Physical Description

Dretherne are a tall bipedal species, six feet of their body being entirely legs. The other three feet include their head and torso, and their arms typically hang down to their knees, while their tail reaches the ground. They have two eyes, two arms, two legs, and a snout filled with blunt teeth, made for a vegetarian diet. Their jaws can unhinge much like a snake's can. A dretherne's skin is so dark that it is almost black, while their eyes glow vibrantly. The color that a dretherne is can vary, but the color of their eyes and skin is always the same. For example, a dretherne with dark red skin and blue eyes is not possible. Both will be red, or both will be blue. Any dretherne with light skin tends to die before it reaches two years old and is exceedingly rare. Purple dretherne are limited to the "elite" subspecies.

Every dretherne has a gem-like substance that grows like horns on their head. These gems can grow in other places such as along the tail and back. Crystal variety is unrelated to a dretherne's color, elite or not, and can come in a range of shapes, colors, and sizes.

Curiously enough, dretherne don't need water to survive. In fact, the moment they come into contact with it they experience a deep pain and attempt to flee the area. The cause of this is likely because of the high acidity of their homeplanet's ocean, making relying on it to survive difficult. Similar reactions have been seen in other water-like liquids, such as juice or milk.

Drethernes lay up to two to three eggs at a time, and may lay a handful of times in their life. These leathery eggs are placed inside of large crystals that are at least two feet tall. Here, the eggs hatch into a larva-like animal. This larva goes on to attach to the inside of the crystal, creating a sticky shell around itself. This shell expands more and more over time, incorporating the crystal into the growing larva within. As it grows, the crystal remains as cover on the now more dretherne-esque infant, serving as a defense mechanism against predators. This entire process takes about seven days. When a dretherne first emerges from it's shell, it is almost entirely covered in crystal, but it recedes underneath a drethernes' skin as it leaves it's baby stage, becoming their skeletal structure. These crystals grow with the dretherne as it reaches adulthood. As the crystals behave in a strangely organic way, they are hypothesized to not be true minerals, but biological in some way.

Personality

Dretherne are a telepathic species, able to communicate with each other using only their thoughts. Their psychic abilities are limited strictly to telepathy, and are best used with each other. They can pick and choose which thoughts the other receives without giving away their own privacy, and can mentally block others off if they don't want anyone to enter. Their communication is through imprints of thoughts, feelings, images, and sensations, creating a language of experiences rather than words. In order to stay polite and avoid confusion on who is talking to who, it is custom to only talk in another's mind once eye contact has been established. Eye contact is also the best way for them to talk, as it creates the most sensitivity between each other's telepathic senses.

Telepathically communing is possible without eye contact, but it is more difficult without practice. When talking, they sometimes use sounds in order to add on to their communication, much the same way a verbal species would use a hand gesture. The sounds they create are bizarre and often difficult to describe. Creating any other sort of sounds is possible, but comes only with lots of practice. This practice can make it possible for them to create sounds that resemble limlish, but never has a dretherne managed to be able to say much more than a handful of words. Without telepathy, they are essentially mute. Dretherne will use words when talking in the minds of other species, but may use their native language as a supplement.

Dretherne are a communal species and raise their children together. Large caves exist on their homeplanet only to hold the crystals their babies rest in, guarded by drethernes who make sure the newly hatched infants can emerge from their shells without trouble. When a drethernes dies, the crystal is separated from the deceased and broken up into pieces to be buried in a relatively barren area, where the crystal grows much like a plant would, and is later harvested to allow a new dretherne to hatch within it.

Due to their sensitive telepathic nature, meeting any other species that cannot control their thoughts in the same way makes eye contact a dangerous act, as it instantly floods the dretherne with the other species thoughts and feelings with no interruption. This makes eye contact with anyone other than fellow dretherne highly taboo and an act of extreme aggression. Meeting the eyes of a dretherne is a surefire way to anger them and end up hurt. In the chance someone they meet can also telepathically commune, dretherne still prefer to not meet their eyes. Unless the other person has excellent control and restraint over their thoughts, a dretherne will still be flooded when doing so. Because of this trigger, dretherne have a penchant to be seen as an aggressive and dangerous species. Despite this, dretherne are actually a rather passive and relaxed species, fascinated by life and it's beauty.

