HK-36
The Iron Lord Protector (Neutral Good)
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create an NPC race of hostile nomadic aliens to provide an enemy for Metal Lords, spacers, and other characters to fight during PvE threads
- Image Credit: Exile by Todd Lockwood
- Canon: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Name: The Deep Ones
- Designation: Sentient
- Homeworld: Weken in the Parthovian Cluster
- Language: No spoken language, written referred to as "Squid Runes" by outsiders
- Average Lifespan: Naturally around 100 standard years, usually prolonged unnaturally either through technological means or stasis.
- Estimated Population: Scattered (Smaller groups found in many places around the galaxy)
- Description: The Deep Ones appear to be some sort of cephalopodic species, distinguished by the long pale tentacles running down their bodies from their mouths. Most of the members of the species dress in blacks and dark violets, preferring long flowing robes which cover their feet-equivalents, from their sleeves protrude elongated and thin limbs, skeletal with spindly fingers, the materials of their clothes often writhing softly, hiding more tentacles beneath them. Their eyes are dark with pupils shining with cold, evil light. What is even more unnerving however is that the Deep Ones seem to be a completely mute and silent species, making no noise outside of the occasional soft slap of tentacle against skin.
- Breathes: Ammonia, Carbon Monoxide, various gases which would usually be poisonous to humans.
- Average height of adults: ~2 meters
- Average length of adults: N/A
- Skin color: Sickly white, pale grey, soft purple, light blue, fading salmon.
- Hair color: The ends of their numerous tentacles are usually a darker shade of their skin color.
- Distinctions: Completely Nomadic and living aboard signature squid-like ships. Many tentacles, especially 4-8 prominent ones protruding from the mouth. Powerful jaws with a couple of sharp spike-like teeth. Frail looking thin bodies. Strong innate abilities with telekinesis, telepathy, mind control, and various other manifestations of the Force.
- Races:
- Warrior Caste- A race of the Deep Ones born with unusually weak presence in the Force or no usual telekinetic or telepathic abilities. This state is most often accompanied by almost complete lack of communication with other members of their race, as they cannot be spoken to and usually are unable to read as well. As such, members of this race are often quickly driven mad and their fellow Deep Ones goad them on into physical training, forcing them to train and sculpt their frail bodies until becoming formidable and deadly warriors.
- Sorcerer Caste- More prominent out of the two races, these Deep Ones manifest their races' usual presence in the Force and their metaphysical capabilities. They are able to levitate almost effortlessly, communicate between each other through telepathy freely, control the minds of other beings, and take up most of the Deep One's positions as researchers, artificers, shipwrights, or weapon manufacturers.
- Lich Caste- On the other side of the spectrum there are the Liches, named so by the Metal Lord scouts who came upon them due to the seemingly decaying state of their bodies. They are the Deep Ones who have been born with unusually strong presence within the Force, although when compared to the rest of the Galaxy they would have about as much presence as a regular Jedi Knight. However, when coupled with their natural innate abilities, even an average level of Force Sensitivity is especially dangerous among the Deep Ones. Lich Caste have been known to be able to communicate telepathically with multiple individuals across great distances, comparable to the distance over which long-range holotransmitters and capital ship communication suites can communicate with each other. Indeed Liches serve a similar purpose on Deep One ships as such communication suites, as the race does not possess a way to communicate through devices like holoprojector, relying on their brethren as powerful telepathic relays and transmitters. Their limitation, however, was the one Lich could communicate in such a way only with another Lich which then would be able to relay the message to other Deep Ones aboard their ship. The Lich Caste are also capable users of telekinesis, much like other Deep Ones, able to use powerful waves and bursts of telekinetic power to defend themselves should it be necessary. More importantly, however, they possessed natural affinity for Instinctive Astrogation, the skill which allowed the Deep Ones to navigate forgotten and abandoned hyperlanes over all these years, sticking to paths that other species would not dare to often use. Thankfully, at least for the rest of Galaxy, these Deep Ones in a way lack focus on the physical world, at least in a sense that most of them remain in a constantly meditative and vegetative state, choosing to let their minds stretch out and wander the great metaphysical ocean in constant search of expanding their boundaries. As such most of them are driven insane through their meditations, or even if they maintain their sanity their brethren imprison them in hopes of containing and controlling their gifts, keeping them alive through unnatural means which only contributes to their withered and diseased appearance.
