Ayessa Kroan
Stay A Little Longer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION- Intent: To sub for another creature from Kiffu that has a depressing amount of information about it present in canon.
- Image Credit: X
- Canon: Static tree
- Links: Spark-dragon (Natural predators)
- Name: Static tree, called a ‘Stat’ in shorthand.
- Designation: Non-sentient
- Homeworld: Kiffu
- Language: --
- Average Lifespan: 20 GSY in the wild, though domestic Stats can live up to 30 GSY.
- Estimated Population: Planetary
- Description: A Static tree, on first glance, looks absolutely nothing like a tree. They’re a wingless avian species with large feathered bodies, craning necks and two stout, extremely agile legs, raptor-like faces and long horns, and what looks to be a plethora of crystals emerging out of a hump on their back. The name is believed to come from how when lightning strikes the crystals on their back, the resulting tendrils of energy make it look like a ‘tree’ with branches and trunk, with the bird as the roots.
- Breathes: Type 1
- Average height of adults: Male Static trees can reach 2 meters in height (head to ground), with most females clocking in at 1.5 meters.
- Average length of adults: From 'beak' to 'tail', Static trees are roughly a meter long.
- Skin color: Static trees have underlying skin colours of dark browns and umbers. Static tree leather is highly prized for its colour and softness.
- Hair color: All Static trees share a reddy-copper feather colour.
- Distinctions: The most distinct evolutionary aspect of Static trees is the unique bio-organic mass they develop on their back after hatching. Beginning out as a few keratin-based crystals, they eventually multiply into the cornucopia present on adult Stats over the development period. Lightning is naturally drawn to these crystals and flocks of Static trees gather in Kiffuan deserts to collect lightning, which is used as a defense mechanism against predators. This, however, is what makes them appealing to their most well-known natural predator; the Spark-dragons.
- Races: --
- Strengths:
Lightning In A Bottle: Unlike Spark-dragons who feed off of it, Static trees collect electricity to use as defense mechanisms against predators, like Msak hounds or sentient hunters. Alarm a flock of Static trees and they could release their charge with a devastating effect both to themselves and the would-be predator with enough force to knock them flat down.
- Roadrunner: With two strong, agile legs, good luck catching one of these once they’re on the run. They’re fast flat sprinters, able to outspeed almost anything and can jump and scale cliffs with ease, helping them to outrun hunters.
- Docile: Since animal husbandry is more effective on Static trees than Spark-dragons, over time the animals have become relatively domesticated to the Kiffar population and utilized for farming and energy harvesting. If you aren’t outright threatening them, you could approach a Static tree without little issue. Their feathers are soft, leather softer, eggs delicious and apparently they taste like chicken. Their crystals, when removed, make decorative pieces or can be used as organic batteries.
[*]Weaknesses:
- One-Trick Birdie: Static trees do not have the necessary biology to protect themselves from their own electricity, or to even handle electricity in their body outside of their crystals. They can 'detonate' charges that could backfire onto themselves and essentially fry their brains and stop their hearts. This is especially common if large packs of them are spooked into releasing their stores at once, which makes for tragic but comical sights.
- Flightless: They might be birds, but they sure can’t fly. They don’t even have wings. A common hunting tactic for Spark-dragons is to drive them off cliffs in Kiffu’s mountain ranges.
- My Defense, Your Offense: Due to static trees collecting electricity, they make for extremely attractive and easy prey for Spark-dragons. Spark-dragons can detect their electrical charge and hunt them for miles, and are not affected by them discharging. Spark-dragons can also emit fields that mimic what a Static tree believes a lightning storm to ‘feel’ like, letting them lure solitary birds into their dens to be fed on as the hapless birds are tricked into thinking a storm is coming.
- Zap Zap: Since, like Spark-dragons, Static trees deal in electricity, they share in the unique properties of their predator -- Devices with the capability of detecting electromagnetic fields can also pick up on herds of Static trees, and they can be affected with Force powers like Ionize and Electrical Manipulation (to an extent since they're not droids), though only in their back region since their bodies do not conduct electricity all over like Spark-dragons do. A Force user could theoretically sap a Static tree of their collected energy, or manipulate it to kill them.
- Docile: If you are able to hide your true intentions and approach a Static tree calmly, you can use their generally-domesticated nature against them to catch them by surprise.
CULTURE
- Diet: Static trees are omnivorous but prefer to consume insects, tiny creatures like rodents or various grasses and berries.
- Communication: Body language is what they deal in, approach openly and a Static tree will not flee, but come at them with hostile intent and they might shock you.
- Technology level: --
- Religion/Beliefs: --
- General behavior: Static trees are very social creatures and live in flocks with fellows of their species. Literal pecking orders are established within the group, with males often having many female mates able to lay clutches of eggs and will fight others over eggs or females. However, in the end, the entire flock collaboratively parent young Static trees and are not opposed to sharing mates if an ultimatum is reached, making them relatively and surprisingly polyamorous. By the time maturity is reached Static trees have a full ‘crown’ of crystals on their back that they can use to collect lightning, and during the lightning season they gather in the deserts of Kiffu to become living lighting rods to attract the precious energy needed to fuel their defense mechanism. As some of their species have become farm animals to various Kiffar clans they are fairly calm creatures and can come to enjoy the company of sentient handlers, appreciating affection like pats and scratches, though grow protective over their crystals unless pacified by the Force or sedated medically.
Evolving in a similar manner to Spark-dragons, to adapt to Kiffu and Kiffex’s intersecting atmospheres, Static trees are believed to have not always had electricity-conducting crystals sprouting from their back. It’s also not clear how exactly something more akin to a mineral than anything began to grow on them, though the most likely answer is that another organism attached themselves to crystal-less Static trees millions of years ago and the two species co-evolved into one. No matter how the crystals came to be, they very much are a part of a Static tree and the Kiffar people found use for them early on in Civilization, domesticating them as farm animals and living electrical generators. Some extremely rural clans still use a Static tree’s energy capacity as a living battery to fuel tech. With the advent of spacefaring technology and all the boons to the rest of technological development it brought, this aspect of the Static tree’s use has widely fallen out of practise and they are more used as pets and produce.
