Name: Echo Crystal, Crystal Barnacles, Hyperquartz (Common Names) Qisar Viscar (Viriskon Name) Description: Echo Crystals most closely resemble quartz crystals when not mimicking anything. When living beings start to get close they begin flashing with color as a warning. Their crystals branch outward, not unlike a tree. When an echo crystal is near the end of its life small fine crystal ‘flowers’ begin to crop up all over its body. They use their high fragility to spread their crystals across the cave systems in which they develop over many long years. They absorb flux to grow and also use it to defend themselves against any entities that disturb the local flux. They are incredibly hostile and will fire lasers at anything that gets too close. Outside of caves, these crystals are often pests for space vessels, their spore clouds drifting through hyperspace can attach to passing ships. They can be hard to detect when young and after many trips through hyperspace without being cleaned they can grow into a large expensive problem. Behavior: The crystal often flashes with a variety of colors and patterns to scare off anyone that gets too close to them. They also release energy beams when threatened. When dormant echo crystals create illusions to hide their appearance, mimicking their surroundings. In rare cases they will also mimic sounds, and even repeat speech. They stick themselves onto surfaces and burrow into them tightly, often benefiting from being attached to space freights. Tamability: Echo crystals react with hostility to any disturbance in the flux caused by living beings. This makes them impossible to tame, but by learning deep meditation one can learn how to lessen their impact on the surrounding flux allowing them to harvest the crystal safely. It is possible for a psion to use their flux to grow a young echo crystal; even outside its natural habitat, but once it gets large enough it may begin to attack its caretaker. Where is it found?: Anomalous planets mostly, typically in caves or in dark secluded areas with a high ECF. Hyperspace, often sticks to the sides of traveling ships when they fly through clouds of silicate particles. Rarity: Very Rare Diet/Method of gaining nutrients and energy: (Fluxvore) Echo crystals absorb and build up flux to grow in size. They passively absorb the flux in their surroundings, meaning they can only effectively survive in high ECF environments such as hyperspace. Products?: Echo crystals themselves can be used in a variety of ways to detect or contain flux. Some magi may even grow them for home defense. Viriskon harvest these crystals to create the oxir, a blade capable of absorbing an enemy Viriskon’s own flux. To properly use an echo crystal you have to be able to harvest it without shattering the crystal, which requires close proximity. Reproduction: (Asexual) When an echo crystal has grown to its largest size it begins to form ‘flowers’ on its body. When it dies the flowers shatter into silicon particulate that fills the air, new crystals begin forming where the particulate lands. These spores are able to control their movement and will move toward areas of high flux. Size: Varies with age: < 1 inch - 18 feet Weight: Same as quartz, 25 pounds per square foot Lifespan: It takes about 500 years for an echo crystal to naturally grow to full size. Outside forces can influence this and accelerate their aging by providing them with flux. In hyperspace it only takes about 100 years. Traveling frequently through hyperspace on a ship hull can cause them to grow rapidly, reaching maturity in only 2 years if not tended to. Abilities: Flux storing Psionic laserblast Mobile children Flux detection Mimicry via light distortion Vibration mimicry Flaws: Very brittle Can’t move Highly hostile Ship-pest Rare & limited food source (in realspace) Dangerous harvest Additional Lore: Crews have gone mad from the whispering of the echo crystal, hiding in plain sight along the hull of their ship repeating conversations of crew long gone. Like ghosts on the wings. Echo Crystals are an ancient ancestor of the Viriskon, both being silicon-based lifeforms. Long ago pieces of crystal broke off and landed into the lifeblood of Xrison, the wellspring of tar. From the depths these crystals began to develop means of locomotion within the fluid by using their flux and one day they crawled out from the spawning pools.