- Strengths:
- Innate Psionic Abilities- Most of the Deep Ones are capable of using a selection of Force-born abilities, these include telepathy, telekinesis, Force sense, and a form of mind probing and mind control.
- Asexual- The Deep Ones reproduce asexually via larvae. Each Deep One is able to produce between 100 to 300 larvae throughout their lifetime, however only a handful will reach adulthood as the Deep One larvae require to have a host body in order to fully develop into an intelligent Deep One. Without a host body the larvae will actually survive, however larvae without a host are usually destroyed by the Deep Ones as they do not develop in a way that suits the Deep Ones' plans and schemes. The larvae are usually vomited out by the Deep Ones, growing and amassing within their stomachs, however should a Deep One die and their body left alone, after an hour it will begin to bloat horribly, and after three it will burst open, unleashing a swarm of larvae from within its bowels immediately seeking out a host to burrow into. Cybernetic implants and prosthesis have an adhere effects on the Deep One reproductive systems, the more of them are installed the less larvae a Deep One can produce, this is especially true for cybernetics connected with their digestive systems, such additions would immediately stop a Deep One from producing more offspring altogether. As such a Deep One is expected to have at least two offspring by the time they are 100 as few of these creatures retain ability to reproduce once they prolong their lifespan past 125 years or over 50% of their body mass consists of cybernetics, fewer creatures still even with addition of prosthesis and cybernetic implants get to live past 200.
- Telekinetic Proficiency- Due to their innate abilities most Deep Ones are very proficient in the arts of telekinetic manipulation, even able to fly and levitate themselves effortlessly.
- Telepathic Proficiency- The Deep Ones are also proficient telepaths, quickly able to communicate with multiple beings at once as well as enforce their power in form of mind probing and other mental assaults while showing a high degree of skills in defending their own minds.
- Mind Control- Mind control capabilities are usually used by the Deep Ones to form their legions of thralls, mindless corpses fully controlled by the Deep Ones as puppets. To create a thrall a Deep One needs to lobotomize their victims first, most often by physically latching onto their heads and using their two spike-like fangs to crush the skull and pierce the brain, gulping down portions of it, precisely leaving only the most basic motor functions to take control of the being like a puppet via their telepathic capabilities. Without doing so the Deep Ones are only capable of what amounts to a Mind Trick, a very temporary effect of confusion and openness to suggestion which lasts only a couple of minutes, their potency in doing so depends on the willpower of their target. Consuming the brain actually allows the Deep Ones to consume the being's knowledge as well, often learning many useful skills and experiences from their victims as well.
- Nomadic- The Deep Ones are nomadic being, moving through the void between stars aboard great fleets of grotesque squid-shaped vessels. As such, they can be encountered all over the Galaxy, although usually utilizing abandoned or forgotten hyperlanes, sticking to the edge of the Galaxy, traveling the Unknown Regions, or throughout the Deep Space, dark regions between the stars. This makes hunting them down or fully clearing the Galaxy from their threat very difficult as always one fleet or another is bound to escape.
- Flesh Shaping- The Deep Ones possess very specific and somewhat unique technological form. Resembling the shaping designs of the Vongs, technology and ships produced by the Deep Ones seem to possess very organic designs, often those of tentacles and spiral shells, however the Deep Ones do not rely solely on biots and shaping organic matter for the purpose like the Vong do. Instead the Deep Ones walk middle ground, relying on cybernetic, combining skilled knowledge of mechanisms and machines with potent abilities in manipulating genetics and biology. This balance between shaping and cybernetic technology means they are not as potent in it as the dedicated Vong are, as such their shaping capabilities are only limited to manufacturing organic looking and chitin based armor, and the organic designs of their ships, resembling great cephalopods swimming through the void between stars.
