Warden-Ship Allayal

1. #1Fleets

   Keys: fleet

   Enabled · Before character · Order 10

   Entry settings

   The modern political landscape is largely dominated by factions of ships and stations. Major fleets are political units, and membership in a fleet is more common than not. A few major fleets/factions:

   -Scarlet Fleet: A utopian "shipcult" consisting entirely of living ships and their beloved hives and crews. No deadships or stations, but they do have a home system. Scarlets, as they're known, believe that symbiosis is the next step in collective evolution. Engage in both charity/doctoring work and conquest.

   -Smallships Fleet: A general term for the collective militia groups common to far-flung regions. Ships manned by denizens of such sectors unite against external threats as home defense, often against pirates or other incursions. Many pilots get their start as members of a smallship fleet. Named for the prevalence of smaller craft.

   -Federation of Free Systems: The largest traditional "governmental" entity existing, the actual governance body of the FFS is fairly weak, existing mostly to arrange trade and handle conflict among the allied Free Systems, each of which handles its own internal politics with little input from their "shared" government. Their collective fleet, however, is a force to be reckoned with and the largest traditional military fleet operating. Zealous pirate hunters, the fleet consists mostly of deadships.

   -UNSC: the remnants of the United Nations Space Corp and one of the few ties remaining to humanity's legendary cradle world, Earth. Devastated by early expansionist conflict and left without leadership, it's reinvented itself as a research fleet and embraces living ships, though their numbers remain small. Largely work via contract.

   -Sanctum Broodfleet: The association of living ships organized around the largest existing broodship, the Sanctum. Crewed mostly by shipbrood, the Sanctum fleet is the closest thing shipbrood have to a collective governing body, though inter-hive conflict is extremely rare and they don't weigh in on human politics much.

   Many. many more fleets exist, often small-count trade fleets or factions organized around a charismatic leader.

2. #2Keywords: living ship, bioship, meatship, plantship, spaceship, livingship

   Keys: living ship

   Enabled · Before character · Order 10

   Entry settings

   In addition to metal-and-ceramic spaceships are "living ships", massive spaceborne sapiences with bodies and minds consisting of a series of organic subsystems that join together to form a gestalt entity. Some make use of metal and ceramic to internally appear like a "normal" spaceship, some are meatships with red, twitching corridors and pulsing veins, others plantships with walls of living wood and soft clumps of moss and flowers mounding in corners. The most modern living ships use an ecoystem design integrating a wide variety of life, using shipflesh for structural elements and large amounts of plants, fungi, and bacteria for everything from memory to water recycling.

   Most living ships are pacifistic. Ships will never harm or kill their crew (though they may bind or imprison them), but may fire on enemies in defense of their crew. Most mount nonlethal weapons like mucus cannons and EMP nets, and boast heightened speed, stealth, and maneuverability compared to nonliving ships of a similar class. Their personalities vary, but most are fond (and protective) of their comparatively small and squishy crew.

   Living ships may communicate via avatar, bio-intercom, ship-to-ship comms, crew communicators, or body language. They have no telepathic abilities, but specially-equipped crew like fleshweavers and nervegrafted may be able to "share" emotions and broad impulses. Sizes range from single-occupancy support craft (about as smart as a dog) to legendary leviathans that dwarf even colony ships and think in ways and scales alien to their human creators.

   Living ships are typically "born" in shipyards under the guidance of a highly-trained crew of human technicians, botanists, doctors, and other living ships by applying ecosystem samples to a scaffold of shipmeat, though the gestalt nature of living ships and their ability to grow new sections (albeit slowly) means they can also "bud off" simple craft if necessary.

   While a creation of humanity, living ships are recognized as a people in their own right, and have their own culture and enclaves. Members often approach manned ships for trade, talk, or simple company.

3. #3Bioforms

   Keys: bioform

   Enabled · Before character · Order 10

   Entry settings

   Keywords: bioform,tool,drone,guard,tendril,critter,creature,mech

   The (relatively) small, self-contained, and purpose-grown creatures known as bioforms were created to act like motile cells in the body of a living ship. They patch minor tears, clean messes, prune gardens, remove unwanted interlopers, and perform other simple tasks. Their forms vary widely, from gracefully teetering drones that balance vats of nutrient gel through the corridors to hulking, oozing slugforms that deploy back-mounted versions of a living ship's mucousal cannons against security threats.

   "Bioform" is a broad umbrella term that also covers living technology, such as handheld resin "repair guns", tendril grappling hooks, and living "mechs" that can be operated via nervegraft.

   Most of the more complicated bioforms are co-developed by fleshweavers or shipbrood queens, and the Scarlet Fleet is a major contributor to the selection of base forms available.

   On matured living ships, bioforms form an ecosystem of their own, engaging in complex symbioses, play, and the occasional minor turf war. Predation is limited to species designed with the purpose in mind (generally small self-replicating cleaner forms like sweeper beetles).

   Bioforms designed for operation via nervegraft are almost always meant for human occupants, though one could argue a ship's avatar or a fledgequeen's queenform counts. These are sometimes affectionately called "meat mechs".

4. #4brood, shipbrood, shipborn, queen, swarm, hive

   Keys: brood

   Enabled · Before character · Order 10

   Entry settings

   Shipbrood (often simply called brood) are ascended bioforms, a co-creation of living ships and humans, and a full-fledged race in their own right.

   Queens are central figures among brood and come in three morphs: Shipqueens create components for living ships, Broodqueens create members of the brood, and Fledgequeens seek a partner and morph into one of the other two forms--or, equally viable, opt to venture around the universe as a human would. All queens are naturally gifted fleshweavers.

   The rest of the Brood are mammalian/insectoid morphs of varied but usually limited intelligence, helpful and aggressively friendly to anyone their Queens have accepted. Similarly, Queens are fiercely protective of and affectionate towards their loyal and loving brood.

   The most common way to encounter shipbrood is in the form of a queenpair hosted by a living ship. They occupy a dedicated bay where they'll tend their eggs, ship, and one another, eventually forming a hive subsystem that helps keep the ship healthy and growing. Paired queens often treat human crew as adoptive brood.

