Ashuli [Race]

The Ashuli

Here is a first short sketch of a race from my setting which could have used a Gate to come to the
world of The Green.
In my setting the Ashuli are a mystery, it is not even sure whether they really are an intelligent race,
and all attempts to establish a contact with them have failed.

Ashuli look somewhat like dark green cephalopodes with eight tentacles. The hemispherical body
is about 2 meters wide at the base, four pairs of almost 2 meter long tentacles grow in equal dis-
tances from the rim of the body's base. Each tentacle ends in five thin, short "fingers", and each
"finger" ends in a worm-like "feeler". Ashuli have no eyes, their perception is limited to sound wa-
ves (which carry well under water), vibration, temperature and electromagnetic fields (they can
sense the electricity in a creature's nerve system and such locate the creature and feel its level
of physical activity).

According to ancient legends, the Ashuli came to this world's sea through a Gate in the caves
under the mountains north of The Green, from where they followed the rivers to the sea. The rea-
son for the Ashulis' voyage to this world is unknown, although some of the legends speculate
about some desaster on the Ashulis' homeworld, a desaster caused by the Ashuli themselves,
that devastated their world and forced them to flee.

The Ashuli now inhabit the deep sea off the southern coast of The Green, beneath a depth of 500
meters. There a rumours about Ashuli settlements built from deep sea corals, but no land dweller
has ever seen the homes of the Ashuli. Their only contact with other races is when they come to
the surface to attack fishing boats or deliver gifts to their crews: Boats using nets in Ashuli waters
are attacked and destroyed, crews that kill one of the dangerous monsters of the sea, for example
one of the giant sharks, often are rewarded by an Ashuli who drops a huge piece of beautiful and
valuable coral into their boat.

Ashuli rarely seem to use tools or weapons, except from the club-like stone tools they use when
attacking fishing boats. It is also unknown whether they use any kind of magic, although many
legends mention strange events involving Ashuli, from boats sinking without apparent reason to
drowning swimmers who suddenly found themselves safely ashore.

The truth about the Ashuli

In my setting the Ashuli (or "Octopoids", as they are known on Pharos IV) were the trained animals
and favourite pets of the "Builders", an unknown aquatic race which left relics and ruins on many of
the planets of the Demara Sector and the surrounding regions.

Several centuries ago the "Builders" realized that their homeworld would most probably be destroyed
by an astrophysical desaster affecting the sun of their system. They therefore began to explore the
nearby systems, looking for a potential new homeworld for their race.

The "Builders" established research outposts on many planets with sizeable oceans, including Pharos
IV, and wherever they went they took the semi-intelligent Ashuli / "Octopoids" with them.

Right now (56 n.L. = 56 years after the first colonists landed on Pharos IV) it is still unknown what
became of the "Builders", whether they became extinct, or continue to survive on some still undisco-
vered planet beyond the frontiers of the known space. In fact the colonists on Pharos IV have not
yet discovered the ruins that contain the Gate (built by the "Builders", or only used by them ?) lea-
ding to the unknown devastated homeworld of the "Builders" as well as to the Shared World.

The presence of Ashuli / "Octopoids" on the Shared World is proof that the "Builders" once had a re-
search station there, probably in a flooded cave system (their preferred location of such stations),
and that they had to leave in a hurry (as they did on all the planets), and left some of their animal
companions behind - which became the Ashuli.

The legends that this happened in ancient times are wrong, the Ashuli arrived on the Shared World
only some centuries ago, but the stories about them got mixed up with earlier legends about strange
aquatic creatures.

"Builder"-Technology

As creatures of the Deep Sea, the "Builders" did not use raw materials like wood, stone or metals to
develop their technical civilization, because it would have been almost impossible to work metals and
create metal tools in their native environment.

Therefore the civilization of the "Builders" developed along a different path: "Bio-Technology".

The "Builders" bred and geneered various other species into their instruments to manipulate their envi-
ronment, from the lowly crabs that kept their homes clean up to their almost unbelievably complicated
organic spaceships, assembled from thousands of different species geneered for thousands of speciali-
zed functions.

While their Bio-Technology usually also was "bio-degradable" and disappeared soon after the "Builders"
left one of their bases, some of the unusual creatures with strange abilities and properties may have
survived in suitable places - like, for example, the flooded caverns under the mountains north of The
Green.