Gremkin

In A Nutshell...

Gremkin, often times abreviated as Grem, are an Impkind species that vastly vary in size and shape, depending on their social status. Literally, they will undergo a kind of rapid metamorphosis depending on the amount of "Net Worth" they have, based on their wealth, influence, property and the like. Think of capitalism... now make a species based around 'em. That. That's them. They can range from 3 feet all the way up to 15 feet depending on what stage of metamorphosis they're at and the metamorphosis can go back AND forth as their social status changes. Regardless, Gremkin are a lavenderish, purple bipedal species with bright yellow eyes that glow in the dark, sharp claw and a rather sizeable set of sharp teeth. Seriously, they can bite clean through a coconut with those things.

Resilient and Reckless

I wasn't joking, either. Being Impkind, Grems have a rather sturdy build, being able to take a beating and withstand a lot of abuse. Their teeth and claws are very tough, as is the rest of their bones. It takes a serious amount of force to even bruise their bones and their skin is about as tough. Fire seems to glance off them as well. All this allows them to come up with some rather dangerous technology and weapons... given, the testing phase of these things are usually reserved for the lower tier Grems, usually Gremkin Grunts. Their supperiors tend to use them as fodder for experimenting weapons and technology and for front line raiding groups. It's not uncommon to see one get blown up, set on fire, electrocuted, warped and so on by their peers or by their own selves... and survive. This doesn't help matters when Grunts are particularly... err, how do I put this... eh, stupid. They tend to do self-abusive nonsense, along side of being abused. Seriously, if you have a bunch of them under you, you need to keep an eye on them. Some of the smarter Grunts will stay out of trouble, but most of them you wouldn't wanna leave on their own around hazardous things. They get really inventive. Seriously, they're the type to make saltwater into gasoline... and then set something on fire... probably a random one in the group.

Mad Science Space Pirates

Aside from most of the Grunts, Gremkin can be as creative as they can be reckless. They use a comnbination of Magic and Science both to make their stuff. What do they make? Wellllll, given that most Grems are with the Gremkin Pirate Corps, it's usually weapons. Not always, but usually. What kind? Well, they go from conventional to really awkward and weird. Examples include a giant hammer that splits into two and back again, a device that sets the user on fire for a more wreckless attack, grenades that multiply (or divide) gravity, a gun that shoots thin, razor sharp disks that bounce around rooms like crazy--that one is still in testing. They also make really crazy robots. The Headburster is one of their most notorius ones, a floating balloon mine that patrols areas, expelling toxins that paralyze anyone that breathes it and chase down, latch to and explode on intruders with incredible force... with a goofy skull face on them,m because why not. It's really not for certain that they build these things with purpose or because they can or... maybe both? Who knows? I dont' even think Grems can, or will, explain it.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Skin, Bones and Teeth

A Gremkins apperance can change rather drastically depending on what Tier they are, but they do have many similar features none-the-less. They usually have a lavender colored skin, sometimes having blue or red hues. They all have really hardened claws and teeth caipable of scratching metal. This also means they're rather resilient to injury.

Glowy Eyes

Like most Impkind, their eyes have black sclera with a bright colored iris that are bioluminescent. In a Gremkin's case, they usually have yellow or amber irises, but in some more uncommon cases they can have lime green or red-orange irises.

Ears

They also have rather long ears that sweep back towards their back. The smaller Tier's ears usually stand up on their own, while larger ones have ears that droop, as they tend to get longer as their Tier increases.

Rather Fluffy

Thought you wouldn't normally see it, because they like to hide their heads under hats and hoods, they actually have quite a bit of hair on them. It's pretty soft, even. Not sure if it's a Gremkin shampoo or if they're born with it, but they have soft, full hair that covers their head and runs down their spine, kind of like on a dragon you'd see bone spikes running down the spine, but with fluff. They have a short tail, where the fluff runs down and finally ends at the tip. This fur gets burnt rather often and easy, especially due to the Grems tendiencies to self-destruct, but it grows back rather quickly, too. They are, unfortunatley, prone to shedding. As for color, their fur is usually light blonde or pale yellow or red, but it's not uncommon to see dark purple or blue. So, most colors you'd see on humans, plus purple and blue.

