Phase 2:Litara Kin'toni Clan

History

Psychology

Biology

The Litarea are adapted to the thick bogs, freezing water and decaying plants of the Cheque Cold Swamplands. They are squat, long slung and barrel shaped in build. Their center of gravity is low and their build limits surface area to lower cooling. This build lacks agility, making it hard for them to move quickly on dry, solid ground. The skin is charcoal black in color, and is dull and oily in order to absorb what little ambient heat the bog has and also to blend into the dark peat waters.

This skin produces thick, lipid-rich skin secretions that react badly to air, becoming an light ash grey color. This color is poor camouflage outside the water. These kin'toni lack hair, and in replacement, have wire-like black bristles on the outer forearms and shins for deflecting sharp ice crusts while wading, but these also get caught in underbrush while outside the water. The eyes are small, deeply set into thick fatty bony sockets and have cloudy, milky-white cornea to deflect the blinding glare of moonlight on water.

The ears are highly reduced, thick and flat flush on the skin as to stop the frozen swamp water getting into their ears. The nostrils are wide, angled sharply downwards and contains specialized, cold-filtering fleshy flaps for warming internal air before it can freeze the flesh. The teeth are short, flat and peg link for crushing the shells and bones of swamp life. These teeth lack sharp, elongated slicing surfaces, meaning they cannot shear well warm, flesh flesh to get at the blood and must tear off chunks.

The claws are flat, broad and spade like and are permanently extended. These claws are adapted as mud-shoes and ice-picks for moving though thick bog sludge and though hard ice. The feet are massive, flat and lacking an arch with an thick, leathery perimeter of skin for spreading their weight on the unstable peat bogs, but these soles lack shock absorption, making running painful on flat ground. Inside, their hepatic 'cell clots' make a ultra-dense, sugary glucose matrix to flood the core organs to keep them alive and working in near-freezing temperatures.

This also thickens their internal fluids to the extent of slowing blood loss, but also means they are highly susceptible to fatal systemic clotting if wounded, blood clots, strokes and heart attacks. The blood vessels are reinforced with double the normal amount of muscular valves in order to counter the high pressure density of the water. Under their skin, is an dense layer of fat in order to protect the organs from the freezing cold of the swamp. This layer also leads to overheating in hot environments, and therefore heat stroke.

The trophied digestive tract has a system of enlarged, heavy-duty lymphatic nodes to deal with the cold-tolerant bacteria and bog toxins common in the swamp. The inner ear is adapted for have balance centers filled with a dense, gel-like fluid adapted to stay stable in freezing temperatures, thus allowing them precise orientation while swimming through dark, icy sludge. This gel thins quickly in hot environments, leading to vertigo, and a loss of balance. The lungs have adapted to work with the skin breathing system to extract oxygen well from water.

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