire settlements the Torgoth homeworld is strewn with floating islands that are quite picturesque, particularly at sunrise and sunset.

Torgoth society is very patriarchal with females being seen as inferior to males and relegated to subservient positions in society and never a position of management or leadership.

Torgoth don’t have family structures, with newborns considered the property of the state and taken to be raised in fortified Crèche Facilities. The justification is that trained and qualified educational and child raising professionals can do a vastly superior job of rising children. But objectively the main purpose of these child rearing facilities is to indoctrinate young Torgoth to love and obey the state. At age fifteen Torgoth are released from their Crèche Facility and go to find their place in Torgoth society.

The Torgoth consider themselves to be the only true civilised race in the galaxy, surrounded and besieged on all sides by countless barbaric aliens hordes. A view that the Torgoth government promotes in its many propaganda broadcasts.

Politically the Torgoth government is a representative democracy, much like the United Planets, with every Torgoth male above the age of twenty five eligible to vote in elections. Local elections are held every three years and elections to Parliament, the Torgoth’s supreme governing body, are held every six years. Females do not have the right to vote in any political elections.

Political analysis of the Torgoth Parliament reveals that it’s dominated by warmongers that use the constant stellar conflicts as justification for their continual re-election. They have no interest in actually winning any wars. Instead their aim is just to prolong any conflict and, should a war end, arrange a new one as soon as possible, using the threat of hostile alien armadas as justification for their re-elected.

The Torgoth stellar military is called the Deep Space Force and, while it’s described as a defense force by the Torgoth Parliament, they often orchestrate attacks hiding behind protective lines of ally vessels. Torgoth ships are big, as you might expect from such a large people. The smallest Torgoth vessel weighs almost twice as much as the largest Stellar Naval ship. Their shield technology is also quite advanced and Torgoth Deep Space Forces can withstand a considerable pounding, making them a dangerous adversary.

Roleplaying and Cosplaying Suggestions:

Cosplaying a Torgoth is bound to be difficult. Not everyone is 11 feet tall, or willing to wear stilts all the time. Gryphon's suggestion of a sub-race, the "Outcasts", brings up a viable alternative for the roleplayer who wants to play a Torgoth in a TSN crew. This smaller "mutant" Torgoth could have normal arms, eliminating the need for a mechanical apparatus for the Torgoth's prehensile trunks.

See Gryphon's section above for roleplaying suggestions.

For an example of a concept that would apply to the full size Torgoth (although the appearance is not correct) see this post.

The masks in this post could apply to a full sized Torgoth or the Outcast variation. As usual, the thread linked to for both posts is a good source of role playing ideas.