Growth Rate & Stages

When a Gremkin is born, it starts off as a baby like most creatures. Once it hits the age of 10, it's given a sitmulus check of 1,000 UEC (which is roughly $1,000 USD, if the US's economy is still good when you read this) and given an entry level job by an upper Tier they've been assigned to. This is when they're officially dubbed a Grunt.

Unless they were born outside of the Gremkin Pirate Corp. This is unlikely, but the movement of the Greenflower Society is aiming to integrate Grems into society as anyone else is, so in that case, they can choose their own job and are given whatever their parents are willing to spare and such. You know, like a human would set out on their own. They still do seek employment at 10, as it's in their nature to work hard and early, but a lot of societies frown upon child labor, so they'll take up paper routes and mow lawns or whatever kid jobs they can get. The competition gets heavy, but unlike their Pirate brothers and sisters, they tend to collaberate more to maximize efforts... and profit! Hey, they want candy and videogame money, too. They're just really, REALLY good at it.

Gremkin usually live up to about 150 years as a Grunt (assuming they don't do something fatal before that), but if they climb Tiers, this can add or take away years of their life rather dynamically. Pawns have been known to live up to 175, for instance, but if they fall back to Grunt around the 160 mark, it's almost as if the ratio is adjusted accordingly to where they'd be in younger in Grunt Tier. Basically, it's safe to assume that the higher up you are, the less you age. This is particularly apparent when up around Rook tier, as they can live for thousands of years. I mean, the King is almost rumored to be immortal to aging all together, as their hasn't been a new King in a very, very, very long time... as in tens of thousands of years.

Ecology and Habitats

Gremkin can be found anywhere, really, as they tend to deploy operations everywhere to maximize profit. Goldgrist is rather poluted and has been transformed over time into a cyborg planet. Homes are rather mechanical and steampunk. Holy cow I'm sleepy at the moment. I'll work on this part later. Consider it incentive to follow this thing. :P (((WIP)))

Dietary Needs and Habits

Like most, Impkind, they crave a lotta protien. Meat, meat and more meat. They can eat most things, but meat is a need for them. You oughta see them on Roast Day. Despite the dire working conditions they're usually brought up in, they eat really well and Roast Day compounds on this. Once a month, they typically give out, as the name implies, a big ol' cartoon looking roast to about 20 or 30 Gremkin Grunts to encourage them to work harder than usual. The top one might even get dessert, so the stakes are pretty high!

...Err, Pawns and up eat well anyways. Usually they all get roast on Roast Day.

At any rate, it's more a nessecity than a charity. Gremkin have elevated metabolism and that probably helps them recover from whatever injuries or what have you on the job that may happen. It's a bit odd, too, since they don't change size much at all due to the curse... hmm.

Biological Cycle

When a Gremkin is born, it's considered a baby until age 10. As a baby, they don't have their claws and fur quite yet and they don't get their site until about a year in. Once it hits year 10, though, puberty has never been as quick and as confusing as a Gremkin changing Tier. This is when it undergoes it's first metamorpohsis and becomes a Grunt. It gets it's claws, it's fur, it grows to about 3 feet and after that... well, it's up to how far they get up the ladder. That's literally how most of their biology works.

Other than that, they tend to get thicker coats of fur in winter, as of all things to be weak against, they're awfully weak against the cold. As summer comes around, expect a LOT of shedding, though.

Depending on how high up on The Leaderboard they are, time seems to have less effect on them as far as aging goes. (More on that up in the Growth Rate & Stages section.)

Additional Information

Social Structure

Gremkin Tiers: Society's Leaderboard

So, in case you didn't catch on by now, Gremkin are extremely materialistic by not just thier culture, but their nature. The reason is the way the will rapidly metamorph into higher (or lower) tiers depending on how much "Net Worth" they weild in their society. This Net Worth is mainly all their wealth, influence and literal power all translated into a number of monitary value and it's put on a massive leaderboard simple known as The Leaderboard. Literally, if you're a Gremkin, you have a Serial Number (yes, like a product), a "Net Worth" and a Rank. (And if you Rank high enough, you even get a Name.) The Ranks are divided into Tiers and your Tier dictates how a Gremkin will metamorph. The higher the Tier, the more power and influence you have over the rest of the Grems directly. So, The Leaderboard as a literal power struggle. The big goal of any Gremkin is to reach Knight, seeing as getting any higher is borderline impossible. You'd have to be part of the Gremkin King's Court at that point and THAT... is a dream feat.
The different Tiers are as follows. (This part gets kinda lengthy, so I'm condensing them into spoiler boxes. There's not actual spoilers, so read away!)

