Slys-ayr

There has always been an arms race — ever since one cave man decided he needed a bigger club than his neighbor, the peoples of Earth (and now New Earth) have been fighting over the honor of being the best fighters. The Slys-ayr are a product of this arms race, originating from before the Event in the ancient quest of nations to build a better soldier. In what would soon accidentally become the savior of the human species, every major force on the planet attempted to create some variant of "super soldier." These efforts to craft the best warrior met with varying degrees of success… from the barbaric, sometimes-animalistic Churl to the disciplined-yet-unpredictable High-bred. These were not the only results of the arms race, however — only the most wide-spread and stable of them. Nations as varied as Norway, Russia, and Greece all tried their hands at individually engineering the best war-fighter in the world, using all manner of tactics and techniques; Brazil created the Slys-ayr.

Notes from Nazi experiments conducted after the Second World War in the expatriate enclaves of Brazil and Argentina slowly filtered into the hands of both governments — only to be refined and perfected as technology reached heights the Third Reich had only dreamed of. The use of genetic splicing and DNA research had already advanced to the dangerous point of creating biological chimeras and giving birth to extinct species when the research into creating a more perfect human was entered practical trials. Taking genetic material from various arachnid species, the intent was to craft something akin to a comic book super hero; what the South American researchers got was something from a B-movie creature feature. Born to be a jungle combatant, mostly in answer to Argentinean encroachment and Columbian raids, the Slys-ayr were perfect for the verdant environment.

It was not until long after the Event, however, that this race of specially-engineered terrors were finally birthed from the coccoon-like stasis pods in which they had been held. Legend has it that a foolish tribe of pygmy Churl from deep within the Amazon stumbled upon the strangely-unearthed pods and unknowingly unleashed the first of the Slys-ayr into the light. The monstrous creations are human in build and general size, though slender and wiry, but that is where most similarities end. They stand between one-and-a-half and nearly two meters, weighing in at a slight 45 to 70 kilos — most of it consisting of a semi-hard carapace covered in short, chitinous bristles. Slys-ayr also possess both six arms with three-fingered claws and a pair of legs that end in two-toed talons. The facial features of the Slys-ayr are hideous parodies of humanity, comprising a pair of poison dripping pincers erupting from the sides of a fang filled mouth.

Deceptively strong and dizzyingly agile, the Slys-ayr have the capability to spin webbing to craft complex traps and designs. The poison that they can inject from their mandibles is a neurotoxin, causing paralysis and even painful death. All the skills and traits the Slys-ayr inherited from their arachnoid experimentation make them effective ambush warriors and jungle fighters… yet their origins also make them complete sociopathic monsters with no regard for humans except as easy prey.

The Slys-ayr are deadly, using all six limbs in concert during hand to hand fighting. The ergonomics of their hands are not designed to hold firearms or use the more primitive ranged weapons such as bows, and likewise their lips cannot form a seal to use the blow guns favored by the deep jungle Churl of the Amazon, but this lack of manual dexterity is compensated for by the crude hand-to-hand weapons they do employ. Flint-headed spears, long bone knives, and sometimes even metal machetes are used when they can be obtained; lacking those, these genetic monsters can even craft functional blades from their own powerful webbing. As they combine these martial skills with their ambidexterity, fighting a single Slys-ayr is like battling several foes at once.

The Slys-ayr produce their webs from glands within their uppermost arms, extruding the strands from orifices within the palms of the appendages. Through teamwork and skill, they can use this webbing to create blinds, traps, and snares. Their handiwork has the tensile strength of a strand of steel twice its thickness and can alternate from cable-like resilience to fine sticky strands that would rend flesh off the bones of anyone trying to break its hold on them. The skill of the web weavers and the strength of the webbing allow the creatures to actually "forge" weapons from the webbing. These blades and bludgeons are as fatal and sharp as any forged of steel, yet lighter and more durable in the humid environs.

One third of the Slys-ayr are born with flexible, veined membranes that spread between their multiple limbs and the thorax, allowing these "elite" creatures to glide and maneuver in the air. With their tree-dwelling habits, the gliders are the strong first defense of any Slys-ayr community. They can deploy quickly to engage a foe while the "grounded" members follow behind to reinforce their strike. The gliding wings also allow for tree-dodging agility that is often utilized to take the unwary by surprise.

As the Slys-ayr are primitive, using only natural weapons, they are very conscious of the technological advantages that their enemy may possess over them. They use their ability to shape the environment to prepare accordingly, removing the tactical advantage of firearms and enhancing their own strengths in hand-to-hand combat. Like arachnids, the terrors can move about their own webbing without becoming ensnared — so a favorite tactic is to design a web across a road or known path near the twilight or early-dawn hours to catch unwary travelers. They also use their webbing to make elaborate mazes in the jungle, herding prey into a chosen killing ground. Once trapped, the prey easily falls victim to the attacking Slys-ayr.

Slys-ayr are not normally social creatures, though they can coordinate and move in groups of two to two-hundred and even sometimes form loose-nit communities. Typically they live in the leafy tops of jungle growth, where they can find safety to weave their nests into the surrounding vegetation; this creates honeycombed structures linking tree to tree when several form a band. These "bowers" can be very complex, yet they always remain well-concealed due to the natural surroundings used in their construction; even the great cables and intricate webs that connect separate platforms are hard to distinguish from the surrounding vines and branches.

When Slys-ayr do form bands the leaders are invariable female, as they are larger and more aggressive than the males of the species. The only way to distinguish females from the males, beyond this size distinction, is a greater flare to the female's hips; this is just a vestigial trait from their human ancestry, however, no longer serving its purpose in aiding child birth. Reproduction among the arachnid monstrosities, after all, is nothing remotely like that of humanity or even most humanoids. It is instead a thing of horror, involving the impregnation of a host with a parasitic egg, and any afflicted with it would be best served by a swift death. A female will implant as many eggs as there are hosts available, with a male following behind to complete fertilization. The living host is then held suspended in a web cocoon as the larva grows and feeds… eventually emerging from the host as a miniature version of its parent. Young Slys-ayr are fully capable of fending for themselves as they grow to full maturity, a process that only requires two short years.

The Slys-ayr are natural predators, with few enemies save the other sentient humanoids of their home. The only creature that they seem to actually fear are Klik, however, as their armored mechanical bodies are immune to all but the most punishing of physical damage that the Slys-ayr can cause. The Klik likewise do not have the human revulsion or fear of the spider-creatures and possess high-powered saw-blade attachments that render all webbing — no matter how strong — a minor problem. Even the logic engines that serve as Klik brains create problems for the engineered spider-people, failing to become disoriented by the maze structures of the Slys-ayr. Many other races that operate within the jungles try to form alliances with Klik for that very reason.

The silk webbing that the Slys-ayr produce would have numerous practical uses, from obvious cable and rope manufacture, through the weaving of malleable armor from the strands, to the distillation of super adhesives. Of course, no one has thought of a way to reliably harvest the substance at the present time.

The Slys-ayr are deadly and cunning, vicious and merciless. Devoid of the humanity from which they were created, they live only to devour, destroy, and feed. Far worse, however, is the fact that they are spreading…