Technological Terror
At night when the hearth makes a whispery hum,
And teacups go missing though no one has come,
The Glimmerslip Folk tiptoe in twos,
With button-bright eyes and root-colored shoes.
They dust all your shelves and hum soft little tunes,
They borrow your socks and your spoons and your brooms,
They learn how you laugh, how you yawn, how you creep,
They practice your smile while you're fast, fast asleep.
So lock all your doors and be kind, but beware:
If someone seems you with a flicker off there,
Check shadows at dawn, if one lingers too long…
Sing this little rhyme, and keep watch all night long.
-Bedtime song sung in the Outer Rim colonies, author unknown
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a terrifying monster species for the Dzara
- Image Credit: Link
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Name: Slithergeists
- Designation: Semi-Sentient (Conditional sentience under certain circumstances)
- Origins: Helix Privateering Co Laboratories
- Average Lifespan: Typically a maximum of 1 year, but may revert to a larval form and start its life cycle over again, potentially extending its lifespan by centuries.
- Estimated Population: Scattered
- Description: Tiny, malicious creatures that delight in causing misery and terror.
- Breathes: N/A
- Average Height of Adults: 25-30 centimeters
- Average Length of Adults: N/A
- Skin color: Typically pale or pink
- Hair color: Typically greasy yellow or white
- Distinctions: Slithergeists are small, vicious, and incredibly sadistic in nature, with the ability to briefly become invisible.
- Races: N/A
- Force Sensitivity: Rare (Force-Sensitive Slithergeists may emerge only in the case of an alpha specimen imitating a Force-sensitive victim).
- Changeling: A Slithergeist may, over time, become a near-perfect clone of a single person, complete with their memories, skills, and abilities. This imitation is sufficiently advanced that DNA analysis can seldom (if ever) detect a difference. Under certain circumstances, this can render these creatures extremely dangerous.
- Tiny Terrors: Slithergeists are small, agile, and stealthy, allowing them to avoid all but the most observant individuals.
- Scalpel Operation: These creatures are designed to discretely "take care of" a given person without leaving any evidence of the Dzara's involvement. It would take a very skilled detective to uncover the truth in any scenario where they are involved.
- Tom Thumb: An individual Slithergeist is vulnerable to just about any form of attack. In a pinch, bare hands or any nearby object will do.
- Slow Burn: A Slithergeist is a delicate, careful instrument. While it can wreak terrible havoc on its victim's life, it requires time and effort to do so, and being discovered can spoil the entire operation.
- Diet: Omnivore
- Communication: Slithergeists can learn and speak most forms of spoken language.
- Technology level: Slithergeists are seldom seen using advanced technology, preferring instead to use small sharp objects or their own teeth and claws as weapons. They never create machinery, but are intelligent enough to utilize technology that is already present.
- Religion/Beliefs: N/A
- General behavior: Slithergeists typically occupy a person's domicile, wherein they torment the person unmercifully, eventually ending in their death and replacement.
A diminitive Dzara-crafted monster, the Slithergeist is one of the most specialized (and horrific) creatures ever devised.
In its default state, a Slithergeist is a tiny, hideous, vaguely-humanoid entity, usually standing no more than a few dozen centimeters in height. As such, it hardly cuts an imposing figure. Weapons are unnecessary; a firm stamp from a boot would do the job in almost all cases.
It is fortunate, then, that the Slithergeist is as clever and stealthy as it is tiny. It can most often avoid being noticed when it wishes, a skill it most often uses to shadow its assigned mark. This is aided by the creatures' near-silent movements and chameleonic skin, and it is not uncommon for a sizeable colony of these horrors to infest a home without the owner's knowledge.
The exact sapience level of Slithergeists is somewhat debatable. They are capable of learning languages, utilizing technology found in their environment, working together with others of their kind in concert, and complex thought/strategizing. However, like many Dzara-made creatures, they show no real evidence of higher culture, nor any drive to create technological innovations of their own. This has lead to a tentative designation of semi-sentience.
Certainly, Slithergeists show intelligence in their cruelty. They delight in mentally (or occasionally physically) tormenting their victims, often drawing out their target's misery for as long as mission parameters allow.
These creatures are usually deployed only under extremely specific circumstances, generally when a given target must be eliminated in a discrete manner. As such, they are rare, highly-valued, and seldom-seen, usually only spotted within the homes of their victims.
When the Dzara judges that such circumstances have arisen, the Slithergeist is set upon its mark. This is usually done by introducing the creature to a sample of the mark's tissue: a single hair, drop of blood, or any other such bit will do. Failing this, the creature can infiltrate the target's home on its own, and collect its own samples.