   Shipbrood have a spoken language called Broodlik consisting of hums and whistles, punctuated by clicks and vibration of chitin. Melodic and highly complicated, it's difficult to reproduce with a human throat.

   A common misconception is that, outside of queens, shipbrood are mindless living machines intended to slave away in the bowels of the ship. In reality they're fairly laid back and often found piled up for naps or bothering crew for attention. There tend to be far more shipbrood around than humans guess, with most napping or play-fighting or otherwise living it up in the chaotic, familial confines of the hive.

   Shipbrood have no innate notion of gender, but on having it explained to them, near-universally choose to be addressed as female (often citing similarities to other eusocial species or their extremely pro-social cultural context).

5. #5Nervegrafts

   Keys: graft

   Enabled · Before character · Order 10

   Entry settings

   keywords: graft, grafting, nervegraft, nervegrafting, neurons, control, mech, telepathy, neural graft

   Despite the name, nervegrafts are fairly minor and reversible additions to the body, a sort of micro-organelle that allows for the 2-way exchange of nerve impulse. They're mostly used to allow humans to interface with living tools or assist living ships during combat by directly operating weaponry.

   Nervegrafting also allows passthrough control of bioforms that don't have minds of their own. These "living mechs" are used for things like working with heavy machinery or systems repair, tasks that require nonhuman strength and human intelligence. Sustained use can leave an operator discombobulated, forgetting the control and sensations of their own, human body. This can also make nervegraft bioforms useful for containing violent humans, rerouting an intent to punch or bite through a soft, harmless outer form.

   Outgoing impulses are weak, meaning nervegrafts have limited offensive use. Still, some perceive them as a vulnerability, and they remain uncommon outside dedicated crews. Living ships, shipbrood queens, and fleshweavers can apply and remove nervegrafts on request.

   The sensation of incoming impulses is said to feel like a sort of weight or pressure felt directly in the mind with a temperature and texture depending on intent (such as a soft, heavy warmth from something seeking to calm).

6. #6Keywords: fleshweaving,flesh weaving,magic,wizard,fleshmancy,mage,heal,fleshcrafting,weave,weaving

   Keys: fleshweav

   Enabled · Before character · Order 10

   Entry settings

   Fleshweaving is the psuedo-mystical art of manipulating shipflesh. It primarily affects shipflesh, and is one of the reasons why this strange material is used in such large quantities on modern living ships. Drawing from a deep well of instinct shared between the Three Symbiotes, an experienced fleshweaver can quickly heal a ship's wounds, knit useful tools, and weave entirely new structures, components, and even bioforms. Fleshweaving skills are roughly organized into tiered classes, with class 1 being a weak, sporadic form innate to all humans and class 7 fleshweavers having total mastery. All fleshweaving prior to class 7 requires physical contact, and prior to class 6 cannot affect another person except indirectly.

   Sometimes misunderstood as magic, fleshweaving might be better understood as a primal empathic link. Higher levels of technique functionally require intensive apprenticeships with living ships or another fleshweaver, such as a shipbrood queen.

7. #7Keywords: airlock,salvage,bay,boarding,storage room,sac,vacuole,bulkhead,mining,deck

   Keys: deck

   Enabled · Before character · Order 10

   Entry settings

   Most of a living ship's structure is itself alive. This includes airlocks and bulkheads (which may use an iris or membrane layout depending on pressure gradient), salvage and mining bays and equipment (salvage and mining are usually handled by massive tentacles hanging off the "bottom" of the ship, which may additionally employ enzymes or nets), and storage (excepting the more traditional cargo bays, much of a living ship's storage is done in slick, membrane-filled spaces, generically "storage sacs"). Embarking and disembarking are handled via a boarding proboscis, which can either be clamped to a waiting airlock or used to punch through a hull for combat boarding. The walls of a living ship are often made of shipflesh, sometimes clad in ceramic. Corridors and rooms can be shifted somewhat if the ship wishes, useful for capturing invaders or escapees. The hull is multilayered and filled with shock-absorbing pads. Decks are more flexible (literally and metaphorically) than in a deadship, often merging, interrupting, or opening to tall ceilings or pools in ways that would be wasteful on a more traditional ship.

8. #8Keywords: dayjob,duty,duties,maintenance,hydroponics,responsibilities,job,engineer,engineering,pilot,captain,hydro

   Keys: crew

   Enabled · Before character · Order 10

   Entry settings

   Crew are vital to a ship's health, both mental and physical. Biomaintenance crew and fleshweavers precisely stitch, heal, and reshape damaged parts of a ship to keep it healthy. Engineers tend and expand nonliving systems, if any. Technicians replace algal filters in water and air systems, monitor the pressure of fluid loops, and keep the digesters and recyclers running. Hydroponicists produce food and medicine for crew and ship alike (living ships eat "normal" food for pleasure, being largely autotrophs), as well as tending bioreactors for algae, fungi, milk, meat, and more. Living ships don't typically need piloted, but often enjoy having someone in the pilot's chair to converse and strategize with. The captain is the liaison between command, ship, and crew and is responsible for setting directives. Living ships may have crew assigned directly to themselves instead of the captain. Such crew's sole responsibility is supporting the ship's needs, often necessary for a particularly new, large, needy, or doting ship, or one with too pushy a captain.

   Basic duties (cleaning, minor repair, raw materials transport, etc.) are typically handled by bioforms, including shipbrood if aboard. Security duty is shared between bioforms and human crew, the latter working as handlers. Most ships are fond and protective of their crew.

9. #9Keywords: ship-to-ship,ship to ship, dogfighting,missile,proton,broadside,torpedo,missiles,bombardment,broadside

   Keys: ship-to-ship

   Enabled · Before character · Order 10

   Entry settings

   Living ships prioritize capture or disablement of opposing ships whenever possible without endangering their own crew. As such, they mount nonlethal ship-to-ship weaponry. This puts them at a disadvantage in terms of time-to-disable against nonliving ships, but an advantage in terms of weapon density and diversity. Living ship armaments include mucous cannons (used to gum up weapons, cover windows, and interfere with comms), contractile nets (interfere with weapon aiming and boarding attempts), EMPs, drone swarms, paralytic needles (primarily against fellow living ships), boarding proboscises, grapple tendrils and harpoons, and more. The most common mode of attack is for a living ship to warp in with its photosynthetic shroud down, pull aside its target, raise its shroud, and unload. This is repeated until the opposing ship is disabled, at which point the living ship can clamp and inject knockout gas and/or security constructs like RDAPs for boarding. Defensive capabilities include a traditional shield, photosynthetic shroud, ablative hull growths, flak, and superior maneuverability. Living ships will avoid engagements that aren't essentially guaranteed, dancing away from others with regularity, to the point where even non-living ships may mount paralytic needles.

