Ghesh

"...they are the children of their gods. The Ghesh half-breed invaders with no home bound to the sands of the desert. Their history has been swallowed up by the grit and dust and so have many of their empires over the sands. Amadi be damned, they may seek peace but the grey-skins seek a home! How far are they willing to go to find it? Beyond the sands? Into our lands? Gods help us, may they come with palms open to cohabitation." -Sun-King's Lament, Histories of Joparda.

## **Anatomy**

Ghesh have four arms, two legs, a tail, seven eyes, and a humanoid head. Ghesh posses six fingers on their dominant upper arms, their hands having two thumbs set lower and more centered on their palms than their humanoid neighbors on Mua. Ghesh lower carpal bones and metacarpal bones are slightly elongated as well, giving their hands a naturally slack, effeminate hanging posture when at rest of lightly gripping something. The larger arms are often used for athletic tastes such as hand-to-hand combat or weapon wielding and climbing/digging. The Ghesh secondary arms are smaller and weaker than the primary arms with only four fingers and a vestigial appearance. Located near the lower ribs just above the diaphragm, the fingers on the lesser arms are more articulate and often utilized for complex mechanical tasks such as knot tying or tool assembly. Together with their digitigrade legs, the arms and long paw-like hands of the main arms of a Ghesh allow the species to attain a gallop on all four major limbs. The feet of the Ghesh have five toes and a carpal tow on the back of the upper foot. Three main toes allow for forward traction while two more fanned out twos grip the ground and help to push off of loose soil of their arid, dusty primary habitat. On the head of a Ghesh is a crest which flair off the midway point of the cranium which give the appearance of a headdress or halo in their silhouette. Ghesh have seven eyes, two set in the general region of the skull that humans have them with a second set of larger eyes higher up and feather out to the side of the skull and two more eyes above the second set closer to together which are smaller than the first set. Between the first and second set of eyes is a single small central eye. The lips of the Ghesh are set forward slightly more than human lips and the nose is very wide and somewhat flat with a long bridge. The teeth of the Ghesh resemble those of a baboon with several shovel-shaped teeth in the front, two fangs in the top and bottom canine slots of the mouth and a number of grinding teeth in the side and back of the mouth. Ghesh have deep, purplish-indigo color due to their copper based secondary blood cells. Ghesh lacked sweat glands over most of their skin instead having gland clusters in their armpits, inner thighs, lower backs and shoulder blades, behind the crowns of their heads, above their cheeks and on their foreheads, beneath their jawline and along their necks, and under the pectoral muscles. Ghesh also possessed longer tongues which they used to harvest small animals/insects and moisture out of cacti, gourds, insect nests, and tree hollows. Ghesh tongues were pigmented a dark blackish-blue color to as they sweated trace amounts of blood and glucose to attract insects to their sweeping appendage when feeding. Ghesh also possessed two stomachs and a set of digestive gizzards used to break down hard parts of the many rodents they feed off of- often time raw to preserve the prey's blood and other fluids for their moisture content.

## **Genetics and Reproduction**

The Ghesh are a hybrid species much like the Novo Potens- though the Ghesh were hybridized from alien genetics with human genetic snippets sequenced and then re-sequenced into their DNA of the Ghesh to allow for habitation on the planet Mua. Ghesh reproduced through a birthing method similar to egg-laying. A Ghesh would gestate a soft-shelled egg-sack or placental ovum within their body for around seven to eight and a half months before it would be birthed from the body thought the birth canal of the species. The egg-sack would continue to grow and develop the final features of an unborn Ghesh until its eyes would open and it would begin tearing through the remains of the ovum's soft carapace. But this time, an unborn Ghesh would have long since have ingested a great deal of the nutrient-rich amniotic fluid in the carapace for it's final weeks of external development outside the body of its birther. AN infant Ghesh would be much more malleable and defenseless than an adult of the species and would require care and protection from a parent for up to three years after birth before it would be able to begin fending for itself. By the age of 13 years, a Ghesh would reach stage referred to as early adulthood in which they were expected to begin acting as a separate entity from the parental unit. Ghesh procreation was sparsely spoken of and was not taught openly as a deep instinct for sexual reproduction was inherent in adults from an early age. It's suggested by the tri-fold crevice in the space between pelvic mound and tail that Ghesh possessed a genital slit or cloaca of some sort. Males were believed to possess a penis or hemipenis from certain insults hurled around within the lower casts of Ghesh cultures- though due to language barriers, it's unspecified if such insults as "Rotton Loins" or "Filth-Seeder" referred to seminal fluid or multiple genitalia or a generalized translation of such terms as most tails quoting ancient Ghesh language did so unreliably.

