Traumatized Carrier-Loving Mess
The T'elilarum
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To develop an extra-galactic oddity. #OversizedTardigraaade
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- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
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- Yuuzhan Vong (x)
- Name: T’elilarum
- Designation: Sentient
- Origins: Abducted from outside the known galaxy and made a Vong slave race. Slaughtered their former masters and took with them a single worldship.
- Average Lifespan: 200 GSY
- Estimated Population: Rare. One worldship's worth
- Description: True creatures of the stars, the T’eliarum roam the void alongside their sprawling worldship, the colossal Cestak Cthee. Their long broken servitude to the Yuuzhan Vong has been almost completely purged from their identity; the creatures, free of their former overlords’ influence, have developed their own unique atmosphere of mystery surrounding their society. Any face-to-face contact between the civilized galaxy and the T’eliarum has been kept to a minimum, with only a single live member of the species captured only to later die in captivity. The majority of the few reported sightings of the Cestak Cthee have been in proximity to derelict vessels, boarding parties sent to painstakingly scour the ships before returning to their own. Small units sent to encounter these boarding teams have all but disappeared, with no trace of the bodies left within the derelicts.
- Physical Description: The typical T’elilarum appears to resemble somewhat of an oversized caterpillar with flabby beige or lime skin. From its peculiar body extends six stubby appendages, three on each side, which end in sets of four articulating digits. The T’elilarum’s peculiar “head” ends in a miniaturized “trunk,” which serves as its primary method of food consumption. It also possesses a bulbous “tail,” which is used to steady members of the Veshti`Ge race when traversing solid ground.
- Breathes: Type-I Atmospheres
- Average Height of Adults: 2.78 - 2.9 meters (tail to head)
- Average Length of Adults: N/A
- Skin color: Either Biege or Lime Green
- Hair color: N/A
- Distinctions: See Physical Description for Contrasting Traits against Humans. No Outward Differences Between Males and Females
- Races:
- Veshti`Ge - "Grav-Walkers"
- (Pictured at Top of the Page)
- Whereas the Kelsht`Vi are best-suited to Null-G environments, the Veshti`Ge have been optimized for roaming high-G environments such as fully-pressurized vessels or, in very rare cases, planets. The Grav-Walker's tail is far simpler than their Kelsht`Vi brethren when viewed from outside, while containing a robust network of muscles that allow the appendage to support the weight of the Walker during bipedal movement. Due to their biological optimization for life under the force of gravity, the Veshti`Ge typically dwell in a separate wing of the Cestak Cthee till the moment they are called upon for collection-sorties.
- Kelsht`Vi - "Vac-Dwellers"
- (Pictured Above Physical Information Header)
- The more mysterious T'elilarum, the Kelsht`Vi are most significant in crewing the Cestak, serving as bio-engineers, healers, scholars, community leaders, and military strategists. Unlike the Veshti`Ge, their atmosphere of choice is one freed of gravity's limits. Their gripping digits are more robust and sesnitive than those of the Veshti, allowing the creatures to more delicately manipulate the organic systems of their vessel. Members of the type are also born sensitive to the force, and trained in the ways of it. Via their power, the Kelsht may glide through the wider corridors of the Cestak without needing to trouble themselves with locating rebound points, nor with the intricacies of arresting their own momentum when traversing shipboard compartments.
- Veshti`Ge - "Grav-Walkers"
- Force Sensitivity:
- Veshti`Ge: Non-sensitive
- Kelsht`Vi: All
- Kelsht`Vi Force Sensitivity: Born attuned to the ancient cosmic power of the force, the Kelsht are trained through their period of adolescence in manipulating the world around them. This allows the creatures to quickly navigate their worldship and other areas nearly bereft of gravity's influence, or perhaps heal the aging Cestak Cthee of its numerous wounds.
- Veshti`Ge Durability: Lacking their Kelshti brethren's harmony with the force, the Veshti are instead empowered with stronger muscles, and a more durable internal skeleton. The few survivors of the limited encounters with the creatures have uttered words of the Veshtis' seemingly immunity against blaster rounds, only falling when faced with well-placed shots to the trunks.
- Kelsht`Vi Vulnerability: For the Kelsht, they have traded durability for dexterity. Their lives in Null-G environments and dependence on the force has left their muscles and skeletons brittle and underdeveloped, rendering the creatures vulnerable to almost any manner of attack or impact. They are similarly helpless when navigating environments under the force of stronger gravity.
- Bound by the Ancients: Though freed, in spirit, from the chains of the Yuuzhan Vong, the T'elilarum have made no attempt to distance themselves from their former masters' level of technology. Their warriors are equipped merely with weapons as primitive as spears or bows; their healers call upon the ancient uses of herbs and the force; and their worldship retains a dependence on organic matter to function.
- Distrust: As a result of the plethora of differences between the Kelsht`Vi and Veshti`Ge, there is a lingering feeling of ill-will between the two races. Vac-Dwellers are known to avoid cooperation with Grav-Walkers whenever possible, looking down on the latter for their lack of force sensitivity; while the Veshti`Ge regard the Kelsht as uptight, and similarly limit contact between the two races to a minimum.
- Diet: Herbivorous.
- Communication: Among the members Kelsht`Vi, communication is often achieved through the use of telepathy. However, all T'elilarum share the same form of "spoken" language. They communicate in loud, continuous roars, minor oscillations in frequency used to form and transmit more complicated ideas.
- Technology level: The technology of the T'elilarum is entirely patterned after that of the ancient Yuuzhan Vong. Their medical technology relies heavily on ancient bio-engineering techniques, made more robust with the Kelsht`Vi's knowledge of the force. The Cestak Cthee and its wing of coralskippers remain based off of living tissue, with the galaxy's most modern technology entirely out of sight.