Grunt

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Only the top one million Gremkin get a Tier. Heck, they're the only ones that get to even have a name. Until they get enough Net Worth to get on The Leaderboard, they're literally called "Grunt" or something like that and their only name is their Serial Number. They all dress the same and act the same and maybe, just maybe they'll get promoted someday... maybe... we'll see.

Top 1,000,000: High Grunts

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A High Grunt are usually just called a "Grunt", but they've proven to be useful enough to do specific tasks. This is where you'll start to see some of them dress different to accomidate their specializations and have titles pretaining to what they do, such as Gremkin Masher or Gremkin Troubleshooter. Some of the even higher ones may earn a nickname from one of the upper ups! Competition starts to florish here for the race up for a place amongst the Pawns.

Top 100,000: Pawns

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And now, the big first prize of any Gremkin... the privalage to be address by the others... with a NAME. Pawns the first big step in being put in importain places around the Exstellarverse for different Gremkin Pirate operations. Stores, outposts, the ability to work with robots-- the Technicianin particular like the Headbursters quite a bit. Competition gets fierce at this Tier. Pawns are always looking for oppurtunities to get to the top 10K by any means, even if it's by force. They're usually Supervisors over some group of Grunts.

Top 10,000: Bishops

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Gremkin Bishops are Gremkin that have proven to be relaiable in operations and have show a lot of skill in what they do. They're the type that can destroy a tank with a well placed fireball and use weapons and technology with ease. They're a LOT to handle if they're put on the front lines of combat. Don't be surprised if they've got a small platoon of Grunts with them. They aspire to impress the King themselves in order to gain status, power and of course Net Worth to get promoted to Rook. To put them in business terms, these are the big managers. If your name is Karen, you'll wanna talk to these guys.

Top 1,000: Knights

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Knights, like, the Bishops, they've proven useful in operations, usually specializing in high tech robots and mechs, weapons and some serious magical firepower. Rather than blowing up a tank, they prefer crushing one with a giant hammer... or, you know, explosives. Or even better, they'll throw a small army of Grunts at anything they need done. They too wish to impress the King to get their Net Worth up to Rook Tier and odds are, they'll be considered by the Gremkin Pirate Corp at this point, sometimes getting Trial Operations from headquarters. You get picked, that's and easy street to a high Knight or Rook tier. To put these guys into business tiers, these are your big, rich CEO types. Executives, if you will. They have money rolling in passively at this point.

Top 100: Rooks

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Now we enter the Tiers that work with The Gremkin King in the Gremkin Pirate Corp Headquarters Castle on their homeplanet Goldgrist. Gremkin Rooks guard the castle from anyone stupid enough to try to attack. They're extremely powerful in Magic and Science. Just one of them can level a large building with little effort. The competition to get higher up on The Leaderboard seems to all but stop at this point. No one can tell if this is because usurping a superior is far too risky to lose it all now or maybe they prefer to work collaberatively to keep the rest below them. Even if a Rook is broke finacially, their status alone can be enough to keep their Tier. Finacial AND status security. In business terms, these are CEOs to the CEOs.

Top 10: Jesters

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And now we have the Top 10, starting with the Jesters... yes, there are Jesters in this list. If they can have Grunts, they can have Jesters--anyways, despite the name, they're not for entertaining the King. They work as advisors to the King, talking about where they'd like to raid next or what kinds of operations they want to set in motion.

Top 2: Queens

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Despite the title "Queen", this Tier (as well as King) doesn't refer to gender. In fact, there have been male Queens in the past. At this stage, who can compete with you? You've gained more than enough Net Worth to set you for the rest of your life. At this point, do what you will, just as long as it's okay with the King. Also, as a Queen, you protect the King at all costs, but more than likely, you'll never have to. There hasn't been anyone able to break past the Rooks.

