Art by, frog
Danger Level: Safe
Likes: Feeding, Relaxing
Dislikes: Being forced to shed
Attack Method: While domesticated manieface do not attempt to fight back, feral versions will try to use their weight to tip over and suffocate their foes.
The manieface is an incredibly soft-looking creature, often described as a slug mixed with a foam pillow. The fauna is a soft pink, with many short legs that disallow it from moving very far. Two antennas work together with their pair of glossy orange eyes to navigate its environment. While it can see, the fauna is limited to viewing only those objects right in front of it, with anything else being a confusing unrecognizable blur.
Most notably, the back of a manieface is covered in rigid plastic-like plates. If left on for an extended period, these will close up, forming egg casings that fall off the parent manieface and hatch into a larval form. Before they reach this stage, the white half-shells look like "=)" notail masks, as this feature has been bred into them for the sake of mass production.
When the fauna grows the masks to the desired size, a small electric shock is given, causing it to shed all of its developing egg cases. After a few days, production will begin again, starting the cycle over. In the event where the masks are not shed, usually due to an escaped manieface, growth will reach a point where the fauna will be unable to move due to its heavy size, even as it sheds its older egg cases. This is in part due to the bio-machine nature of the creature. It was only intended for life inside a factory and thus fails to thrive outside of one except in rare cases.
Being a bio-machine, the actions of the manieface are often non-notable. Found typically laying in place, even when freed from their bonds, they will not move until starved of food or electrocuted. Due to a lack of action, the fauna will only come in contact with handlers at the start of its life to hang it up and be removed and disposed of at death. Only the wild variations which have escaped by accident show any deviation from this behavior.
These feral maniefaces stand utterly still when in a prime location to hunt and only strikes once a meal gets close enough. The more the fauna breeds out in the wild, the more they deviate from their factory-bound relatives.
Randoface: A subspecies that are rarely farmed, the randoface grow masks with a random assortment of signs on them and a high variable of appearances. Due to the creations of the creature having no guarantee of quality, some of these faces are utterly unusable.
Wild: Wild variations of the manieface become overgrown with masks as they are unable to shed as fast as they grow. The masks become fully encased and drop off, later hatching and continuing the cycle. These invasive species are powerful tanks, using their untrimmed claw to kill slow-moving native animals. Places infested by these wild variations have forest floors littered with unedible hauntingly-faced eggshells.
Bio-machine: This fauna is a bio-machine. Bio-machines are creatures who have been bred specifically to replace the function of factory instruments or tools.
• Tests have shown this bio-machine only has the emotional capacity to feel a small amount of happiness and fear. Its wild counterpart is notable because research shows that for unknown reasons, it feels either intense euphoria or deja-visite. Attempts to study and harvest its body to create pills out of it have so far created medication that causes indigestion and intense nightmares.
• If fed factory slurry, the fauna produces no waste or smell.
• Owners of maniefaces say remark that it is less a pet and more an interesting texture they need to feed.