Akata

An akata is a hairless, blue-skinned quadruped with fearsome jaws, glowing eyes, a pair of thin tails, and a mane of writhing tentacles. It is a strangely silent beast, as it lacks the lungs and vocal chords necessary to vocalize. It also lacks ears, but it has heightened visual and olfactory senses.

When food is scarce, an akata secretes a resin from its pores that forms into a sturdy cocoon of pale green crystal—the skymetal noqual. An akata can hibernate in this cocoon without needing to eat or drink for centuries, though it retains a rudimentary sense of its surroundings and can break out in only a few minutes’ time. These cocoons allow the creatures to travel through the void of space, seeking new worlds where they can infect suitable humanoid hosts with their larval young. Once a victim succumbs to this infection, the offspring fight among themselves until one proves the strongest. The surviving akata then animates the corpse—now a

—which shambles about of its own accord.