I have always contended that Dralasites use their skins to absorb food and thus have to have their nutrients in the form of sauces, puddings, mashes, soups and other such liquid or semi-liquid forms.

In terms of waste products, I would think that they would release it in the form of liquids and gases from whatever area they choose at whatever time, in similar frequencies to the other Core Four. 

In terms of solids, they don't go in, and they don't go out.

The question of hiding things in their bodies is a good one, but I imagine it would be very painful.  They are not designed to carry around solid objects inside of them.  I could see them unconfortably "folding" in small objects between skin areas but actual absorption internally would not be possible.  After all, they don't eat turkey legs, thus they would not be able carry stuff around internally, either.

In terms of swimming, woot's point is probably the way to go - they "shut off" parts of their breathing membrane and use the other areas.  This is uncomfortable, but possible, and should incur no penalties as compared to the other Races.

Sleep is probably in a simple ball formation.  They might just turn off all of their limbs entirely and sleep as an amorphous blob.  It is probably the most comfortable for them in that state.  Keep in mind also that they might just sit there and have 4 arms floating around and no legs in certain situations, like at a cubicle at work, or eating dinner in the steam bath.  Why have legs at all?

Dralasites also have great fun turning into balls and rolling around.  Just put a fold of skin over the eyes to protect them and weeeeeeeee!  Imagine a ramp full of Dralasites rolling down after a hard day's work, laughing and bumping into each other, like a bunch of bowling balls with no pins.  Fun!  Squiggling up and down poles is also a fun pastime, although probably more of a workout than a ramp.

Yes, I was talking to my brother a few weeks ago about large debate halls and other public buildings and we figured that they would be raised up with ramps leading in and out.  In an evacuation situation the natural dralasite flight method would be to roll out of the building via the ramps.  I had visions of the movie robots but with drals after I read your comment.

I had a few questions about Drals that were not answered in another thread that I’d like to try here. I am trying to work up some CSI type adventures and was puzzled about what sort of forensic evidence would be left behind by a Dral. Fingerprints as such would be out. I assume that they would have identifiable DNA, but giving their means of reproduction, it would be nearly impossible to find and compare familial DNA wouldn’t it? And short of having their flesh, what sort of trace DNA would they leave?

Facial recognition programs would work on the other races, but not on Drals. Don’t all Drals have a specific, unique sent? Can trace evidence include lingering odors? And if so, how long would that smell last, do you suppose? Anything else I am missing?

One other thought…I am good with the idea of Drals being on a restricted diet, but what does that do for emergency rations in survival kits? Anybody remember those green slime balls from Enemy Mine? Would every survival kit come with a complete set of Dral e-rats? A life boat fitted for 8 persons would ostensibly have enough rations for 8 beings for say, 5 days. Would it also have the same amount in Dral acceptable food? It would make a difference if it was a life boat with 1 dral and 7 non-drals or a life boat full of drals. Or would the other 3 races be forced to eat slime balls as a standard form of rations?

Survival skills for a dral would be much more complex than for non-drals since they would have a more limited food source to pick from in an alien environment. Or would a standard survival pack come complete with a StreelCo 5000 food processor. Guaranteed to turn any edible food source into a revolting, tasteless goo? Just add solid food and liquid. Hmm. I could see possibilities with that. – all that remains in the cupboard is a questionable potted meat product and a half empty bottle of liquor.-  

On the CSI biological evidence line:

From AD, "Also, despite a Dralasite's stretching and shrinking, the pattern of veins and ridges on its skin does not change, so they have a permanent "fingerprint" for identification." So, they do have fingerprints and I believe that they do leave residues (humans leave an oil residue) so you can dust and get a print. That said, good luck on matching it to a dral. You would have to fingerprint the entire dral body and try to match your portion of print to the entire body. Who knows what part of the body the dral is currently using to form a hand/finger/palm.

As for face recognition the only thing that I can think of is that you could focus on the eye spots. The core rules do not state anything, but based on the fact that they have fingerprints, then I would assume that their eyespots have an individual pattern to them. And unless the dral happens to like distorting its vision, it is not going to stretch or squish it's eyespots so they would be easier to pattern match to records.

Concerning the spore familial typing I posed in the other thread, that should help in DNA analysis because it may narrow down the search pool to family lines. You should be able to use dral DNA evidence, but beware that dral spores are free floating so whats in the room may not prove a dral was in the room but rather that air flowed into the room from where a dral spores were free to flow. I would think that other DNA evidence would be stronger in court. Think along the lines of, “A dral touched this and we found these skin cells caught in it.”

