Tchoh Murre

Swarming Crescent

12 Murrlings and a Regent

## Planetary Data

This barren body orbits an extremely bright blue star, being constantly bombarded by ultraviolet light. It’s completely devoid of atmosphere and is tidally locked, with a relatively smooth dayside and a craggy nightside.

Tchoh Murre also has a strange crescent shape, most of what may had been a decently sized planet has been completely destroyed, exposing a now solidified mantle. Nothing of the internal heat of the planet is left, but rather a frozen husk.
The planet has abundant ice formations, usually in the shapes of frozen puddles in craters in the dayside, but more rarely in frozen waterfalls on the crags of the nightside.

The planet is surprisingly populated by living things. Chemosynthetic bacteria in the ground taint the ground purple, although the natives usually nest nearby due to an easy food source. Many kinds of fungi flourish in the nightside, taking refuge from the Murrling swarms.
The bacteria usually flourish by extremely rare metals, with many mining companies harvesting the purple splotches on Tchoh Murre, although the natives are highly hostile to such operations.

## Inhabitants

The Murrlings are purple oval shaped arthropods measuring at about a foot, with two large wings, useless in vacuum. At their front and at their backs they have two suckers, as well as having a pair on each side of the body. The Murrling Regents are a slightly larger version of a normal Murrling, but colored red, and with nostril like growths instead of suckers that expel gas, allowing them to fly in the vacuum. The gas-spewing organs need constant heating usually provided by the sun or any high energy radiation, but lack of heat kills them.

Despite a lack of higher thought, these beings are telepaths, with the Regents controlling the rest of the species. They are eusocial, with the Regents laying eggs and forming swarms. Unlike most common eusocial species, two distinct Murrling swarms are able to cooperate and split the spoils equally, although dissections of Regents show that they do not have the necessary brain capacity to do so.
Murrlings also are incredible builders, instinctively being able to construct temporary structures in order to harvest water or food, as well as to defend them from enemy swarms and alien harvesters. Swarms may be so large that they may fill entire basins with members of it, and its collective appearance may confuse the most of the times deadly nests with inoffensive fungus.

Murrlings are able to survive and reproduce without their Regents, but their behavior isn’t as cooperative as their swarm counterparts, tending to an individualistic lifestyle. They tend to gather in the nightside.

## Gamedata

    16.67%

    26.67%

    30%

    16.64%

    10%
 ⠀

## Trivia

* Multiple fossils of Murrling like creatures have been found on the planet. The ancestors of the swarming natives seem to have been larger and adapted to life deep underwater, as well as lacking any Regent like organisms. It’s highly unlikely that the Murrlings evolved fast enough to adapt from being under high pressure and in liquid to living in vacuum, suggesting genetic tampering.
* There are ruins of bunkers and facilities of unknown purpose on the planet, suggesting either a past native intelligent beings or a possible colony. A single damaged corpse has been found on one such facility. The body is composed of a ribcage, part of a long arm, and 4 horns.
* Murrlings are an invasive species on many space based colonies. The territoriality of the Regents is a problem as they tend to gather around chemosynthetic lifeforms feeding on metal ore. Many pirates intentionally use swarms as weapons to destroy enemy mines.