Laylat

     Standing but three feet tall when fully grown the, latish resemble bipedal house cats. The fur of males is either white, brown, orange, grey with stripes. The stripes may be any of these colours plus black. Their sparse hair, if any, is typically a few shades lighter or darker than their fur. Females may have the same fur colours as males, but in addition they have a differently coloured ventral pattern. The pattern may be any colour fur can be as well as green, blue, red, purple, pink, violet, yellow and black, but is never the same colour as the body fur. Most of the time but not always the ventral colour continues on into the tail. One other feature that females are noted for is the enormous amount of head hair they possess. At full length the hair reaches one foot up and trails three more feet down coming to the back of the knees. The eyes of these creatures may be green, hazel, blue or violet.
     Of all the traits that make the laylats unique among the other races their anatomy is not the least. While possessing the capacity to move and feel as all creatures do, they have nothing resembling a nervous system. In fact, but a few days after their birth the interior of their skull becomes sealed off from the rest of the body; not even blood can enter after this point. This accounts for the fact that laylats cannot be intoxicated, paralysed or rendered unconscious by poison or other chemicals. As the mind is sealed away from the rest of the body so thoroughly, some have wondered if the mind may live on indefinitely after the body has died. This has been hard to determine, as they also seem to have a knack for reviving from injuries that appear to have killed them, making it difficult to tell when they are actually dead. It has also been noted that besides their colouration, there is little physical difference between one laylat and the next; differences in height and weight are a matter of mere fractions of an inch or pound. Despite this lack of variability it is known that this race has changed extensively over time without the aid of the mechanisms of heredity. Though this unknown process the laylats have moved from a carnivorous diet to an omnivorous one over time. When asked why this is, they typically answer by saying “we hurt less people this way“, and leave it at that. This seems to hint that they believe that change is not a matter of necessity as it is with other races, but one of desire.
     Although diminutive in both size and strength in comparison to the other races, the laylats possess a titanic intellect. Coupled with their lithe bodies the laylats are able to produce fantastic works of art with incredible detail including jewellery, dance, song, painting, writing and sculpture. The mental energies generated by such potent psyches has granted them a small variety of psionic abilities which they may use at will, and allowing them to pursue a fruitful career in the psionic disciplines. It may be the large control over their beings that allows them one other unique ability; being able to extinguish their life by act of will. Should a laylat come to the conclusion that it would be best if it were dead, they laylat may will itself to die almost instantly. Most would think they would use this moments before they are torn apart by a predator or they like, but they in fact never use it this way. Even though they know it will be painful they will usually wish to experience what it is like anyway. This ability is only used is situations where their continued existence is of detriment to others, such as if they are being held hostage in order to force others to surrender themselves to obvious death. The ability of laylats to revive from what should have killed them has become somewhat of a legend. They can in fact recover from wounds that are less than catastrophic, such as stab wounds. Injuries that rend the body are always fully fatal, however. A laylat that is able to revive may make the choice not to based upon the situation before it died; there is no point reviving if death moments later is certain.
     Quickly growing in both mind and body laylats reach mental and physical maturity at the age of four. At this point and anytime thereafter they may produce offspring, giving birth to litters of two to five kits. Laylats do not have a life expectancy as other races do, it is more of an expiry date. They live exactly thirty years from the day of their birth, simply dying some time on the day of their thirtieth birthday.
     Coming of age- It is not normally possible for a creature to gain enough knowledge by the age of four to be as wise as laylats become. The secret behind their vast knowledge is their education system, which takes advantage of the laylats’ formidable intellect and their telepathic nature. Instruction by telepathy is extremely fast and allows one to convey a personal understanding of knowledge has. Thus, kits are able to learn at great speed from various sources at once even while they sleep. This method has lead to a homogenizing of knowledge within the race, with only a little variance one way or the other. Even with this truly free exchange of knowledge, a laylat will know more about a topic that it finds interesting and devotes itself to.
     Noted as being one of the most ancient races the laylats have a fairly extensive record of the history of the world and its people. As they are perhaps the first race to begin existence in this world there are no records of their own history predating their ability to chronicle them. From the age of the oldest records it is thought they have existed at least 99,900 years.
