Eternal Father
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION- Intent: Create a spooky Sithspawn
- Image Credit: Click - Diasterpiece Theater
- Canon: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Name: Zmir, the Forgotten Ones
- Designation: Semi-Sentient
- Homeworld: Dromund Kaas
- Language:
Unknown Trilling Language: Reported to resemble the warbling of a newborn infant - Mimicry of Galactic Basic: Can mimic words spoken in Basic, primarily 'Help me', 'Save me', or 'I'm lost'.
[*]Average Lifespan: Unknown: Speculated to be unnaturally long due to the Dark Side's influence
[*]Estimated Population: Semi-Unique: Only a couple hundred members
[*]Description: Nightmarish, the Zmir is a product of desperation and the malignant corruption wrought by the Dark Side of the Force. Gaunt to the point of emaciation, desiccated gray ash skin pulled so tightly over bone it resembles a walking skeleton. The face, once Human, has been deformed into something bestial, primal, and savage. A lipless mouth pulls back over jagged incisors and pairs of enlarged canines with sharp premolars and molars filling out the rest of the creature's massive mouth.
Its eyes are small and black, rendering the beast almost incapable of sight. However, its life in the lightless caves does not require their use, and its other senses have become heightened to far beyond what is considered average. Their long spindly fingers are perfect for grabbing small creatures, primarily insects and blind cave fish, and digging holes into the soft dirt of their homes in search for grubs.
Being tainted by the Dark Side into unrecognizable monstrosities of their former Humanity, the Zmir are likewise cursed to never die of hunger nor thirst. Instead, they are imbued with an insatiable hunger for flesh, particularly the flesh of sentient beings such as Humans. Yet no matter how much meat they consume, even if it happens to be an entire person, they will never break free of their perpetual starvation.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
- Breathes: Type I Atmosphere
- Average height of adults: 3.1m
- Average length of adults: N/A
- Skin color: Ash Gray
- Hair color: Black
- Distinctions:
Gray Skin - Deformed Cranium and Mandible
- Emaciated Body
- Enlongated Limbs and Digits
- Apparent Lack of Sexual Organs
No Obvious Distinction Between Male or Female
[*]Races: N/A
[*]Strengths:
- Never Grow Hungry: Thanks to the nature of their inception, the Zmir are forever doomed to never die of hunger or thirst. However, this comes at a price as they are plagued by an insatiable hunger that can never ever be fulfilled. No matter how much they ingest, it will never be enough.
- Excellent Navigation: Their life within the caves has molded them into the perfect hunters of their environment, as their rapid mutation has left their eyes almost non-functional but their other senses such as smelling and hearing vastly superior to anything else in their natural habitat.
[*]Weaknesses:
- Poor Eyesight: Their eyes are at this point practically vestigial, having no survival advantage in the pitch-black caves that are their home. Any sort of bright light, even a flashlight, will be enough to disorient and stun them long enough to make a get-away.
- Intense Sound: Seeing as though their sense of hearing has become heightened in the darkened tunnels, any loud noise, even a loud shout, can scare them away momentarily. Conversely, they can hear the sound of your heart beating in your chest, so there is no possible chance of hiding in their domain.
- Force Light: As creatures born of the Dark Side's malign influence, the Zamir are extremely susceptible to Force Light. The use of which is enough to immediately kill any member of the species.
CULTURE
- Diet: Insects, Cave Fish, Raw Flesh in General
- Communication: Sharp trilling, grunting, howls, and the occasional mimicry
- Technology level: Having retained a modicum of their previous intelligence as Human beings, the Zmir have the capability to fashion tools, primarily traps, to ensnare prey to later consume.
- Religion/Beliefs: The Zmir have never been recorded worshipping any specific set of deities or expressing any inclination to religious worship in general. However, several crude idols and shrines have been discovered within the cave systems, strewn with the desecrated bones of their kills and gnawed skulls. It is theorized that the creatures have taken to worshipping their own insatiable hunger, but nothing tangible exists to validate that claim.
- General behavior: From what could be analyzed from remote drones sent into the caves to monitor the Zmir, they work together in a manner not dissimilar from the primitive tribes of less developed worlds in the galaxy. With no visible distinction between male and female and the lack of sexual organs, it is unknown how these creatures copulate and propagate their species within the tunnels.
