Tsavong Kraal
Character
Image Credit: King Kong (2005)
Name: Kraal CucumbersDesignation: Non-Sentient
Homeworld: Yuuzhan'tar & Thral
Language: None
Breathes: Type II
Average height of adults: 6 meters
Skin color: Salmon.
Hair color: None.
Distinctions: Kraal Cucumbers, when laying in wait to feed, appear as large flat disks on the ground, simulating the color of muddy puddles of water. They'll even ripple their massive coats of fleshy skin to appear as if the wind is blowing the water around, while on dry land. Step too close to this predator and it'll attempt to swallow you whole, slowly digesting you over the course of the next 48 hours! It starts by engulfing you with it's massive suctioning mouth, but then begins to peel meat from bones with it's toothy outer layers as it makes it way down its target's mass. Easily recognizable when it pulls back its outer dark skin (that gives the muddy puddle camouflage), it the Kraal Cucumber appears as a gigantic fleshy tongue with two openings - one on the top for things going in - and a smaller one on it's tail end for the liquid coming out.
When it has engulfed its prey, a Kraal Cucumber lays completely exposed and fattened on the ground, slowly squirting out the non-essential juices of its meal in an area around it that it likes to soak its outer skin in. Kraal Cucumbers like to stay moist! The digestive "sac" can often be seen moving, as the prey has been known to live inside a Kraal Cucumber for up to 8 hours of the digestive process.
Lastly, there are a few whiskers surrounding the base of the Kraal Cucumber's "tongue", the base of the shaft where the salmon pink inner flesh is exposed from the outer sac flesh. These whiskers are used to increase the senses of the Kraal Cucumber, allowing it enhanced senses of smell, movement, and sound. Just don't get too close!
[ + ] Predatory Terraformers: Kraal Cucumbers are excellent, as their waste is both excreted quickly and in liquid fashion. En masse, a colony of a hundred Kraal Cucumbers can transform the most lush grass plains into a bog within as short a time as a month. However, this requires ample food selection and constant feeding of the Kraal Cucumbers.
[ + ] Natural Camouflage: Before striking a prey to suck it down for a 24 hour period, a Kraal Cucumber lays flat on the ground like a dark puddle of water. Though a colony will be recognizable in a dry area to any sentient prey, Kraal Cucumbers prefer to lay like a flat disk at the bottom of bogs and rivers, threatening to engulf any prey who dare wander too close to its massive toothy maw.
[ - ] Stationary: Kraal Cucumbers cannot move from the location they plant themselves. A Kraal Cucumber colony only moves by creating more spores and populating new regions, while old Kraal Cucumbers die off. Thus, it is difficult to for a colony to move in one singular direction, as the location of population is completely chaotic and random.
[ - ] Chaotic: Kraal Cucumbers have no singular mind and are merely a plague like locusts, spreading as far as they can and reproducing as much as they can and eating as much as they can.
Average Lifespan: 15 Standard Years.
Races: None.
Estimated Population: This creature is found commonly in bogs and swamps on both Thral and Yuuzhan'tar.
Diet: Carnivorous. Kraal Cucumbers prefer their meat alive and squirming, as they love a good fight - just like their namesake.
Communication: None.
Kraal Cucumbers have a very minimal culture as they are not sentient. Sometimes, under moonlight, despite their surroundings the Cucumbers will elongate from their camouflaged puddle forms and wave about like an unmanned firehose in the night. Though not much is understood about this behavior as Kraal Cucumbers are A-sexual and do not need a mating ritual to reproduce, it provides a very vivid and ethereal inducing sight for onlookers when they see the giant tentacles waving about at night. They make no sound with the exception when they smack against each other, but this is viewed to be accidental and receives no aggressive reciprocation, as a Kraal Cucumber will not eat another Kraal Cucumber.
Tsavong Kraal, the original explorer who first sighted and codexed these creatures, described it as Death's Dance.
A Kraal Cucumber's entire life revolves around propagation of the species and eating. They can wait up to 3 months without eating, simply sitting in puddle-form and waiting for prey to happen across it. After 2-3 years of feeding, a Kraal Cucumber will achieve maturity and will begin to emit egg spores in the air every night for 7 nights. These egg spores are light and can float on air or water for a time, before finally resting on soil. If the soil is nutritious, the egg spore will plant it's tentacle roots into the soil and begin to absorb until it reaches a size large enough to begin feasting on insects and pray. Much like a dandelion, these creatures reproduce sporadically and without singular purpose. Small colonies can easily die out because they have reached a location where the soil is not nutritious enough, like a dry valley or a bedrock. Egg spores find the most value in bogs, swamps, forests, jungles and other highly moisturized climates.
A Kraal Cucumber will continue to propagate without cause or emotion until its colony is wiped out or can no longer feed.
F.A.Q.
Can it survive a vibroblade slash because of its hide? It's outer skin can survive several slashes, but it's tongue cannot.
How about blasters? As described previously, this creature can suffer 2 sonic blasts... and possible even more energy blasts, it is untested, but the creature is not heavily armored.
Could someone inside it fight their way out? Yes, if they had a weapon and were conscious and not in shock.
How does it affect artificial materials like metal and plastics? The Kraal Cucumber will spit out inorganic material.
Also, how long can it live being cut off at the stalk? The Kraal Cucumber will die.
Would that cause a near instant death? Yes.
Tsavong Kraal loves wandering the wilds of the planets in the Unknown Regions, the furthest reaches of space. Especially in the wake of Netherworld. As an explorer, he wasn't sure if he'd seen this particular species before the events of Netherworld - perhaps they were monstrosities long lost from his Yuuzhan Vong galaxy home, or perhaps they had always been here, only awakened in the preceding events. Either way, upon watching and studying these creatures - whom he first found by standing on one and causing it to attack him - Tsavong was immediately enthralled to a level so high of pride that he required they be named after himself, as he was the first explorer to report their sighting. He had been wandering the planet Thral for some time, but recognized the species' camouflaged state from several pictures he had taken on his qahsa on Yuuzhan'tar. After completing several expeditions between both planets, he realized the species was prevalent and highly populated in the swamps of both worlds. Tsavong further theorizes they may even be present on more planets, simply due to their nature at staying hidden within their natural surroundings.
Upon being attacked by one, the only way Tsavong could find to defeat it was by feeding his amphistaff to it, which poisoned it from the inside. Once fed, the Kraal Cucumber rescinded into a sac shape on the ground, but slowly died due to the poisonous nature of the amphistaff's venom. He tried later to poison the creatures in other ways, but it seemed only venomous objects would do the trick - as the Kraal Cucumbers were not inherently allergic and capable of being poisoned by anything. Quite remarkable for such an unknown species to be so hardened.
It was further devised that while their outer skin is quite durable and could even suffer one or two sonic shots from an E-411 before rapidly reducing its aggression, once the Cucumber exposes its inner softer skin when attacking, it is very vulnerable. However, the speed and voracity it attacked would have to be taken into account if one wished to find weakness in the creatures' softer skin.
Tsavong has yet to report these creatures' whereabouts to any science academia, though he is currently working on a paper entitled "Creepers and Crawlers of the Galaxy".
Intent: To make a Yuuzhan Vong-esque species based off of the gif provided, and to hopefully gross you out.