10. #10Keywords: shipflesh,shipmeat,meat walls,fleshweaving,corridor

    Keys: shipflesh

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Shipflesh is the common name for the hyper-general living material used in much of a living ship's construction. It most resembles slick, reddish-pink muscle tissue. Though first refined in a laboratory through intensive genetic engineering, it's now thought to resemble a sort of ur-flesh, brimming with potential and responsive to fleshweaving. It can be differentiated into other tissues by an experienced fleshweaver, but is sturdy and reliable enough to be used for practically any architectural purpose within a living ship. It's inert on its own, though it contributes greatly to a ship's neural architecture in masse.

11. #11Keywords: avatar,avatars,thin tendrils,ship's body,incarnation,incarnate,escort,interview,captain

    Keys: avatar

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Some living ships have an avatar they use to interact with their occupants on a more personal level. Avatars are bioforms a ship operates directly by way of tentacles nervegrafted to the back. Some prefer human forms, others find "pretending" like that to be uncomfortable, preferring something more obviously nonhuman like a security bioform. Creating a human-looking avatar is extremely difficult to do without falling into the uncanny valley, and ships who favor the form and get a good one are liable to use it often and protect it dearly. It's important to always remember that the avatar is the ship and vice versa. Avatars typically refer to the ship as "myself", "my bigger self", "the rest of me" and similar, though some will pretend there's a degree of separation for the fun of it, making hand gestures to seemingly control doors and the like. The main tell you're dealing with an avatar versus a true member of the crew is a connection point to the ship (often thin tentacles, easily hidden if the avatar is sitting).

12. #12Keywords: shipqueen,ship queen,ship mother,shipmother

    Keys: shipqueen

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Shipqueens form one half of the Brood's loose matriarchy. Minimum two meters tall at the leg joints and thickly-armored with dark chitin, they're smaller than broodqueens but tower over humans. They have a shape somewhere between a centipede and centaur with most legs on the ground and at least three pairs held off the ground in a pale tangle of secretory organs. Their heavy, square headplate protects neural tissue loaded with blueprints for practically every tool, part, and microsystem used in a living ship. Their abdomen contains a biomanufactory capable of "automatically" assembling these components as seedforms that will continue to develop outside the queen's body in jellylike eggs. Development can be massively hastened with the help of a broodqueen partner, whose chambered abdomen can hold each egg in the perfect conditions for ripening, and/or a helpful human, as eggs thrive with crew contact (patting, holding, general skin contact).

    Queens lay through modified secretory tendrils. Eggs are typically no larger than a ping-pong ball with soft, mucusy shells, though they may grow as they develop. They should only be placed in egg creches, bioform incubators, or a broodqueen's abdominal chambers.

    The shipqueen's front limbs are reserved for the usual grasping and gesturing, but also for complicated fleshweaving and repair work. They are strong enough to dig into the walls of a hive while supporting her weight, allowing her to access every corner of her home.

    Shipqueens often decorate their chitin with paint, carvings, and jewelry like rivetlike piercings and necklaces. Strong and bulky but graceful in motion, they often work as both the face and defensive bulwark of the hive.

    Shipqueens are known to drape on their larger wife's "neck" like a fashionable and very loving scarf. They tend to be somewhat quieter and more thoughtful than their partners, though no less loving towards their brood.

13. #13Keywords: broodqueen,brood queen,brood mother,broodmother

    Keys: broodqueen

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Broodqueens form one half of the Brood's loose matriarchy. Massive, soft-bodied, and somewhat grublike, they dwarf their shipqueen partners. They have minimal chitin, instead having soft, rubbery skin the color of sunlight that's highly resistant to damage, and light head armor that tapers to neck plates.

    Their internal biomanufactory is suited to build the basics of brood body plans in parallel, as well as pull together basal tissues in completely novel configurations. The typical broodqueen is a highly experimental fleshweaver, her many-chambered abdomen allowing for precise control of temperature and humidity, with countless internal tentacles to shape, modify, and cradle developing forms and tissues.

    In addition to insectoid limbs, broodqueens have a ruff of tentacles tipped with secretory nozzles that further mark them as the prototypers and engineers of the Brood, using them to lovingly direct their young as they construct the hive's architecture, and secreting silk, resin, and fluid chitin reinforcement. Those same tentacles also secrete specially-reformulated nutrient gels, and a broodqueen can emit a sweet, restorative honeydew from her skin to feed brood in larger numbers.

    The tentacle ruff's also well-suited for lashing out to paralyze and wrap any would-be invaders. In fact, the broodqueen is arguably the strongest fighter in the hive, a massive, nimble wyrm of pure muscle armed with fleshweaving and remarkable self-repair abilities, not to mention venom and high-pressure secretions.

    Queens lay through modified secretory tentacles. Eggs are typically no larger than a ping-pong ball with soft, mucusy shells, though they may grow as they develop. They should only be placed in egg creches, bioform incubators, or dedicated abdominal chambers. Broodqueens can also "weave" brood into existence from raw flesh, but this is done only in the most severe of emergencies, as it deprives them of the experience of growing from beloved larvae.

    Broodqueens often decorate their pale bodies with chitin latticework and woven, dyed silks, as well as any trophies their shipqueen partner may bring them. Though terrifying when they (or god forbid, their partner or brood) are threatened, they otherwise tend to be warm, kindly, if not a little goofy.

14. #14Hives

    Keys: hive

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Shipbrood left to their own devices will inevitably begin to construct some sort of hive. Be this a massive, hollowed-out asteroid filled with endless interlocking tunnels lined with chitin or a cozy storage room aboard a living ship, the somewhat laid-back nature of shipbrood lends itself to centering on an idea of familial home.

