Physical Description

Despite a wide variety in appearance between individuals of the species, the viedafo are still unmistakable. Their main structure is a skeleton, often of a fauna from their home planet. Additional structure and support is provided by rock and dirt. The core of the viedafo's body is gelatinous in texture and can be seen through gaps in their limbs and body. When a viedafo creates their body, the gelatinous part actually soaks into the rock and dirt and becomes a part of them, enabling them to feel with it. As such, if a limb is lost, they are able to reattach it over a period of time, though the initial connection will be quite painful until further along in the recovery stage. Viedafo will always have four horns.

Viedafo have an upright stance, even if the original skeletal structure used was not, as the skeleton is only there for support and no more than half of one is needed to form a viedafo's body. A viedafo's colors and textures vary widely based on the region where they were formed.

Although viedafo are able to sustain themselves for long periods of time with only water, this is not a long-term solution and they must eat. They are vegetarian, and absorb nutrients by placing food in their jelly-like inner body. Viedafo have impressive control over this liquid part of their body, and are able to vary concentrations in various areas of their body to perform tasks. They can also 'see' from any part of this mass, and are even able to halt digestion in certain areas if they are carrying around objects inside of them they do not wish to dissolve. This control is also how they reproduce -- two or more viedafo spend a while 'preparing' a portion of themselves, and remove this blob of themselves. Two parents are required for the chemical reaction to result in another living viedafo child, but more can contribute to this, without negative effect.

Personality

The viedafo start as a liquid "maggot" of sorts that will crawl around in search of a suitable skeleton to build a body out of. Once they have found a skeleton to use, they begin to take in rocks and soil from the surrounding area to build their body. While this process does take several years, once the body is fully-formed they are able to control it immediately. They did, after all, custom-build the body for themselves.

Viedafo are notably territorial, and will claim the immediate area surrounding where they grew up as their own. Many viedafo cultures traditionally leave a growing member of their species alone until they have fully developed, and these viedafo are often immediately aggressive towards those that approach their territory without clearly peaceful intentions. Other cultures encourage visiting and checking up on one's child as they develop. These viedafo are more welcoming to unannounced visitors. Nearly all cultures, however, leave young viedafo to do all the actual work of settling in and building their bodies themselves. Regardless of how social their upbringing may have been, viedafo naturally react to the desecration of their territory with violent retribution.

The viedafo work hard to make their territory perfect. It can often be difficult to convince one that their designs aren't so. They have an instinctive knowledge of landscaping and building, and many believe that they are above criticism because of it. Arguments with viedafo often turn to violence, and altering one's work without permission, whether accidental or not, almost certainly leads to it.

Besides an almost obsessive protectiveness over their creations, viedafo also have a strong attachment to environmental issues. Their health is affected greatly by their environment, and if the environment is sick, they are also likely to get sick. Given their aggressive demeanors, viedafo reactions to pollution can range from loud disapproval to active destruction.

History

On the viedafo homeworld the cultures usually avoid each other, as in the past cultural clashes resulted in a violent war with many ceasefires called to prevent damage to the environment. Military technology is very single target oriented, or at least focus on not having lasting damage to the surrounding area. Yeah, bombs, but biodegradable bombs. In general, if it's been designed to deal large amounts of damage, it's also been designed to be easy to clean up. Nuclear bombs were never even a consideration -- if there's no good territory to get out of it, it's not worth it. Salt the earth military tactics are practically a foreign concept to the viedafo.

The various viedafo cultures don't really interact that much, because it gets too heated too quick, though they do have an international economy, and they might not have reached the space age had scientists from across the globe not collaborated on it. It was a messy collaboration, many fights breaking out over competing theories, but they did manage to reach multiple of their planet's moons. They were working out colonization and how to potentially terraform them when first contact was made, and they were provided with the scientific knowhow to truly enter the space age.

Spacefaring viedafo quickly found a niche with their understanding of nature and landscaping amongst other planets, and those with greater visions have proven very helpful with large scale terraforming projects. Some of the more passionate viedafo have also been known to cause trouble, as many, upon seeing what some of the rest of the universe has been doing, were disgusted by the way they treat their environments, taking extremist measures to righting these wrongs.

Home Planet

Kolotera - A planet of quite varied biomes and environments, ecologically speaking it's mostly similar to most multibiome planets, but due to a quirk of the distribution of minerals of the world, the colors of the rocks, dirt, and water of Kolotera vary wildly from location to location. Since the primary inhabitants of the planet are made out of these elements, it creates a notably colorful population.

Subspecies

Crystalline: Crystalline viedafo are incredibly rare, as it takes much longer for them to form a body out of crystalline materials. It takes a large amount of material, a proper skeleton, and a proper source of nutrients for a viedafo to create a crystalline body. These viedafo are quite hardy and think themselves very wise.

Special

Grafting: A viedafo can continue adding to themselves, although after a certain point, it gets a little bulky. If they allow themselves to soak into more rock, they can add it onto themselves, which is useful for dealing with minor injuries, or major ones, given enough time. Some travelling viedafo like to add a piece of the local geology to themselves to show where they've been.

Trivia

• Many viedafo keep fish as pets, often allowing them to swim around within their liquid bodies. As the viedafo are adept at controlling their bodily functions, there is little risk of accidental digestion.

• Viedafo researchers are usually more productive amongst other species than their own. Between two viedafo having a disagreement, they are almost certainly both ready to fight before coming to a sensible conclusion. If the other party is not a viedafo, however, they might be less immediately willing to go to blows, and the situation often fizzles out without coming to that.

• The actual composition of a viedafo blob depends on their parents and where they grew up, and a surprisingly large portion have water that is not just safe to drink, but filled with many essential and healthy minerals. Many of these viedafo have taken to bottling excess fluid and selling it at a premium price.

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