[Cosmosdex] The Universal Encyclopedia

[Cosmosdex]

Hirudinaria
     

Leeches

Hirudinaria
“I hear you have clotting issues, yes? Let's see if our doctors can help.” — Annie Leeid

Art by, Flick

  • Strength-2
  • Intelligence-8
  • Charisma-5
  • Endurance-4
  • Agility-4
  • Luck-3

Common Jobs: Doctor, Nurse, Bloodletter, Anticoagulant Donor, Veterinarian
Likes: Bogs and swamps, Blood, Cool water, Helping patients
Dislikes: Hot and dry environments, Belligerent patients, Being alone

Attack Method: Hirudinaria will often simply try to swim away when under attack. If fleeing is not a possibility, they may attempt to slap their attacker with their tail.

Attributes
Homeplanet: Mangrophora
Lifespan: 35 years
Size: 0.5 ft tall, 1.5 ft long
Diet: Blood, Eggs

Bodytype: Serpentine
Type: Symbotic Molluscoid Marine
Social Class: Upper Middle Class
Rarity: Uncommon
Common Traits
[Crepuscular] Neutral trait
Character is neither fully [Diurnal] or [Nocturnal], but instead is mostly awake during the transitional periods between the two.
[Small Eater] Positive trait
This character consumes half the normal amount of rations.
[Intrusive] Negative trait
This character has no sense of personal space and might do rude things like going through people's belongings, touching people and asking personal questions. This can be tiring for their fellow crew and could get them into deep trouble.
Gods

Hirudinaria are not particularly religious.


Gods: None

Original Creator: Flick


Physical Description

Hirudinaria are rather small, soft-bodied creatures, with green skin patterned with orange stripes and spots. Averaging out at 1.5 feet long and 6 inches tall, their bodies are long and serpentine, although that is often subject to change due to their lack of bones- allowing hirudinaria to smush and contort into various blobby shapes. Their bodies are segmented like a worm.

At the front end of their body, a pointed head lies, with a pronounced 3-shaped lip that obscures the underside of the head. Hirudinaria have 5 pairs of eyes, lined up in a simple row on each side of the head, and situated atop the head behind the eyes are small fleshy tassels used in display. These tassels also run down the neck and tail. Although typically floppy and "earlike" in shape, these tassels can both vary in shape and number between different individuals.

On the underside of their heads, hirudinaria have a small mouth, shaped like a Y when closed. It opens up in a triangular shape, revealing 3 scalpel-sharp teeth arranged in each corner of the mouth that painlessly scratch the skin of their hosts when feeding. The "lips" of a hirudinaria form a suction cup when feeding, keeping the wound sealed and the hirudinaria attached to their host.

Hirudinaria have 4 arms at the widest point of their body, short and tipped with 3 blunt claws. Although not the most dexterous, these claws function decently well as hands, but are not the best at clawing or scratching. Their tails are tipped with a suction cup, which helps them move, grip onto things, and attach to hosts while feeding. Although a bit slow and clumsy on land, the suction cup allows hirudinaria to have great mobility underwater, as they will flatten out and use the suction cup as a flipper. On land, hirudinaria move in a sort of inchworm motion, using their rear sucker as an anchor as they reach forwards, grip with their arms, and then move their sucker up once more.

Hirudinaria are not sexually dimorphic, and have no sense of gender, as all hirudinaria can reproduce on their own. They usually end up using whatever pronouns they feel fit best. Hirudinaria produce spongy, foam like egg cocoons, that can hold up to 10 hatchlings, although 3 is the average. They will typically carry these cocoons around in slings stuffed with damp mosses, and when the younglings hatch they will oftentimes ride on the back of their parent, even accompanying them to work.

Hirudinaria, due to being bloodfeeding parasites, are adapted to be able to spend prolonged periods outside of the salty marshes they call home. They can last for up to ten hours out of water, as long as the environment is sufficiently humid, although many hirudinaria will still opt to carry around water or skin moisturizes so they don't risk drying up.

Personality

Hirudinaria are a very social species, eager to interact with both their patients and one another. They're often considered very friendly, if a bit intrusive at times, as many hirudinaria are interested in biology and medical research and thus may question friends about their anatomy. Hirudinaria, when not working, will oftentimes spend their day simply resting in the cool brackish water swamps of their home planet, sleeping in large piles together. If on a ship, a hirudinaria crew member may instead opt to rest in piles of pillows in the coldest room of the ship....or in the sink.

Despite common misconceptions about hirudinaria, they actually do not have to feed often, capable of going for up to six months between blood meals. When they do eat, it is often simply a part of their job- injecting anticoagulants into a patient in exchange for a small blood meal. Hirudinaria can eat more often than this, though, and small parties with meals of frogspawn and other similar soft-shelled eggs along with pre-prepared blood are common in the bogs.

History

Hirudinaria have put extensive research into the history and evolution of their species in order to help figure out why they developed such powerful chemicals in their saliva.

Researchers have discovered that hirudinaria evolved from simple external parasites native to the brackish bogs of Mangrophora, which attached to their hosts to feed on their blood. Over time, the ancestors of the hirudinaria developed anticoagulants and mild sedatives in their saliva, to help prevent their hosts from noticing them feeding. These chemicals in their saliva became more and more potent over time, becoming more beneficial to the host than harmful- especially if said host had excessive blood clotting or heart issues.

Although hirudinaria do not know the exact circumstances that allowed them to become the intelligent species they are nowadays, many of their top evolutionary biologists speculate that it may have stemmed from them starting to seek out hosts that would actively allow them to feed.

Home Planet

Mangrophora, on land, is a warm, lush and tropical planet, brimming with dense foliage and plant life. It's covered with many bogs, swamps and mangroves, the vast majority of water on the planet being saltwater or brackish. The temperature of the water is noticeably cooler than the temperatures on land- making the bogs of the planet a nice place for a weary hirudinaria to cool down and rest. Several specialty hospitals and clinics are located both on land and floating on the water, places for patients to meet with hirudinaria doctors for issues such as excessive blood clotting and heart diseases. Said clinics also often contain stations for hirudinaria to donate their anticoagulants, so it can be refined and shipped off to other hospitals.

Subspecies

None / Unknown.

Special

Potent Saliva: Hirudinaria have saliva that contains a mix of anticoagulants and mild sedatives, originally used for feeding on hosts undetected. Said chemicals in their saliva have many medical uses nowadays, from blood thinners to anesthesia used in veterinary medicine.

Trivia

• Hirudinaria, despite mainly being hematophagous, will feed on soft amphibian eggs if given the chance. Due to the jellylike nature of frogspawn, these eggs are easy for hirudinaria to eat.

• Hirudinaria, unlike what one would expect from a parasitic blood-feeding species, rarely carry disease. Strict screening and testing of hirudinaria that are going to bite patients is mandatory in their hospitals, to check for disease or internal parasites that could possibly be spread to a patient.

Image Gallery

No art currently, maybe you can help.