Ksarik

k(eh)'SAAR-ick

Basic Information

Anatomy

A typical ksarik is a 12-foot-long quadruped made up of dense plant matter, including specialised tissues such as powerful tendons, woody internal supports that resemble bones, and flexible sheets of lignin that serve as a form of armour. Its head is immense and stocky, comprising approximately a dozen feeding tendrils that obscure its underdeveloped mouthparts.

Genetics and Reproduction

These plant-creatures also have numerous thorns that grow along their legs and back. Botanists theorise that these also served as self-defense when the ksariks were slower-moving creatures that resided lower on the food chain. Now, however, they use these thorns as a form of reproduction, firing them into live prey and infecting those creatures with spores that gradually grow into nascent ksariks that feed on their host, and then painfully burrow out of the flesh days later.

The spores must be fertilised beforehand in a process that resembles sexual congress between two ksariks, leaving both with a supply of seeds that remain viable for months afterward.

Dietary Needs and Habits

A ksarik’s body produces a steady supply of several different acids that help it break down food into a more manageable form, and modern ksariks regularly employ these acids in self-defense and hunting.

Additional Information

Uses, Products & Exploitation

A handful of scientists who have spent countless hours studying the ksariks’ ingested adaptation ability have discovered a formula that provides a facsimile of that power when imbibed. This “adaptive serum” alters users at a genetic level, granting them the ability to adapt to a variety of energy-based attacks.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Ksarik are spread all over Castrovel, particularly in the wilderness of Ukulam.

Average Intelligence

Although they are not yet at the stage of having their own language and culture, ksariks are certainly more intelligent than the average canine or feline. Of course their adaptability means that they may well develop the capabilities of inter-species communication overnight - with the potential for spaceflight adaptation or even economic and militant comprehension a terrifyingly real possibility.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Each ksarik has eyestalks project from either side of its head, providing a wide range of vision that sacrifices much of its ability to see targets immediately in front of it. To make up for this, a ksarik’s feeding tendrils are covered in an array of unusual sensory organs: some can discern the source of smells, while others sense movement and changes in light.

Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms

The most fearsome of the ksarik’s abilities is its capability of extracting and assimilating other creatures’ genetic codes, temporarily mimicking its prey’s adaptations.
Studies suggest this ability is as much tied to a ksarik’s physical characteristics as it is some rudimentary psychic ability that allows the plant to adjust its body in accordance with a stolen genetic blueprint. Most of this code is unstable within the plants, meaning ksariks can rarely maintain an adaptation for more than a minute or, at most, several hours. However, trace amounts of foreign DNA remain, and it appears that parents are able to pass lesser versions of their adopted abilities to their offspring.

Civilization and Culture

Culture and Cultural Heritage

The most notable evidence of their cultural development are the lilting melodies ksariks sing when in close proximity to one another. Scientists have yet to discover the purpose of these songs, as their best efforts to determine if they provide any information to the plants has failed. What’s more, their attempts to replicate the sounds only lead to angering nearby ksariks, the creatures being seemingly affronted by the endeavor. These sounds appear to emanate directly from a ksarik’s skin instead of any particular orifice, a fact that opponents of ksarik conservation hold as proof that the plants aren’t purposefully making them. Of course, those on the other side of the argument believe it doesn’t matter from where the songs come from.

History

Originally occupying a niche between decomposers and scavengers, ksariks adapted to sniff out carrion and digest every piece of a rotting corpse.

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Ksariks’ ancestors lived on Castrovel as mindless, animate plants that scavenged for food and sprouted their seedlings within corpses, rarely posing more than an incidental threat to other species(link). Millennia of ongoing strife between the planet’s formians and lashunta bombarded these primeval ksariks with psychic energy, and only decades before the two factions’ recent peace deal, the plants began exhibiting rudimentary intelligence and a predatory drive. In an unsettlingly small number of generations, ksariks have developed a pack mentality, low cunning, and the preternatural ability to adopt competitors’ strengths.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

This enhanced evolution has drawn ksariks into otherwise unsuitable habitats on Castrovel, where they have quickly outcompeted other species(link), even driving several of them to extinction. Due to this explosive growth, most lashunta consider them an ecological nuisance, though xenobiologists have lobbied against their eradication until it can be properly studied - especially now that the ksariks have begun absorbing and demonstrating signs of rudimentary culture.

Type: Plant
Alignment: Neutral

Scientific Name

Plant Avibus Omnique Comedenti (decaying-flesh eating plant)

Lifespan

45 years

Conservation Status

Under review. Currently, the official status remains that of 'inanimate plant', which is obviously incorrect.

Average Weight

650kg

Average Length

3.7m (12ft)

Average Physique

Extremely powerful. By rapidly restructuring their muscular-skeletal system, they are capable of achieving feats of strength on par with small dragons.

Geographic Distribution

• Ukulam

Starfinder: Crafting

Adaptive Serum

A dose of adaptive serum consists of a small piece of ksarik flesh (usually the tip of one of its tentacles) floating in a slightly alcoholic tincture.

Type: Magic item
Bulk: -
Effect: For an hour after you consume an adaptive serum, the first time you take energy damage, you gain resistance against that type of damage for that attack and for the remainder of the hour or until you rest 10 minutes to regain SP, whichever comes first. The amount of energy resistance you receive depends on the level of the serum.

Name	Level	Price	Resist
Mk1	4	350cr	5
Mk2	8	1,500cr	10
Mk3	12	5,500cr	15

Carrion Spores (disease)

Type: Disease (injury)
Save & Frequency: fSav DC13, 1/day
Cure: 2 consecutive saves.
Track: Physical(link). When an infected creature reaches the comatose state, 1d10+10 Diminutive ksarik seedlings burrow out of its flesh and wriggle away. This ends the disease and deals 1 Piercing damage for each ksarik seedling.