- Religion/Beliefs: Though perhaps not beckoning the same level of devotion as the rest of the galaxy's denominations, the T'elilarum's spritual beliefs are centered around their forgotten homeworld. Daily life aboard the Cestak Cthee reserves a time of Liiuk'H, or remembrance, of the infinitely distant Hreta.
- General behavior: Despite the ever-roaming nature of their worldship, the average T'elilarum lives a comfortably grounded and simple life. The sprawling layout of the Cthee includes schools, libraries, dwelling complexes, and farms in addition to its offensive armament. They have seemed to do away with concepts of currency, working instead for the betterment of their communities. But the darker depths of the Cthee reveal behaviors contrary to the optimistic profile of the T'elilarum. A feeling of prejudice and distrust exists between the Kelsht`Vi and Veshti`Ge; the long centuries spent in separate sections of the worldship have kept contact and understanding to a minimum between the two variants. Only the representatives of each section spend any time in proximity to each other, but their relationship is hardly a friendly one.
No one, not even the T'elilarum themselves, truly knows where the beings first originated from. Their scholars have designated the unknown homeworld "Hreta," but the known history and the earliest memories of the T'elilarum begin only with their time under the iron of the Vong's chains. The plunder of a long forgotten invasion, the creatures were drawn aboard the Yuuzhan Vong's armada of worldships, subjected to countless experiments until their connection to the Force was all but severed and they were left but helpless slaves of the extra-galactic invaders. For years, perhaps centuries, they were subjected to the will of their masters, forced to tend to the worldships and their sprawling organic systems. The few individuals who could retain their tethers to the Force were modified heavily, reengineered to be confined special Null-G facilities aboard worldships. They would further be made to perform a gruesome ritual once every year. To restore the fading health of dying worldships, the ancient Kelsht`Vi drew from the lifeforce and biomatter of living captives, channeling it into the vessels and undoing the damage of passing years.
But their servitude bred contempt. In time, the Vong would begin to catch signs of dissent from the T'elilarum slaves-- utterances of rebellion whispered amongst the population-- and in fear made a fateful decision. Across the armada, the T'elilarum would be slaughtered, their organic matter preserved to fuel the Vong's growing collection of biots. It was only through days of blood and sacrifice that the slaves aboard the worldship Cestak Cthee held their masters at bay, and it was through their mastery of the force that they slaughtered the Vong aboard the Cthee. Taking control of the vessel as a whole, the rebels disappeared from the known galaxy, and wouldn't be seen again for centuries.
In their long exile, the T'elilarum would watch the Yuuzhan Vong fall and be driven from the galaxy; they would watch the Gulag Plague scorch the void with its tendrils of decay. But despite being safe from the period of conflict that soon overtook civilized space, time began to claim its toll on the T'elilarum. The roots of rot and decay were seeded aboard the Cestak Cthee, now suffering the effects of the centuries gone by. The worldship groaned, called out to the Kelsht`Vi shipmasters as its own age split corridors at the seams. A council would gather, comprising representatives from both the Kelsth`Vi and Veshti`Ge populations, but they could only squabble amongst themselves. The Veshti, accustomed to their lives in the high-gravity sections of the Cestak, advocated for landfall, wishing to return to the life of their pre-Vong days. But the Kelsht, long deprived of their ability to thrive under gravity, remained adamant to preserve the T'elilarum's roaming identity. They argued that locking themselves to solid ground would leave the species once more at the mercy of those who sought to enslave them.
It took a long, grueling three months before voices cut through the deadlock. A bio-engineer by the name of B'heklhe proposed to draw from the Cestak Cthee's supply of preserved Vong bodies, and fuse them to the matter of the dying vessel, mirroring the dreadful ritual the Kelsht`Vi had once been made to perform. Despite the all-too-familiar elements of the process, desperation brought the feuding populations to a hasty compromise. The bio-banks were opened, and under B'heklhe's supervision, the Vong corpses were grafted to the frame of the Cestak Cthee. Quickly, the wounds that plagued the Cthee began to heal, with B'heklhe proclaimed a hero and assigned further responsibility of the growing bio-matter restoration effort. But even with the initial threat fading from the T'elilarum's concern, a new menace began to rise from the heart of the worldship, from its revitalized skin, from the grandiose veins flowing across its hull. The ancient stores of Vong specimens would not last forever. If the Cthee was to continue to carry the T'elilarum across the galaxy, they would need to guarantee the longevity of their supply. And so was proposed the notion of collection sorties. At the urging of the Veshti`Ge, the eyes of the Cestak Cthee were directed in search of derelict starships, and for the corpses of the crews who once roamed them. Once sighted, the worldship was to make its approach, releasing its payloads of Veshti collectors to comb the derelicts for samples of biomatter. After ruthless searching, the remains of the unlucky souls aboard would be entirely removed and relocated to the Cthee for processing, and for integration into its structure.
But it as been many decades since this process was introduced, and the T'elilarum's biomatter supplies are beginning to fade despite their earlier efforts. A growing set of reports of eerily familiar spatial disruptions have seemed to indicate the creatures' gradual descent into the galaxy's purview. A sprawling, unidentified vessel has at times been detected in proximity to Csilla's spaceborne starship graveyard, at times over newly emerging frontier colonies. But before local patrol flotillas can ever be mobilized, the vessel disappears in a flash of blinding light.
There are whispers, however, among the staff of deep-space installations. Compilations of sightings set side-by-side for comparison suggest the T'elilarum are drawing closer to the core worlds. For sporadic collection efforts cannot truly restore the life of the Cestak Cthee.
Perhaps it may be time that the T'elilarum seek a more bountiful harvest.
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