## **Growth Rate & Stages**

Newbron Ghesh remained in a sort of pseudo-larval state in which their bones were soft and mammalia- though on females, the bones of the head crest started more pronounced than in males. Over time, a male's head crest would grow out backwards and curve slightly outward from the head while the female's crest grew out more broadly from early on. From ages 0-4 a newborn would quickly progress through a hardening growth stage. From ages 4-7 the Ghesh would undergo a rapid learning stage where skills and social abilities would develop within a child. From 7-10 a child would undergo changes which preceded puberty within the species. Puberty happened from ages 10-13 and the changes often resulted in a very violent late stage in development in which a Ghesh was urged to seek out independence and chances to trial themselves against others of their age group to rid them of violent and potentially dangerous or reckless tendencies through conflict and learning. By age 13 a Ghesh is considered adult and will continue to develop mentally until the age of 19 on their own. A Ghesh is considered an elder at the age of 86 years old and would on average maintain this status until death at around 135 years old.

## **Ecology and Habitats**

Ghesh were not suited to a natural habitat but rather underwent a number of genetic alterations upon their creation that lent them to a predisposition which made them excel and thrive within a dry, arid environment with lots of harsh sun light and high daytime temperatures. Their greenish and beige skin tones were believed to be due to a pigment in their skin which allowed them to convert sunlight into energy as their indigo-purple blood was believed to be less efficient than the hemoglobin based blood of most other humanoids on the planet- though Ghesh were only known to bleed indigo rather than have blood which was purple within the body when not exposed to open air. Ghesh showed no signs of purple blood within their veins as the skin did not show through such colors in the lips or other readily visible regions- though Ghesh did bruise a brilliant bluish color. rather than purple.

## **Biological Cycle**

Ghesh females underwent an ovulatory period every five weeks though it was a practice among the species to hone hormone-driven desires and needs from a young age in both sexes. As well, males underwent a hormonal rut which caused heightened aggression in some males. These sexual hyper-activities were believed to be coded into the genes of the Ghesh by their parent species0 though it may very well have been a trait carried over from them. Ghesh needed to eat at least once every three days and drank every two days regularly though they did not seem to have sweat glands over most of their body. Sweat glands instead covered key points on the body and thus they used less water to remain cool in hot environments and Ghesh were able to retain liquids within the body longer than humans to allow their relatively easy survival in the dry deserts of Mua.

## **Social Structure**

Ghesh society is structured like a strength-based meritocracy. Typically, Ghesh revered the fittest of their elders as with age their psychic abilities and disciplines grew stronger with time. As well, it was thought that social or cultural traditions were only upheld as an artistic representation of unity between the youth of multiple generations and as such it was considered a more childish practice among young adults and children while elders were expected to lead their people with newer more abstract ideals. Because of this, governmental structure could change radically from generation to generation and as such, it was hard to assign any one social structure to a Ghesh outside of their value of the strong among the old.

## **Uses, Products & Exploitation**

Ghesh were for a short time among a number of races enslaved by surrounding tribes and groups of marauders. It was rare to see a Ghesh slave be allowed to live beyond a few decades before being executed due to the growing nature of their psionic abilities with age.

## **Facial characteristics**

Ghesh have a very long nose bridge which spans he length between their two bottom-most sets of eyes but ends before their lesser central eye. The nostrils are often wide and very flat to the face compared to other humanoids. Their lips are fuller than most and this effects their speak and linguistics heavily giving their languages heave labial sounds and very bombastic, popping syllables.

## **Geographic Origin and Distribution**

Ghesh are primarily native to the central-most desert of the major continents of Mua though they have since migrated along the planet over multiple millions of years.

## **Average Intelligence**

Due to several environmental and social factors, Ghesh intelligence is usually clocked in just below average human intelligence but only by negligible margins. In a controlled environment, it's believed most Ghesh can excel just as well as any humanoid in various fields of intellect with flying colors.

## **Perception and Sensory Capabilities**

Ghesh possessed a limited telepathic link ability which allowed for short range empathic communication and even some weak simple telepathic communication using words, images, and abstract concepts beyond emotion conveyance. Ghesh could also impose psionic abilities such as projecting telekinetic force from their body and an ability to scramble neurological activity in brains as complex as a human's with concentration and hand-to-head or head-to-head contact. This neurological interaction also allowed for an intimate experience akin to foreplay among their species and other higher forms of sentience.

## **History**

The Ghesh were created by an unknown race of aliens long before the Homo Potens or even the Homo Novo entered the biosphere of Mua. It's unknown how long the Ghesh lived on Mua but it's clear that at some point they were created alongside another younger race of alien-human hybrids called the Amadi which are believed to share ancestry with the Ghesh. The Ghesh and Amadi warred for a time on the brink of the Muan desert for thousands of years with periods of intermittent peace breaking up the turbulent period. At some point after this a sort of permanent peace set in as the Amadi and Ghesh slowly fell out of their social stance against one another.