Cyclopian

Okay, ready? Left eye. Right eye. Left eye. Righ- oh I do beg your pardon.

— Sia Lotta’ize, Opthamolagist

The pursuit of knowledge, the acquisition of secrets, and the hoarding of trinkets with storied histories are common practices among any creature raised by cyclopians (sy-CLO-pee-ans). From dog tags to tapestries, musical manuscripts to carved tablets, and magical memory orbs to worthless heirlooms, their ‘libraries’ (as cyclopians refer to their homes) are filled with knowledge. With their physical adaptation to climbing, cyclopian homes are often found high up in cliffsides, within abandoned wizards’ towers, or deep in The Low.

• Reputation: Cyclopians are often feared as monstrous aberrations due to their intimidating appearance. Their intellect makes them scheming monsters akin to beholders in the minds of most people. Scholars also respect their thirst for knowledge.

by Jesse Jackdaw Burns

General Information

Scientific name

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Geographic Distribution

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Languages

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Physiologie

Average Lifespan

100 years

Size

Medium

Average Height

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Average Weight

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Others

Culture

Monocular and Myopic

A cyclopian’s singular eye is the perfect metaphor for this race’s almost-myopic tendency to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all others. When a cyclopian finds a topic that interests them, little can stop their manic and feverish efforts to acquire any relevant documents, information, or answers.

Pilgrimage of Huge Discovery

Cyclopians of a certain age often embark on a Pilgrimage of Huge Discovery, or PHD. During this time, they venture out into the world, seeking to bring new and significant knowledge back to their library. For some individuals, the natural compulsion to explore is all the impetus they need to leave the comfort of their homes. On the other hand, more reticent cyclopians might have to be forced out by their family, fulfilling this rite of passage based on a sense of duty. Cyclopians who fixate on the acquisition of artifacts, rather than the joy of studying them, are regarded as rare and valuable assets to any family; cyclopian adventurers are always warmly welcomed back to their library.

Characteristics

Physical features

Physique

Cyclopians are often mistaken for shadowy aberrations of the Shadow Plane known as nothings. While both cyclopian and nothings share a hulking monocular physiology and a hunger for knowledge, a brief observation yields one significant difference: the skulking simulacra leave a trail of rot and necrosis wherever they travel, while no true cyclopian would ever risk damaging a book in this way.

Biology

Cyclopians have an unusual lifecycle. Though they can reproduce sexually, cyclopians are also capable of a form of asexual budding. When a cyclopian is beyond inundated by the volume of knowledge awaiting its analysis (such as after it gains entry into an abandoned, book-filled wizard’s tower), it can spontaneously and unexpectedly undergo entire body mitosis. This produces a smaller, similar, genetically distinct, individual—an assistant with whom the research can be more manageably catalogued.

Diet

Information is nourishing for cyclopians, in the truest sense of the word. A cyclopian can survive feeding on new information alone.

Notable members