HK-36
The Iron Lord Protector (Neutral Good)
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a new interesting custom race within Metal Lords space and expand upon the existing canon for one of the less defined locations.
- Image Credit: Undead Savant by JamesZapata on DeviantArt, link here
- Canon: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Name: Lyhrons
- Designation: Sentient
- Homeworld: Sarcophagus
- Language: Galactic Basic
- Average Lifespan: ~100 years, maximum ~200 years
- Estimated Population: Scattered (Smaller groups found in many places around the galaxy)
- Description: The Lyhrons itself are composed of long fibrous strands like muscles growing in thick vine-like strands. As the Lyhrons grow they tend to wrap around closest solid structures, much like vines wrap around poles, trees, or creep up building walls. The longer they grow the more fused and intertwined with these solid structures they appear, this is especially true for metal or organic skeletons.
- Breathes: Type II
- Average height of adults: Enough to comfortable cover an approximately 2 meter tall being
- Average length of adults: N/A
- Skin color: Greyish-red or ashen-violet
- Hair color: N/A
- Distinctions: Grows in long thick strands like muscles, relies on other solid structures like skeletons for support and mobility.
- Races: N/A
- Natural Force Affinity- all Lyhrons could be considered to have Force affinity to a degree as their species relies on the Force to provide them with sight, sense other beings, and be able to speak. However, the older Lyhrons become and the longer their bodies grow to be, the stronger their presence is in the Force, as such it is not until well after 100 years old when a Lyhron can be considered to be Force-sensitive. Since few of their species get to live that long, it is still rare to find truly Force sensitive Lyhrons.
- Wisdom With Age- The older Lyhrons grow, and the longer their bodies grow, so do their minds develop more. Lyhrons tend to start out a bit dull and unintelligent in their early life, it is not until they are about 30 years old they could be considered of average intelligence and afterwards their minds only improve, as does their connection to the Force. This is all because of the fact that their whole body acts as a single organ, one long muscle, one long brain. No Lyhron can live past 200.
- Regeneration- The Lyhrons have a very specific regeneration capacity, after portion of their strands are cut or torn off, they could be naturally reconnected very quickly be pressing the two strand ends next to each other, as long as it is within 5 or 10 minutes after the injury occurs. After that window passes the two strands cannot be reattached and instead will continue to grow from where they were cut. As such lost limbs could be regrown over time and detached limbs could grow into separate beings, however they are still subjected to the usual Lyhron lifespan. That is, if one Lyhron gets its arm chopped at the age of 50, even if the arm would continue to grow into a new being, it would not be expected to live longer than another 50 years or so.
Weaknesses:
- Old Age- With age comes physical degeneration, however, as even their regenerative muscle tissue becomes weaker and more feeble, especially after the point they overcome the expected life span of 100, an age by which most Lyhrons succumb to age and their bodies wither away into dust, literally, that is what happens within minutes after a Lyhron dies of old age. Around 80-90 years old a Lyhron's adopted body would become a burden to them, beginning to slow them down more and more the older they get, much like it made them unable to move until they were about 20 years old. Past 150 the weight of the body, especially metal one, becomes too much for an aging Lyhron and it has either choice of shedding some of its structural skeleton to cut on the weight, which happens rarely as it is a very painful process, or be bound to move only with help of others. There are few examples of Lyhrons living past 180, but those that do are almost entirely bound to complete paralysis, gifted with a powerful mind but imprisoned by their own body. On rare occasions the strongest of Lyhron manage to escape this faith by shedding all of their bodies safe just for the skull they use to communicate and see, relaying on the Force, telekinesis, and the meaty strands of their true body cascading down from beneath it like a fleshy beard to move.