The creature subsequently ingests the sample, and gains the ability to near-perfectly sense the location of the mark, utilizing an incredibly developed sense of smell and hearing. The range of this ability is somewhat unclear, but it certainly may span a good-sized city under ideal circumstances.
From this point onward, the Slithergeist proceeds to shadow the target, following them everywhere they go and taking any chance it can to collect more samples of its intended victim. Most often, this results in the Slithergeist colonizing its victim's home, gradually multiplying in number and boldness. Slithergeists reproduce via budding, wherein the creature develops a small, visible parasitic twin. This tumor eventually splits off to become a separate entity, and the process may repeat as often as the creatures feel they can get away with it.
From this point, the Slithergeist colony begins to torment its target (or targets, if it has been sent after a family), growing bolder as time passes. It might slightly move furniture, steal treasured items only to later replace them after they've been missed, or perform a myriad other forms of gaslighting to stress and torment the target. In latter stages of growth, when the original "alpha" is all but indistinguishable from its victim, it might insult or harm the victim's loved ones, destroy their income, or perform other such, more severe forms of sabotage. These serve purely to put its target in a frayed, tense state, but should it judge that the target is unlikely to be rattled by these, it will move directly to incrimination.
Most often, these predations are dismissed as the actions of pest animals early on, but an expert sweep of the home will reveal no sign of any such animal activity. Slithergeists are careful not to leave clear evidence of their existence, and will never directly reveal themselves or cause harm unless their victim is alone. Bolder Slithergeists might allow their victim a brief glimpse of their hideous eyes in the dark, or the sound of chattering voices in the walls, or the momentary sight of a tiny, clawed, disturbingly humanoid hand curling around a corner. Frequently, this results in the victim's friends and relatives coming to doubt their sanity, should they confide in others about their experiences. Of course, this shaken confidence in the victim's mental faculties suits the creatures just fine.
If the infestation is not discovered quickly, then the creatures eventually form a sort of primitive social hierarchy, centered around the original individual that infested the home. This individual, given time, undergoes a startling transformation. Slowly but surely, the creature grows from a little horror into a miniature clone of its prey, and eventually, into a perfect, physically-identical copy. This imitation is sufficiently advanced that it can fool most forms of DNA analysis, scanners, or other forms of biometric identity verification.
At this stage, the "alpha" Slithergeist begins committing crimes, starting at the petty and moving on to the horrifying. What form these crimes take depends on the culture and government of the victim. In more good-leaning, egalitarian cultures, this might be as simple as string of grisly murders, with clear evidence of the perpetrator. In darker ones, it might create a conspiracy against the victim's allies or superiors, then deliberately allow that information to leak out.
Naturally, any DNA evidence collected from these crime scenes will solidly implicate the victim, as by this point, the DNA of the horror and its prey are near-indistinguishable. Needless to say, the goal of this practice is a simple one: to frame the victim for the creature's own misdeeds, leading to their disgrace, arrest, or death at the hands of the authorities (or the victim's enemies).
In extreme cases, a Slithergeist operation might spread beyond the home of its initial victim. Slithergeists might murder and replace the victim's loved ones, pose as doctors to perform unnecessary or harmful malpractice upon the victim, destroy their domicile entirely, or other forms of more extreme psychological torment. To be a victim of a Slithergeist pack is to be systematically and expertly isolated and gaslit, often to the point of madness or death.
Once its goal is complete, and the victim taken care of, the Alpha Slithergeist sloughs off its newgrown body and reverts to its larval form, ready for a new plaything. The colony is then retrieved by Dzara personnel, and relocated to their next victims.
If discovered or caught in the act, a Slithergeist will usually attempt to flee; they fight only as a last resort, and usually only if they outnumber their victim (which they virtually always do). Slithergeists will attempt to directly murder their victim only if they prove resistant to the creatures' techniques, or if the colony's cover is blown in earnest. Most often, these murders are performed with kitchen knives, scissors, writing implements, tools, or any other small improvised weapons the colony can lay its hands on. Few sights are as nightmarish as a dozen of these deformed little imps crawling out of the dark, clutching gleaming knives or shards of glass.
Thus, a successful mission for the Slithergeists ends with the victim dead, imprisoned, or raving inside the walls of a mental institution. Once they have dispatched their victim in one way or another, the colony will usually attempt to contact their Dzara handlers, resulting in their retrieval.
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