Wraith

Description
Wraiths are a rather strange race that seems to confound the very laws of science. They are completely composed of an organic type of Energy/Plasma, and it’s rather unexplained how something of that nature could have evolved in the first place. Their ‘skin’ is described to feel like a rubber balloon filled with gel when touched or poked.

They are composed of a ‘torso’ that tapers to a point, a long neck and oval shaped face, two tentacle type limbs, and two long antenna. Because they can easily manipulate their own body mass, even the previous statement is often not true. Wraiths can stretch and pull their bodies into different shapes and older Wraiths with more body mass can grow multiple extra tentacles for holding more weapons/items. They can squeeze their bodies though openings as small as their eye (which is possibly the only really solid part of their bodies). Their eye, which is black and oval shaped, nearly takes up their entire ‘head’ and can see quite well in the dark. Their eyes are also adapted to see the heat signatures of living organisms. Their antennas are used for sensing air movements and biological electricity, but they are also used to express emotion on an otherwise expressionless ‘face’.

The darker mass inside of their bodies is actually their ‘Brains’, and it seems that stabbing/cutting of parts of that area don’t damage the thinking of the subject at all, rather the brain shares information throughout the entire body and stopping a section doesn’t really effect the subject as a whole. A full grown Wraith is about 5-6 feet high, depending on the individual. Wraiths also come in a wide range of bright neon colors, though red is the rarest color with orange as the most common. They also seem to glow softly, like a ghost, hence why they were called ‘Wraiths’.

Diet
Wraiths are unique in the galaxy in which they get their sustenance from electricity. Often called ‘Leeches’ or 'energy vampires' due to their ability to leech from electrical sources (both machinery or organic, like electrical impulses in the brain) to restore their energy.

Their favorite ‘food’ is the bio-electrical impulses that keep hearts beating and those found in the nerves of the brain. They feed by sneaking up on a sleeping subject (though a polite Wraith can simply ask to feed on someone, as feeding doesn’t hurt the person being fed on) and inserting it’s tentacles into the body near to the heart or brain. There they can leech of the biological energy where it’s absorbed into their brain/body.

They can, but rarely will, eat solid foods. They do this by enveloping the solid food, where their bodies can break it down into extra mass. Also, some can be observed drinking alcohol and becoming drunk like any other race in the galaxy. This is possible because they are essentially absorbing the alcohol into their ‘brains’, thus giving them the same buzz as another race drinking it the old fashioned way, though Wraiths get drunk quicker as the result.

It’s extremely important though, that a Wraith get its biological electricity. This is because that is the only thing keeping a Wraith from drifting apart at a molecular level. Since they cannot produce the energy themselves to keep their bodies together, they must leech of another subject to obtain it. A Wraith that is starving will be missing chunks of it’s body, and when it finally ‘starves’ to death, it will simply drift apart piece by piece, resulting in death. Wraiths are frightened by such a horrible death, so Wraiths in general won’t leave a place full of ‘food’ unless they need too.

Reproduction
Wraiths are all genderless and reproduce asexually. Though when dealing with or interacting with other races, some wraiths will pick a gender to refer to themselves. But, they can also change this on a whim. So a wraith referring to itself as ‘Mr. Smith’ can tomorrow decide to refer to itself as ‘Mrs. Smith’.

Wraiths, as mentioned before, reproduce asexually by budding off. Though they don’t reproduce much, as Wraiths can live a very long time (some say a couple hundred years) and often don’t need too, sometimes one decides to let a copy of its genetic material out into the universe. They start the process by triggering a chemical in their ‘brains’, which makes a portion of it’s mass start to break away from the body and take on the shape of a young Wraith. It can take up to a week to completely form a new Wraith, so to spare sexually reproducing species from seeing the somewhat stranger form of reproduction, the Wraith will usually hide until the process is complete. Once the young wraith is formed, it will completely break away from the parent and is immediately ready to start hunting for food.

