Phase 2:Ninal Kin'toni Clan

History

Psychology

Biology

The Ninal have become adapted to the hyper-mineralized, geothermally active landscape of the Tayk Springs. They are low slung, broad shoulders and with heavy reinforced skeletal frames for spreading their weights over the hollow, fragile mineral crusts as to avoid falling into boiling water below. Being wide, rigid and cumbersome of build means that they struggle to climb or leap agilely, meaning they are highly vulnerable in vertical terrain. The skin is copper-orange to sulfur-yellow in color, very calloused and chemically hardened by embedded calcium-sulfate crystals.

These are adaptions to survive splashing, scalding water. This skin, being thick and crystal plated means that it is very rigid and with a strong lack of elasticity, limiting their flexibly. Due to this, they cannot curl into a ball or fit well though small spaces. The lack all body hair as to stop boiling mud sticking to their skin and to stop acidic steam, and sulfurous crusts overheating them. The eyes have smoky grey corneas and black irises adapted to filter out the glare of white mineral terraces and distortion from heat shimmer.

These eyes, being adapted to filter light, have limited dark vision, making unlit caves and moonlight nights hard to navigate. The ears are small, thick and tightly recessed, with hard, overlapping folds of skin for protecting the ears from the boiling steam and the acidic condensation. The nostrils are narrow, horizontal slits containing a system of alkaline-mucus membranes adapted for filtering out the sulfurous gases and acidic vapors. The teeth are thick, spade shaped and with an layer of dark iron-phosphate enamel.

This is an adaption to deal with corrosion from the highly acidic, mineral-rich blood of local life. These teeth lack sharp cutting edges, and therefore to drain blood needs forceful chewing. The claws are short, blunt and very thick, for acting as heavy-duty trowels. These are adapted for testing the stability of hot mineral crusts and for digging wallows in order to cool. These claws also lack sharp slicing edges, and therefore are useless if the kin'toni tries to use the claws to slash, climb or hold.

The feet are adapted to be large, round and flat, with a thick pad made of layers of vulcanized, leathery skin to protect their feet from the very hot geothermal ground. Inside, the stem cells are adapted the skin to have an dense, gel-like layer of fluid underneath in order to absorbs and evenly dissipate heat from the springs in order to stop them overheating. It also means if they are forced into prolonged physical exertion, they overheat. The blood vessels have been reinforced using rings of flexible, calcified cartilage.

This allows the heated blood to pass without the high pressure causing aneurysms. The hepatic 'cell clots' have become a system of specialized enzymes for filtering out and breaking down the heavy metals and toxic volcanic compounds that gather in their bloodstreams. There are hyper-atrophied lymph nodes adapted as part of their digestive tract to take the nutrients from highly mineralized, low-oxygen blood. The inner ears use use dense silica deposits to replace the normal fluid to allow for spatial orientation, even during geothermal tremors.

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