Syss Rembala
Devout Dog
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: Create a playable species of public use inspired in the mythological siren/mermaid. Contribute to the lore of the planet Anthemoessa.
- Image Credit: Credit to GoldKanet from DeviantArt, "Deep Black"
- Canon: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Name: Seiarenei (Sea-ah-reh-nee)
- Designation: Sentient
- Homeworld: Anthemoessa (to be submitted)
- Language: Okeanei
- Average Lifespan: 200 years.
- Estimated Population: Rare. Seiarenei almost exclusively live on their homeplanet Anthemoessa. There has been some reported cases of Seiarenei having migrated to other planets, yet the great majority of them keep to their planet of origin.
- Description: The Seiarenei are an all-female species, they have the ability to reproduce with other near-Humans and bare only female offspring, who inherits the characteristics of the mother due to all of them being dominant traits. The process is facilitated by the endothelial cells of the species ovum, which can identify the male chromosome Y and destroy it, thus only being able to be fertilized by X chromosomes, ensuring the birth of a female child. During the development of the child, the body of the mother produces a series of hormones that are passed onto the developing baby through the placenta and umbilical cord. This hormones further differentiate the reception of the baby to specific proteins, thus removing any characteristic that the child might have inherited for the parent that would interfere with the given characteristics of a Seiarenei. In the end, a specimen is formed that sports all the characteristics of the mother in display and that has a subjugated, not expressed copy of the father's genetic code. When the individual reaches maturity, the way in which the cells of the gametes are obtained ensure that the genetic code found in them do eliminate the characteristics of the male parent, passing only what was inherited by the mother and thus avoiding the dilution of the Seiarenei genetic charge.
- They are characterized by possessing two possible forms: an aquatic and a terrestrial one. Seiarenei are often described as beautiful by human standards, with a distinctive ability to be alluring. When in their aquatic forms, the Seiarenei display a long, fish-like tail, gills on the sides of their bodies (right below the armpits, over the ribs) and membranous formations between their fingers that aid in swimming. The transition from one form to the other is painless and takes a few minutes, it does not occur immediately. The scales are "softened" by a series of chemical reactions on the cells directly bellow them and the quickly engulfed by skin, which is produced quite quickly due to the high collagen peptides this very same cells have. The reason why this results in a pair of legs is because the structural formation of the tail's bones can easily be rearranged by the relaxation of the muscles that force the structure together in order to create the tail. Once the Seiarenei is out of the water and the process starts, the muscles relax, loosening the bones into two separate structures while the scales are engulfed by skin, transforming into a pair of legs. They do not manipulate these transitions willingly. If on water they'll have a tail, if on land they'll have two legs, the transformation is not voluntary nor are they able to resist it.
- When in their terrestrial forms, Seiarenei are very much alike humans but they do retain some of their natural characteristics, the membranes between their fingers being the most remarkable one. Upon touching earth, their tales morph into a pair of legs, allowing them to walk and move much like any other bipedal species does.
- Breathes: Type I atmosphere if on earth, can breath underwater.
- Average height of adults: Terrestrial Form: 1,6-1,7m
- Average length of adults: Aquatic Form: 2m (due to length of the tail)
- Skin color: Seiarenei can come in the most varied of colors. Any skin coloration seen in humans plus tones such as golden, greenish, blueish, orange, violets/pinks and even white can be found.
- Hair color: Same as observed with their skin, Seiarenei can develop almost any hair color though human-like colorations seem to be the dominant tendency.
- Distinctions: Though a Seiarenei can seem indistinguishable from a female human besides their unnatural beauty, there are many characteristics that set them apart from baseline humanity. First of all, almost half of the Seiarenei are born with a strong connection to the Force, with a high tendency to dueling in the practice of what others would define as Dark or Bogan. Thanks to this attunement to the living Force and their natural attributes for manipulation, Seiranei are natural experts at manipulating and using others to their advantage. They are trained since birth to use their abilities to the extent they understand, and the main focus of this is learning to Force drain their surrounding creatures. The second ability they prioritize is Beast Control, allowing them to domesticate or otherwise manipulate the non-sentient and some semi-sentient beings of their world. These are the reasons why the otherwise weak species, that compared to the other sea-dwellers and predators of Anthemoessa should have occupied one of the lowest levels on the power chain are actually the dominating species of the planet. Furthermore, Seiarenei have the ability to communicate telepathically only with each other, seeing as how underwater verbal communication is hindered.