It has been documented that whenever an individual is fed to the Zmir, several more inevitably appear over the next few rotations. This had led Imperial scientists to believe that the Zmir may produce off-spring asexually after consuming enough food, but there has been no record of Zmir birth so, like the theory of Zmir religious practice, there exists no evidence to support this theory.
When the Zmir does hunt, they will often scout for miles through the twisting and turning tunnels of their lair, using their long limbs to feel through nooks and crannies for insects or spearing blind cave fish in the natural pools that have formed elsewhere in the cave system. Their ears are extremely sensitive to vibrations in the air and in the ground, and they used this heightened sense to zone in on their prey.
Imperial authorities have monitored condemned criminals that have been deposited into the caves for execution to learn more about the Zmir's hunting patterns. Multiple times they have been recorded to work in unison, one Zmir utilizing is disturbingly accurate mimicry of Human speech to lure the unfortunate criminal into an optimum position whereas they will either become ensnared in some trap or will be set upon by a multitude of Zmir.
Criminals rarely last long against them, and the Zmirs are absolutely relentless in their butchery of the condemned's body. They waste nothing, consuming skin, muscle, organs, extremities, and even gnaw the bone to devour the marrow within. Afterward, they take several pieces of bone with them while leaving the rest of the picked-clean skeleton to lay where it had fallen.
The Forgotten Ones, known in the Sith tongue as the Zmir, were once Human like you and me. They were the inhabitants of the greatest Sith city to ever exist, the metropolis of Kaas City, capital and personal residence of the reigning Dark Lord of the Sith. Some lived in rampant splendor, others were the working class that kept the city functional in their service to the state. Whatever their upbringing, they were all undoubtedly Imperial.
Then the Mandalorians came.
They rained down from the heavens with bombs and beskar-clad soldiers, indiscriminate weapons of war that saw entire neighborhoods reduced to blown-out structures and lifeless corpses rotting in the dust and rubble. Those that were able managed to flee to the city's underground shelters, hunkering in great numbers as they sought to wait out the assault.
A tumultuous rumble knocked them all to their feet, the walls and ceilings of the shelter caving in as the entirety of Kaas City was wiped out in one single strike. The Mandalorians had used tractor beams to launch asteroids at the Imperial throneworld, plunging it into nuclear winter as virtually all life was eradicated from its surface. Those that had sought shelter beneath the city were now trapped with rapidly dwindling food and water supplies.
However, the upheaval had broken through to an already existent cave system that ran deep beneath the city. Knowing that if they stayed put would mean certain death, the survivors ventured into the labyrinthine caves and tunnels in search of another exit.
They never found one.
Instead, they slowly began to succumb to hunger and thirst, one by one collapsing to the ground as their bodies failed from lack of sustenance. Some became so delirious that they quickly lost sight of the group, ending up lost in an endless maze of pitch black tunnels before they too perished.
Just when everything seemed utterly hopeless, they found it.
The Lake.
A massive cavern loomed before them, illuminated by a bioluminescent fungus that lined the walls. What surprised them was the presence of structures, buildings from Kaas City, that had collapsed into the cavern from the asteroid's collision. They ringed the lake like a crown, an eerie reminder that everything they had once known and loved was now ash buried beneath tonnes and tonnes of debris and ruin.
And the hunger and thirst gnawed at their insides. They all looked to the lake, with its unnatural black waters that whispered with the promise of deliverance from their suffering. One tiny drop of water rolling off a partially submerged building was enough to send them all into a frenzy, trampling over one another to race to the water's edge and dunk their entire heads beneath the waves.
They drank deeply of the turgid waters, and in doing so they became ensorcelled by the Dark Side of the Force. For you see, the lake had become saturated with the collective energies of every man, woman, and child that had been slain during the Mandalorian's attack. Several million deaths had tainted the waters of the lake, granting them monstrous transformative properties on anyone unfortunate to drink or submerge themselves within it.
The survivor's minds broke, and they descended into a cannibalistic fury. They tore at each other, teeth ripping into flesh as offal splattered across the stone floor of the cavern. At that moment their bodies began to change, warping into horrid monstrosities that barely even resembled the Humans they once were. Emaciated and animalistic, they devoured their fallen comrades with such fervor that nothing of them remained except bloodied bones.
Yet their hunger could not be, could never be, satisfied. They wandered into the darkened tunnels and began their endless search for food.