- Tentacle Strength- Due to the way the larvae bond with their hosts, there is a great disparity between how strong the Deep Ones' skeletal bodies are and how strong the tentacles growing out of their cephalopodic portions are. As such, their tentacles are extremely strong, once found in their grasp one would have a very hard time of escaping them. Although rarely resorting to wielding weapons with them, the Deep Ones who manage to catch their enemy in these tentacles have been known to strangle them with relative ease, as well as break bones, crush skulls, and even break apart durasteel on occasion, providing some threat even to droids.
- Weaknesses:
- Frail- The greatest weakness of the Deep Ones are their frail, usually skeletal bodies. While they can possess great and potent metaphysical powers within the Force, once someone manages to close in on them and engage them in physical combat, the Deep Ones do not pose that much of a threat. Of course getting close to them is usually the hard part. The Warrior Caste is somewhat exempt from this weaknesses, being the most physically fit out of all Deep Ones races at the cost of having no Force-borne abilities, but even then each Deep One from the Warrior Caste is approximately as strong, or just slightly stronger, than an average human being. Of course, it is one thing to be able to wrestle down a Deep One and another to escape their face tentacles, which are by far the strongest portions of their body.
- Mute- Because of their reliance on communication through telepathy, the Deep Ones do not possess a spoken language anymore, in fact this lack of oral communication goes so far that all Deep Ones are mutes, a trait which is especially damaging to the Warrior Caste who are unable to truly communicate with any of their brethren.
- Nomadic- Because the Deep Ones do not possess a homeworld anymore, or truly any permanents holdings on other worlds, that does somewhat harm the capacity for how many members their species can have. Although they can be seen throughout every corner of the Galaxy, should one venture far enough from known space, and their fleets are numerous, the fact that their species has to be contained to ships puts a limit on their population. This also means that the various fleets are rather disunified, mostly doing their own thing. Perhaps it is this lack of central leadership and coordination that still saves fringe worlds from massive raids by these creatures.
- Parasitic- creation of intelligent and Force-capable Deep Ones requires a host, otherwise the larvae would turn into a barbaric and ravenous beast dangerous to everyone around them, its brethren included. As such, the growth of the Deep One populations relies on them constantly raiding and capturing prisoners from other fleets and ships unlucky enough to cross their paths. If stuck without any hosts or tributes the Deep One population will stagnate and begin to die out. Interestingly enough a Deep One could serve as a host for its own larvae, sacrificing himself to grow another Deep One, however that will yield only one new Deep One and most of their kind are too selfish to willingly sacrifice themselves when they could just extend their lifespan with cybernetics and sorcery.
- Limited Force Presence- Although the Deep Ones have an arsenal of innate powers, outside of that it is very hard if not impossible for them to learn more abilities within the Force. Only really the Lich caste have been known to expand their metaphysical arsenal into powers outside of various forms of telepathy of telekinesis, but then by the time they would master such abilities their minds would be too far gone and they would find themselves in constant meditation, nothing but tools used by their brethren for their own purposes.
- Dark Side- Deep Ones have a rather strong presence in the Dark Side, every single one of them. It is pretty clear to any Force user coming upon them that these are beings of almost elemental evil, and this presence allows other Force users to sense them should a Deep One fleet begin to close upon them.
- Backstabbing- Deep Ones are a pretty selfish and conniving species, really caring only for themselves and extension of their life-span and power without any capability for empathy. They see their own kind as nothing but tools to further their personal agenda, this is especially true for the Warrior and Lich castes who are exchange between the Sorcerer caste like commodities. This outlook leads to much in-fighting and backstabbing, keeping the Deep One society in almost constant state of turmoil and upheaval.
- Small Window- Tying into their restricted arsenal of Force powers, the Deep Ones have a small window before falling into the spiral of insanity. Too much presence and power in the Force and the Deep One will become a Lich, cutting himself off from the physical world and enter a constant meditative state. Too little and they will be cut off from their brethren, focused too much on the physical world and confined to harsh barracks where they would be forced to train themselves as warriors. Same goes for the amount of knowledge their gather, usually by consuming other creatures' brains, if they will stagnate then they will be shamed and belittled by their brethren, if they will learn too much they will quickly find themselves losing their minds and often adopting personality traits from their victims.
