Leheke: The Symbiote Race

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Racial Name: Leheke
Nick Names:

Genders?: Male, Female

Average Life span: 60 Lunar Cycles, which is around 120 earth years

General Appearance: A typical Leheke is bald with light grey skin and small, pointed ears. Their bodies are short and slender, standing 1.5 heads below the average human.

A typical Leheke with markings, without an Uoke:

Common Personality: The Leheke live in a society which places high importance in loyalty, brotherhood and friendly competition. They often partake in friendly competitions for sport, though these can often turn into real violence once conflicting opinions begin to clash.

Society: Their society basically consists of a council of leaders (collectively called the Holuke) and the commoners of their settlements. There is a tier of sorts which consists of enforcers. The Holuke sees their people as their ‘family’ and themselves as the ‘Guardians.’

Long ago, Leheke formed symbiotic relationships with certain organisms to help them survive. This tradition has since carried on to civilised life and is an integral part of Leheke culture. Upon reaching adolescence, Leheke are encouraged to find an organism, called Uoke, to bond with. A Leheke’s Uoke will grant its host new abilities and will in turn benefit from having a host Leheke. Uoke are the Leheke equivalent to pets, and can form such bonds due to the Leheke’s ability to communicate with fauna.

Home Planet: Rakew is a planet with many lush forests and jungles, which are often ideal locations for Lekehe settlements. The trees stand well over 40ft tall, their thick branches often twisting in various directions. As a result some ideal platforms occur naturally, and pods (houses, they generally have 1-2 multi-purpose rooms) can be built on them.

Relationships: Lekehe’s relationships with others are classified into four categories:

Love: When two Leheke regard each other fondly, and they decide to begin courtship and eventually mate. Couples often part ways after they’ve finished mating, though it’s not uncommon for brotherhoods to form among the two.

Brotherhood: Two or more Leheke form a very close friendship, and form an inseparable bond. The only thing that can break such bonds is total betrayal.

Friendship: Your typical human friendship. The Leheke involved look out for each other, hang out, just as most human friendships work. One Leheke in a Friendship with someone in a hostile Rivalry can act as a mediator between the Rivals, often saving it from falling into Hate territory.

Rivalry: Two or more (usually two) Leheke acknowledge each other as worthy rivals. This can be either a friendly or hostile rivalry. The thing that separates regular Rivalry from Brotherhood or Hate is that the involved Leheke do not have as strong a respective Friend/Hate bond.

Hate: Two or more (usually two) Leheke hate each other to the point that they would kill each other. Many a brotherhood bond has fallen into the depths of pure hate due to bretrayal. However, a Leheke that shares a strong Friendship or Brotherhood with a Rivalry-bonded Leheke can act as a mediator between the two, preventing their Rivalry from falling into Hate territory.

Reproduction Their reproduction is like that of humans, except for one thing. After sufficient courtship has taken place and they are about to mate, they will take part in a unique ritual. This could be in pretty much any form, from rap battles to knitting races to actual fights, which is arranged and agreed on by both Leheke. If both Leheke show that they’re skilled enough in whatever the ritual is, they will mate. The female keeps the resulting child, and she is considered the child’s Guardian.

Guardians: The female Leheke that gives birth to the child is that child’s Guardian. They are taken care of until they reach adolescence, at which time they will move out and build a pod of their own.

Symbol Rules: Their main symbols come in the form of face painted patterns. When a child is born, their Guardian paints their marking onto the child’s forehead, known as their First Mark. This symbol represents the Leheke’s ancestral tribe, and is passed on from generation to generation. Nothing about the First Mark is changed, even the colour.

As soon as the child reaches adolescence, they can choose to paint additional patterns and markings of their own design on their faces and/or arms, in the same colour as their First Symbol. They can also add to their First Mark, the only rule being that their designs must not change the original symbol. These markings are simply a display of the Leheke’s creativity, and can be washed off and changed. Removing one’s own First Mark, however, is seen as a willing betrayal of their lineage and is taboo as a result.

Racial powers: The ability of the Leheke is to communicate with fauna.

Their power comes into use often, however. Every Leheke makes use of a symbiotic relationship with an organism (Known as Uoke) which, when attached to their host’s body, increases their physical/mental performance and/or gives them new abilities, depending on the Uoke used.

They only ever use one Uoke at a time; hosting two or more often results in fierce competition for the host body which only ever escalates, despite the Leheke’s attempts to quell them. As they attempt to drive one another off the host body, their various effects increasingly get stronger, which leads to serious, permanent bodily harm as well as death in a lot of cases.

Essentially, it can be said that as far as hosts go, Leheke are simply the best there is.

(As a side note, Uoke are more-so super-empowering pets than weapons; you can have one attached to your body and still wield a strife specibus.)

You can create your own Uoke for your character to use.

Here are some examples of Uoke that are free to use if you’d like.:

Attributes: When a Leheke comes across a threat, they will attempt to retaliate to defend either themselves or any friends in the area. If they are saved, they will be determined to pay them back, both because they feel a sense of debt, and because they want to one-up their saviour.

Traits: The irises of their eyes are a bright amber while the sclerae (The white part of a human’s eyeballs) and pupils are pitch black. Their teeth are sharp and pointy at the front and ridged at the back, suiting their omnivorous diet with a carnivorous slant. A slight bulge is located below the eyes with two small slits; this is the Leheke equivalent of a human’s nose, which performs the same function.

IM System: PodParty: Essentially, someone can create a chatroom (called a ‘Pod Party’) in which they host other users that enter. If one isn’t manually created, simply talking to another user prompts the automatic creation of a chat room. They can either continue to chat privately or make it a Pod Party, in which both users become the hosts.

Typing rules: They type in the colour of their markings.

Naming conventions: Leheke only have first names, as their First Mark shows others their lineage. Their names consist of 5 letters.

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