It’s a fact that young Wraiths inherit most of its knowledge from the parent, so in the Wraith community incredibly accomplished/intelligent individuals are encourage to reproduce as often as they can to strengthen the species. Despite the rumors, cutting off the limb of a Wraith will not allow that chunk to grow into a new Wraith. Wraiths must chemically induce the reproduction process.

Language
Wraiths speak a language called ‘Writh’. To someone else, it sounds like a continuous stream of humming, occasionally dropping or lowering in pitch. They produce this noise by essentially rubbing molecules in their bodies together, thus making a humming sound. Since Wraiths do not have a mouth, vocal cords, or any other way of speaking conventionally, they must also use this method to ‘speak’ other languages. It takes them quite a long time to get it right, so if you come across a Wraith that can speak perfect Common, you can be assured that this is an older individual. Since they have such a hard time ‘speaking’, the only other language they ever both to learn, other than Writh, is Common. It’s impossible for any race other than a Wraith to speak or even understand Writh.

Race Relations
Wraiths are mildly social, and often make friends with other species more than their own kind. Sometimes though, their different biological makeup makes things a little difficult, such as needing to feed off living beings. The polite Wraith nowadays can usually ask permission to feed off a person, since the only side effect is mild drowsiness. Though just the thought of needing to feed off another sentient being often puts off some individuals, so Wraiths can expect to be either liked, mildly ignored, or chased out of town in some cities. Because of their strange ghost like looks, some races view them as ‘bad omens’ (such as Zuranians who are very superstitious.) and are sometimes not welcomed into towns at all. Despite the racism, they tend to go where they want anyway just to spite them, as it is neigh impossible to kill them anyway.

Homeworld
Wraiths do not have a concept of a homeworld or origin and are one of the few races in the galaxy where their origins cannot be explained. It is a generally excepted idea that they were possibly created artificially, though that leaves the big question of who created them, and why. When asking older members of the species, they simply reply that ‘The first are gone’. Weather they are dodging the question or honestly don’t know themselves, nobody truly knows. Instead, they will list their homeworld as the world they were ‘born’ on, leading sometimes to confusion.

Society
Wraiths do not really have a government or leader amongst their own species, but once in a while they will get together to choose an individual to represent them on Galactic Council.

As a race they value learned knowledge (school of Hard Knocks), optimism, and perseverance more than they value concepts like bravery or honesty.

Spiritually, they aren’t too active. Some will worship or at the very least, curse someone in the name of a Chaos God.

Trivia

 * The Wraith's racial 'Leech' ability apparently completely ignores the Law of Conservation of Energy, since the Wraith leeching receives more energy than is taken from the leeched subject. This is even further confounded when two Wraiths leech from each other. It might be postulated that if they are indeed an artificial race, their intended function might have been a sort of 'perpetual energy' battery. In any case, while Wraiths appears to create energy from nothing, credits are lost in the equation, appearing in the possession of the leeched subject. Perhaps this is a compromise the Six struck with the Space-Time Continuum to keep it from getting huffy about Wraiths running roughshod over it's physics?


 * While Wraiths float due to electromagnetic force, this seems to have the unintended caveat of them having trouble 'sitting' on objects. In fact, Signol specifically spent over two hours trying to sit in a chair. With patience and practice however, any Wraith can overcome this disability and proudly sit with their compatriots.
 * OCC Help: To have your Wraith character sit on something (e.g. a chair, table, or couch) all you have to do is type 'stand' first and then 'sit in/on '. The game apparently always assumes a Wraith is sitting if it's not flying. You will have to type fairly quickly after giving the stand command, otherwise the game will assume your character is 'sitting' again. A helpful trick is to make use of your client's (if it has this function) line recall. In this instance, you type the sit command first from the previous example, hit enter, enter 'stand', then use the up arrow to recall the sit command from your previous line, and hit enter again.

Examples of

 * Signol Crux
 * Prythian