- Body Brain- The downside of having the whole body as a single multipurpose organism, is that when you lose parts of it, you tend to suffer drawbacks through multiple functions. When a Lyhron loses parts of its strands it suffers in mobility and strength, as it loses portions of its muscles, but also in the capacities of its mind. The Lyhron's presence in the Force diminishes, making it more difficult to call upon any powers it could have had before and clouding its mind. Losing parts of its body can put Lyhron into a catatonic state, putting them into a coma until their body is long enough once more to think properly, and often leads to at least partial amnesia.
- Continuous Hunger- Another great impact upon the Lyhrons, besides the length of the bodies, is how hungry they come. Lyhrons are never truly sated, requiring continuous sustenance to support the energy demand of their continuously growing and regenerating bodies, this can be derived from any organic material mashed and degraded enough which comes into direct contact with the fibrous body of a Lyhron. This is often done by chewing the organic material, whether rotted or not, and swallowing it to let it be captured by the fibrous strands within whichever body Lyhron inhibits and slowly digested. Without the continuous food supply, and going long enough without eating, however, the Lyhron would succumb to their pressing hunger, turning more and more aggressive and hostile, until becoming feral and seeking out the closest organic matter, whatever it could be, to consume it, regaining composure only when sated once more.
- One Home- Due to the process of growing around and into the supportive structures, and fusing with them in the process, Lyhrons rarely if ever switch their bodies for bigger ones. The only cases this was known to happen to a degree was after a loss of limbs, when the chopped off strands and any solid support they are attached to could be attached to a new body, or a new limb can be attached to a Lyhron's damaged body. However, usually whatever body a Lyhron was seeded into and began to fuse with at its beginning is the only body it will ever inhabit. This has two negative effects on the Lyhron, for one thing it cannot move until its fibrous body covers enough of the physical support to be strong enough to act as its muscles, about 20 years old for average height humanoid bodies, and even then Lyhrons tend to be very clumsy and slow in their movements, shambling or crawling around, until they grow older and their bodies fill out the skeletons more, growing faster, stronger, and more graceful. Another downside is that although strands of a Lyhron's fibrous body can grow beyond its body and hang down in sickly strands like tendrils or hair, if the body is too small the fibers can be crammed within it very tightly, a sensation which is very uncomfortable for Lyhrons and causes them to grow more hostile and more aggressive the older they become if their bodies are not big enough. This could be compared to their insatiable hunger and the effects it has on their behavior, as such a larger portion of the older Force-capable Lyhrons tend to be a bit more aggressive than their younger counterparts, even straying to practice of Dark Side Force arts.
- Diet: Capable of digesting any organic materials, including rotting food
- Communication: Vocal communication through specialized fibrous strands for most Lyhrons, some Elder Lyhrons are capable of telepathy.
- Technology level: Contemporary Galactic Standard, no unique technology, instead adapting technology from other Galactic societies.
- Religion/Beliefs: Strong ancestral and elder worship and of time as a concept, which for the Lyhrons is synonymous with the Force. Many of the Lyhron Elders who manifest abilities in the Force become a sort of clerical or priest figures, often called Mages, Priest-Lords, or Liches by outsiders and Lyhrons alike.
- General behavior: Since the Lyhrons have not been exposed to Galactic culture until recently, they are still finding their place within the interstellar society. Due to the fact that for most of their existence Lyhrons have been living off of consuming and taking control of bodies buried on Sarcophagus, isolating themselves deep within the planet's expansive underground catacombs, much of Sacorria's population sees them as pests or abominations. However, upon learning about their existence, Metal Lords who at the time controlled Sacorria and Sarcophagus recognized potential within the shunned species. They were given a place among the droids as soldiers, workers, and adepts of the Force, spreading their presence to few other colonies throughout Droid Space and aboard more stations designated specifically for procreation of Lyhrons. Much of their architecture and culture is linked to their past of living underground for millenniums and feeding off of corpses and skeletons, macabre and death are prominent elements for them and many of their homes resemble crypts of Sarcophagus.