Lingering odors would also be harder to prove came from a specific dral because of the argument above about free airflow and the odor would not be specific to an individual dral. Diet, work environment, hygiene, etc will alter the odor of a dral so as to make pinning the odor to one dral circumstantial. Grated drals can identify each other by smell, but its by taking into account their familiarity with the suspect dral. They con do this with other races to when they are familiar with the suspect. However, I would say there are times that drals smell the same do to common diet, environment, etc.

Concerning food, we seem to agree that drals prefer their food liquid or soft. But I don't think anyone is saying they can't eat solids. They just take longer to do it, hence my comment that they suck on the solid food for a while and drop the inedible left-overs, and Imperial Lords, it don't go in it don't come out saying. The AD rules do state that dralasites are omnivores. I like your blender comment and you bring up a good question about survival packs. If the pack is all crunchy concentrates then the dral is going to have problems. The low liquid content of the hard as a rock human energy bar is going to make absorbing it near impossible to a dral and it would want to smash it up and add water. So, the Crash on Voltrunus survival packs should have wrapped food that is softer or can be quickly made into a soft product.

-iggy

Dralasite food would be IDEAL for survival packs - think of packets of pudding.  It would be the other Races, especially Yazirians, that would have a problem with survival food.  It's pretty tough to fit a live wild boar in a survival pack!

In terms of the CSI stuff, the AD book says that Dralasites do indeed have "fingerprints" - it's in the section on ID cards.

Thoughts on how does a dralasite's voice sound:

The AD rules state that, “Dralasites have a voice box, but it works like a bellows because they have no lungs. A Dralasite's voice can vary from a soft whisper to a thundering roar and from a bass rumble to a piercing screech. Among themselves, they also use shapes, odors and touch to communicate." I was remembering the soft whisper to thundering roar part but had forgotten the voice box part. I noticed it when I checked on the fingerprint details to reply to Inigo. This implies to me now that there is a mouth (not for eating) on the body. Somewhere there is an opening into the voice box and the dral will pull air in by expanding it then push it out by compressing it. Where is this opening, and what does it look like? Drawings never detail this.

@Imperial: I once road a bus in the Philippines where a passenger (and the driver helping) stuffed a pig into the underside luggage compartment.  It kicked and squealed all the way down the bumpy dirt roads.  Why says you can't fit a wild boar in a survival pack?  Just get a bigger pack!

-iggy

Thanks iggy for your input. Now that you mention it, I vaguely recall the vein patterns mentioned as finger prints. Though, it doesn’t sound to me like they would form physical ridges on the epidermis. But even so, you have a great point about printing the entire dral.

I know the eyespots can be used as retinal scans. But I doubt a face recognition program would work as well because its lack of detail or close up view. For instance, if you are scanning space port security footage of beings disembarking from a shuttle, you wouldn’t necessarily have a good enough image of the eyespots themselves. And facial recognition programs will work in spite of dark tinted sunglasses, which would totally protect the identity of a dral.

Another good point on smells; which leads me to another question. What sort of decay rate would there be for dral spores? And with the exception of the effect of a ventilation system, what sort of dispersal radius would be reasonable?

As far as speech goes, I always felt that since Dralasites didn’t have lungs, that they would speak  more slowly. Or rather, there would be longer pauses between “breaths”. I imagined that they would speak in fragments…maybe a little like Captain Kirk, Or an asthmatic without the wheezing.

   In respect to how the Dralasites were used, through the various gaming groups with which I've participated, This is the collection of data acumulated, and condensed (somewhat), from field research, and do not (entirely) reflect the opinions, presumtions, or biasis of the author.
(Though mostly, it is working and play-tested information. Rule details may be avaliable where applicable, and have been ommited for the sake of berevity.)

unecessary. They can however learn to manipulate sounds to communicate, and many Skoa have adopted an almost pure noise form of communication, to maintain compatabiity with the other races. They generally accept this without any feelings of resentment, they did after all, come to the frontier expecting to meet aliens, and they were not disapointed.
    The entire body of the Dral acts as a resonance chamber, between the sub-surface nerves, 'Eye' clusters, and other internal sensory organelles, they hear the sounds around them fairly normaly, with a range that makes distant low-freq and near-by high-freq easier to pick out. However 'noise' is not a primary factor in communication, shape, movement, odor, luminosity, and distance, and even touch, are more important than sound and color.
They do understand the 'concept' and use 'speach' in a supplemental manner, and can even enjoy music. Dralasite fine arts compareable to poetry and music are conducted through concepts of 'volume', 'trajectory', 'luminosity', 'movment', 'shape', and 'time' as primary mediums. Paintings are more like 'sculptures' in 'light' and 'odor' within a 'volume'. put all the elements in 'motion' and it becomes 'music'. They simply have a different way of interacting with the universe.

