Mecenaic

• Devise complex strategies to hide from predators or other threats.
• Operate under a rigid schedule.
• Complain about wasting precious time.

• Speculate about your rigid lifespan.
• Consider you a bit cowardly.
• Wonder at your flexible, malleable physique.

Mecenaics are tiny, mollusk-like aberrations that use a single muscular foot for locomotion, standing between one and two feet tall on average and weighing between 25 and 40 pounds. Their bodies are wrapped in two flexible, mineralized dome-like shells, with their four arms, along with a single leg, two eyestalks, and one mouthstalk emerging from the soft gap between the two plates. Most of their bodies are formed from a single, flexible muscle that allows them to wield great physical strength despite their small stature. Mecenaics tend to tattoo their shell domes with personally identifiable information, including their names, birth dates, and projected death dates, in order to make themselves easier to identify and protect their natural defenses in the event their shells are separated from their owner.
Mecenaic brains reside near the tops of their torsos, well within the protective confines of their shells. Other than this fairly fixed position, as well as the location of their foot, their anatomies are quite fluid. Individual mecenaics have been known to rearrange their arms, eyes, and mouths often, sometimes multiple times within a single day, to better meet the practical challenges they face. When sleeping, they generally pull the entirety of their bodies within their shells. It's not that they don't trust their surroundings or companions, it's just that they'd rather not be eaten.

The life of a mecenaic is divided into four distinct phases. Their first 25 years are called the formative phase, during which they develop physically but also work to expand their psychic mastery, determine what (if any) scholarly pursuits interest them, and develop other specialized skills. Formative mecenaics often pursue several apprenticeships over this early part of their lives while their material needs are handled by the greater society, in order to determine the best use of their talents.
For their second quarter-century, mecenaics are expected to pursue a career or specialization of sorts. The bulk of the Xofirthian workforce is made up of these young adult mecenaics, as is their military. Upon their 50th birthday, each mecenaic either enters governmental service, becomes a mentor to formative mecenaics, or leaves Xofirth as a sort of diplomat, student, or missionary in search of people they can help or skills they can bring back to their home world. These fully adult mecenaics manage the rigid structure of their society and work tirelessly to develop contingencies to protect against the many enormous, roving predators that dominate Xofirth.
Most importantly, the longest portion of a mecenaic's life, the final 26 years, is reserved for leisure. The leisure stage of a mecenaic's century begins with a retirement party; these events tend to be the largest, most festive social events in Xofirthian society. The retired mecenaic is, finally, free of all requirements and structures of society, and from then on, they can use their remaining time in any way they deem fit. Mecenaics tend to return to their places of birth in anticipation of their 101st birthdays so that they can spend their final days in quiet companionship with close family and friends.

Belief in the all-controlling power of time, and study of the way their mortality is so rigidly affected by it, dominates the spiritual lives of mecenaics. Being a largely intellectual people, these studies have taken them in many different directions and led their spiritual types to answers in many different churches. Pharasma, Talavet, and Yaraesa are among the most popular deities in mecenaic society, but religious worship is one of the few aspects of life on Xofirth that isn't rigidly managed by any governing body. Szandite crystals are utilized heavily as stores of ancestral knowledge. Retired mecenaics often spend long hours recording their memories and expertise into the crystals, embellishing them with stories of their life and words of wisdom to share with the rest of their people. While not strictly a religious activity, making or listening to these recordings is a practice treated with great reverence.

Popular Edicts protect your life, take your time
Popular Anathema run thoughtlessly into danger, spend your years waiting

Chifix, Hansha, Juchuul, Lixechu, Othax, Roxicho, Shurlirt, Thoarshix, Tsolo, Xiliojotarish

8

Tiny

Strength, Intelligence, Free

Dexterity

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 have four arms, which allows you to wield and hold up to four hands' worth of weapons and equipment. At any time, one pair of hands is designated as your active hands. You can change this designation from one pair of hands to another by taking the Switch Hands action action, which is a single action. You can wield items only with your active hands.

You can communicate mentally with creatures within 30 feet. You can communicate only with creatures that share a language with you. This doesn't give you any access to their thoughts, and it communicates no more information than normal speech would.