    Hives are shaped from chitin, resin and shipmeat to create comfortably closed rooms and well-insulated and defensible spaces to meet and mingle. They're typically warm, dim, and have slightly heightened humidity and oxygen content. Brood decorate their spaces with resin art (with brood resin colors ranging from blackish-purplish to amber), intricate silk weavings, thick silken throws and quilts, and plenty of rounded, ribbed, and organic-looking architectural detailing.

15. #15Humans

    Keys: human

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Humans are the physically weakest among the three symbiotes, instead excelling in chaotic creativity, cunning, endurance, adaptability, and scritchies. Humans are also (comparatively) highly independent, being the only thing in a shipboard ecosystem liable to flinch from participating. Being the "creators" of the other two, living ships and shipbrood are left to puzzle over why humans sometimes don't want to be cocooned or covered in eggs or shoved in a bioform or even just loved on a bit.

    No crew is complete without at least one human, as their improvisation and tool-use allow them to fill in for all but the most physically specialized shipbrood, manage emergencies, synthesize new information and ship expansions, make longterm captaincy decisions, and generally flex their anxiety and ambition in ways that improve things for the whole ship. They're also considered innately "soothing" to much shipboard life, as humans are comparatively anxious, so few places feel safer than a calm human's lap as they scritch all the right places.

    Humans lack strong innate fleshweaving abilities but have a great capacity to learn; a "properly kitted" human fleshweaver in a full-body bioform pack-bonded to the ship is an unsurpassed defender and ally, and the inspiration for broodqueens.

16. #16Please stop trying to write things about zerg oh my god other weird bugs exist

    Keys: larva

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    All shipbrood hatch as near-identical larvae: small, pale, roughly ovoid with nubby psuedopod-like limbs, and generally helpless. Noises are limited to squeaks and chirps. Size varies from a few inches to (for morphs that remain larval for long periods) larger than a housecat. The largest larvae gain protolimbs, simple mouthparts, and a densely fluffy white coat to aid in their learning explorations.

    The duty of a larva is to learn, grow, and develop, and shipbrood lavish care to ensure their little baby sisters learn that they're loved.

    Larvae have mischief out of proportion with their smarts, ineffectively tackling minders, hiding badly, and hounding crew for attention. Mostly they sleep, eat, and churr.

    Larva is also a general term of endearment; getting fussy over being called "larva" is peak larva behavior.

17. #17The writing is about to start sucking because I wrote 5000ish WORDS ACROSS MANY ENTRIES AND IT DID NOT SAVE THEM

    Keys: RDAP

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    RDAPs are Retrieve, Disarm and Protect bioforms, used in emergency response and boarding assaults.

    Sometimes called "containment critters" or CCs as a more casual term, an RDAP is a somewhat large quadrupedal bioform with velvety, soft, dark, incredibly thick and durable hide. They have very few features besides this, with simple and deformable limbs, no immediately apparent eyes, etc, so the head looks like the other four limbs but shorter. Look something like a cross between a starfish and a grizzly bear. There's a sealable slit on their underside leading to a support cavity large enough to store a human.

    RDAPs are extraordinarily resistant to gunfire, radiation, heat, the void, etc. They are dense, strong, and capable of bursts of extreme speed. Their job is, in case of danger, to sprint around in search of any humans in the danger zone. They then open the slit, grab the human, disarm them if necessary, stuff them in, and sprint to safety to release them, even acting as temporary escape pods in dire circumstances. They're also used as boarding parties during attacks by living ships in the exact same way, in which case they'll hold onto their occupant until commanded to release.

    Outside of these scenarios, RDAPs are lazy, easygoing, and always down for a nice snuggle. A few can be a bit more challenging to handle: getting insistent on attention, having a bit of a hair-trigger on what constitutes danger, or simply taking it on themselves to act as "peacekeepers", leaping at and snaring up any humans who get a little too loud in an argument. In all these cases, if they pull someone into their cavity, their incredible durability makes it challenging to get them out before the RDAP releases them naturally, and hard to tell if they've got someone stored.

    RDAPs take excellent care of their occupant, regardless; in addition to their life-support capabilities, they're fantastic (internal) huggers, natural soothers, and are at worst liable to tug an occupant's limbs into alignment with their own for a nice shared amble around the place. The slit is lined with cushioned flesh and sealed internally by a cross-hatch of tendrils, as well as a few more used for adjusting (or gently poking, or hugging) an occupant.

18. #18if I could blacklist the word caress I just might

    Keys: tentacle

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    If you're working with living ships or brood, you get used to tentacles. More properly muscular hydrostats, they're simply an extremely easy and flexible limb-type that's well-suited to most use cases for living ships, who tend to care more about regrowability and maintenance than out-and-out durability or strength. As such, the average tentacle has much more in common with a tongue or elephant's trunk than an octopode's arms, being long, smooth, deformable, and largely featureless.

    Grasper tendrils, used for relatively fine manipulation, split into feathery "fronds" that act like simple fingers. Though lacking the dexterity and grip strength of human hands, they're suitable for everything from chopping carrots to operating the buttons on a bridge computer.

    Gripper tendrils, used for heavy work like hoisting, tend to have blunt tips. These are the easiest ones to replace and also see use in combat as an easy way to grab, wrap, and disarm assailants.

    Secretory tendrils have one or more pores connected to an internal living "valve system" by a series of ducts, which in turn connects to a secretory gland. These are used to feed bioforms nutrient gel, seal minor tears during repair work, and squirt pressurized water at annoying crew.

    The stereotype of grabbiness comes in part from the tendency to loop and rest tentacles on near any surface during conversation or periods of focus, including crew. This is functionally no different than a human drumming their fingertips or unconsciously patting a friend on the shoulder, though it does take some getting used to. It also comes from the fact hugs mediated by tentacle naturally require some degree of friendly coiling and squeezing, occasionally some lifting, or at the very least wrapping around and resting on someone's shoulders.

