Stelliferas

Diminutive creatures resembling cuttlefish, stelliferas evolved in a deep-sea environment and spent millennia as nomads, developing psychic abilities and exploring their watery planet, Parin. The itinerant and dispersed nature of their society made it so that when Azlanti landed and started harvesting resources, it took centuries of pollution and climate change before the stelliferas realized they were on a crash course with extinction. They began to experiment with ways of living beyond their native environment and developed psychokinetic water bodies that allow them to survive outside their element. Stelliferas normally converse through a complex color language, changing skin and nearby water to various hues, supplemented with limited telepathy, so they had to rely on augmentations to communicate with their planet’s invaders.
The first stellifera ambassadors to negotiate with the Azlanti Star Empire received a curt offer of passage off-world. Today, stelliferas have spread across the Star Empire, seeding worlds with colonies and minimizing chances that a single event might cause their annihilation. Most stelliferas prefer life underwater, but others are eager explorers of land and space, and their psychokinetic water bodies are now familiar to travelers across the empire.
Regardless, stelliferas struggle to assimilate into Azlanti culture. Technology is still a new concept to them. The cost of discovering the wider universe has been high, but stelliferas make the most of it by traveling and seeking out new experiences.
Stelliferas are 1 foot long and weigh around 6 pounds. They mature at age 15 and live up to 240 years.