Species: Slimeoid

[Mage of Mist]

Appearance

Slimoids (Also known in the scientific term Limus animalia, which translates to Gelatinous Animal) are amoeba-like, sometimes humanoid beings. Their body makeup sometimes causes them to be mistaken for water elementals. They come in a variety of colours, usually coordinated to match the appearance of their surrounding environment. For this reason, clear is the most common, followed by green or blue, though other colours may exist. These colours can either just result from pigmentation from genetics or food, or symbolic relationships with certain bacteria or algae. No matter the colour, slimeoids are always mostly transparent; their only consistent feature is a nucleus in the centre of their mass, usually located in the chest when in a humanoid shape.

Body types change as slimeoids absorb the needed nutrients for growth and by their environment. In their base, unfed and uninfluenced state, they appear like large amoebae, little more than a blob of goo around a nucleus. As they increase their consumption, their nucleus increases its ability to maintain larger and larger surface area, producing more goo from the surrounding liquids. The humanoid shape is taken after initial contact with a suitable creature due to their insatiable urge to mimic the appearance of those they encounter. Usually, they acquire these traits by observing the creature they are investigating to learn it's form, sometimes even engulfing the being in question to pick up the more finer details, though sometimes they will composite several features they have already learned into unique combinations. However, no matter how skilled they are in taking a humanoid shape, they are always the same colour and still made of slime.
Because of the species adaptability, a large number of subspecies have evolved to match a variety of environments, due to the fact that most are based around water they are all highly susceptible to changes in the environment which they are usually adapted to. Some specimens are fully aquatic, while others are not. Those that are take more streamlined forms than their terrestrial counterparts
They are as adept at feeding on their own cells as easily as they are at feeding on anything else, causing them to grow or shrink in accordance with their nutritional needs, and because increasing mass becomes exponentially harder as they grow, most slimeoids maintain a volume suitable for a 4 or 5 ft, though they may be found smaller or larger according to food supplies.

Due to their shifting states, arms are merely a habitual expression of their tendrils. They lack the strength to pull or push in to great capacity, usually preferring to flow around obstructions. However, they have a great degree of control over the movements and pressure of their hands. However to defend themselves, it is not uncommon for slimoids to elongate their arms and form whipping pseudapods with them. Slimeoids also rarely form full legs and almost never bother with feet, preferring to let their bodies’ pool into a puddle beneath them.


Slimeoid Biology:

Slimeoids have no skin, no permanent muscle system, and only about 4 major internal organs. The central nervous system, located in the nucleus in the body, is closely intertwined with the circulatory system, which transports a thin, blood-like substance (which is magnetic, and thus also carries electronic impulses from the nervous system) to and from their heart, which uses magnetic impulses to push the blood through. This makes them get weak and woozy around strong magnetic signals, because it actually slows the bloodflow and can make the slimeoid lightheaded, or even knock them unconscious.

The nucleus also contains the stomach and reproductive systems. The veins and nucleus are covered by a tough but sensitive skin-like membrane that is lined with small pores that emit a thick protein-based web at will. This web is capable of capturing water droplets, either in the air or on surfaces, saturating the protein matrix to a gel-like substance. The jelly-like body that this forms creates patterns of proteins that mimic human muscles, and thus allow for locomotion, as well as containing a modicum of their ‘blood’ allowing them to experience sensation even through the gelatinous body. There are also special emitters around the small optic nerves that create lenses to filter light for their photo-receptors to receive images properly. These lenses also tend reflect back light, often making their eyes shine white. They possess no respiratory organs, as the gelatinous membrane that makes up their bodies absorb the oxygen from the surrounding area and expels carbon dioxide. The saturation in the air, along with genetic factors and the slimeoid’s own personal control, adjusts how solid or wet the body is. Thus, exceptionally humid environments can cause them to destabilize and have little to no structure to the body, while dry enough environments can solidify the body so much that it is entirely dry, and won’t even soak a sheet of paper if it holds it for several minutes. However all slimoids they require regular exposure to moisture or at least easy access to water in order to survive. Their lifespan is indefinite, never showing signs of aging or cellular degeneration.

