Fonqugon

• Enjoy learning a wide variety of skills and subjects.
• Think long and carefully before doing anything.
• Obsess over how your actions impact others around you.

• Have difficulty keeping up with your lines of thinking.
• Think you lack feelings.
• Assume you're weaker or frailer than you are.

Fonqugons have oozy bodies that shimmer like bubbles and contain multiple brains. They have one central brain in the main mass of their body and countless tiny subordinate brains that travel all over their corporeal form, helping them control and reshape their limbs and appendages (if they're moving around and manipulating things) or contributing additional brainpower to complex calculations and other deep thinking. A fonqugon deep in thought might appear like a shapeless mass with no limbs at all, while one in a hurry might (very briefly) have many long arms and legs as they rush from one place to another. Fonqugons rely on their tough, malleable bodies and extraordinary brainpower to survive.

Fonqugons have two eyes and a mouthlike orifice they use for speech and eating, though these “facial features” are only sometimes present. They can “hear” despite having no true “ears” thanks to their oozy bodies' ability to process sound waves directly into their brains. They feel and smell in much the same way, with any given part of their body acting as a sort of mass “sensory organ” should they so choose. Some fonqugons develop extraordinary control over specific senses by dedicating extra brainpower to them.

While many oozes lack true anatomies, fonqugons are more complex. Because their bodies host multiple brains, they do have vital systems and even fluids that can be critically injured or “bleed out” when they're wounded. They must sleep, eat, and breathe like most other creatures, though they lack true “lungs” and “stomachs.”

Fonqugons are most commonly some shade of purple, green, or brown but can be nearly any color.

Rodnarth, the fonqugon home world, is a planet of vast oceans, rocky archipelagos, and massive, swampy continents. Fonqugon settlements are mostly concentrated on the largest continents, in freshwater swamps far from the oceans, as those environments are where fonqon trees are most likely to survive the planet's treacherous and unpredictable weather. Fonqugon society once ceded ultimate authority to a caste of magic wielders called Tenders, who were solely responsible for preserving fonqon trees and thus were entrusted with every major decision in each settlement.

Fonqugon society forever changed when a glistening comet passed near Rodnarth, shedding potent magic crystals onto the planet. These “szandite crystals” allowed fonqugons to communicate with other species on other worlds in Near Space merely by touching the crystals and sharing mental images and messages—furthermore, the crystals stored records of all messages that had been passed through them. Like the other worlds that would become part of the Szandite Collective, Rodnarth experienced a renaissance as fonqugons suddenly had access to the shared knowledge and expertise of many billions of beings on several planets.

Armed with new scientific and mathematical concepts— and the ability to pose questions to the extremely capable problem-solving body of the Szandite Collective—fonqugons expanded their knowledge of Rodnarth's ecosystems and the complex mathematics that governed its weather. Over time, they relied less on Tenders' spells and auguries to keep their civilization alive. Tenders maintain a respected place in society even in modern times, but the decisions that they would've been responsible for making in the past are now largely democratically handled. Most fonqugons study some combination of mathematics and science, especially environmental and social science, so they tend to trust one another to make good decisions about their society. Any sufficiently large group of fonqugons (“sufficiently large” being rigidly defined and determined by complex calculations) can vote on matters affecting “appropriate populations” (also objectively defined). There's no central fonqugon authority. Fonqugons found to have made an official decision that wasn't properly calculated are temporarily barred from participating in decisions of certain magnitudes, but fonqugon society has otherwise largely moved past the need for a centralized justice system.

Fonqugons names typically contain short vowel sounds and plosives. Traditionally, their given names never contain the /f/ sound used in the name of their species and the sacred fonqon trees. Most fonqugons have a short given name followed by a longer name representing the tree that birthed them. All such “tree names” begin with “Fonqon” and end in one or two additional syllables, for example, “Fonqonru” and “Fonqonlasi.”

Fonqugons believe most questions have a single most logical and correct answer, but the belief that fonqugons are highly rational beings who act without emotion is a common misconception; at least one fonqugon in a group of fonqugons is likely well-versed in psychology and social sciences and can help the group factor emotional well-being into its decisions. Fonqugons who are on their own or part of a group of mostly non-fonqugons can struggle to adapt to the different expectations regarding self, community, responsibility, and decision-making.

The most fundamental belief shared by fonqugons is that all life in the Universe—and even other planes of existence—is interconnected in unfathomably complex ways and that even small, seemingly inconsequential decisions can impact all living beings. Thus, all beings have a responsibility to share in decision-making, rather than have someone control them, and to share in decision-making, one must be well-informed. These beliefs extend to environmental and cosmic forces beyond the reckoning of most laypeople in the galaxy, and many people find it either incredibly amusing or terribly frustrating to listen to a fonqugon explain how something as simple as their choice of wedding colors is related to the life cycle of a distant star or some other seemingly unrelated topic.

Fonqugons are generally not superstitious, but they tend to view rocky terrain or dry environments as bad luck since it's impossible for fonqon trees to grow in such regions.
Popular Edicts act in harmony with nature, preserve history and knowledge, study science and mathematics
Popular Anathema be willfully ignorant, destroy nature or knowledge, hoard resources or information

Bep, Bug, Dob, Kit, Pat, Poppi, Tubb, Yetti, Zorb

6

Small

Climb 5 feet

Constitution, Intelligence, Free

Charisma

Additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if it's positive). Choose from the list of common languages and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent on your home world).

You can see in dim light as though it were bright light, so you ignore the concealed condition due to dim light.

You're an ooze! You can Climb surfaces without needing to attempt an Athletics check even if they're perfectly smooth or horizontal, such as a metal ceiling, though the GM might still require you to attempt a check to Climb while in hazardous conditions. Additionally, as long as your individual brains can fit through a gap, your whole body can ooze through it: you can move through a gap at least 2 feet wide without Squeezing and can Squeeze through a gap at least 1 foot wide.