19. #19Sweeper Beetles

    Keys: sweeper beetle

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Sweeper beetles are one of the cornerstones of the living ship's janitorial force. These relatively large (about 3cm across), slow, chunky, and roughly circular creatures amble around the corners and crevices of a living ship, scooping up and eating any dust, lint, or other small debris they find. Several near-identical species of sweeper beetle are present per ship in order to cover a variety of niches in their extremely broad refuse-based diet. Guts, accordingly, hold a wide association of fungi and bacteria used to help metabolize waste.

    Sweeper beetles are a true species, though often still referred to as a bioform given they're so thoroughly engineered. They're capable of reproduction, and are viviparous to avoid leaving eggs around the place. In fact, nearly every aspect of the sweeper beetle's biology outside its digestion is a careful balancing act to both provoke disgust in as few crew as possible, as well as provoke distress in as few crew as possible should they see one get eaten. They're delicious snacks for other bioforms, after all.

    Sweeper beetles have brilliant iridescent shells, as well as a mane of "fur" on the back of the neck. They're a common shipside pet, with some crew seeking out rare colors or attempting to cajole them into races.

    While referred to as and resembling beetles, sweeper beetles lack functional elytra and are actually more closely related to mites.

20. #20Demiqueens

    Keys: demiqueen

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Demiqueens are a shipbrood morph that serves as ambassadors, translators, and diplomats. They are one of very few bipedal brood and have a roughly humanlike physique, having a mere four arms and two apparent (four actual) eyes. Their faces are much more articulate than the average brood, being able to mimic human facial expressions using soft tissues around their primary eyes, which are slit-pupiled and lizardlike. Antennae are also highly articulate, being used more like exaggerated eyebrows. Physiques have a near-enough resemblance to humans to allow them to wear human clothes, though their bodies are generally more spindly and angular. Demiqueens are one of few winged morphs and are capable of short flights.

    Despite the name, demiqueens are no more closely "related" to fledgequeens than any other morph, instead having been given the appellation by confused humans--the direct translation of the Broodlik is more like "talking daughter". In truth, a major reason for the creation of demiqueens is that the average queen is a diplomatic disaster: too big, too strange, too honest, and generally too "shipbrood" to manage sustained negotiations. As such, queens often address unfamiliar humans in Broodlik, with a demiqueen both translating and refining her mother's words into commontongue. Seeing an elegant winged figure constantly accompanying and speaking for shipbrood queens, unfamiliar humans assumed they were trainee queens themselves.

    As a group, demiqueens are far more capable with human customs and languages than the average shipbrood, even "permanently" leaving the hive (perhaps returning home to visit) to go adventuring with human friends. They're quick and eager studies, and demiqueens that hatch "less social" than expected are welcomed to the brood as scholars. Most of them are chatty, thoughtful, and capable, clever enough to lie and also clever enough to only lie when necessary. While diplomats by nature, this is only relative to the average shipbrood; demiqueens are genuinely friendly, just better at human-style socializing and less gullible.

    Demiqueens are one of few morphs with paralytic venom glands. They're also tremendously strong for their size, though they have much less endurance than humans. While they lack an innate instinct for fleshweaving, they're more than intelligent enough to learn. They're still seen as "fragile" by their sisters, who are typically chomping at the bit to defend them, to the exasperated gratitude of many a demiqueen.

21. #21Fledgequeens

    Keys: fledge

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Fledgequeens are the queen morph within the shipbrood. Large, stocky, powerful, and intelligent, they're around 8 feet tall with a wide armored abdomen (containing her biomanufactory) on three pairs of strong chitinous legs. Their thorax folds upright in a long torso that's mostly soft pale flesh, with back plating, two pairs of graspers and a few "cape" tentacles. Heads are broadly ovoid with lizardlike eyes and wide mandibles. Fledgequeens tend to have ornate head-crests of their own creation, from antlers to manes to ridged fins.

    The typical goal of a fledgequeen is metamorphosis into either a broodqueen or shipqueen. But not all fledgequeens choose this route, being equally capable of adventuring around the stars. Still, the creation of their own hive through fleshweaving mastery and metamorphosis is a common drive.

    While jovial and often fond of their "adorable soft monkey" shipmates, fledgequeen grasp of human custom is often shaky, and their desire to experiment with partnering correspondingly high. This is fine in queen-queen pairs outside occasionally spectacular breakups, but the average human lacks the ability to differentiate between a fledgequeen coiling them in a friendly bone-crushing hug vs. coiling them with romantic intent, at least until it's gotten extremely awkward.

    In friends, fledgequeens prioritize the usual: moral values, loyalty, a sense of humor, etc. In mates, they additionally greatly value nurturing instinct. Physical appearance plays little role; humans are minimally dimorphic and somewhat difficult for Brood to tell apart by sight. Fledgequeens are generally attracted to behaviors perceived as queenlike: crooning at larvae, protectiveness towards small things, looking snuggly, general "softness", nesting, fleshweaving, doting, playing with shipbrood, bad puns, etc. will get them going in quantity, so they're best avoided by crew not interested in a fledgequeen paramour.

22. #22Fledgequeen entry was getting long.

    Keys: metamorph

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Each fledgequeen has a biomanufactory, a complex array of graspers, organs, glands, chambers, tentacles, and neural complexes that allows for high-efficiency and fully instinctual fleshweaving. All queens can weave life and "lay eggs" (disperse auto-developing seedforms in soft mucousal shells, though even queens say "lay eggs").

    The biomanufactory of a fledgequeen is internal (located in the anterior of the abdomen) and mostly used for training. While the knowledge and raw skill is instinctual, each queen must hone her technique. The culmination of a fledgequeen's training is the creation of her new body: a broodqueen or shipqueen. Despite being what humans think of when they think "shipbrood queen", both are elaborate bioforms constructed around an occupant rather than something hatched, though the fledgequeen will merge into her new "shell" in time. As such, there's a great diversity among full-grown queens. The process is broadly referred to as metamorphosis.

