Gooroos
The World of Gooroos
Gooroos are monsters, but in their world, they are just another among many that wander the world. Vampires and werewolves are just a part of life, and given their ability to take pat in society, they are often employed in the defense against greater dangers. Despite monsters being a standard part of living, the countries of the world still find time to try and kill each other over ideological differences.
Gooroos are a specific form of monster. To the best of the world's knowledge, they are evolved dungeon slimes, and their internal anatomy would suggest this. What is not settled, however, is how they came to be, and the debate between natural and artificial creation continues today. However, all gooroos share some common traits:
- Scent
- Gooroos always smell like tempting food items, and it is from this that their names are derived.
- Gooroos always smell like tempting food items, and it is from this that their names are derived.
- Anatomy
- External Shell: All gooroo have an external layer of variable thickness ranging from paper thing to up to a meter thick on giant gooroo. The exterior shell is both protection but also houses the true contents of a gooroo's being.
- Interior Gel: The interior of all gooroo are gelatinous or something like it. The most basic form acts just like a gelatinous cube or slime might when allowed to interact with organic material. Others are more adaptable but will still break down organic material. The gel serves as an energy reserve for the gooroo.
- External Shell: All gooroo have an external layer of variable thickness ranging from paper thing to up to a meter thick on giant gooroo. The exterior shell is both protection but also houses the true contents of a gooroo's being.
- Feeding: All gooroo rely on psychokinetic energy release by sentient organisms when they die. Feeding will be covered in its own section.
Feeding and Growth
All gooroo rely on psychokinetic energy, PKE, that is released when a sentient being dies in order to fuel their growth and evolution. Feeding can be active, passive, or mixed, but all gooroo take on memory fragments and personality from those from which they absorb PKE. In the truest sense, they are what they eat until they reach elder status and no longer evolve and thus have vastly lower need of PKE.
Passive Feeding
This is the most common form of feeding due mostly for it being the most acceptable by society. Passive feeders have a radius in which anything that dies can be skimmed for PKE. Because this is a distant area effect, the efficiency is very low, and so passive feeders need to be in locations that will provide relatively frequent chances to encounter death. Notable examples include Hazmokaff who was raised in a hospital and Mobrasu who worked on the front lines with police officers as their scout and protection.
Passive feeders are often slow-growing as their style of feeding does not permit rapid burst growth. However, they are also the least prone to hunt and kill for PKE or any other reason. An exception includes the Elder Apnuci who is known to actively slay entire task forces even in her status as an elder, which was also how she grew to such status.
Active Feeding
Active feeders are obligate killers. They cannot skin energy from their surroundings and so must ingest prey, and only sentient prey is sufficient. This makes all active feeders murderers by most points of view, and even those that see it as part of their biology don't want to end up becoming part of it. Active feeders can extract maximal PKE from their prey because it is inside the bounds of their shell when it dies. Because of this, active feeders can go longer periods between feedings which allows them to stay under the proverbial radar. A prime example of a modern active feeder is Chobaroo
Mixed Feeding
Mixed feeding is an exception, not a rule, and usually occurs when a gooroo is places under extreme stress. Mixed feeders use both active and passive methods, and this usually results in rapid PKE accumulation that applies further strain on the gooroo. Mixed feeders are always strained creatures that often have mental dysfunction along with their feeding anomaly. Smotele is the perfect example of this form of feeding in which she will slay entire ship crews through physical combat while ingesting some during the fight. Mixed feeding is what leads to true monsters among the gooroos, and to date, Smotele is a menace that has yet to be tackled as she possesses elder like power while being only in her late twenties.
Reproduction
This is the one topic that leads many to think gooroos were created not evolved, and it is one of their best kept secrets. Gooroo do not normally interfere with the mortal soul at all, but on rare occasion, soul capture occurs and sparks the creation of a new gooroo. It is believed that most gooroo are born and sent into the worldwhile they are still very small. it is possible that this is a cause of their relatively low numbers worldwide. . In fact, only one case of a gooroo having a parent is known, and this is Chobaroo and his mother Apnuci, and in this case there appears to be a sort of transmission of traits from elder to newborn. No other cases are known.
There are others that believe there is an undiscovered habit where gooroos are more common or even dominant. This theory states that gooroo evolved in a place where their natural food source, psychokinetic energy, was plentiful such as it might be in what could be called a haunted location or even some realm that touches regions like dreams or the lands of the dead.
To confuse matters further, all gooroos have some ability to change their form such that the presence or absence of a pouch does not indicate a gender. While they definitely manifest with male or female personalities and proportions that often reinforce the concept of gender, gooroo gender is not a constant. Chobaroo and Mobrasu illustrate this well. The former is male but can manifest in a female form in part or in whole when he chooses, and the latter can readily appear more masculine especially when interrogating someone. Compared to the extreme changes in other gooroos such as Smotele,Tobaros, and Apnuci these alterations are quite minor.
Known Strengths and Weaknesses
Because they are made of dense gel, most gooroo are highly resistant to blunt force trauma, and their exterior shell reseals easily making piercing and cutting damage tolerable. Gooroo do not breath, so suffocation or toxic gas is generally ineffective, and corrosive chemicals have little or no effect.
Gooroo are generally weak against fire, especially magical fire. Rare exceptions occur, but fire will generally do the greatest damage to the exterior shell and gel core. Most gooroo will avoid fire or sources of extreme heat. Electrical attacks similarly can wound a gooroo due primarily to resistive heating.