- Races: The Seiarenei do not have any established races.
- Strengths:
- Force Sensitive: Seiraenei have around half of their population being born with a connection to the Force, the Seiarenei enjoy many of its benefits and make sure to employ them in every day life. A possible downside to this is that, they are so used to employing the Force that it is unlikely they will really make an effort to try and hide it.
- Amphibious: Though their habitat of origin and preference is the vast, blue ocean or a deep, wide lake, Seiarenei are equally suited for water as they are for land. That is, as long as they aren't in a very hot place.
- Manipulative: The queens of deceit, Seiarenei's favorite sport is to fondle the minds of others until they have them wrapped between their fingers. Words are easy on their tongues and its hard to resist their argumentative abilities.
- Beautiful: It is an excellent tool when you know how to give it use. Even if they did not, they are still pretty to look at, right?
- Great Senses: The Seiarenei have an acute pair of eyes and ears. They can see even in very dark or bright places and from a farther distance. Their hearing and sense of smell are slightly below average.
- Long-lived: Seiarenei get to live approximately 200 standard years, they age slower.
- Strong scales: The scales are quite resistant to average kinetic attacks but vulnerable to blaster-fire or any other heat-producing weapon such as a light-saber. Sharpened objects such as vibroblades can also cut through them after a couple of effective blows. Even so, the scales only cover the lower half of their body, so their torso, where most main organs are contained, is still very vulnerable to injury.
- Weaknesses:
- Weaker than baseline humans: In every sense of the word. Their natural muscles, excepting only those of their tails since these are actively engaged in swimming, are only strong enough to carry the weight of the Seiarenei while on land and not much more. Out of the water, where they can't use the speed of their tails to maneuver and/or escape, they cannot oppose much resistance and are easily manhandled.
- Prone to insanity and isolationism: A well known after-effect of the pleasures the Dark Side brings, the last of their years are usually spent in a deep dementia. Seiarenei who reach this state are often consumed by the Hunger (read below) and can even turn cannibalistic, hunting down the members of their own specie to either Force-drain them...or eat them. However, slight twitches of these insanity are observable since a younger age, specially when the Seiarenei experiences negative emotions. In other words, they are highly unstable and demented. The stronger the individual is in the Force, the more affected they are by insanity.
- Unacquainted with technology: Seiarenei have never developed any sort of technology, nor use the one created by other species mainly due to a lack of knowledge and interest regarding it.
- Heat: They won't naturally start to dry as if they were Selkath and can actually deal quite well with high-temperatures if there is enough humidity in the air (think a jungle). However, deserts are a big no for these creatures, the excess of dryness and the lack of water will have them fainting in a matter of just a few minutes (half an hour in the best scenario) if not constantly supplied water. It is also a very viable method of torture against this race, nothing brings them more pain than drying out and can very easily die of heat-stroke.
- Longing for water: Its not that they unquestionably need to be in it to survive, but a Seiarenei will never stray too far for long periods of time from water. If they do, they experience a form of abstinence which triggers an uncontrollable itch, discomfort and even pain in their terrestrial legs, similar as having hundreds of little needles piercing in and out your skin. Being in this state for too long often triggers the insanity they all develop.
- Murderous intent: Seiarenei are enslaved by what they call the Hunger. They are carnivores, predators and need to eat. If they don't keep themselves sufficiently fed, they will start hungering for anything that has meat on their bones. Near-humans being an acquired taste to many of them. Starving a Seiarenei will usually turn it into a very docile and annoying being, pleading for food. It is still not recommendable to be near one if it hasn't been fed for a long time, they will turn even on their own species if they are that hungry.
- Hunted: Seiarenei are often hunted for their tails. Unknown to many, the scales that compose it are resistant to kinetic damage and can be seriously sharpened. This has made them a favorite, extremely rare material for armor and weapon making. They are even used to create jewelry, given the beauty and shine of them.
- Slow healers: Seiarenei's blood composition include a remarkable lower number of platelets, meaning that any injury that breaks their skin or vessels takes much longer to clog and heal, making them more prone to bleeding out due to otherwise not so life-threatening injuries.
- Fire: Seiarenei's skin is exceptionally weak to fire. Not only it burns quicker, the fire can provoke very deep wounds into their flesh. A burnt Seiarenei will usually have to retreat back into the water for some time, until she is healed seeing as how burn wounds exposed to air brings them much more pain than when in the water.