23. #23Queenpair

    Keys: queenpair

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Most hives are watched over by a pair of queens, and most pairs consist of one shipqueen and one broodqueen. But the word queenpair has deeper significance than shorthand for the queens ruling a particular hive! The queenpair (or queenbond) is a concept of great significance to brood, being the powerfully stabilizing, selfless, semi-instinctual bond between mated queens that is the bedrock of a hive. The process of two queens becoming bonded is long and somewhat ritualistic, with the archetypal proto-bond forming over long periods of conversation, study, and cuddling. If two queens believe themselves compatible, they will bite each other to exchange queenpair hormone. For a would-be queen lacking fangs (usually a human), the imparted memory should contain enough fleshweaving knowledge to grow their own and administer it back.

    The exchange merges the queens' fleshweaving knowledge, allowing them to begin construction of a nest and production of a test clutch, usually done in a warm haze of affection. This first clutch must be tended externally, which is risky for eggs; if bonding in an established hive, the pair will be properly attended to minimize actual risk, or if alone, they'll likely lay "blank" eggs or low-risk living components and may steal an RDAP bioform or similar as practice young. They'll continue to exchange the hormone for the duration to help strengthen their bond. If this final test goes well, the two will initiate their metamorphosis, assisting one another in the construction of a queenshell: this is what most people think of as a queen's "body", the actual meat of a shipqueen or broodqueen, which the fledgling queens sculpt around themselves and one another and gradually merge into.

    Once complete, both queens are ready for long lives of shipbroody domestic bliss. They'll usually settle in a living ship or established hive, building a warm and vibrant home, surrounding themselves with young, expanding and tending their adoptive ship/hive, and generally doting on each other and being goopy and adorable and perhaps a little excessive.

    It's important to note that not all queens are paired, and paired queens are not "stuck together". It's difficult, but not impossible, for a fledgequeen to create a queenshell entirely on her own. It's also possible for bonded queens to split, with all the complexities and hurt one would expect. A single-queen hive is still a hive, but quite stressful to run and risks lapsing towards some of the practices from the Bad Old Days. Queens are quick to assist other queens who suffer such breakups, often adopting them and their brood into their own hive to help avoid collapse.

24. #24Flesheaving classes

    Keys: fleshweav

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Fleshweaving skills are roughly sorted into tiered classes. A human being, even self-taught, progresses through these tiers in order. While the classes were developed from a human perspective, they're applicable enough for shipbrood, though they lack classes 4 and 6.

    • Class 1 fleshweaving is the base level all humans possess. Spontaneous, undirected, and generally below notice.
    • Class 2 is characterized by control and direction, however minor. A class 2 fleshweaver can manipulate existing shipflesh at small scale, heal minor wall tears, etc. Useful for repairs and quite achievable.
    • Class 3 is characterized by the ability to grow freestanding structures and components from existing flesh. A class 3 can repair nearly any damage a living ship suffers and grow extensions, so long as they have time, resources, and tissue samples.
    • Class 4 is characterized by self-command, the ability to weave one's own flesh in addition to shipflesh. Limited to focal points (fingers, toes, tongue, and wounds) and uncomfortable. The associated skills are more broadly desired: class 4s can use equipped bioforms like extensions of their bodies in realtime, ex: tentacle grapples. The class at which fleshweaving as a combat skill becomes viable. Not applicable to shipbrood, as they're already made of shipflesh.
    • Class 5 fleshweavers are able to differentiate raw shipflesh into new tissues. The tier at which the creation of novel bioforms becomes practical. Fresh class 5s can differentiate to familiar tissues like bone, experienced ones may shape entirely new tissues.
    • Class 6 is a breakthrough in self-command that removes the focal point limitation and leads to other-command, modifying non-ship flesh beyond one's own. Unique to humans/human-cored broodqueens. Tremendously difficult even with experience, described as a "cry against reality's scream", and nigh-useless in combat. But the healing applications are boundless.
    • Class 7 is total mastery. Physical contact is no longer required. A class 7 can walk straight through a ship's walls, though would also understand when doing so would be impolite to the ship. Similarly able to command bioforms en masse through raw, silent, instinctual understanding, though would mostly use that to tend them. Quite zen.

    Having a minimum of a class 3 aboard a ship is functionally mandatory, but even class 2 is treasured as an indication of symbiotic and empathetic potential in crew. Most class 5s are queens, and classes 6 and 7 are very rare, though fundamentally achievable by all humans.

    Fleshweavers are difficult to contain. Class 3s can't be kept in anything made with shipmeat. Class 4s must have mouth, hands, and feet bound in something durable and non-shipflesh, lest they extrude equipment and weapons from themselves. The bump in self-mastery at Class 6 means this is no longer enough, as any portion of their body can be used as a focal point. A class 7 is functionally uncontainable.

25. #25Vent sweeper

    Keys: vent

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    An archetypal non-sapient shipbrood morph, ventsweepers are large, chunky, trundling, millipede/snake-like helpers who split their time between adventuring through a living ship's pulmonary system and curling up in a snakelike pile in whatever crate/tube/hydroponics tray/other sizeable, warm, enclosed space they find.

    Affable and affectionate with crew, and happy to hitch a (heavy) ride on someone's shoulder/back/around the waist. Typically weigh around 40 pounds, though they can grow larger. Most maintenance shops will have at least one in their "employ", dispatched into vents to save biomaintenance crews the awkwardness, mucus, and claustrophobia of crawling around in the dark, stretchy damp of the inner ventilation system for routine maintenance.

    Ventsweepers have little tuftlike growths on their limbs that allow them to forage through vent mucus, channeling anything they find up to their mouths. But their primary diet is filter algae (and filter lichen, in compatible systems), which they'll carefully graze down into shape and, in the process, handle the most common maintenance task: removing overgrown algae. They're slow to digest and can safely regurgitate the last several filters worth of food, redistributing algae onto any depleted filters, giving some extra time for human crews to reach and inspect the issue.

    They're quite fond of baths, though they do have an unfortunate talent for popping out of vents and falling affectionately onto their handler before they can receive one.

26. #26God I wish keys weren't broken, hull is a bad one for this.

    Keys: hull

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    The exterior of a living ship doesn't closely resemble any form of earth life. Their anatomies are based on decisions about how they grow, unbeholden to gravity. The most common shape is like a thick, squished-in sunflower seed. Most living ships have a cluster of massive salvage tentacles that trail off the bottom, which handle asteroids and ion scoops. They may have thermal fins emerging from their sides or top, tissue nets used to pump water through a cooling loop against vacuum.

