Nyxie
【夢狐】
(Night Walker :: Kanoro Studio)
Name: Voidstalkers
Designation: Sentient, Asexual
Homeworld: Throughout the Galaxy at Large
Language: Capable of learning any spoken or visual language
Average height of adults: 7.8 meters (straightened head to tip of tentacles)
Human form: -Example-
Skin color:
- Voidstalker: Aquamarine
- Humanoid: Pale Caucasian, Lavender Tinge
Breathes: Type-I (hydro-carbon systems) to Type-IV (trace)
(can survive in space for brief extents of time without air)
Strengths:
- No lungs: Voidstalkers do not have typical lungs. They instead dissolve molecules in the air through the surface of their membranous skin and contribute it directly to their cells wherever necessary. Their primary energy source comes not of oxygen or hydrogen but solar radiation, which they absorb into their biomass and convert into locomotive energy. Because of this, Voidstalkers also have no need of sleep, though through the Force they may learn how to enter a hibernative state via meditation.
- No emotions: Though the Voidstalkers arguably have personalities and certainly do have individual sense, they are nearly devoid of all emotion and bound to reason. This makes them very non-prone to emotional persuasions, though they can be persuaded or convinced through equivalent exchange, in which they take the long term and short term consequences and effects into deep consideration.
- Deconstructive: Voidstalkers have small receptacles in the surface membrane of their flesh which allows them to furl through organic substances, sampling them on the cellular level and dragging these sampled bits into a stomach-like gland in the center of each tentacle. It is in this organ that they are systematically deconstructed and broken down for an understanding of the composition of the creature they are inspecting. This process is generally harmless to the supplier of the samples, however some voidstalkers may not be content until they have all but deconstructed their prey to the bone, and beyond. It is all individual preference, as the Voidstalkers as a whole have learned to barter their way into the gain of knowledge or learned to persuade their targets out of small, generally harmless quantities of substance through other persuasions including but not limited to carnal stimuli. It would take, on average, approximately one and a half standard hours for an adult Voidstalker to fully deconstruct a male adult human body to the bone, presumed longer for the skeleton.
- Intellect: Voidstalkers sacrifice all sense of empathy for a vast propensity to knowledge and intelligence. They virtually never forget a detail they have learned throughout the course of their lives and can remember everything they have sampled, deconstructed or created. They however must pursue and attain such knowledge on their own, with only instinctual things encoded into their very biological being, such as the telepathic ability to decipher languages (entirely similar to Speech Comprehension).
- Incorruptible form: For some strange reason - likely their origins and their sheer complexities which are inverse to that of the subject creatures - Voidstalkers are not compatible with Sithspawns and can likewise not be used as a reagent in creating a Sithspawn. Their bodies are simply beyond the ability of conventional alchemy to mutate into suitable, stable forms. It is proven they cannot have cancer, though synthetic toxins and bio-weapons may still affect them.
- Shapeshifting: Voidstalkers can shapeshift into a Humanoid form so long as they are Force-sensitive (as is the case with most of their galactic population of roughly 2,000). Their human form is very unilateral in physiology and fundamentally similar to each individual, though simple aesthetics such as hair, height, weight and shape are usually based on the individual Voidstalker's preference or what they feel suits their needs best. Their human form retains the three tentacles and the calcium carapace, which takes place as a hard crest on their heads, with the tentacles protruding like their hair down from behind it. They do not levitate in this form, though through the Force the same effect can be applied. This inherent transformational ability is used to make themselves appear much more welcoming to humans and humanoid species. Internally, their forms mimic near-humans in almost every way, though it is made out of the same substance their original bodies are and their humanoid organs do not actually serve a function. Their weaknesses also carry over to the more humanoid form.
Weaknesses:
- Fragility: Voidstalkers, despite their vast intellectual capacity and cunning, live in quite fragile frames. Their membranous bodies have only hard calcium carapaces to protect most of their core, but they are otherwise vulnerable to conventional forms of damage, such as mass electrocution, slicing and contact burn damage. Surprisingly, they are very resilient against blunt force as their form can simply absorb it. Their fragility is a key weakness of theirs that stands for most of their strengths, as it takes very little to slay them and they go out of their way to remain out of harm's way.
