Hollow

## Background

   The Hollow are the species that crew the Raze and ships like it.

They come in at least three kinds: one with long limbs, one with a carapace, and another that uses a gun-like weapon. The kind with a carapace can infect its victims so that they too become Hollow after a time.

They were created by genetically altering members of Ary's species to serve as crew for the Raze-class ships.

After being reactivated by scientists, Hollow that had been in a dormant state in pods were ordered by the ship to attack them and the crew of the Bat'leth as unwelcome intruders. They remained hostile until the brain of the ship was deactivated.

## First encounter

Xe’anna is the first to face a Hollow, which gradually emerges from the pod where it had been laying dormant until the party's action woke it up. She first sees a hand with long, elongated fingers that end with claws. The creature has a deep bluish skin with a metallic sheen on it.

The sight of its shimmering mouthless, featureless face, of its two buglike multifaceted eyes, induces shock in Xe'anna. Tendrils that emerge from the top of its forehead and continue down its back interlace behind its neck. Xe’anna still has time to notice its double-jointed legs before it attacks.

## Description

The three Hollow that attack Xe'anna, Hexie, Conrad and Hexie on Gennus Landing, look incredibly familiar to them by then. Lauren describes them thus:

> *They have that pulled back taut skin, that deep oil slick purple, the large tubing that extends from their head. They have no mouth, the flesh has been grown over. They have longer limbs and kind of dextrous fingers ending in claws, curled back, longer, thinned out digitigrade legs.*
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In Conrad's terms, they are the *regular oh shit* kind rather than the *oh shit oh shit* kind.

Theea finds that Hollow *don’t have pockets, they're made of flesh, they're naked, they don’t wear clothes. They are armored.*

## Telepathy

Theea remembers and tells Ludwig, that she successfully made Hollow stop when *I yelled at them. With my brain**.* In GM's terms, *an untrained person attempted to telepathically provide signal noise, like just yelled loudly in her brain*. On the flip side, the Raze ship almost got to control her ... which Theea does not remember.

## A very special Hollow

On their way to the Raze scout ship brain, from which their mission it is to extract stellar navigation maps, Xe'anna, Theea, Kika and Ludwig Van Pelt have to face a group of five Hollow. Three are unremarkable spindly ones, one is of the larger brute kind, but still looks small compared to the last one, who is introduced thus:

> *It looks familiar to you, alarmingly and unsettlingly like an Andartan: it is the same build, same height.*
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It also has tendrils entering into its back, but *clearly not the same amount that Ary had or any of the others had.*
It is tall, it has plates of armor,

> *but even with its brownish, muddy-colored metallish coloring it still has that red tinge underneath. There isn't a mouth on its face anymore, its eyes are wide and crystallized over, as it lumbers slightly, but you, in your gut, know that is a converted Andartan. [...] The Andartan brute looks down the hallway and its crystallized eyes just lock with yours for a moment, and it gestures and turns towards you. It is coming down the hallway.*
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Later, after thrusting the talons of her monstrous hand forward into its gut, Xe'anna notices that:

> *It is bleeding, I guess, you're not really sure, but it is leaking a fluid, it is leaking."*
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Xe'anna ends up partially severing its head, and:

> *As the Andartan Hollow begins to collapse, Xe’anna reaches her hand around to the back of its neck and kind of guides it down to the ground. And, once it is lowered, she puts her hand on its forehead, and she says* I am sorry, my sister*, pulls her sword back out,* Rest now*.*
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When Theea feels one of the Hollow's nonexising pockets, Lizzie, who trusts Theea's survival instinct, just makes sure she's doing that on another one.

## Notes

1. ↑ The last one was introduced in Ep 10.
2. ↑ Starting in Ep 1.
3. ↑ See Ep 3.
4. ↑ At the beginning of the second part of Ep 1.
5. ↑ See Ep 9.
6. ↑ This is the closest to a quote I could do, not an exact quote.
7. ↑ That is, capable of infecting, or turning a non immunized being such as himself into one of their own.
8. ↑ Lauren's words. See Ep 23.
9. ↑ See Ep 23.
10. ↑ See Ep 10.
11. ↑ See Ep 23.
12. ↑ Xe’anna.
13. ↑ The emotion in Lizzie's voice definitely feels real at this point.