Deepling

The deeplings are creatures associated with the Bathybius, the vast layer of ellogous watery slime that occupies the deepest parts of Dadauar's oceans. Like the Bathybius, deeplings are made mostly of enchanted seawater, and—absent dyes or illusions—are colorless and transparent. Unlike the Bathybius, however, deeplings have a fixed form—or at least a default form, though some few are gifted with the ability to change their shape—and are able to move under their own power.

There are two main kinds of deepling, differing in the method of formation. Imps are made from a bit of the Bathybius's own substance, split off from their parent and given a life and consciousness of their own. Infected are created when a small portion of the Bathybius's substance is ingested by another life form, or otherwise introduced into its body, and transforms that life form into something more like the Bathybius. Once the transformation is complete, an infected is indistinguishable from an imp; infected and imps have the same consistency and appearance, and can bear the same powers. The only difference between an imp and a (mature) infected is their origin.

Description

Most deeplings take the form of humans or other living creatures. In the case of infected, they usually retain the same physical shape they had before their transformations; imps can be given whatever form the Bathybius decides to give them. More rarely, it suits the Bathybius's purpose to have a deepling in the shape of some inanimate object. This is much more common for imps than for infected, although it does sometimes happen that an infected changes in shape as it changes in substance, attaining a final form far from its former. Some deeplings have the ability to change their shape, but this is not a power the Bathybius chooses to give most of them.

A deepling in the shape of another creature is sometimes called a bogey—or a bogeyman, if specifically of human form—, especially if it is attempting to hide its deepling nature and masquerade as the conform creature. This is distinguished from a nicker, a deepling of a shape otherwise unknown to nature. While by this definition most infected are bogeys, since they retain their previous form, an infected that changes its shape during its infection may be a nicker, and imps of both categories are common. In any case, these terms are relatively rare over most of the world.

Regardless of their form, all deeplings are completely achroous and transpicuous, with a watery sheen to their surfaces, as befits their hydatoid makeup. This is a giveaway to the deeplings' true nature, but for deeplings that want to pass as other creatures there are ways to hide it through magic or through cosmetics, or even through something as simple as a hooded cloak. And many deeplings do just that—conceal their telltale transparency, and go about largely indistinguishable from humans, or from other creatures. Not all deeplings are interested in such subterfuge, however, and many go openly displaying their shimmery, glassy form, perhaps taking on weird and unnatural shapes to better flaunt their alien nature.

Behavior

Many people believe that deeplings are mere puppets of the Bathybius, or that they are bound to its service and incapable of acting against its interests. Neither is the case. Deeplings, both imps and infected, are free-willed beings, fully empowered to make their own decisions and do as they please. Nevertheless, most deeplings do serve the Bathybius, imps perhaps because they were created with personalities that would predispose them to make that choice, and infected because they are made from people who consent to become deeplings, and who presumably do so because they feel positively toward the Bathybius and its agents. Some few deeplings rebel against the Bathybius and ignore its requests; even fewer actively fight against the forces of their progenitor. But the vast majority are loyal to their engleimous engenderer, and willingly do its bidding.

This does not mean, however, that serving the Bathybius is all that deeplings think about, or that it takes up all their time. Like any other folk, deeplings may have other hobbies and interests; they may work at jobs to make a living; they form all sorts of relationships with other people, deeplings and otherwise. As diverse as they are in their proclivities an personalities, they are equally diverse in their pursuits and professions.