- Reclusive: Simply put, Voidstalkers aren't 'social' in the conventional definition. They don't require social interaction to perpetuate themselves as they have no true 'moods,' and they prefer to steer clear of potential risks and dangers. Their whole existence is to learn all they can about organisms and their biology, then fade into nothingness after 'procreating' with another Voidstalker to pass on what they've discovered through instinct into a newly birthed Voidstalker.
- Limited Strength: Contrary to popular belief on first sight, Voidstalkers aren't all that strong. They can wrap their tentacles around objects with relative ease and lift things roughly equivalent to a human in strength, but their strength to size ratio is misleading.
- Hunted: Voidstalkers are known (in the extremely rare instances they are known) for their super-hard carapaces and crystalline eyes, which are used to make light but thick armor and powerful, glistening lightsaber crystals respectively, causing a substantial minority every millennia-generation to be eliminated.
Distinctions: Voidstalkers are strange and elusive beings made of a membranous hydro-carbon ammonium based flesh. They have a single large eye which they use to inspect things close to them on the post-molecular level. Above this are three much smaller purple eyes which they use as their main ocular reception. The large eye comprises of nearly half of their soft body mass, the other, greater half comprising of three long, flexible tentacles which house special organs within them.
Average Lifespan: 1,000~ Standard Years
Races: n|a
Diet: Any biological or organic material, preferably carbon-based
Communication: Voidstalkers primarily communicate via telepathy. They are capable of learning new languages with relative ease in short frames of time, needing only study words or structures once to memorize them, and catalog all of the acquired information later to form a basis of understanding of said language. This also happens to make them very efficient code-crackers, as they can quickly detect patterns and consistencies within any comprehensive language form, be it spoken, written or visually emoted.
Culture: Voidstalkers have a very brief and indefinite culture. Each individual is usually on their own for the span of their lives, as congregations do not serve the species any particular purpose. Most live on simply to analyze organics and biology, or discover more about the galaxy at large. The extent of any form of 'culturalization' is their inherent ability to essentially pretend to be a humanoid for the less monstrous appearance, in order to garner trust from the members of said society, which they will then live amongst while still retaining their 'cold, outsider' status. It is completely uncertain where this behavioral trait and objectivity came from; it is presumed that the Voidstalkers were first created when an ancient species was changed by the long-standing exposure to a powerful nexus, which would explain their attraction to Force Nexuses they find. As assimilationists, the defining aspects of their culture, as it were, are simply any traits that are acquired from third-party cultures or entities for the sole sake of perpetuating their instinctual lust for discovery in order to elevate and define their own existence. Voidstalkers are otherwise very methodical and impersonal with identities only being forged on the individual level based on experiences and extra-societal interactions.
Technology level: Voidstalkers borrow technology that they have acquired or learned from those they come across. They have no need to make constructs of their own, though they are free to learn how to do so from others. Thus, they inherently have no unique technology but can replicate almost any other (except for Celestial, etc) through learning.
General behavior: Voidstalkers are curious creatures in every sense of the word. They do not have any known, set point of origin, however are known to occur near nexuses where they draw off of the natural energies in order to procreate or simply refresh themselves. The Voidstalkers have no true emotions, however what is strange is that they do exhibit some sense of a moral compass, adapting to the needs and desires of the organisms around them and learning to barter or form symbiotic relationships with the species and ecosystems in which they integrate. They do, in fact, harbor a sense of individual self and are fully sentient despite the lack of self-empathy. They can still tell when an individual is sad, happy, angry, nervous, apathetic or any other range of visible emotions, and act accordingly. It is entirely possible for there to be a Light-siding Voidstalker interested in the preservation of life or the curiosities of the Force, or a merciless Sith Lord Voidstalker whose only intent is to destroy, decompose and eliminate all other sapience from the galaxy at large. Most, however, fall into an amoral middle ground where they are content to go about their main function of unveiling knowledge and biology, simply existing on for the simple sake of doing so.
