Saesonaid

The Saesonaid are a sentient species of phytoplankton and gain life by parasitizing fish, eventually emerging from the fish's corpse when it washes to shore. Often many colonies will form within on body, and giant fish corpses will be full of hundreds of beings.

Who are they and what do they look like?

• In their natural form, they are translucent to transparent creatures that have the consistencies of slugs and resemble crustaceans, krill, or plankton
• When transforming, they do so by rapid growth of spores, they are known for rapidly growing limbs when they get to land long before they grow working eyes
• They can shapeshift but only if they have genetic material from what they want to turn into. The more complex the form the harder it is. Their intelligence matches that of what they transform.
• Sometimes they can only partially transform, and the transformation isn't adaptive but cosmetic, so they still struggle with the same issues in their original form

What are their senses or perceptions?

• Communicate through vibrations and chemical masking
• Naturally blind unless they grow eyes
• Communicate through vibrations, so they can process sound
• Unlike Coriniaid, their base forms have nervous systems and can feel pain
• They can make noises but they are often inaudible

Where are they in your setting?

• They are a coastal species
• Especially found along the western coasts Kargast and Karkebi
• They are also around the Northeastern coast of Wychazel, where they merged with local life and birthed the Odonata Glendatis
• There are large colonies on the coast of Raudan but they have not been documented or contacted on a wide scale, not much is known about them

How do they survive in their environment?

• They can copy genetic code and basically form genetic clones based on very little equipment
• They are difficult to spot because they are translucent, they can regenerate body parts, and run very fast
• They can survive off of the DNA of deceased things, and could technically clone a living copy of a corpse

What is their general attitude?

• They are very competitive and can only reproduce by cloning, they see other species as a means to an end
• The identify each other by scent - no matter what they do, their chemical makeup makes them smell like the sea- can be as subtle as salty air or overt as rotting fish.
• They can't recognise people by sight even if they develop eyes
• They often only live in communities around water sources and high up where they can get more sunlight = more algae
• Most of them will ferment brackish or pond water. They have trouble copying teeth so they can't often chew food even if they transform into another animal

How do they feel about the other peoples?

• They treat everyone who isn't them like wild animals and have fight or flight responses to most foreigners (as they recognise people by scent)
• The local Milenakos sometimes keep them as pets, but this has gotten out of hand and caused full-scale population replacements in certain areas, leading to the birth of the Morgens and the Odonata
• They are mostly still parasitic toward other species and only ally with them for nutritional benefits