Shilpakaari
The shilpakaari are thoughtful artisans with the patience and featherlight touch required for immaculate detail. Their cities, arts, and music are rivaled by no other species in the known galaxy.
But their exquisite craftmanship hides a broiling cultural battle beneath the beautiful veneer of tourist souvenirs and art galleries. The shilpakaari are compulsorily polyamorous. While the men mutated long ago to multiply their physical traits - two thumbs to each hand, four arms, three canines to each side of their dental ridges, two phalluses - the women mutated to control those attributes through the coil.
The coil, like venandi convergence, is a biological imperative, and men cannot sire spats without it. Through the coil, a shilpakaari man may become addicted to a woman’s taste. Until humans arrived in Yaspur, this was only possible with shilpakaari women. As a result, men often chose a monastic life, preferring to have their senticotylus, the dormant phallus at the nape of their neck, removed.
Men that don’t experience the coil are considered blessed, and often choose to pursue male relationships instead.
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Facial Features
Tendrils grow from an elongated skull similar in shape to ancient elongated human skulls. Below the nape of the skull and beneath these tendrils, a man’s senticotylus is hidden.
Eyes are ovoid and large with tiger-striped pupils. Nose is flat and has evolved from gills, shaped like slits rather than nostrils. Shilpakaari don’t have individual teeth, but rather dental ridges with three canine dags on either side of the top ridge.
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Physique
Made for a home world covered in oceans and forests, but no land. Shilpakaari men mutated for double features long ago: two thumbs to each hand, four arms, and two phalluses. Though women are also born with two thumbs to each hand, they have only two arms.
Men are made for climbing and swimming with broad shoulders. Shilpakaari also have no body fat, being cephalopods rather than mammals.
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Unique Anatomy
Two thumbs for grasping tree limbs and enhancing the latching instinct of infants.
Senticotylus (Senti), a phallus at the back of a man’s head used to taste and enhance sexual sensation
Slight webbing between fingers and toes
Spleen takes up approximately half the abdominal cavity. Paired with extremely large lungs, Shilpakaari can hold their breath for half an hour while idle, and up to ten minutes in duress.
Can flatten blood vessels and restrict heartbeat to reach lower depths with training.