History: The Voidstalkers were theorized to have come into existence before the prime era of the Celestials themselves. This predates them past 100,000 BBY, though all theoretical and hypothetical traces of their existence simply vanish beyond that point. It is theorized that they were once a strange, amphibian-like species that could levitate and had a very partial understanding of the Force. They had integrated so deeply with a local Force Nexus that it caused permanent mutations in their biology and caused them to slowly form into that which they now are today. This theory seems to be reinforced by the fact that they are seemingly drawn to nearby nexuses (which they would still have to find like any other Force-sensitive being) wherever they find themselves, and prefer to procreate their species around such locations where their energy levels and healing seem to be at their peak. Some even go so far as to say that they draw their instincts from these very nexuses and deposit a residual fragment of themselves within it when they pass - this is actually correct, unbeknownst to all, as their existence and evolution is directly connected to rare, very powerful Force Nexuses.
The Voidstalkers generally tend to only bear one offspring per pairing, and only must pair once towards the end of their life. For this reason, their population has been consistently low for nearly a hundred millennia and has left them largely undiscovered until after the Gulag Plague, which had flushed them out due to losing a small portion of their numbers to the disease; thankfully, their deconstructive habits had allowed them to discover its existence early on and simply isolate themselves from both each other and the creatures they had sampled to pass it on to them. The Voidstalkers had virtually never made technology of their own, simply opting to borrow from what local populaces have made and bartering knowledge or support in exchange for whatever they need. For this reason, many had simply traveled across the stars in old, patched ships of their own, never needing to shuttle from location to location. This had only contributed to their secrecy. Many only knew them as 'demons,' confused with some of the other more visceral species.
Life cycle: The life of a young Voidstalker begins as a small, soft-shelled creature, about the size of a softball. Every year, it doubles in size until it is a fully grown adult, with average extended lengths reaching almost twenty meters end to end. The offspring Voidstalker inherits certain instinctual behaviors from its parent stalkers, such as learned behavioral traits or small natural habits concerning a particular habitat. These allow it to better integrate itself into a locale in which it will eventually come to learn more about the life of the galaxy.
As it grows, the Voidstalker will actively begin to seek out locations that captivate its curiosity, breaking down local life forms and chemicals to learn more about how they function and interact with one-another. Eventually, it will learn how different things react to different situations through experimentation and dissection. Through this, it begins to discover how to add or take from an ecosystem without consequence. This particularly extends to sentient species, especially humanoids, whose societally advanced cultures make more invasive methods impractical due to the risk of death or persecution. Instead, the young Voidstalker learns about the species' needs and desires, contributing to its growth in return for the knowledge it seeks via volunteerism. For this reason alone, errant Voidstalkers are known to be laborers, crafters and even prostitutes in return for the chance to gain the information they are guided by life to attain.
An adult Voidstalker is wise and patient beyond their years, or so it would seem. At this point in their life, they have probably seen multiple worlds and studied several select biomes in depth, learning how their resident species function and even being able to predict certain societal changes from the facts and growths alone. They thus make excellent diplomats, as they are keen to learn what the other member's needs are and think very rationally without any emotional compromise whatsoever. Some few who have taken to learning crafts of technologies may even make excellent engineers and mechanics, able to take almost any conventional piece of technology and alter or repair it to decent order.
Elder Voidstalkers are rare and indeed unique. Voidstalkers at this point in life usually pursue a mate, as they are fully aware of their fleeting mortality and will wish to produce an offspring (sometimes two) before they return their life forces to the Force where they believe the nexus holds the gateways back to whence they formed. As other elders congregate around a handful of such known locations throughout the galaxy (seldom minor ones, unlike the Dark Forge of Aza'zoth or the Crystal Heart of Crystalsong), finding a mate is not impossibly difficult. Once met, the two will seek like-minded or at least suitable companions based on their knowledge of the worlds or biomes they've inhabited or taken from, and exchange genetic information and memory through their glands. Parts of their biomass are lost to create the form known as an infant Voidstalker, which will continue on its own within days. As there is no 'feminine' parent, the Voidstalkers tend not to have protective 'mother' instincts for their young, though a Voidstalker will always eradicate any danger that is witnesses befall a youthful member of its own species.
Notable Player-Characters:[list player-characters]
Intent: This is always a species I thought would be cool and unique in our setting, and something I have always wanted to flesh out. I know there are things that seem outlandish at first, but they're actually quite fragile and endangered. Try it before you trash it.
