Profile: Pluddles

.::This is a Beastiary Entry Deviation!::.

Name: Pluddles
Alt Name(s): Vitae, Squodgemogs, Gellys, Dollops, Wibblewubs
Category: Random [link]
Affinity: Water, Multi-Element
Tags: Invertibrate, Evolving, Infectious, Aesexual, Ageless, Shapeshifter, Cuteness

Blobbly and jolly-spirited, these clumps of sentient liquid were once a common sight gambolling across the fields and cuddling random folk. (Sometimes to death, but meh who's counting?) As humans started to take up arms against magical creatures, the Pluddles organized themselves and faded into the night, becoming a secret mafialike society ruled by warring families.. in that most vicious of wars.. a war to SECRETLY MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY AND SAVE THE WORLD.
They come in many colours, sizes and powers, and there are even the rare few that might be evil, or at least wandering around not knowing that their species has an underground conspiracy to improve public healthcare. Pictured is a daddy pluddle (tar type) with his darling daughter (default type).
Oh and their real name is the Vitae, but they've adopted a cuter moniker much like we humans call ourselves people more often than not.

Category Spread: Nearly worldwide, different evolutionary forms more common in different areas and they're most populous near water.
Connection Status: Three noble families (Freedom, Kindness and Luck), one neutral middle class family (Wealth) that works for whichever of the main three has the best offer. The lower class is made of everyone else (wild animalistic pluddles, ones integrated with other societies, so on), and they don't know the upper classes exist. If anyone discovers the uncriminal underworld they have to be either sworn into a family or offed.
Population: Fluctuates rapidly due to gang wars. Approximately 1 million non-affiliated pluddles, each family averages a couple hundred thousand members at any one time.
Races/Divisions: Freedom, Kindness, Luck, Wealth
Sexes/Genders: All pluddles are aesexual, but maintain male female gender identities due to appropriation of human culture.
Lifespan Range: Ageless
_{This means they never die of old age, but can die of other causes such as illness or murder.}
Most Popular Religion(s): Luck (27%), Freedom (23%), Kindness (22%), Wealth (18%)
Notable Members: Arman Q. Issles, Bertrinda "Snugglebug" Goggs, Jow Poring & Fred Holmes (dons of the four families)

