Darklings

## Summary

Darklings, are the most primitive of Maelstrom beings. Their forms are corruptions of Baron Typhonus's body made during his absorption into the Nexus in the moments before its explosion; they are incomplete, as such. They spawn from the Maelstrom Shards expelled from the explosion of Crux, wherever they have landed.

The original Darklings, being the first Maelstrom Being to be created, barring the Spider Boss, were made purely of Maelstrom, essentially being Maelstrom that took form to mimic life. However, later the Darklings evolved by mimicking traits of different animals and three new types of Darklings appeared on Crux.

## Types

### Darklings

Simple Darklings are harmless if left alone seeing as with no limbs, or in fact bones or muscles at all, they lack the ability to move oar attack. However, that is not to say they are safe for the matter they're made of is highly acidic and infectious. If touched, they may infect you with Maelstrom or even kill you.
Darklings resemble a dark blob of gooey substance with a small head popping out. The head is the only part of their body they have a little control over, being able to turn it in small angles. Their faces don't have any features other than their unblinking eyes.

At a later time, Darklings managed to evolve in order to incorporate a motion system similar to a snail's. Those were sometimes known as Evolved Darklings or Elite Darklings, but usually they were just called Darklings. Since, unlike their predecessors, they could move, they displayed aggressive behaviour by approaching living creatures. However, due to their low speed they were never considered particularly dangerous.

### Hyper Darklings

The first major evolution of the Darkling to appear was the Hyper Darkling, also known as a Dark One. Dark Ones grew small thin limbs at the front of their body, which they used both for movement and for attack. Though their arms might look weak and fragile, they in fact have the ability to move very fast and carry the Darkling's light body at unexpected speeds. This trait earned this type of Darkling the name Hyper Darkling. Soon afterwards, Dark Ones would also go on to grow legs at the back of their body for even more efficient speeds.

### Freak Darklings

A further evolution of the Dark Ones was the Freak Darkling, which grew large claws on its arms. Up to that point, Darklings had depended on their acidic and infectious nature for combat (and strangling if they could get to that), but the addition of claws would completely change the game. Moving almost as fast as the Dark Ones, Freak Darklings were known for their brutality, butchering a person in mere seconds before jumping onto the next one.

### Grumpy Darklings

Finally, the last kind of Darkling to appear were the winged Grumpy ones. Evolving from simple Darklings separately to Dark Ones, Grumpy Darklings acquired bat wings and a pair of an ethereal sort of arms. Being able to fly, this introduced a new kind of mobility for the Maelstromlings, but that was not their only trick. Unlike Dark Ones and Freak Darklings, the Grumpy Darklings' arms were not physical and therefore had completely different strength, thusly allowing them to carry and wield weapons (that they usually took from people they killed). A preference for heavy weaponry like hammers has been noted.

Grumpy Darklings have no mouths to speak with and yet some system within them apparently developed allowing them to produce sounds. Due to the characteristic muffled cries they made during combat, they were dubbed the Grumpy Darklings.

## History

In the first year or so after the fragmentation of Crux, Maelstrom appeared in two forms over the worlds of Crux. Either inanimate Maelstrom just spreading as physics directs or the strange blobs of darkness that sort of resembled life and rapidly reproduced. Either way, though, all you had to do was keep away from them and you'd be fine. The initial havoc caused by the explosion and the arrival of the Maelstrom is not to be underestimated, but soon enough people settled down and a sort of order was established. While the ensuing situation was certainly chaotic, that was mostly of human origin as in regards to Maelstrom people just learnt to avoid it and therefore live with it.

However, people across all of Crux faced panic-enducing shock when the previously peaceful, if unnerving and unsafe, began to move and became practically rabid, attacking anyone on sight. This basically marks the beginning of the Maelstrom War and incidentally the time when the Nexus Force's popularity sky-rocketed.

During the later times of the War when more complex types of Maelstrom Beings, most notably the Stromlings, increased in numbers, Darklings became a lot rarer. However, a more human-shaped type of Grumpy Darklings can still be encountered relatively frequently.

## Reproduction

Darklings reproduce asexually through a kind of binary fission. Their body has the ability to consume matter it touches and grow from it. When it gets to about double its normal size, it will split up into two identical copies of the original. Depending on feeding conditions and Maelstrom density in the area, a Darkling can reproduce zero to fifteen times in a day. Evolved Darklings have been shown to reproduce faster when they feed on animals and as such their reproduction rate is considerably lower to that of simple Darklings.