They are normally asexual and each time they absorb nutrition, the excess substance not used to support the vital functions and gooey body will cause the nucleus to grow larger. When it reaches a certain size, it will fission off and become a new slimeoid, smaller than it's mother but otherwise identical, this is because they reproduce via mitosis, which is simply dividing their nucleus into another slimeoid. However, because their nucleus controls their ability to adopt shapes, their size, and stores all the memories and nutrients they have acquired, it is rare for slimeoids to divide in isolation. Rather, they often congregate with others of their species, the semi-permeable nature of their bodies allows slimeoids to merge with one another, sharing information and stored nutrients between their nuclei. It is not unheard of for multiple slimeoids to occupy the same body for weeks on end as they explore the world around them together, before splitting off, producing a ‘child’ from their merging, and the 'child' oddly often shares multiple traits from the slimes involved, and not just the 'mother' slimeoid. Because it is an equal exchange, there are no negative consequences to this sharing; most slimeoids naturally develop curious and sometimes rather forceful personalities. Their relative fearlessness, along with their natural curiosity makes them quite determined, even around larger and stronger beings. Though there are some exceptions in this rule.

They subsist on almost anything such as protein pastes, meats, plant matter, scraps of bone, or even cat food. To eat, they can open a food vacuole from their lips or any other point on their body. Then they take in food, of any size that they can wrap their membrane around without risk of being injured. This is then broken down quite clearly in plain view, which can be a rather disturbing sight. Digestion and excretion are handled through the body; food is dissolved in the protein matrix, and, piggybacking on the circulatory system, travels through the body, and is filtered into the stomach, which extracts the nutrients and expels the waste through the protein matrix via cellular lysis.

If a slimeoid is sufficiently threatened, they will eject their nucleolus into a nearby body of water, leaving an empty shell behind to distract the attacks. These “empty slimes†persist in their old shape and behaviour for upwards of an hour before reverting to a mindless puddle of inactive cells.


Communication:

‘Wild’ Slimeoids produce very specific heat signatures to communicate. These exothermic pulses serve as a sort of speech, communicating meaning without the necessity of taking the time to merge with one another. However, they are capable of mimicking speech if they learn how to form pockets of air in their bodies and through trial and error, a makeshift voice box can be formed, allowing them to communicate with vocal beings, and can pick up body language and even sign language.
Names are an alien thing to slimeoids, as those who can speak refer to their name to being the warmth of their soul and that to the ears of solid beings, they have no name. Though those who intermingle with other races on a fairly regular basis often either adopt a name, or have a name given to them.

Slimeoids who encounter a new race that they do not know of sadly often end up killing the being in the attempts to identify them, forgetting that most races’ need to be exposed to oxygen in order to remain alive in their excitement. This is more common in isolated colonies of slimeoids with little contact with other, more solid races, and the dogged body exploration may actually be a misunderstanding, explained by the fact that most humanoid creatures cannot self-regulate their body heat and, in situations of excitement or stress often produce additional heat in response. Slimeoids have no sense of personal boundaries and are often frustrated or confused by the impermeable nature of most races.

[Mage of Mist]

Slimeoids, Goos and Hybrids:

Sapphire, a Slimeoid and Agitha, a Goo found out an interesting biological fact between Slimeoids and Goos. It is that Goos that try and merge with Slimeoids, or try and envelop them somehow end up slipping inside the Slimeoid by ‘falling through the cracks’ and have their cells and memories mixed. This results in producing an independent, hybrid offspring, that when created by the merging, seems to suppress the goo parent fully, takes the Slimeoid parent’s identity and has the slimeoid parent be nothing more than a voice in the hybrid’s mind. This is until the core divides, in which all three will separate, much to the confusion to the Goo who ‘blanked out’ during this, hybrid and the slimeoid involved.

Goo-Slime hybrids, whilst there is only one reported case so far in existence, from watching the newly born specimen we discovered that the hybrid seems to have a hard time to differentiate ancestral memories stored in the nucleus from personal ones made. Whilst the hybrid appears to be more Slimeoid than Goo, it is possible that the hybrid inherited the genetic assimilation, or at least the ability to change between a Goo based "fleshy" form, and a typical Slimeoid one. They prefer the Goo one though, as it negates an extreme dependence on water and makes them more solid. Hybrids also can't shapeshift as well as Goo can, however they can still turn their arms into tendrils and blades and such in order to defend themselves or hunt.
It is also noted that the Goo-Slimeoid hybrid is aware of how they are made, as when the Slimeoid shown the hybrid a memory of Agitha merging with her; her response “Ewwww!” and asked something along the lines of “Is that my parents making?...”