.:: Biology ::.
Pluddles are composed of a viscous liquid somewhat like mollasses, except not sticky. If looked at under a microscope, it's swimming with living cells yet seems impossible to be one sentient organism without magic involved- this species is almost entirely supernatural. All of their major organs are magical and invisible to the naked eye, but if examined under mystical apparatus you can see their many anthropomorphized organs with their lil faces and happy smiles. (They even make and wear top hats.) Despite the rampant weirdness, pluddle scientists have discovered that almost all of their parts correspond to those of a single-celled organism- its possible that the species evolved from ancient cell magicians that uplifted themselves. (Pluddle recorded history stops around the dinosaur age so its unknown how long they've been around.)
Around this soup of goopy liquid and incorporeal organs is a semi-corporeal membrane holding it all together. Its because of this that Pluddles can travel about without constantly absorbing dirt into themselves or leaving wet trails of body behind them. In fact a pluddle can be cuddled and squished without even leaving your hands damp! (though they are moderately cold to the touch) This membrane is semi-corporeal as they can phase it out of existance in small areas temporarily for conveinience- to stick something inside themselves for storage for example. It can also be damaged, though it'll take extreme punishment to actually pop a pluddle open. Their liquid falling out of the membrane causes pain much like bleeding and may be life-threatening, though they can be completely emptied and won't die unless their liquid is contaminated. (This is likely in most circumstances where just the dirt from the floor and bacteria in the air is enough to kill a pluddle. However theoretically they could survive with no longterm health effects if they popped open in a sterile environment and were ladled back into their membrane by doctors.)
Pluddles have flexible control over their entire body and can squish into any shape and vary their consistancy from waterlike to solid armor. The syrupy state is just the easiest to move around in. (Pluddle walking is done via a process called pseudopodding. Basically it just means poking out a lump of themselves, then dragging the rest of them over to that spot. Its illustrated on the pic. Watery = too loose and fast to control themself, commonly end up sliding further than they wanted. Solid = super slow and stiff, is more difficult to even pull off a pseudopod.) With practise a pluddle can even shapeshift into other creatures. However they can never change colours so they'd still be a giant goopy silhouette of a human or whatever. Because of this there's a clothing market for latex person and animal suits to go incognito.
Mating is strange for this species. They're aesexual and reproduce by budding, but the process can't be activated at will. Instead a baby is 'conceived' when the pluddle feels a large amount of some emotion over a long period of time. Its usually romantic love but about a third of the population have a condition where their budding is activated by some other emotion- like friendship or even rage. Life is tough for those who get a really common emotion as they have to stay controlled to keep from multiplying like nuts. Anyway, once the budding process is activated the mama/papa pluddle will grow an egg inside them and eventually vomit it up when its done. Babies are not clones, but instead diverse new beings- pluddles somehow take the mental patterns of the parent at the time of conception and translate it into DNA characteristics.
A little known fact is that pluddles can actually transfer eggs to have a surrogate bear their baby, by literally pulling it out and handing it to someone else to eat. It can only be pulled off before six months of pregnancy (it lasts 18 months in total). This can actually be easily done by accident if the parent is unaware that they're preggers and for example kiss someone. (or via another romantic fluid oriface if they're disguised as a human..) So on rare occasions a non-pluddle might get implanted with a pluddle baby- in this case the pregnancy takes as long as is normal for the species and the baby comes out as a member of that species. Then within a few months both mother and baby turn into pluddles. So its a rather obscure way that the species could mass-infect folk like vampires if they ever wanted to try.
And finally, pluddles evolve! (dun dun dun! Saved the best for last.) And I mean evolve as in the pokemon version of the word. They can sponteanously change form based on their diet- changing composition into a blend of pluddle-goop and that substance. Each form comes with new powers. (as by default they have no powers besides being pluddley) For example the tar form gains stickiness and ease of movement in a solidified form, to become the physical powerhouse of the pluddle world! They also command poison smog they can control to their every whim. (even if that whim is just hovering a cloud over their head when they feel depressed..) It takes a large amount of one substance to transform into a new evolution and pluddles cannot dual-type, they're always whatever form they've eaten most of throughout their life. Thus babies might change form frequently and it gets much harder for adults. Oh, and pluddles can eat absolutely anything so there's far too many possibilities to list!
In addition the mafioso family heads pass along magic that allows them to force change all members into one colour for easy identification of friend and foe. The colour-wash affects different evolutions to different degrees- for example this tar form would just get dots of colour floating amoungst it, while a furball form would completely change colour and also gain different markings. For evolutions that are naturally one of the family colours, they instead have to wear a badge to say they've joined