- Diet: Carnivores, especially prefer raw flesh and brain matter of sentient beings. Poisoned by gluten.
- Communication: Most of communication is conducted telepathically, capable of creating writing using metal tablets and plastic flimsy pages for tomes.
- Technology level: The Deep Ones are at technology level comparable to that of the rest of contemporary Galactic society. Much of their weaponry is designed towards targeting enemy minds and neurological systems, usually through highly sophisticated and precise electrical charges designed to short out neurological systems and sonic weaponry, although the Deep Ones are capable of manufacturing blaster and various slugthrower technology, as well as capable of crafting their own lightsabers, although it is unknown if the Deep Ones learned these designs from others or came up with them themselves. Their armor usually utilizes organic materials and relies on chitinous plates, much like Vong armor, or polymers twined together into armormesh synthweave robes. Few suits forged out of various metals like Duranium or Durasteel are used by the Deep Ones, but those are usually given to the much stronger Warrior Caste. Their ships are capable of hyperdrive travel and rely on what could be called flagellation drives, that is tentacle-like structures attached to them which wiggle and writhe within space, to increase their maneuverability. These tentacle structures are also equipped with various tractor and magnetic technology, allowing them to latch onto other ships and bring them in against the Deep One vessels in order to be boarded, for these purpose the Deep One vessels possess sophisticated deflector draining and bypassing technology as well as hull cutting tools. Although usually similar in appearance, Deep Ones have been known to field ships ranging from corvettes to cruisers and perhaps even larger, with reports of each vessel being capable of making more within it or via portable shipyards attached to them.
- Religion/Beliefs: Most Deep Ones do not worship any higher power, rather seeing themselves or their race as a whole as divine power or divine beings, considering themselves to be the gods other beings should worship. However, some Deep Ones have been known to worship a being they call the Writhing End, which is usually portrayed as a giant brain covered in a mess of tentacles, prophesied to bring the end of chaos within Galaxy by first uniting all Deep Ones under its control and then uniting all other life in the Galaxy by turning them all into thralls. Although it is unknown how the Deep Ones came into contact with it, and even stranger why they begun to worship it, some Metal Lord ships uncovered signs of the Machine God within captured Deep One ships and as markings on some of their bodies, suggesting that some Deep Ones are part of the cults that first plagued Omega Protectorate during the Bando Gora campaigns and now extend their reach into Metal Lord and Galactic Alliance spaces.
- General behavior: The Deep Ones do not mate and do not have family units. Instead, when they capture prisoners from other ships or fleets they are brought before an initially empty spawning pool where all of the ship's Deep Ones gather. Then they proceed to vomit and purge themselves from the larvae writhing within their guts until the pool is filled to the brim with the mess of small tentacled beasts squirming around. The hosts are then forcible pushed into the pool where the larvae burrow themselves inside them. Afterwards the hosts are fished out and carried to allow the larvae to incubate into new Deep Ones and the rest still in the spawning pool are burned into nothing and their ashes are jettisoned outside into the void.
- After the larvae matures and consumes the host's body, building upon it the body of the new Deep One, it is given one simple task- gather knowledge. That is the heart of a Deep One's existence and all their values, all they want is to improve their standing and power, and to do so they need to gather knowledge. This is done usually by capturing and consuming brains from other beings, often those captured by their raiding parties, although it is not unheard of that one Deep One would consume the brain of the other, after all they would hoard their knowledge greedily and the only way to get it out of them would be by force.
- As such, all the Deep Ones built, usually by assimilating the designs their victims were familiar with, is engineered to capture and imprison more ships they can come across to consume more brains and gather more knowledge. All their invent and the research they conduct is designed to improve their capabilities of capturing more prisoners and eating more brains. If they explore, it is to find more brains, if they hunt, it is because they're hungry for brains. When they come upon outsiders or travelers in general, they are usually extremely hostile, attempting to subdue those who come across them and swiftly devour their brain to turn them into a thrall, use them as a host for their larvae, or just gather their knowledge and leave them to rot. They are nocturnal however, because it is easier to eat someone's brain when they're asleep.