Drethernes enjoy grabbing things simply to hold and inspect them, placing them elsewhere when done. This inspection can vary from a few seconds to a few hours, depending on how interested they are. There is little in-between for these time periods. If they decide they enjoy the object enough, they may take it for themselves, forgetting that it might belong to someone else. Many drethernes tend to hoard because they are used to doing so with eggs, and view what objects they take for themselves as babies.

Having grown up in caves and learning the ways of rocks in order to care for their young, every dretherne knows at least one thing or two about geology. Many will know how to tell the quality of a gem, as well as what kind. These are things learned through living underground for the majority of their life. They carefully dig their tunnel systems throughout the planet, and are picky in their process of choosing a crystal to grow an egg within.

Dretherne despise water. At the sight of rain, they will run and hide in order to avoid it. If attacking, simply throwing water on them is enough to cause them to flee. They are alarmed and confused by anybody who would willingly touch it.

History

Little is known of dretherne history before they were discovered by other spacefaring species. The dretherne do not keep records, and do not have a written language of their own. When first discovered, they were written off as dangerous fauna and ignored. Their existence did not provide many uses, and making eye contact with one created difficulties in navigating their tunnels. The dretherne were useless at best and troublesome at worst.

What spacefarers truly valued was the plentiful amount of crystals residing within their caves. As the dretherne depend on these crystals in order for them to procreate, their population steadily went down. They grew increasingly desperate in their attempts to ward off miners, but this effort was returned with the dretherne being poached for the crystals present in their bodies. Only until it was almost too late did the dretherne manage to learn enough limlish to widely communicate the fact they were sentient. This discovery incited an ethical crisis. It has taken much work for the destruction of their home and species to slow. Even now dretherne fight for the right to live on their own planet, though in recent times the raiding of the crystal caves has almost come to a stop.

While dretherne are rare on their own planet, having had their population severely cut by spacefarers, encountering one elsewhere is even more rare. They don't tend to like other species because of the destruction they faced, and avoiding eye contact is a hassle that can end in bloodshed. As such, spacefaring dretherne typically wear blindfolds and have someone or something to help them navigate unfamiliar areas, much the way a blind person would.

Home Planet

Dn'hte is a planet covered with many small islands, and can easily be described as barren. These islands are made of rock, sand, and gravel, and grow very few plants. These plants are mainly tall, spindly fruit-bearing trees and the stout, coarse grass that can be found nearby. The fruit, when tasted, is faintly sweet and slightly sour.

Dn'hte is mostly ocean, which is highly acidic and almost entirely opaque. The rain is acidic as well. The air is either full of strong winds that whip across the surface of the planet, or completely stagnant. More resilient plants and animals are theorized to be living within the water, but because of the harsh conditions, this is difficult to verify.

The majority of life on this planet lives underground, where complex tunnel systems have been carved by the dretherne to connect the few islands together. Those that want to live above ground live in stone structures near the middle of the islands. Their architecture is relatively primitive, but serves its function.

Underground, there are an abundance of minerals, ores, and gems. These grow quickly in high quality and abundance thanks to the life cycle of the dretherne, making the at first unassuming planet one of the richest in natural resources.

Subspecies

Elite: An elite dretherne is a foot taller than a common dretherne. While far slower than the common dretherne, they are stronger and bulkier, with a more proportional build. Their muscular build allows them is more easily assist in digging new tunnels and transporting the crystals their children grow in. Elites come exclusively in a deep purple and appear sporadically in generations. Elite dretherne are also considered more intelligent, but because of the way common dretherne idolize them, this is unlikely to be true.

Special

None.

Trivia

• Occasionally, dretherne take seemingly random things without asking and stash them away in private places that are purposefully hard to get into. In this way, drethernes are sometimes considered kleptomaniacs.

• Dretherne are fascinated by the existence of other plants. Little plant variety exists on their homeplanet, and so they are often curious when presented with ordinary flowers.

• Naming conventions are usually after rocks and gemstones. (Basalt, Rhyolite, Pegmatite, Amethyst, etc) However, if a dretherne becomes enamored by a plant they were introduced to, they may name a child after it.

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