Biology

Deeplings are made of the same substance as the Bathybius itself—mostly saltwater, but thickened with strings of proteins. On a macroscopic scale, they are homogeneous; though a deepling may bear human shape and appear to have a well-defined head, torso, and other anatomical features, all those parts are made of the same stuff, and they have no bones, organs, or other large internal structures. On a microscopic scale, however, they are not entirely structureless; embedded within their vasy substance are various organelles, though it's unclear what function they serve, or if in fact they serve a function at all and aren't vain vestiges of whatever mysterious process birthed the Bathybius. These microsomata include bits of genetic material, but they are partile and disconnected and not joined into complete genomes or enclosed in nuclei. The most prevalent and among the most enigmatic of the corpuscular components is a brittle network of perpusil pipes, which etorists call veniculæ. The constant reconfiguration of the veniculæ would seem to render them useless as a mechanism for chemical transport, which would otherwise seem to be their most obvious function, so their purpose remains a mystery.

Despite lacking any sort of sensory organs, most deeplings do possess similar senses to humans—they can see, hear, smell, taste, and feel pressure and temperature, and some are gifted by the Bathybius with additional senses besides (such as an inherent ability to discern magical effects). The mechanisms for the senses of touch and hearing seem straightforward; it is not extraordinary that the deepling can sense forces acting on and vibrations of its own gelatinous substance. Smell and taste, similarly, only require the deepling to be able to detect and analyze chemical particles that it touches or absorbs, which does not seem an unusual ability. However, the fact that these senses have no particular locus, but extend all over the deepling's surface, does mean that wearing clothing decreases a deepling's sensory acuity, but the difference is not generally enough to be important. The most difficult to explain of the deepling's senses is that of vision, especially since, unlike the other senses, it is not uniformly distributed—at least, not in most specimens. Some deeplings do seem to be gifted by the Bathybius with the ability to see in every direction simultaneously, but most have to focus their view in a particular arc. They do not, however, have to turn their heads to do so; if a deepling seems to have eyes, they are mere cosmetic features, and it is not necessarily through them that the deepling sees—which means that a deepling that appears to be looking in one direction may in fact have its vision focused in a different direction entirely, a fact that devious deeplings can use to their advantage to mislead adversaries into assuming their inattention. If not through their eyes, however, then exactly how deeplings do see remains undetermined, though the leading theory is that they can detect light impinging on their surfaces just as they do sound and odoriforous particles, but that the volume of information provided by this light is such that they cannot effectively process all they receive at once.

Like the Bathybius, deeplings can ingest most anything organic... and they can absorb it from any part of their bodies, in much the same manner as an amœba. Of course, deeplings posing as human will make a point of eating only food that humans could eat, and do so by placing it in their mouths to mimic the human consumption process. But deeplings unconcerned with maintaining such a disguise need no such compunctions, and may be much less discriminate in what they consume, or what part of themselves they consume it with.

Abilities and weaknesses

Regardless of its shape, the deepling's watery nature gives it some advantages. While they do need to eat, deeplings have no need to breathe, and can survive equally well in air or water or even in a vacuum (at least in that regard; in the last case the low pressure may still be an issue). Furthermore, deeplings have no vital organs, and so are difficult to seriously injure; they have no heart that can be stabbed through, no veins that can be severed. Even decapitation will not kill a deepling, since its "head", if it has one, is purely for show and contains no brain or other essential parts. In fact, if any part of a deepling is severed, or if the deepling is divded in two, then both parts will continue to live as separate entities with (at least initially) the memories and personalities of the original... and can rejoin and reform into the original deepling if too much time has not passed. The exact time necessary seems to vary, but once more than a day or two has passed the reunition usually seems to be impossible, the two beings having perhaps diverged too much mentally to easily recombine. (Again, a deepling masquerading as human may try to hide this ability, and for example a severed arm may choose to "play dead" to avoid detection—although the lack of blood is likely to give the game away unless compensated for by suitable illusions.) A deepling's divisibility does have its limits; apparently a certain minimum mass is necessary for a deepling to retain its intelligence or even its vitality. Below about half a gram, a deepling cannot maintain a human level of intelligence, and a deepling massing less than two milligrams or so is inviable, and is nothing but inert liquid.

