#the formless

Like a shepherd tending a flock, the angel of sleep urges souls through placeless meadows, gardens, cities.

Sleep wipes the slate clean. Thousands of new faces and forms appear. The wide-eyed soul watches in awe,

and perhaps it always dwells there, where no memory persists, where the bodiless body never tires.

The heart that trembles here under the weight of possessions— under the weight of their absence—

soars weightless there.

“An ancient and terrible killing machine, faceless and implacable.”

The Formless, who is an ancient killing machine but is also, to quote The Internet, ‘babie’.

There are non-Skeleton King grown formless in existence, but due to SK's use and creation of his own strain, they have fallen out of popularity as a servant species.

Formless are sapient, and many non-sk are thankful for the unexpected freedom.

Formless communicate silently, by directly transmitting thoughts through touch. A handshake is a brief introduction, a hug is a conversation, and cuddling is an all encompassing hangout.

Like all languages, formless-speak takes time to learn. Young formless need to be taught, formless not allowed touch never learn it, and those left alone for long periods of time forget how to speak it properly

Formless living in different part of the universe speak differently, but none have developed past the range of understanding. It is a thought-based language, after all. Valeena's formless would have different emphasis when speaking to them than a SK formless.

When two different strains of formless meet, they begin to become more similar to each other as they interact. A well-traveled formless is almost unrecognizable as it's original strain.

Skelemandarin is not fluent in formless-speak, and would prefer not to learn it.

It is impossible to lie in formless-speak. Sarcasm is possible, but all things you do not believe are marked as such when speaking.

Formless can learn to speak verbal language, though it can take years to get a conversation from them.

Due to their native language being thought and feeling based, formless are very empathetic creatures. Though when they are unfamiliar with other species' signs of distress, they may seem cold and unmoving.

SK-formless follow Skeletin King's commands half because of an inherent magical connection he has to them from creation, making him all they know, and half because they instinctively think it's a good thing to help and work together

SK-formless cannot adopt any color, only staying in shades of black and white... unless the color is given to them by a nonsk formless or SK himself.

Formless left to their own devices tend to form societies in which bigger=better. More mass means you're stronger and have more room for brain neurons. It's a little like Irken tallness hierarchy, except a little less severe. More like our concepts if beauty.

This means Skelemandy is ugly by formless standards. Actually he's a pretty bad example of a formless. He doesn't shift, he doesn't formless-speak, and he's tiny and mean. No formless who's met him has ever liked him. But he doesnt know that because he doesn't formless-speak.

Formless do not reproduce sexually, they split, making an (im)perfect copy of themselves, only smaller and lacking memory beyond instinct.

Formless need to be a certain size or above to be able to reproduce. This is different for each strain of formless.

SK formless can only split when they get to a monumental size. There are only two formless known to get to this size for long; the pit of ooze, and Valeena's pit of ooze. This can take thousands of years, unless provided with constant nutrients and little to no movement.

Formless eat just like us, but with the added step of directly converting food to mass, before burning mass as they move. They can go a long time without food because of this.

Sk never feeds his formless. He just replaces the ones that die.

When formless die, they lose all control of their body. This tends to manifest as melting once they take enough damage.

All formless are weak to electric and energy based attacks, and are nearly impervious to blunt force. Apply enough and they will die anyway.

If a formless managed to survive even being touched by any of the team's energy attacks, it would leave a scar that they could never shift away.

When formless sleep, some of them melt a little. It's what happens when they relax enough. Formless see it like cute snoring.

“Thought becomes shape, a shape that slices.”

The Formless, again, with a demonstration of morphic weaponry.

The Formless are gods of their own making, assumed to be the original beings that defeated their God and opened the new realm. Cursed by losing their forms, they shapeshift without intention or control. Upon fleeing to the new realm, some were able to settle into stable forms; legend has it they are the direct ancestors of the elemental phoenixes.

Some of The Formless chose to remain in their shifting forms. These Formless possess transformational magic that can swap the forms of other beings (but not themselves). Several of The Formless guard the lunar planes and guide travelers between layers. For instance, The Formless who oversees the Icy Sphere—Abyssal Ocean boundary coordinates body-swapping of aboveground and abyssal travelers so they can more safely explore the other realms.

Chapter 9 - The Formless

These beings are a group of sentient, morphable anomalies. They are... Difficult to describe. They are a set of beings, that depite lacking a physical body with arms, legs and the like, they are brilliantly intelligent. 

Able to speak most languages and can be very persuasive. They can easily change into most physical objects, but with an obvious color difference, still showing the grey hue of their original color in their design.