Number 1: King

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Finally, we have The Gremkin King, a vastly rich, vastly powerful, probably immortal Gremkin. What he says, goes. Period. When you're this powerful, there's no one that can say otherwise. There hasn't been a new King in tens of thousands of years. No one has been able to usurp him and he hasn't died from old age. What does one do when they have everything? Whatever amuses you. Destroy planets, create black holes and stars, whatever. Really though, planet conquest is more entertaining if you watch the lower Tiers scramble about and do your bidding. It's like one big old board game.
For more information on the current King, check out this page.

F-Tier Work

Gremkin know one big, BIG word of advice... Whatever you do... don't ever get written up. If you manage to really screw up or outright protest work, you could be subjected to F-Tier Work, in Gremkin society. This is jobs that no one would ever, ever want... you know, permanent latrine duty, test subjecting, scrubbing and mantaintng machines- it gets dangerous when they never stop those things. The odds of a Grem getting out of F-Tier depends on how bad your infraction is. Some that've been subject to it for an undetermined time are sometimes jokingly reffered to as being "fired", which is a lot more degrading as it sounds to Grems. Of course a Gremkin could simply "quit", but it's a sure fire way to send your name to the bottom of the Leaderboard... also, no Roast Day.

Given, there is an exception to this and that's if everyone has actually been on the up and up. If a Grem volunteers (or is volunteered by raffle) and is assigned F-Tier, they're treated the same as if they're all green. Some work places are generous enough to let those Grems take a couple extra minutes on break, which is pitiful to anyone else, but to a Grem, that's a field trip. Also, free soda pop tokens (maybe)! Yaaaay~!

It's not just for Gremkin, either. People who have been either stupid enough or desperate enough to have taken some form of loan from a Gremkin, odds are you'll be working it off from this tier for a long time. The big difference here is it's legally binding, yet it's reserved to less... uh, potentially lethal jobs. We don't want a lawsuit here. That's time AND money.

Reformed Gremkin?

Belive it or not, there are some Gremkin that don't want anything to do with pirating and simply want to live a regular life, like anyone else. Unfortunatley, they do face a lot of prejudice, being as their species is associated with all of the above. For this reason, you'll rarely see one above Grunt out there on their own. There are a small handful of well off Pawns out there, but rather than raw money power, a lot of them hold influence with the other Grems that want to live like others. These Grems are usually a part of an inerplanetary effort to dispel the stigma the best they can and show the world Gremkin can be decent people and actually use their resources to better the place around them and try to slowly work their way up The Leaderboard. This organization is known as the Greenflower Society.

Uses, Products & Exploitation

HAH! "Exploitation" you say? They exploit their subordinates for profit. C'mon. If you, an outside source and Non-Grem, pay an upper Tier enough, you can buy a Grunt and get 'em to do whatever you want. They can and will sell their subordinates out for money.

Facial characteristics

Glowing yellow or amber eyes, massive teeth.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

You can find Gremkin all throughout the whole Eris System, since they're capable of space travel. I mean, they have interplanetary delivery for their Nazoma stuff, among many other companies. There are some locations that absolutely will not have anything to do with them, though, at least the Grunts. Grunts are a little too reckless and impulsive for most cities. A lot of people don't care for Grems to begin with, since their business tends to push out smaller, local businesses. Tetra City hasn't had a good relationship with them for the most part, save for Western Tetra City which actually serves as a Nazoma headquarters location.

Average Intelligence

Intellegence ranges dynamically, from really stupid to really cunning.(((WIP)))

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Like most Impkind, their eyes have rather good vision in the dark, but to their disadvantage, you can spot them, even if you can't see your hand in front of you, due to their glowing eyes. So... just swing or shoot in the direction you see them.
Also, they can hear really well, being able to detect someone breathing hard within 15 feet. If you're running from one, you'd better be able to hold your breath if they catch up, because that's how they'll find you hiding.

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Impkind

Lifespan

150 years at low Tiers, more at higher Tiers

Average Height

About 3 feet at lower Tiers, up to 15 feet at the highest Tiers

Average Physique

Grems are typically average, which is surprising given their appetite.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Lavender skin, full set of hair blonde/red/purple/blue hair that run from the head down the spine. Dark purple claws.