Vein-Triloquist

The Vein-Triloquist is a universally known name used to describe an Asiņainā Zvērs from the planet Rubra Lacum.

Appearance
 The average Vein-Triloquist measures at about 10 feet long, possessing a beast like stature that makes it walk and run low to the ground with its two powerful legs and large tail. It is a digitigrade creature, meaning that it walks on its digits or toes. It's covered in a crusty brown skin, and it feels like dry dirt to the touch. Its spine is exposed, and the cut travels down to its lower back. It also has multiple tendrils in place of arms that resemble stringy hair. The skull is also exposed, colored a stained, dirty yellow with sunken, human like eyes and a jaw that looks contorted into a large grin, full of teeth that range from dull and blunt to razor sharp and jagged.

Powers and Abilities
 Vein-Triloquist’s species have the uncanny power to control their blood flow down to the cell. While this doesn’t sound like a useful adaptation, its real power lies in their ability to control their cells remotely. Each cell in Vein-Triloquist’s body is infected with an unidentified parasite, and the species is able to spread this parasite to any other animate being just as long as it has a bloodstream to inject these blood cells into. Once the being has been injected with Vein-Triloquist’s infected blood cells, Vein-Triloquist will be able to control that being’s blood flow, and to a further extent, their entire body.

To add on, the Vein-Triloquist is able to put in more effort in order to reanimate and effectively “zombify” freshly dead beings by pumping blood to the heart and restarting blood flow. This gives one complete control over the body like it would over a living being.

The Vein-Triloquists have evolved to their current state without their arms; in their place are millions upon millions of veins that they can move like tendrils by sending blood back and forth through them. Each vein is tipped with almost microscopic proboscises that can easily puncture and transfer the parasite to any living host. They can also be used offensively like bullwhips, requiring a stronger pulse of blood to gain a lethal striking momentum.

Although they’ve lost the use of their arms, the Vein-Triloquists have powerful leg muscles and clawed feet that they used for scale tall heights, crawl along walls, and maim their prey.

Weaknesses
 The Vein-Triloquist will only have the ability to control a deceased being for only about a day, as the extra effort required to pump its heart and circulate its blood is taxing on the beast’s body. It can also not reanimate skeletal, disintegrated, dismembered or otherwise mutilated remains, nor can it control beings with opens wounds, as its target must have a functioning, intact bloodstream in order for the influence to take effect.



 The Vein-Triloquist is constantly giving out blood in order to control its victims, so a powerful, well placed blow to its tendrils will cause it to bleed out uncontrollably, forcing it to try and will its blood back into its system, leaving it open for further attack.

The parasite that has been hardwired into the DNA of the Vein-Triloquist species makes it unfit for Omnitrix use, as its brain now runs on bloodthirst and instinct alone. This is similar to how the Omnitrix sample of an Appoplexian will alter the user’s personality towards anger; however, it will completely neuter the senses of a completely cognizant species that turns into one, and the user will attack foes, friends and innocent people alike.

Behaviour
 The Vein-Triloquist is bloodthirsty, malicious and intent on only three goals: kill, eat, and survive. But this by no means makes it incapable of higher thought. This species is feared for its prowess and wit just as much as its frightening power. No other example is better than when it hunts. One of its most reliable methods consists of it taking one being under its influence, walking it into an area populated with the same species, and luring them back towards it in order to maximize the slaughter. It has also been known to play with its food. Once the beast has a being under its influence, it can divert the blood to any part of its body, rupturing it into a explosive, bloody mess before being consumed; brain, arms, heart, nothing is safe. On a more deranged note, a Vein-Triloquist has been known to slowly control their prey into laying themselves down across their many toothed jaws, lowering their heads into the beast’s waiting mouth for a swift chop, or even forcing the being to wait there, as it slowly peels skin from muscle and bone, stalking around it in a circle until nothing remains.



 The parasite has ingrained itself into the brain of the beast, and has slowly altered the chemistry that makes up its thoughts and functions through countless generations, making it into the killing machine it is today. Its only concern is its own survival, and it has even been known to attack and eat members of its own race in order to survive. Everything is free game to this species.





Etymology
Vein-Triloquist is a play on words involving the words 'vein', a part in the blood circulation system, and 'ventriloquist', one who is capable of projecting their voice onto a puppet.

Their species name, Asiņainā Zvērs, is directly translated from Latin, meaning 'bloody beast', for obvious reasons.

Their planet name, Rubra Lacum, is translated from Latvian, meaning "red lake", on account of many other species across the universe dubbing their planet a 'literal bloodbath.'

Trivia
 The ability to control the flow of blood is possible because of a parasite that had bonded with the species long ago, spreading a virus to their cardiovascular and nervous functions that linked both bodily systems together. The parasite evolved along with the species over thousands of years until the host and the parasite were one and the same, and the ability to control their blood cells became something an infant could do at birth, like breathing for a human. The parasite continues to evolve with every new generation, strengthening its hold on the species and its resistance to any potential outside antibodies.



 The parasite most likely possesses a small degree of telepathy, following the directions of a cluster of the virus that has been ingrained into the creature's brain. This explains how the Vein-Triloquist is able to control the movement of so many cells at a time.



 While it is very unlikely such a violent and feral creature would do such a thing, Vein-Triloquist also has the ability to rip the parasitic cells from an infected creature, granting a living creature volition once again. A deceased creature will become inanimate once more.



<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Living creatures continue to age normally under the influence of a Vein-Triloquist, which means that a Vein-Triloquist has control over a living being only for as long as that creature is alive. However, it will only be able to sustain a deceased being for an average of about one full day, in terms of hours.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> This species has spread across the galaxy at a terrifyingly quiet rate for such a malicious race. They’ve have been sighted in the Null Void, parts of the Andromeda Galaxy, on Khoros, and even on Earth. It has been mistaken to be the mythical Chupacabra on a few occasions.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">This species, quite unbelieveably, used to be a more docile, herbivorous race dubbed the 'Smaida Zvēri', or 'Smiling Beasts', who grazed on the land of the planet's once many grassy fields. However, it is believed that once this mysterious parasite infected this species, the need to eat forced the  Smaida Zvēri  to completely decimate the planet's food cycle over dozens of years, devouring anything that moved and eventually turning the world into the "red lake" is has been aptly named after. The homeworld is completely devoid of all other indigenous species, except for the now renamed  Asiņainā Zvērs  themselves, who have resorted to eating one another.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Vein-Triloquist is an original species created for the Spooktober Horror Contest 2: Alienation event held by CaT!