Race: Octopus Sapiens Ambulus

[Nasari]

Octopus (you can guess) Sapiens (wise or thinking) Ambulus (walking)

An alien race once came to Earth, before humans were capable of speech or art, to study wildlife. This race was fascinated by the cephalopods (octopus, squid, cuttlefish), and took some to a special planet similar to Earth, but around three fourths the size, which this highly advanced race terraformed eight Earth years before.

With its lesser gravity and extremely humid rainforests, the octopi on the planet were permitted to roam on land for extended periods of time (they already can, but only around thirty minutes) and still not suffocate or be crushed by their lack of a backbone.

When the alien race returned to the planet, they decided to see what would happen to the octopi if the environment was slowly changed. They somehow, using technology beyond our comprehension and then some, turned up the gravity on the planet very slowly. So, over around four million years, the extremely long-lived and patient aliens were pleased to find that the octopus was evolving far more quickly than ever hoped. It had evolved a sort of cartilagenous skull over its vital organs in its large head, and also a primitive skeleton in its leg-tentacles, but not its other two tentacles, which the octopus had taken to using for manipulating objects. The seventh and eighth tentacles had been lost altogether, as having so many limbs in such an arrangement impeded land movement. After another thousand years, they developed sapience.

Eventually, the creatures lost their gills, and had taken to breathing air, so they could venture out of the humid forests and into a whole new world. With this new world came new possibilities. The ones that moved to the desert developed dry, leathery skin and a low tolerance for cold. Those that moved to the mountains developed a layer of fat to insulate them against cold. Those that moved to the riverside change very little, except for their formerly-almost-gone swimming ability, which re-developed. The picture above is a river octosapiens priest.

Octosapiens do not believe in 'gods', but believe that everything has a spirit. Those who did great things in life become part of the Exalted Ones, who are worshipped just like gods. For example, the Octosapiens who united the tribes into countries are a few of the Exalted Ones.

Right now, they are still quite tribal technologically, the equivalent of the Native Americans in the time of Columbus.

[addman]

Awesome description there Nasari!

[MDude]

An octopus race? Totaly cool, although I hope they evolved to exeed that 2-5 year life span at some point, although that probably helped them adapt early on by letting them go through more generations faster. Either way, great work on the race-making.