Lek 'Kghan

## Anatomy/Biology

**Description**: Basic description would be “Tentacle Creature” as that is the majority of their mass. Walking upright on six highly dexterous tentacles they share no familiar appearance to most sentient species. The only bone in their body is within the “head” forming a skull-of-sorts, the protective fore-plates, the crest plate and side plates. They have spines made from a sturdy Keratin-like substance that continuously grows like Human Hair. These essentially increase the surface area of their skin to allow them to absorb more moisture and nutrients. They are also useful defensive features against attackers.

**Diet**: They absorb moisture and nutrients through their skin, however are capable of digesting solid foods by breaking them down with their tendrils and absorbing the foodstuff.

### Monogender

**Average height**: 7’5”

**Average weigh**t: 416 lbs

**Average build**: N/A

**Coloration**: Greenish Grey, Grey-White, Grey.

**Average lifespan**: 5000 years

**Extra**: With seven brains (one main brain and one brain per limb) they have exceptional intelligence and yet almost no sensory organs. They possess no eyes, ears, mouths or noses, sensing the world around them through infrasonic sonar for vision, and taste and smell coming from their skin. Their only true sensory organ would be the sensory tendrils that come from the center of their head. These tendrils are highly sensitive to chemicals (taste/smell) and temperature. They use these tendrils to manipulate objects that are too small/delicate for the use of their tentacles. The tendrils themselves can manipulate objects with much greater dexterity and precision than a Human hand, giving them excellent “hand-eye” coordination - they make excellent engineers and mechanics.

Whilst they have seven brains they also have five hearts, all entirely independent of each other giving them five separate circulatory systems. They only need one to function however one heart roughly equates to 1000 years of their 5000 year lifespan. Over roughly 1000 year periods one circulatory system will be more active than the others and this activity cycles from one system to the next, losing one puts more strain on the others.

They are hyper-intelligent, almost like biological supercomputers, this is something that came from before the development of their psychic abilities, however the two traits certainly do not conflict. Their mindset is always very calculative and precise, their intelligence is the major cause for their peaceful behaviour - they hold no passion for anything that isn’t progressively beneficial and violence almost never achieves this.

They have multiple forms of communication; using infrasonic vibrations and faint bioluminescence along with body language to communicate, also able to “vocalise” certain audible sounds. Their main communication with other species is the use of telepathy and tele-empathy, both able to communicate via psy-abilities and to sense and project their own emotions to others.

They have no gender, and procreate by two individuals coming together to literally craft a new life, using secreted biological material from both “parents”. The following 50-100 years is spent growing though the “childhood” stages. After roughly 100 years they are independent enough to not need constant care. This is a fairly “recent” evolutionary progression from their earlier procreative method that involved crafting a surrogate egg that was then impregnated. True maturity is reached after 500-700 years. The ability to reproduce is not very heavily limited biologically, only requiring enough time for individuals to regenerate the biological material needed to procreate which takes only a matter of weeks or perhaps a month. The “gestation” of offspring takes roughly five Earth years, over which time both parents will attend to the child and contribute towards the development. The old reproductive method required 10-12 months of gestation within the crafted surrogate egg, which allowed for multiple eggs to be crafted and impregnated to hatch clusters of young, however the young required a longer period of time to be reared once hatched. They monitor their own population and reproduce accordingly.

In order to accommodate Human social constructs, most Lek'Kghan will adopt a gendered pronoun (he/she), as they quickly discovered that Humans find it rude to refer to a person as "it". This doesn't actually alter their behavior in any way however.

Naming conventions are typically oriented around traits during the forming process, for example; Denser than Expected.

## Politics

**Values**: Their society values that of the GER. They abhor violence unless absolutely necessary.

**Religion(s)**: None.

**Settlements/colonies**: The T’cho system, on the edge of the Ecumene “Inner Worlds” region. Three planets, two inhabited.

**Diplomacy**: Peaceful but so far only diplomatic with the Ecumene as they are the only others encountered by the species, who have attempted any form of diplomacy.

**Age of spacefaring civilization**: The race has been spacefaring for the best part of 500,000 years, though they have never attempted to leave their home system to colonise elsewhere, only ever leaving for exploration to gather resources.