Deeplings have a few other abilities that are more circumstantially useful. All deeplings can communicate telepathically with the Bathybius, regardless of distance—or at least, at sufficient distance that the communication works anywhere on the rew; whether a deepling on another rew or in a distant part of dreamspace could still reach or by reached by the Deepmind is much less certain. With those deeplings that serve it, the Bathybius uses this link to make requests and suggestions, and to receive updates on the deeplings' progress; deeplings who do not serve the Bathybius usually ignore and learn to tune out its telepathic "voice". Deeplings can also at will disgorge a bit of their own substance, with generally no more than around seven percent of the deepling's original mass; this ability has limited utility, but the ejected matter can be introduced into another creature to make it into an infected, or it can be mingled with the matter of another deepling for reproduction. Unless the deepling in question has regenerative abilities, this loss of mass is permanent, which is good reason for deeplings to use this ability very judiciously—and of course deeplings posing as human may have a hard time explaining a sudden reduction in stature.

The Bathybius may give individual deeplings other powers not universal to their kind. There are no known limits to the kind of powers that it can grant its spawn, but the following seem to be among the most common:

Transfigurement

Perhaps the most common ability granted to deeplings, though by no means universal, is that of shapechanging. Some deeplings can only change between a small number of set forms, but others can mold themselves into any arbitrary shape.

Illusions

Many deeplings are granted the ability to work magical illusions, especially useful for those deeplings that are meant to live unknown among humanity, or among some other folk. Usually this only extends to making superficial changes to their own appearance, but some deeplings have broader powers.

Regeneration

For most deeplings, if they lose mass, either through violence or through voluntarily vomiting it forth, that loss is permanent; the deepling will thereafter be that much smaller. Some, however, are gifted the ability to gradually regrow over time, up to their normal maximum mass; the rate of this regeneration varies widely.

Chysis

While the usual consistency of deeplings is semisolid, some are given the ability with the Bathybius to temporarily become fully liquid, the better to seep through cracks and reach places they otherwise could not. This often accompanies shapechanging abilities, but not necessarily.

Noögnosis

The better to learn information that may prove useful, the Bathybius grants many deeplings the abilities to read the minds of those around them. Many people assume all deeplings have this capability, but in fact it's relatively uncommon, possessed by perhaps one deepling in forty, if not fewer.

While deeplings do have some advantages over humans and other fleshy organisms, they are not in every way their superiors. Their gelatinous makeup is not able to exert as much force or bear as much weight as more solid creatures, and they tend to be relatively physically weak.

Taxonomy

Among those few etorists who have studied deeplings, their taxonomy is a matter of considerable contention. On the one hand, regardless of how they were formed, imps and (mature) infected are similar to the point of identicality, and therefore seem as if they should be the same species. On the other hand, since the standard taxonomic universes are defined by the creature's method of creation or reproduction, the very fact that they were formed through different methods means they belong in different universes: imps, budded off from the substance of the Bathybius, should pertain to the universe Anadasta, while infected, transformed from other creatures, should be considered galdors, of the universe Aeaeae. A few etorists place all deeplings in the former universe, considering imps to be the paradigmatic type of deepling and infected to functionally be other creatures transformed into imps, and therefore not warranting separate classification; after all, if a human is permanently turned into a cat, one doesn't designate a new taxon for them. The majority view, however, is that despite their similarities, imps and infected are indeed taxonomically unrelated and should be placed in different universes, their likeness simply a case of convergent development and "deepling" being a nomonym rather than a taxonym (albeit a nomonym that encompasses only two true taxa). Some scholars, unsatisfied with either solution, see this issue as evidence that the entire conventional system of etorical taxonomy is inherently flawed and in need of revision, at least as it is applied to abiotans.

Reproduction and life cycle

Some deeplings are created for a single task, and when it is complete willingly return to the Bathybius to be reabsorbed, having existed as separate beings for perhaps only a few days or weeks—or perhaps for a time measured in hours. This is more common for imps than for infected, since the latter already had their own independence and individuality before their transformation, but it is not unknown for infected, too, to choose to join with the Bathybius when their immediate task is done, seeing unity with the Deepmind as a sort of an aspirable nirvana.