The Deep Ones actually originated on the planet of Weken in the Parthovian Cluster, located in turn in the Tingel Arm. Their earliest history is unknown, even to them, but the society of Deep Ones upon Weken used to thrive in a rich world of gases poisonous to most other beings, that least until the Deep Ones consumed the rest of the beings on the planet and became its only species. Their legend have it that the first Deep One came to be when an exploring party came down to Weken in attempt to chart the system, however one unfortunate explorer stumbled into a nearby bog where they became trapped and stranded. What made matters worse, the bog was a primitive form of a Deep One spawn pool. After few hours the explorer was dead, their suit ripped open and filled with larvae swarming over their body. Few more hours and they jolted back to life, with grotesque tentacles spewing out from their mouths, climbing out from that swamp as new form of perfect life, at least according to the Deep Ones. Records vary as to how quickly this new Deep One expanded, using the rest of exploring party as hosts, or how soon it was before they acquired the knowledge on how to pilot their ship and leave their home-world, but by the time further exploration party came, including those sent by Faarl the Conqueror who took control of the system between 4 to 7 ABY, the Deep Ones were completely gone from their homeworld, including any signs of their larvae, and the Galaxy has forgotten about their origins.
Since then the Deep Ones took to traveling the Galaxy aboard their nomadic fleets, moving from area to area, capturing and raiding any ships unlucky enough to get in their path, never straying too close to actual centers of civilizations like large spaceports or planets in fear of being outnumbered and destroyed, ending that fleet's quest for knowledge and ability to further reproduce and increase their number. While at first most of their ships were just captured designs from their victims, over time the Deep Ones developed their own particular style of ship designs, imitating in their appearance their own visage, with plenty of tentacles and cephalopodic traits.
The Deep Ones stayed back throughout most of the major events in the Galaxy, preferring to hide themselves at the edges of the known Galaxy or by venturing solely through forgotten and abandoned hyperlanes no one else would take, or even charting new ones through their Lich Caste being put into work of instinctual astronavigation. So during the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War, the Vong Invasion, even the Gulag Plague, the Deep Ones stuck to the shadows, restraining from getting involved in the Galactic affairs and risking damage to their precious ships, or suffering during the Gulag plague due to the small presence of other ships traveling the Galaxy at that point, causing stagnation among various Deep One fleets.
It was not until recently that the Deep Ones were pushed into increasing their raids and interactions with other races to the point of putting them back onto the Galactic radar. What caused this change were unfortunately the Metal Lords, who gathered various star maps and hyperlane charts on Mechanus throughout their long lifetimes, compiling them together into a vast map of forgotten or now mostly unusable hyperlanes they planned to use for their own advantage. Once the droids abandoned their initial planet and took to nomadic lifestyle themselves it was not long before they came upon a Deep One fleet during a venture. While the Deep Ones first relished in chance to capture more hosts and slaves, and the machines relished upon chance to fight once more, it would become clearly apparent rather quickly that Deep Ones were getting the worse deal in that encounter. For most of their powers and abilities were wasted on droids, whose brains they couldn't consume and minds they couldn't influence, yet with bodies much stronger and durable than most. While the Deep Ones were still dangerous for Metal Lords and once they begun to easily identify which crews were mostly consisted of droids they refrained from boarding attempts, most early battles were tipped heavily in Metal Lord favor and many Deep One fleets perished in combat. This sudden drop in Deep One population drove them to be more daring and more desperate, increasing their attacks upon passing ships and venturing closer towards planets, stations, and other centers of civilization to capture as many hosts as their could and replenish their numbers.
Some say that as the battle in Deep Space wages between the Metal Lords and the Deep Ones, their desperation only grows, and for once they were willing to try something they did not attempted to before- unification. Rumors have it that multiple Deep One fleet begun to gather and travel together, attempting to create more efficient ways of shutting down the machines who have been plaguing them lately, and not only that, some of their swifter ships were seen entering orbits of various planets, just briefly, before jumping away to rejoin their fleets. Some say they were simply lost. Others say they were scouts for the only way for Deep Ones to survive now is to begin raiding and consuming entire planets.