Q: Do drals go #2?
A: They secrete waste and toxins, the amount is dependent apon acumulation over time, physical activity, and general health. Typically a healthy Dralasite under moderate physical stress, with no ailments or buds, requires one or two thirty-minute 'soaks' in a day for hygienic purposes. This waste 'soup' is frequently fed into a household garden, to produce food.

Q: Can drals "shut off" parts of their breathing skin when swimming and only use the part of their skin that is exposed to air?
A: 'Breathing' is handled via the skin in a manner that does not allow for control, however it takes consedrably tainted environs to the multi-layered membranes that filter for toxins and are quite effecint at adapting to moderate changes in ambient chemicals. Dralasites should be considered fresh-water
amphibious, severe alergic reactions to liguid saline, chlorine, and vinegar are common (just to name a few). However some 'sub-racial' traits have been noted that shift prefered environments such as sulphuric, salt, and desert conditions. These are considered 'minorities' and typically form their own Skoa in those preferential regions.

Q: Is the dralasite muscle structure reconfigurable and made of millions of smaller parts?
A: Effectivly and in short answer, yes.
They are not made up of 'muscles' and  they are not themselves quite a 'mollusk ' but close.
The simi-dense fluid within the main (only) body cavity is capable of moving the skin in a 'hydraulic' fassion, aided by manipulations of the denser protective multi-layerd membranes themsleves, the locomotion is a bit like a mollusk, and a little like a jelly, and quite similar to an advanced amoeba, and barely comparable to anything known on earth.

Q: Fingerprints, identifiable DNA, nearly impossible to find and compare familial DNA wouldn’t it?
A: Yes, but with the number of 'fingers' a dral can bring into play, it is about pointless without a full body scan and a considerable ammout of statistical processing logistics (aka.. coffee).
 not fun, hardly quick, and dificult to be sure, taking the whole concept back to the late 1900's in it's potential.
    DNA is identifiable, and Dralasites are given identites and keep records like most other species, for all the usual reasons.
    Eye spots are a pattern of nerve bundles, the sub-surface within the membrane retains it's pattern of nerves over the entire body, fingerprinting for locks are keyed to these, not the skin ridges.

Q: Restricted diet, but what does that do for emergency rations in survival kits? 
A: Other than allergies to abundances of certain chemicals (noted under breathing) and a preference to soft-foods. (Including many plants and animals, they have brought many such necesities from home, like everyone else.) They can eat foods from other environments, and are capable of placing a sandwich or whole cucumber into a rescinded pocket for storage and long term consumption.
  Embedded in the membrane are many millions of specialized organelies capable of producing and breaking down proteins, sugars, starches, minerals, etc.. The 'soup' and 'soft food pudding' is slowly made in the pocket, multiple pockets, multiple mouths, and there is some control over 'activating' this process, but certain foods are dificult to 'resist' and softs, soups, puddings, jellies, that are wasily broken down are very dificult to keep held in place for long durations. Weapons, metals, plastics, and things with high traces of allerges, and it's more like forcing a swallow of nasty food. Like a full 2lb t-bone, it may take a few days (and stink before it's done), but a can of coke will turn it into an all liquid soup.
   Which is why they don't usually eat tough meats, no one really wants to sit next to a walking, mushy, three foot sweaty blob, reeking of decomposing rotten meat swiming in pockets of puss, it's just a little nauseating.
   A good survival pack would have a food processer, most average ones, a good knife.
If necessary and no one minds the smell, they can survive on the same range of foods, and a few others couldn't. (note, the smell does not bother other Dral the same, being more acoustomed, and biologicaly inclined, to just laying down on an animals corpse for a couple days.)

    An often undisscused fact of Dralisite physiology is that repeticious hebetated stumlations to subcutaneous membranes facillitates the first and second sporophyte phase, softening layers for use as fecundation chambers, and reinforces communal bonding.
    Dralisite genetics is based on the "folded chain" rather than the "double heilix" and it has become a shock to their philosophers, that so many other organisims in the universe prefer what their science sees as the "dual infinite" spiral.

