Culmoloi

## The Culmoloi, singular Culmolo, are an aquatic Aberrant race resembling cephalopods (especially squid). For their most important role in the history of Dorhaun see The Imperial Incident.

They have a form of thorax from which protudes eight primary tendrils in two clusters of four. Their two uppermost tendrils end in clawed, but surprisingly dextrous, four-fingered hands complete with

opposable
thumbs. Above their tendrils they have robust, bony necks from which
their heads taper upwards into a spike, containing a massive brain
with exceptional structural complexity. They have a face consisting
of a jagged beak and wideset eyes of a solid silver or blue with
irregular black pupils (survivors compare their appearance to runny
eggs). Breathe is achieved via either the gills located inside their
necks or the lungs set below them inside the thorax. They expel waste
via a cloaca, and next to it is an expulsion port from which they
project water or ink clouds as needed. They are generally of a black
color with faint purple swirls, and maneuver via their four rear
tendrils, though they can use all eight primary tendrils to run if
desired for an increase in stability and maneuverability on land.
Under their beaks they have two shorter tendrils which they can wrap
around their necks when not in use.Their most disturbing feature,
possibly, is the Proboscic Extractor. When faced with a living,
sentient being that has been immobilized or that is near death, a
Culmolo may extend a feeding tube tipped with five teeth closed into
a spike. The spike burrows into the bodies of dying or immobilized
prey, opening and closing its component teeth, grinding and sucking,
alternately to gain physical and spiritual sustenance. A
partially-shredded misture meat and the creature's very soul is drawn
through the Extractor into the body and stored in an energy bubble
around the brain of the Culmolo, which can then
enjoy limited access to its memories for hours or days before full
soul degradation sets in. This allows the Culmolo to track and eat
family members, if desired. While they cannot survive outside of
saltwater for longer than around eight hours, they are more than
capable of moving around on land long enough to find, kill, and
absorb the souls of prey.

### Culture, Origin, and Feeding Habits

Gestation

When a
newly produced Leviathan fragment molts into the next stage of it's
life cycle it leaves behind flesh that contains a remnant of the
ProgenitorAbolyth's divinity, and thus cannot truly die in the
traditional sense. Exposed to the psychic corruption of the living Leviathan this flesh mutates quickly into various other species, or
slowly if the Abolyth died before or after planetfall (see below),
losing its divinity but gaining new life and autonomy. The Culmoloi
are nearly always among the first lifeforms produced. This is
actually the origin of all Aberrant beings.

Sometimes
an Abolythic Fragment mostly, but not completely, burns up when
entering the atmosphere of a planet. If any flesh that has not been
reduced completely to ash lands in saltwater, Culmoloi and other
spawn will inevitably emerge. They develop more slowly in this case,
however, because they do not have the active psychic corruption from a living Abolath enhancing the generative properties of the flesh.

Reproduction

Culmoloi
are asexual and reproduce via parthenogenesis. Their population
fluctuates due to infighting and conflicts with the people they eat.
Fortunately, they tend to produce several eggs at a time, and two or
three of the larval Culmoloi leave the hatching bed after eating
their weaker siblings. They possess very limited capacity for thought
and emotion for several days after hatching, which is when the worst
of the fighting occurs. The ones that live are believed to absorb the
proto-souls and potential intelligence of those they eat, so a
Culmolo who is known to have eaten all of its siblings is looked upon as a real up and comer in the community.

Society and Crafts

Culmulo are highly intelligent and social, building entire cities of
coral, grown mineral deposits, and glass, but they are also savage
carnivores. Their non-sapaient aquatic prey are simply torn apart and
fed through their beaks. When they venture onto land, however, they
display their most horrific gifts and steal souls. When they return to the water they take the souls of their prey back to their cities and expel as semi-physical globules of ectoplasm. They use ectoplasm as fuel to produce heat and light in place of fire when they need it, and to work metal and stone, laying in magical enchantments and primal workings as desired. Culmoloi
grow their buildings using spells and primal expressions, causing
sand and stone from the floor of the ocean to rise and take new
shapes, sometimes melting them and channeling the heat to produce
glass or reshaping minerals to form a crystal structure. Most of
their buildings take the form of swirled black stone with windows of
faintly glowing green or blue glass. To make tools, such as weapons
or books, they use the same methods on a smaller scale, burning
ectoplasm for additional fuel when needed. To write, they wrap wisps
of energy around their claws or manifest pockets of corrosive and
etch their designs into alloys of their own devising which can
withstand the saltwater... though most things the Culmoloi make
cannot last long if exposed to air and the low pressure conditions of
the surface, as they were never intended to exist there. They establish their communities around massive constructs called Aether Vessels which hold the souls of their dead.

#### Aether Vessels

The Vessel is a massive, slender, pyramidal conception of purple stone and green glass “grown” from the ocean floor via the burning of massive quantities of ectoplasm. Every major community of Culmoloi has one. The souls of the dead are released into them and slowly harmonize into a group intelligence that any being capable of sensing Primal energies can commune with, provided they stand in the Cathedral Hall under the main mass of light that is the Group Mind. An accomplished Telepathic Primalist can draw on the Group Mind for additional power, and sometimes memories and insights.

##### Life Beyond Death

The Culmoloi have a caste of funerary shaman known as the Eaters of the Dead (it sounds nicer in Cul). These Shaman remove their own extractor as part of becoming what they are, but in the process gain the ability to absorb souls without damaging them via simply laying their manipulator tendrils on an immobilized, dying or dead being whose soul is still attached. This service has only ever been performed for other Culmoloi, except in a few very rare circumstances. They can then, if they are not interrupted, sing a funereal hymn which draws the soul into their brain-case. They transport one soul at a time, so that no cross-contamination can occur, and bring the dead to an Aether Vessel.

###### Surface Perceptions

The Culmoloi do their best not to be seen by surface races and to encourage the belief that they are a myth. This makes hunting easier. Over the centuries on Dorhaun the general picture of Culmoloi has been of a kind of vampire that resembles a squid/humanoid hybrid. While this is closer to the truth than they would prefer people get, they encourage this perception as it falls short of the terror of their actual nature.

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