Other deeplings, however, persist for longer periods, either because the Bathybius has other uses in mind for them or simply because they enjoy their existence and wish to extend it. Deeplings do not age in the same way that humans and most other organisms do, which may pose a problem for those trying to pose as members of those folks. To avoid this problem, a deepling living for a long period among humans may simulate aging with cosmetics or illusions, or may simply move on before enough time passes that its insenescibility becomes too noticeable. However, even if they do not show human signs of veterascence like wrinkles and graying hair, the enchantments holding them together, and possibly their internal microstructures, do slowly degrade over time. Typically, a deepling lasts about fifty years before it reaches the end of its lifespan. For an infected, this starts at the time of transformation, which means that an elderly person who becomes an infected extends their life expectancy by doing so, while a young member of a long-lived folk may shorten theirs. Like much else about deeplings, however, this varies widely, and the Bathybius does seem able to create much longer-lasting deeplings when it wishes to. There are a handful of deeplings, in fact, that are known to have been around for centuries or even millennia, and may very well be effectively immortal.

When a deepling does die, either through violence or mischance or just through the waning of its enchantments, it ceases to hold whatever shape it had and collapses into formless jelly. There have been a few reports of the slimy remains of a dead deepling later reanimating as a deep ooze and even budding off new imps, which, if true, would indicate that the Bathybius may remain some connection with the substance that makes up a deepling after its demise. Even if these unverified accounts are accurate, however, few if any have the uprise occurring immediately; it seems it takes at least a few days for the Bathybius to be able to do anything with these relicts.

While new deeplings are usually created by the Bathybius, either from its own mass in the case of imps or from other creatures in the case of infected, deeplings are also capable of reproduction among themselves. This requires each parent deepling—at least two are required, but more may participate—to exgurgitate a portion of their own substance; these slimy masses are intermingled, and within a few days a new deepling grows from them that combines features of the parents. It is unclear how this inheritance of characteristics takes place. While there are rivels of genetic material contained in the deeplings' matrices, they seem too fragmentary to be functional, and it is uncertain what if any röle they play in the process.

Deeplings in society

Many deeplings live among humans and other folks in disguise, and do the Bathybius's bidding, or don't, while otherwise mostly living ordinary human lives. While some are found out through one means or another, it is likely that for every such deepling discovered there are many more that are never known. In any case, such deeplings, if no one realizes their nature, of course may integrate into society the same as the folk as which they are posing. Someone who is suspected to be a deepling in disguise, however, is likely to be ostracized at best, if not actively cast out, as its imposants may believe that the Bathybius's purposes it surreptitiously serves are likely to be inimical to their own. Naturally, such suspicions are not always well founded, and false accusations of deeplinghood are not unknown or necessarily uncommon against those who are socially withdrawn or awkward or whom others may consider in some way odd.

On the other hand, some deeplings do make the attempt to live among other folks openly, making no attempt to hide their nature and hoping to be accepted as what they are. Among most peoples, this is not an easy ask; deeplings are generally mistrusted, and if an undisguised deepling in a human city won't necessarily be openly accosted and attacked—if only out of fear of the deepling's abilities and the Bathybius's potential retalition—neither will they be readily welcomed. It is not entirely impossible for a deepling to prove themself true and trustworthy, to win first a few broadminded friends and later more general integration into the community, but even then this reception is unlikely to ever be universal, and there will always be those who are wary of the deepling, or outright hostile toward them.

A persistent rumor has it that the rulers of the nation of Olozi on the continent of Matuni are in league with deeplings, or are even deeplings themselves, but this has never been proven. The very rumor may have served as a deterrent to the onirarchs and may explain why Olozi remains largely free of their influence; even the powerful dreamlords hesitate to antagonize the Deepmind.