## Technology

**Military**: They possess no military technology.

**Civilian/Public**: Their technology is advanced but different, as they have no eyes their technology has no screens or similar features, most emit electromagnetic fields to “display” information and their holographic technology acts as interfaces, with electrical fields taking input whenever they make contact with it.

## Racial Information

**Traditions**: Their existence has always been somewhat practical, finding entertainment through problem solving and engineering.

**Conflicts/Issues**: The Lek 'Kghan are the subjects of extreme racism from the Eosapians, who have throughout the past, attacked them for no reason other than racial hatred. This has left the Lek 'Kghan with no liking for the Eosapians and is a major reason why they have not left their home system.

Despite Eosapian hostility, at no point have the Lek 'Kghan shown any intention of arming themselves, when attacked they have always either attempted peaceful resolution or fled (mostly the latter), and even to this day, have at no point armed a single one of their vessels. Whilst they can and do serve aboard GER vessels they rarely take an active role in operating weaponry, they usually perform maintenance and repair work on weapons for their Human allies. The GER has taken it upon themselves to safeguard the Leg’ Kghan.

## Relevant history

10 Years ago: Official joining with the Ecumene

13 Years ago: First contact with the Ecumene

1112 Years ago: Most recent Eosapian attack

4371 Years ago: Completion of re-colonisation of home system after Dom’Kavosh attack

7384 Years ago: Dom’Kavosh raid of home system.

213, 928 Years ago: Development of stabilisation technology that allowed the beginning of the current procreation method of the Lek 'Kghan.

248,904 Years ago: First travel out of the home system

299,991 Years ago: Completed colonisation of home system

301,924 Years ago: Initial colonisation of Kandor

500,033 Years ago: First Eosapian attack and beginning of Eosapian raids

500,034 Years ago: First contact with Eosapians

500,112 Years ago: First interplanetary space flight.

Early Lek 'Kghan life was fraught with risk, there were not many predatory creatures but those that were there were intelligent, leading the Lek 'Kghan to grow their own intelligence. During this period they had no psychic ability and relied on their spines for defence. As their powers developed they became more capable of defending themselves and soon enough became the apex species through sheer invulnerability to predators.

Prior to space travel, the Lek 'Kghan strived for utopian living, for over 10 million years they lived perfectly peaceful lives, building technology that would one day send them to space. They actually possessed the technology and ability for interplanetary travel for over 300,000 years prior to their first flight - they simply saw no need to make the journey. Population has never been a problem for the race as their long lifespan coupled with very deliberate reproductive traits makes it incredibly easy for them to control their population.

After the negative encounters with the Eosapians, they deemed travel outside of their system to be a fruitless endeavour, risking further Eosapian attacks and possible hostility from other races. They became xenophobic for a long time and a devastating Dom’Kavosh raid didn’t help this.

Their first encounter with Humanity went well, extremely well for the Lek 'Kghan compared to their previous two alien encounters and for the Humans, the seemingly strange tentacle aliens were friendly if very cautious and concerned. A tentative series of meetings, social functions and trade arrangements soon found the Lek 'Kghan taking a strong liking to their Ecumene neighbours, and within a year had decided to join them. Likewise the Ecumene Humans took a strong liking to the Lek 'Kghan, seeing the vulnerability to their otherwise monstrous appearance. The benign nature of the race shone past their physical appearance.

## Psychic Abilities

* Telepathy: They can communicate via telepathic means, although they do not use this as a primary method between each other unless over greater distances. This also includes the ability to read the minds of other species, more effectively the weaker the mind.
* Tele-empathy: They can sense the emotional state and well being of others, they can also project their own emotional state onto others.
* Telekinesis: They are capable of moving objects (or beings) through application of psychic force. This includes pushing, pulling, holding an object in place, crushing an object or pulling an object apart.
* Psi-force: To project a forceful wave of psychic energy, somewhat of a repelling blast.
* Barrier: The ability to project a psychic wall of energy that acts as a shield. Multiple Lek 'Kghan can work together to amplify such a barrier.
* Psyshock: The creation of physical projectiles around a target object or being that surround them, then forcefully slam into the target from all sides.