| Common Name: Slime Wraith / Brain Slug |
| Scientific Name: Limus Larua Logovore |
| Element: Water |
Slime wraiths are a species of water demon commonly found in marshy wetlands, especially the Scottish Moors.
Nona is a slime wraith who was drafted into the DAMMED program.
Etymology
The slime wraith gains its name from folklore divining them to be faeries that would take on a human-like shape in the dark to steal lost human travelers and eat them. Another common name- Brain slug- refers to the ability of this specific subspecies to absorb knowledge through the consumption of other beings. The species' scientific name, Limus Larua Logovore, is latin. The genus limus translates to slime, and Larua Logovore means "Knowledge-eating apparition", in relation to the slime wraith's peculiar abilities.
Description
An adult wraith's body size and density vary widely from wraith to wraith- but in general at default size and without manipulating water, wraiths seem to favor a relatively small form, usually capping at no greater than four and a half feet in height at most. It is generally agreed upon by researchers that this is for mobility reasons.
Water wraiths have a shock-resistant, semi-permeable and midly translucent skin that ranges in various blues and greens, with the undercarriage usually being lighter than the rest of the body.
Wraiths do not have any bones, save for the brain case. All organ systems are protected by thick membranes.
The brain in particular appears to have massive capacity for logical reasoning and memory retention. Little is known about the transfer of memories from brain to brain upon a wraith's consumption of another being.
Wraith anatomy is notoriously difficult to observe. Upon brain death, nearly every part of the body, save the brain case and a select few major organs, turn into water. Much is yet to be understood about the full physical nature of these creatures which, for all intents and purposes, seem to be living water.
Reproduction
Wraiths do not have internal reproductive systems, or biological sexes. Instead, wraiths create demislimes. A demislime is an incomplete clone of the parent slime, and shares a telepathic bond with the creator within a 10 meter range. Demislimes can be used as distractions to aid in hunting or to perform other tasks, but in reproduction, they are one half of a new wraith child.
If two wraiths create demislimes, they can combine the two together in a process called molding. From there, the demislimes will meld into a ball, something like a fertilized egg. One of the two parents will take the demislime ball and protect it until it has consolidated into a wraith child, upon which the parent will usually abandon it, usually to a mob of lesser slimes where the child will mindlessly cavort until it reaches adulthood.
Behaviour
Wraiths display nocturnal tendencies, but can be found active through all parts of the day. Wraiths are usually born in slime mobs among lesser slimes that are not capable of attaining full sentience. It is very common for them to intermix not only between species, but as well as with other elemental families of slimes when the opportunity is presented. Wraiths will usually leave a slime mob after achieving sentience, in order to satisfy their personal desires.
Wraiths in particular are known for having a curious nature, and it drives them to consume species that have a large amount of intelligence. Wraiths that mature into adulthood frequently consume humans and for it they become highly ingenuitive and difficult to track.
Social Interaction
Wraiths rarely feel any obligation or desire to be around their own species, except in the case of a desire to reproduce, wherein a wraith will locate another wraith to mold demislimes and then part ways. There have been very few documented cases of wraiths living together in a mob for a period of time longer than a year.
It's speculated that this is because of the strongly opinionated nature of sentienced wraiths. A hierarchy is created based on who has the best knowledge. Whichever wraith is deemed the smartest will assume a leader position, and hand out punishments to other slimes for what it deems to be "stupid behavior". But when no consensus can be reached upon who is the best, the group of wraiths will fall apart and instead each will pursue knowledge solitarily, under the impression that the knowledge gained within ones own self is the only right knowledge to be concerned about.
That said, wraiths are not very defensive of personal territory. The concept seems foreign to them and they do not seem to mind sharing space with other creatures if they do not eat them first. Sentient wraiths seem to take high interest in other intelligent demons. Researchers are currently investigating how often wraiths attain sentience based on consumption of demons with high levels of sentience.
Sentience Reckoning
It is speculated that wraiths gain human-equivalent sentience after consuming between four to eight humans. Species living in isolated areas will often take an extremely long time to mature completely and until then will rarely surpass canine-level intelligence.
It's commonly believed that the first humans a wraith consumes have a profound effect on the development of the wraith's personality, based on what knowledge was absorbed. Before a sentience reckoning, wraiths may have very basic temperaments, but have never been observed to exhibit a full spectrum of complex personality traits before human consumption.
Abilities
Water wraiths have control over water, hence their name. They are also amorphous and are able to change their shape to look like other creatures in order to aid in hunting or luring prey when it is dark.
Many wraiths utilize their demislimes to strategic advantage, to confuse or distract prey. Demislimes can obey direct telepathic orders within a 10 foot radius of the parent, and upon leaving that radius they may enact the last instruction recieved before returning to the parent. This "one last thing" effect is often used to lead prey into believing they have chased off the parent slime, while the real wraith moves in for an attack.
They also have the ability to absorb knowledge upon consumption of a significantly intelligent target.
Trivia
- Wraith color can appear to change if the subject consumes something with a signifigant amount of pigment, such as koolaid.
- Even though slime wraiths are genderless, they are often referred to as women in texts, because when mimicking a human form they often resemble a young female in silhouette.
- Wraiths, like most members of the slime genus, do not have a very well developed sense of taste or smell.
- There's a large amount of debate within the scientific community as to the exact taxonomic classification of slime wraiths, as well as other members of the slime genus. Some argue that wraiths and other species of slime would be better classified under protista, but since most varieties of slime revert to their base elemental form upon death (this includes tissue samples separated from the main body), it is very difficult to discern the exact nature of the wraith's inner workings. For now, many slimes are classified as gastropods, for their resemblance to slugs and the appearance of crawling around on their bellies.