Species Showcase #3: The Tol

The Tol are an amphibious species, rising from the swamps and lakes of Basar, the seventh world of a red giant star. They have two arms, two legs, clawed feet and webbed hands, and a short tail with a rather unusual organ that allowed them to sense and discharge electricity. As they began life as herbivores and pray animals, the ability to deliver a paralyzing shock to anything that got too close was very useful.

As they developed sentience, towns and cities began springing up next to the swamps, lakes, and rivers. With the development of plumbing and watertight tubs, Tol civilizations were able to expand farther, though most Tol are uncomfortable in dry climates.

During their middle ages, two civilization, each backed by a powerful religion, were able to seize control of nearly the whole of Basar. The Temple of the Oracles, on one side, was obsessed with prophecies handed down by a chosen group of "Oracles", who bathed in a neurotoxin that short circuited their nervous systems, making them ill and delirious, but giving them an odd insight and instinctual understanding of patterns, allowing them to often make startlingly accurate predictions. The Contemplation of the Depths, on the other, was essentially an organization of scholars who followed around "Great mediators", wise elders whose every statement or action was taken as profound. The species was united in a renaissance and a golden age when the two religions were reconciled, becoming two halves of the same temple, and in the same bold move seizing control of the government.

At their technological and cultural height, the Prophet of the heavens, who had the now relatively unimportant role of predicting the movements of the stars and other celestial bodies, came forth with a prophecy that threw her world into turmoil. She predicted that their sun would explode in a supernova that would "devour our world, and eat our neighbors among the stars." She'd predicted the end of the world.