CULTURE
- Diet: Obliged carnivores.
- Communication: Seiarenei communicate telepathically (same species only if untrained), verbally and through written language. They also make a lot of use of physical communication through expression, specific tail movements and can produce some animalistic sounds such as screeches and blooping sounds.
- Technology level: Very low, if any at all. Seiarenei do not employ technology in their natural habitats. They simply take advantage of their surroundings and craft weapons or basic utensils out of the available underwater resources mainly.
- Religion/Beliefs: The Seiarenei lack a figurative perception of a God or Goddess. However, they believe in the power they draw from what they call Dark Tide or Unlit (the Force) and believe the Seiarenei are the daughters of it. They perceive the strongest members of their community as the "favorites" of the Dark Tide and it is usually them who occupy the higher ranks and positions. Specimens that are born without a connection to the Dark Tide are called the Barren Ones, and either killed upon birth as they are seen as curse and an offense to the Unlit or kept as slaves to the other Seiarenei. It is estimated that around 45% of the population is born force-sensitive.
- General behavior:
The second one, is the Hunger. All, every single one of the Seiarenei suffer from the Hunger and they will go to any lengths to ensure its kept satisfied. Some of the most gruesome stories can be heard about Seiarenei eating their family or lovers in order to sustain themselves. The only ones who seem to be completely safe are their brood. Apparently, this often egotistical, seditious beings have an immense amount of motherly instincts and would never harm their offspring, being perfectly able of dragging anyone who so much as looked suspicious around their children to the deepest darkness of the ocean and feed them to their pet sharks. There has been some reported cases of Seiarenei who were able to withstand the pressure of the Hunger, but to the cost of their lives or their sanity and even then, many consider these stories to be no more than myths.
Seiarenei are characterized by needing little rest, most of them sleep in periods of a few minutes scattered throughout the day and remain active both at day and night, at least while they are in the water. They seem to have more of a diurnal tendency when spending long periods of time on earth.
Seiarenei tend to live in semi-isolation. Usually, a group of Seiarenei will live sufficiently away from one another, with their children if the case, so as to not necessarily encounter each other every day but close enough to regroup should the need arise. They do, however, hunt or produce in groups to make a more efficient use of their time and effort and divide the resulting goods equally, though it is not strange to encounter short lived discussions as to who deserves more.
The species is highly regarded for their weapon, jewelry and clothes making together with their beauty products that go from ointments and creams to edible treatments. It is not a surprising thing that they make their appearance a central part of their lives. As for the weapons, they find minerals in the ocean that are of better quality than most found on earth. They do not have any special interest in them and so tend to make them only under request or for decor.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Seiarenei have inhabited Anthemoessa for as long as they can remember. Though they do not consider this story to be true, given their belief that the Seiarenei are the daughter of the Dark Tide, it is said that they were the result of a group of women who stranded into the world after escaping the pirates that had kidnapped them. The water became an increasingly frequent medium to travel and so, as they started reproducing with the visitors that happened to land on Anthemoessa, started evolving and adjusting to their new surroundings as centuries and generations went by. They've always been very protective of their world and thus, very few of them ever wondered what the rest of the galaxy might be like enough to want to leave.
Seiarenei have been keeping the same style of living for quite a long time, dispersed in communities of a few of them who get along well enough, uniting only under the call of their Queen or under the threat to their Oceans, walking the islands of Anthemoessa solely out of curiosity, to play with the minds of the other inhabitants that had eventually found their way into the water planet, unsuspecting to the type of specie that awaited them, lurking in the depths of a Dark sea.
Through the years, always under the rule of a Dremire Queen, the Seiarenei prospered, building their settlements in underwater caves, out-powering the other species with their abilities and their numbers, abandoning the ocean only long enough to mate and keep bringing into the world the daughters of the Dark Tide before returning, to raise their children alongside them.
Fairly isolated from the outside events, Anthemoessa was mostly unaffected by the Gulag plague, its inhabitants taking to the depths where they couldn't be reached by the infection, to not return to the surface until a long, long time had passed and their daughters had already developed even better water bodies than their mothers.
But then, many years after, came the Netherworld. Too many of them disappeared, most to never return. But those that had returned had stories...Stories that would change the viewpoint of the younger members of the race forever. What if it was time to leave Anthemoessa?
. I did add a short explanation just in case as to why they would have been the only affected specie (found in Distinctions)