     As one of the oldest races, the beliefs of the laylats are some of the first. This being so some of the other races have learned a bit about their world by listening to what the laylats have to say and incorporating it into their culture in some shape or form. One of the oldest beliefs the laylats hold about themselves is about the star stones. They believe that each of them is connected in some way to a single star stone that acts in some way as a soul does for the rakshasa. It is said that the stone grants each laylat nine lives to live, and the lessons they learn are kept within it causing it to grow. As they hold this to be true they are not very afraid of death, thinking that they most likely have one more life to live. As other races only have the one life, a laylat will most often place the lives of others before their own, only in cases where they have something pressingly important to accomplish will they place their own lives first. While they will not resort to violence to preserve their own lives, they have been known to react with very deadly physical and mental assaults to save the life of others they hold dear.
     As recorded by their own history, once the laylats communicated only by means of writings and a rather complex spoken language. It was not until the advent of their mental growth focus did they finally become the telepathic race they are today. As their written language is one of the oldest, a good deal of history may be discovered by any who can read it. Thus it has become the written language of historians and scholars of every race. Their spoken language is seemingly very simple, consisting only of mew, mewt, nee, naya, purt, purr and ftt. Each of these “words” typifies a concept. Mew is used in reference to a idea or answer, the most typical structure of a conversation. Mewt is used when a laylat is surprised or experiencing a surprising emotion, sensation or the like. Nee is used in reference to highly positive emotions such as happiness and excitement. Naya is normally used in cases of fright, suspicion or depression. Purt normally denotes a question, puzzlement or curiosity. Purr is used when agreement is expressed. Ftt denotes frustration or displeasure and is the only thing they say that can be considered a swear. What is actually said is dictated by the length of each syllable and its pitch, in this way they can express a paragraph of information with but a Meeww. How this language accomplishes this is exceedingly complex and very hard for those unable to imitate the sounds to understand. As their mental capacities grew the more convenient method of telepathic communication became open to them. Telepathy allows them to communicate at any distance on the same plane with any other telepath or person they know the location of. Being able to converse with individuals at distance they have come to think of others as minds more than bodies. They will freely converse telepathically with their own kind, but will attempt to gain permission before mentally contacting members of other races. It seems that others have discovered that laylats can also probe into ones mind after making a contact and view it as a major invasion of privacy. Being unable to really keep secrets from each other laylats are a very truthful race, and kits often find the secretive nature of others confusing. Some of the very young who have not learned this lesson sometimes discover it from such individuals…violently. Telepathic communications can be made in one of two ways, broadcast or burst. Broadcast is simply emitted and any can listen in. By this method laylats may hold and hear many conversations at once even while going about their business or sleeping. Non-telepaths may hear broadcast if they are within thirty feet of the source. Burst is directed at one or more individuals and is more private. This is normally used when correcting a kits behaviour or conversing with a non-telepath.
     With over 99,900 years of history behind them, the laylats have had great opportunity to explore the workings of reality as well as the intricacies of their own minds. Their curiosity as served them well in the pursuit of knowledge in many diverse fields such as physics, ecology, psichology (the study of psionically active minds) and alchemy. Study of the more unique materials found on Mezeria accelerated research by providing tangible examples of rather difficult principles. A few of the fields aided were temporal mechanics, gravitonics and biomechinery. Thanks to their education system, all laylats have a very good grasp of all concepts known to their kind, allowing for insights into principles that combine two or more fields. Such tools are usually made with ease of use in mind so members of other races may use them. Although some have used such tools as models for their own research, it is not likely any other race will be able to replicate the tools that require psionic manipulation in their creation for a VERY long time. Having shunned the incantations and rituals of magic long ago, laylats are still able to include a component of the magical though the use of their extensive knowledge in alchemy.
     Clothing is somewhat of an odd point for these creatures. Once in their past they used clothing like any other race does today. As their telepathic capacity improved they lost any secretive nature they had and could now converse with and know others without ever seeing them. Discarding the notion of a person as a physical form and more of a mental entity, modesty became pointless. From this point on clothing took on the role of a purely functional accessory, either for a job or to ward away water. As they did not like restricting their freedom of movement heavy materials were never worn daily, and modern clothing is usually made a light polymer known as anteaeon, woven into a cloth. The polymer resembles inflammable plastic; flexible, light, easily coloured, durable and water resistant.

Interactions with other races-

     A sought after commodity by the wealthy members of other races are examples of lattish art. Their sensitive eyes and nimble fingers allow the lattish to produce rather complex, detailed and intricate works. The love the lattish have for colourful and shiny objects ensures they create many pieces of gem and metal work. In addition to the creation of physical objects the lattish also craft song and dance, which is art of the moment rather than future. Their songs are well known for strongly influencing the thoughts and emotions of those who listen, and their dances are enhanced by the ability of their lithe, colourful bodies.