- Lyhrons are not very romantic beings, nor do they had anything close to a family unit until their introduction into the Galactic society and contact with the Metal Lords. Before their procreation consisted of two, or usually more, Lyhrons shooting clouds of spores at a buried or closest decomposing body. The body would be left then as its remain and bones were being converted by the growing Lyhron into energy so that it too could reproduce. After meeting with the Metal Lords, this practice has been outlawed for the most part, instead Lyhrons are given empty metal skeletons onto which spores can be sprayed so that a new Lyhron is grown within the metal body. With the help of droids the Lyhrons have been organized to take care of these growing spores and nurture them with nutrient paste until they can do so on their own, creating a sort of communal nurturing family unit.
Although many believed them to be some sort of Sith spawn or a Dark Sided born undead entity created in recent years to plague the Sarcophagus and feast on the multitudes of bodies buried on the tomb moon, these assumptions are far from truth. The Lyhrons are in fact a species of a fungal-like Type-II atmosphere lichen always present on Sarcophagus even before it was used as a massive burial ground by Sacorria. For millenniums the fungus kept to very small and microscopic sizes, it is no surprise then that when the moon was colonized the intruders did not notice the presence of this fungus, nor were they aware of its special properties. When the moon was settled, however, the refuse from the Colonists and buried corpses provided a new abundant source of nourishment for the lichen, allowing it to grow bigger than before. The Colonists, however, assumed the lichen to be some sort of a pest vine and tended to prune or fully purge the fungus whenever possible, keeping their growth contained on the surface of the planet. However, as the Sarcophagus catacomb networks grew deeper and deeper, so did Lyhron spread with them, until finally they were given access to food source and privacy, staying away from any prying eyes.
By the time that Metal Lords struck an agreement with the government of Sacorria and Sarcophagus, news circulated throughout the system about strange undead horrors found deep within the bottom layers of the catacomb networks. Believing it to be some sort of a Sith spawn or atrocity, much like the Withered Smoke Daemons or the Deep Ones encountered by the droids, the machines launched an expedition to find the cause of these rumors. What they found were colonies of strange fibrous lichen near old degraded catacombs and broken coffins, along with skeletal feral corpses blindly crawling on the ground in search for the nearest foodsource, even attempting to eat a droid at one point. While the scans from the droids indicated the presence of fungus within these decomposed bodies, even when knowing they were not undead they prepared to purge the planet from these creatures, not wanting to risk them being controlled by the Sith. Luckily enough, a very old and wise Lyhron managed to get attention from one of the droids and attempted to signal them, realizing the lichen was trying to communicate the machines stopped their plan before it even begun and decided to study the fungus more.
From there the Lyhrons were truly allowed to grow and prosper, taught how to speak and write in Galactic Basic by the machines, introduced to standard Galactic Technology, and given access to new metal skeletal bodies they could grow into and inhabit, as opposed to taking control of corpses buried on Sarcophagus. This was the genesis of the Lyhron culture, as they were able to write their stories and values, repurpose and modify the technology given to them to suit their own needs and preferences. Even their family units changed, as before each Lyhron was left to its own devices when growing, however with the shift from using corpses to specially made metal bodies, and development of special techniques of nurturing and reproducing new Lyhrons, the fungal beings developed a form of communal family unit, lead by their elders often in form of a council, or simply by the single eldest Lyhron within their society.
Now Lyhron became one of the organic species integrated into the Metal Lord society, allowed to establish colonies throughout multiple worlds within Droid Space and command a series of stations and ships specifically designed to accommodate their species and help their reproduction away from other beings which could find their nature offensive. While few Lyhron are known to still have organic skeleton bodies from the tombs of Sarcophagus, it is not unknown practice, especially among the elder or younger Lyhrons who either lived in those bodies before the droids found them, or were seeded into the bone bodies after the passing of the previous Lyhron which occupied it. Artisans, soldiers, and Force Users, whatever path the Lyhron will take, they can do so now freely to paint a brilliant new picture on the blank canvas of their relatively recent history.