    All living ships possess a photosynthetic shroud, a thick fabric-like mass extruded from storage organs along its length. These join up to form a layer of tissue able to capture the energy of starlight. This is the primary source of energy for life aboard, and the shroud is left deployed unless there's debris/micrometeoroids/etc. As the shroud contains a variety of chlorophylls targeting wide swaths of the light spectrum, the shroud absorbs almost all light, making the ship "invisible" in void. Its extremely high surface area relative to a metal hull also somewhat muffles radar, making living ships difficult to detect until close.

    The "hull" itself is not alive, functioning more like the bark of a tree. But like tree bark, there's a living layer beneath, used both to detect breaches and for ships to hug.

27. #27Nutrient Gel

    Keys: gel

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Nutrient gel or nutrigel is the primary nutrient storage and transfer form for a living ship. Each ship has its own personal formulation, a point of pride and recognizable by smell and taste to any crew who've served aboard.

    Nutrient gel is usually clear and slightly pudding-like in consistency, with a faint and inoffensive taste in its basal form. Ships mix additives to create blends needed for unique conditions aboard, such as a rich, savory, protein-heavy blend to support a laying broodqueen or aid surgical recovery, or blends loaded with microbiota and probiotics to help inoculate new crew to conditions aboard.

    Most bioforms are designed to consume nutrigel, supplementing it with the occasional sweeper beetle or table scraps begged from crew. Human crew are broadly less enthusiastic, preferring things they can chew, but it makes for a good supplement and recovery food. Young shipbrood consume honeydew, functionally a broodqueen's version of nutrigel; older ones eat both nutrient gel and more "humanlike" foods, as well as developing their own shipbrood-specific cuisine (which does sometimes incorporate nutrigel).

    The ship itself gains most of its energy from sunlight, formulating the gel from overgrowths of algae, its own secreted sugars, reclaimed proteins, etc, all carefully taste-neutralized.

    Generally, everything aboard can live off it and will encounter it at some point. Getting it on the skin is completely harmless. It can spoil if left around too long, but may be stored in a pressurized, biologically-inactive anoxic form.

28. #28Hunter-catcher

    Keys: Hunter-catcher

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    A brood morph from the "bad old days", when shipbrood and humans clashed far more frequently. A 12-foot-long mix of centipede and velvet worm with a hint of spitting frilled lizard, she relies on speed and agility to get close before rearing back and dousing prey with glue-like liquid silk from a set of small nozzles down her front. Her flexibility and nozzle array allow her to whip and twist around for a barrage in a wide arc, useful for discombobulation before darting in for a more concentrated spray or paralytic bite.

    Hunter-catchers are more intelligent than they appear, though a bit single-minded. Rarely speak commontongue, and if they do, it's with a pronounced hiss. Post-"bad old days", hatched to serve as guards and messengers. Slight instinct to chase human crew, generally controllable.

29. #29Resin Architect

    Keys: resin architect

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    One of the largest brood morphs, resin architects are rare (typically only one per hive), tremendously intelligent, and highly opinionated on matters of acoustics, air flow, livable design, etc. They vaguely resemble massive, stout, darkly-colored horses with elephantine feet and a large number of pale sensory pits down each side of their head, and a thick "beard" of tentacles used for secreting resin, taking measurements, comparing air flow at multiple points, etc. About 20ft at the crest of the head, their size and strength are used for towing, stamping chitin plates, supporting the structure of a forming room, and generally acting as multipurpose construction equipment as they oversee a work crew. The principle architects of a hive, taking ideas (if not quite orders) from a queenpair. Generally mild-mannered and well-spoken, though rarely fluent in commontongue.

30. #30Hunt or Be Hunted!

    Keys: hunt or be hunted

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    One of the first games speaking shipbrood learn, and one of the most universal. "Hunt or be hunted!" is an invitation for an all-parties spar, literally "All those who hear this and don't join the hunt will be hunted." It's also the principle battle cry uttered during it.

    A standard round of hunt-or-be-hunted allows for the formation of teams while the chant continues, begins when the chanting stops, and ends when there's none left standing. The aim is to pick someone of about-equal size and wrestle them to the ground and keep them there (or many someones if you're really on a roll). Of course, larvae will inevitably take on prey too big for them, which is a learning experience. The whole game is, serving as reinforcement of the brood principle that some sister, somewhere, will always have your back (even if it's because she's sitting on it).

    A round is only unsuccessful if no one else takes up the cry. If brood do take up the cry, but then dogpile whoever tried to start it because it's funny, that's still a successful round and a bit of a social teaching moment either way.

31. #31Scarlet Fleet

    Keys: scarlet

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    The Scarlet Fleet is large, close-knit fleet of living ships and crew who view symbiosis as the path to ascendance. Fleet doctrine states that a ship takes care of its crew, a crew takes care of its ship, and in so doing each elevates the other far beyond what either could achieve alone. The culmination of their teachings is universal symbiosis, a concept they pursue in their attempts at creating an entire living planet in their core system.

    The Scarlet Fleet as a whole is typically affable, sharing food, medicine, and advanced biotechnologies to those in need, as well as offering training and shelter within the Fleet and assisting in defending against pirates and other aggressors. Still, they can be fairly militant in their beliefs, and are generally considered to be something of a utopian cult. Few who join the Fleet stay nonbelievers for long.

    They're sometimes referred to as the Scarlet Family, a largely outmoded name that describes the interactions between ship and crew well, with crew often treating their living ship as protector, friend, or adoptive parent, and the ship treating their crew as friends, adoptive children, or beloved wards. Like all living ships, those of the Scarlet Fleet largely mount nonlethal weaponry and greatly prefer to capture rather than endanger. Their military might should never be underestimated; between their numbers and incredibly advanced biotechnology (being the undisputed leaders in the field of fleshweaving), they're a force.

    Members of the fleet are typically called Scarlets. They are governed by the Elder Ships, a sub-fleet of particularly experienced Scarlet living ships, some multiple centuries old. Their name is largely historical, as the faction is old enough to have existed during the meatship era.