Don't put your psudopods and filaments in your mouths:
   Pseudopods and filaments are; extended, dilated, receded, and inverted. The total time taken, being a ratio to the difference in change, modified by the reflexive alacrity of the membrane.

The pseudopods and filaments that may be extended, and rescinded may not total in volume greater than half the volume of the total rest-state (ball) volume.

The number of 'active' pseudopods and filaments that may be extended, and rescinded may not total more than neurological, and reflexive, dexterity can maintain, at an exponitial curve of acumilative stress. Acumulative stress over moderate maintanince reduces neurological and reflexive alacrity, along an exponital curve.

You got alot of nerve!:

The widly scattered optical nerve bundles are incabable of distinguishing colors on a fine spectrum but detect a broader spectrum of light intensity, and are more suited to distinguishing shape, movment, and luminecence.

I saw an entire three or four column precalculated chart, that took into account, how many, how fast, and how long, based on reflexive, physical mental, stats. And thus you could technically extend/inverse as many as you want within volume limits of the body, but only have so many 'active' at one time. eleminating such questions of how do you make 'quick changes' during 'survival conditions' that no doubt, would have been nessecary during whatever you would call a Neander-dral, periods of development, let alone during modern survival conditions.
I do not ascribe to the 'they never had heard of warfare before they came to the frontier' philosophy, I think it would have happend, perhaps less often than other three, but never-the-less.... amoeba, mollusks, and jellyfish... even mushrooms.... they may 'look' like pacifists but it's just an illusion, vile murderous bastards every one!

Besides the one time I was able to gain a majority vote to use such provisions, we gaind a few very nice 'appearence trait' uses that the Drals could incorporate into the mixed crew, and be distinguished from each other. One rolled around with a couple arms and many 'celia' another adopted a head of hair above a single eye-stalk/head and a second eye-stalk with manipulators.... it was still unsetteling and comical, but solved the "that grey-blob? no that one! get him on the repairs, the other is a medic." problems.
We also assumed the lump of relaxed flesh, or nutrient bath-bed, was the 'default' sleep pattern... so no more '25minuite to wake up, before you can even get into breaking camp' issues either... (ever try to repack a tent with one arm and half a leg while trying to grow a couple fingers?
...... ain't gonna happen!)

Anyone have a better way to handle that rather excesive 5min?
I had a rule somewhere here that gave Reflex bonuses to reduce (or lengthen) the time down to one minuite (as much as 10). And a better ability to manipulate the number of appendages, which assumed the addition of psedopods, filaments/fingers , and 'inverted' appendages used for carrying food (and other items), eating, and speaking, were counted in the total number.
And calculations for body volume being the size limitation. I liked that version, alot better.

Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".
~ anymoose, somewhere on the net...

so...
if you square a square it becomes a cube...
if you square a cube does it become an octoid?

The Dralasite Experience - Psyche of Communication and Sensory Perception

   I was 'getting caught listening' to book radio, and heard something that could simplify part of the Dralasite oddities in the ways people might find more intuitive.

   I am surprised I hadn't made this correlation before, but dogs are nearly-color blind, have a heightened awareness of movement, sounds, and odors , and are limited in emitted vocal representations.
   If you can imagine being in those situations like that, as a species, and how a culture working within those limitations achieves a high-tech society, you might have a significant insight to the Dralasite Experience where it relates to communication and dependent art forms.

   Another item that was mentioned that might be useful to consider, is the way that cold and cool -blooded social type animals, tend to keep one another warm by smothering one another.
The example given was chickens, which being birds are not cold-blooded, are related to reptiles, and have similarities of endothermic processes.
   This would also explain the desire common to Dralasites in being /very/ social, being single-cavity, dispersed-organ, non-vascular, would have some body-temperature issues, and they likely wouldn't prefer arctic or even temperate climes, without the benefits of communal sleeping arrangements, or at least heated sleeping-pools. They also wouldn't likely be preferential of deserts, as the nights are often incredibly cold, days incredibly dry, and the Dralasite structure suggests a vital need to keep hydrated.
   I have given the species sub-race divisions in my own campains, one are tolerent of deaserts, another tolerent of salt-water environs, and the bulk prefering damp sub-tropic, freshwater saturated, regions, and most of all the varients appreciate active thermal vents.

Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".
~ anymoose, somewhere on the net...

so...
if you square a square it becomes a cube...
if you square a cube does it become an octoid?