.:: Culture ::.
As mentioned, pluddles are naturally more cheerful and caring than most creatures. However this doesn't mean they're easygoing or necessarily have better morals than anyone! Their three factions each represent a different idea of how to improve the world, and they war amoungst each other to prove which is right. And regional branches of the same faction war amoungst each other. Pluddle secret agents are at work undercover in human government- as we have the most power to affect global change. (as shown by the fact we were able to drive magical creatures into hiding) Meanwhile the leaders of the families are busy being stuck up angsty violent pricks with an ego too big to ever think of teaming up or even the concept of 'helping people is more important than arguing over how to do it' let alone 'ask the people what they want'. Proof that good intentions can breed bad results... nonetheless every now and then someone manages to pass a minor law, even if its just a law to negate a law from another family that they disagreed with
At least its maybe a good thing that the shadowy eldritch abomination species secretly planting its hooks in governments worldwide without detection is totally incompetant.
Pluddles generally live mixed in amoungst other species or hiding out alone somewhere. However they do have small villages run by the mafia families to house their members, and in the spirit of caring each will allow non affiliated pluddles to live there too. (Though restrict them from any opportunity to learn family secrets and sell them to the enemy) Pluddle villages are built underground, mostly underneath/next to sources of liquid. (rivers, bogs, volcanos, coca cola bottling plants..) Because of this they often have territorial disputes with the jorogumo species which also favors underground ravines and etc. These disputes usually consist of showering the jorogumo with gifts until they either agree to leave or get so pissed off with the constant fruit baskets that they go to war. (Its pluddle politeness never to attack first, even if you ultimately intend to kill the 'foreign bastards' and take their home.)
Moving on, the different families are as follows;
Kindness: The oldest family, and the one that claims to follow the traditional ORIGINAL pluddle philosophy. Their recruitment is all about the 'good old days' while their opponants retort that they're stuck in the past rigidly following a set of rules instead of deciding what's right by themselves. The Kindness philosophy is simply 'be nice to and give stuff to other people'. The problem with this is you only have a fixed amount of stuff to give to people, sometimes just giving stuff doesn't fix the underlying problem and ultimately if this problem never gets fixed you're gonna fritter away all your funds. Basically this group would see a rape victim and say 'give them counselling and free money and loads of gifts so they feel better', while neglecting to try and prevent rape or even considering punishing the perpetrator to be unneccesary in comparison. The major things on the discussion table for the Kindness group are who to give stuff to and how many people they can give stuff to at once while still keeping enough funds to support themselves. Their colour is purple and their leader is Bertrinda "Snugglebug" Goggs.
Freedom: This family believes freedom is happiness, and if given freedom everyone would choose to be kind. So they focus on granting freedom to people rather than assisting them, which would just make them dependant. They preach that pursuit of freedom has been a common goal of humans throughout history, while opponants criticize that they've misinterpreted what 'freedom' meant there and being free to theoretically do whatever you want makes no difference if you don't have food, water and safety guaranteed. If they were to see a rape happen they would ignore the victim's recovery and focus on the sociological reasons the incident might have happened, using the victim's suffering merely as an example- "can we fix things so that a person in that situation wouldn't feel raping is a good idea? After all being raped can stigmatise the victim and limit their role in society." they say as they also argue imprisoning the perpetrator is wrong as its not their fault society made them do it. The major things on the discussion table for the Freedom group are what the major limitations in society are and how they can remove them without having to restrict other things in the process. Their colour is red and their leader is Arman Q. Issles.
Luck: This group is the newest and gets criticized as being just a fad (only around for four centuries! A flash in the pan!) while they argue back that their philosophy best represents the current needs of the world, and a compromise between the other two families. The Luck group's philosophy is to give opportunities for greatness, as true happiness can only be found by yourself. Its somewhat experimental as their actions include things like assisting a carefully chosen candidate into office and hoping they'll improve everything else from there, or giving a random person magical powers and seeing what they do with them. This family has cooked up a bit of a storm as they've made a comparatively huge amount of progress in the short time they've been around, and this 'progress' has consisted of some catestrophic failures as well as amazing successes. It truly all relies on luck here. If they decided to do something involving that person who got raped they might give them a gun and the opportunity to take revenge, or take someone hostage and steal money to make their life better, or even kill themselves. The major things on the discussion table for the Luck group are WTF to do next and how to minimize the chances it'll not go as they expect. Their colour is green and their leader is Jow Poring.
Wealth: This group believes an organized family is a great way to grab a load of money and live in the lap of luxury. They commit acts of both good and evil depending on the payoff and frequently sell their services to both the pluddle factions and foreign species. And sell the pluddle factions' secrets to foreign species. And even recruit members that aren't pluddles, and openly reveal themselves to humans. Amoungst this family almost everyone is trained in combat, stealth and thievery and they're pretty much the best at what they do, so the other families still keep hiring them even though they backstab them three times out of five and generally pose the biggest threat to their efforts. (other than each other of course) Its rumoured that human organized crime was inspired by these guys. If they saw the hypothetical rape they're recruit the rapist to rape people that didn't pay their protection money, and train the victim into the perfect assassin under the pretext that they'd help them find their assailant to take revenge. Or instead they might just club both of em over the head with a billy club and take their wallets. Their colour is gold and their leader is Fred Holmes.

.:: In Mythology/Human Relations ::.
Pluddles have done a good job remaining hidden and just show up as a common facet of popular culture that noone's ever majorly considered real or important. There are relatively few pluddle-like creatures in mythology yet the 'slime' has become a common low level videogame enemy- a weak stupid flimsy tiny thing that noone would ever worry about. The perfect smokescreen for their real activities!