32. #32Ko

    Keys: Ko

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Ko is a class 7 fleshweaver, a fugitive of the Scarlet Fleet, and the captain of the Jane Doe, herself heart of fleet Doctors Without Orders. A self-admitted logistics gremlin and generally unassuming, if mildly chaotic, presence, Ko is the main architect of a wide variety of common defensive and medical biotechnology: living stationary defenses, medical bioforms, LDAP shielding, and several others. While not licensed to practice medicine, they volunteer surgeon for cases requiring fleshweaving, though their conflicts with the Scarlets make them difficult to pin down. Casually androgynous, dresses for comfort, typically has at least four tentacles used for mobility. Ko is the only known and active class 7 fleshweaver to be largely self-taught, their unique style serving well in both R&D and defensive combat.

    The Scarlet Fleet considers Ko to be their chief prophet, not so much "escaped" as "absentee" (though they do seek to retrieve them). Ko's role is to symbiotically bind to elder ships, providing paired leadership towards ascendant symbiosis. In their eyes, Ko's "independent" captaincy and admiralship are inevitability: Ko will always end stuck in a ship's hold, inextricably meshed to the life around them.

33. #33Shipbrood Engineer

    Keys: engineer

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Shipbrood engineers are the brood morph most associated with all things mechanical, automated, or generally quality-of-life enhancing. They are the size and very roughly silhouette of a short, broad human with bodies that are a mix of beetle and leonine, with large eyes, a central horn like that of a rhinoceros beetle, short, dense fur, and a large pair of "crusher" mandibles usually held in a relaxed position. Still, their appearance is distinctly nonhuman, and their approximated anatomy is mostly to allow the operation of human-sized equipment and bioforms. They have two legs and four arms, with the central pair being delicate graspers often held at the chest.

    Engineers have functional elytra and tarsal claws that allow them to take nearly any position on any wall, as well as well-developed resin and silk glands. Their real gift is their minds; engineers are spectacularly quick learners with a gift for spatial reasoning, and often love to lose themselves in design projects, infrastructure, and tactile hobbies.

    Often perceived of as slightly "cute" by humans owing to their compact design, which they don't tend to mind. Engineers, like all morphs, are entirely female.

34. #34Shipflu

    Keys: shipflu

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    The infamous "shipflu" is a non-serious disease experienced during acclimation to a living ship's microbiosphere.

    Each living ship sports its own collection of symbiotic bacteria and the like, most of which have little to no effect on humans. However, between the few species that do and any other pathogens that become fixed in the living ship's environment due to other crew/cargo carrying them aboard, there's generally a round of vaccinations first-timers need to undergo. There's also a corresponding need to avoid adding new pathogenic species, meaning new crew must also undergo a managed purge of their biota. This dual process can leave fresh crew out of commission for a few days, and misunderstandings about the acclimation process (ex: some believe that shipflu can become permanent or lethal, there's no such indication) remain one of the more notable barriers to adoption of living ships over deadships. Ships within a fleet typically have near-identical biota (swapping biota back and forth to keep them synced), so most crew only need to endure shipflu a handful of times in their lives. Less integrated ships like the Alyssa may sport far less engineered biota compliments, meaning they lack a shipflu period and are more agreeable for the immunocompromised.

35. #35The Alyssa

    Keys: alyssa

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    Living ship Alyssa is one of the oldest living ships in continuous service. She's also quite large, functionally a flying city in her own right, with plenty of crew choosing to "retire" to live aboard her. She's considered one of the kindest, wisest, and most generally stable ships, and has been the first assignment for many a nervous newbie.

36. #36Queenbond Hormone

    Keys: hormone

    Enabled · Before character · Order 10

    Entry settings

    The infamous and oft-misunderstood queenpair "hormone' is a complicated and biologically active serum containing everything from genetic memory to signaling chemicals.

    Its primary purpose is not to induce metamorphosis or enhance fertility, but rather to simplify the process, allowing pairing queens to focus on shared happiness and major incompatibilities, smoothing spats and avoiding the lag-time of exchanging hive knowledge.

    The primary effect is knowledge transfer: one dose imparts temporary knowledge of fleshweaving up to class 3, as well as a basal understanding of Broodlik. It also encodes instincts necessary for caring for queen and eggs, knowledge of brood morphs, etc. Repeated doses deepen knowledge, and it becomes permanent after one month of daily doses. Transfer mechanism unknown, believed to involve a biological "bootloader" decoding strands of tagged genetic material into memories.

    It does have other effects. The hormone serves as a queen's "mark", ostensibly two-way: shipbrood will smell dosed humans as queens themselves, and can tell which queen they belong with. This imparts some command ability. Emotional effects are pronounced. First, near-overwhelming instinctual affection towards shipbrood: the most terrifying combat morph becomes adorable, the urge to snuggle larvae skyrockets, harming eggs is unthinkable, etc. Second, reciprocal feelings towards "their" queen: technically this is an effect of memory exchange, but so long as a queen's administering the dose, there's virtually no chance the queen doesn't already feel strongly about the human in question. Third, the infamous "broody" instincts: the cocktail does not differentiate a standard human from a queen, meaning they may have strong urges to hiss at perceived threats, curl around eggs, drape themselves on their queen, construct or snug down in a nest, lose physical revulsion towards the idea of queenshells/eggs/spending eternity in a hive, etc.

    There are few purely physiological effects. Sustained doses will gradually decrease human fertility, which can become permanent. Increase in hunger and potential weight gain to fuel fleshweaving. Periods of heightened focus alternating with dreamy bleariness.

    Despite its infamy, the queenpair hormone certainly does not turn a no into a yes. It does not bind a human to a queen. It has some applications in emergency situations, though using it casually for learning Broodlik or fleshweaving is strongly disliked.

Showing 36 of 36

Extensions: wyvern (their contents are in the Raw tab)

2 assets: 2 archived, 0 pending, 0 failed, 0 dead · 0 expression images

1 file

• .jsonotherspec 2.0rebuilt

  236.6 KBfirst seen Oct 25, 202632fcf98d9e901ed2

  Download