Zalt Khepri

Zalt| 23| March 19| Female| Khepresh
Citizen| Orion Intergalactic Simulation Gamemaster

In front of most people, Zalt appears as moderately humanoid in appearance, though obviously not human. He r whole body is roughly six feet long from head to tail, but in her more humanoid posture she barely stands over four feet in height.
She is lithe with a form that seems rather sleek and almost serpentine, with a long whip-like tail. She has multiple insectile legs and a pair of long arms ending in clawed hands. She typically pulls up most of her legs and pushes the rear-most set together and stands more "upright", giving her the familiar humanoid appearance that she usually greets people with.

Her human-like "face" that rests between her mandibles is actually a naturally created pattern similar to the eye spots seen in Earth insects. Her mouth actually splits into three sections, with the bottom section moving as she talks to mimic normal human communication.
The bug-like "crown" that adorns her head is actually part of her head and the giant jewel-like eyes on top of it are in fact her real eyes.

When she isn't mimicking a humanoid form, she sits rather low to the ground and stretches out similar to a centipede though she raises up slightly near her head so that she can manipulate objects easily with her hands.
,br> She has no need to wear clothes, but does out of a sense of solidarity with people. Part of Zalt's standard clothing is a breast-plate of sorts, in order to signal to others that she is, in fact a female. Her voice, such as it is, has no real feminine of masculine qualities and in fact has a kind of hissing, clicking sound to it.

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Zalt is, in so many words, an enthusiast of human cultures. An "Earthaboo" as it were. She is vastly knowledgeable of various pieces of popular culture from all over Earth, but she lacks any real kind of depth with how she interacts with the cultures that created them.

She put on a bubbly, charismatic persona around most people, tip-toeing the line between the preppy cheerleader and the "geek girl." She gets easily embarrassed and tends to react in playfully violent ways, such as punching a person's shoulder.

She is a surprisingly hard worker and can be quite serious when she needs to. She has difficulty planning in the long term, but she is quite adaptable and can think on the fly well enough.

Quite self-conscious about her appearance and natural behavior, she doesn't eat or drink in front of people and will sit like a person in a chair despite the discomfort this causes her.

As a Khepresh, Zalt's physiology is more akin to an insect than a mammal. She is primarily herbivorous, preferring high sugar content foods such and fruits and processed grains. Most meats actually make her ill, and if she cannot regurgitate any ingested meat she will require hospitalization.

She can lift roughly sixty times her body weight easily (equaling out to just under six tons), but only when she is laid out in her natural body orientation. In her humanoid form, she can only lift about two times her weight (just under four hundred pounds).

Zalt can run at roughly thirty miles per hour, though again this only counts in her natural orientation. Her human form cannot walk faster than a normal, brisk pace or she risks falling over. She can also climb walls and cling to even seemingly sheer surfaces when she is in her natural orientation.

The black portions of her carapace has about the same hardness as bone, but feels moderately soft to the touch like thick leather.
The red portions of her carapace are much softer, more like alligator skin and feel softer but also more textured. She does not have blood vessels, instead having an open circulatory system. As such, if her carapace is pierced she will bleed freely and could very easily die from this.

As a defense mechanism, Zalt's mandibles are capable of injecting a highly potent neurotoxin that renders the individual paralyzed. Repeated exposure to her neurotoxin slowly inoculates one to its effects.

The Khepresh are a species with a brief history of war with human-like species. They attacked these 'ugly, primitive creatures' for intruding on their planet. The first battles were costly, but they yielded fruit. Space flight. superior technology. These creatures weren't primitive at all, it seemed. The skirmishes eventually ended and the Khepresh looked to the stars.

Over generations, the Khepresh became known as traders in the intergalactic community. They absorbed other cultures easily enough and had a penchant for fitting in almost anywhere despite their appearance to most other species. Still, this was a disadvantage that the Khepresh didn't like having. So they used their natural mimicry abilities to blend in somewhat better.

Zalt was born on a service colony sponsored by the intergalactic trade wing of Orion Intergalactic. She was educated and taught a variety of skills, but when she went to learn a trade she gravitated towards the virtual reality simulations that Orion, as well as several competitors, were developing.

Starting out as a data scraper for the simulations, she eventually showed a proclivity for adapting to player input quickly. From there it wasn't a hard choice to make her a game master. She was reassigned to the Starlight Observation Station in the year 2018 when Orion took over a simulation system formerly owned by Galactica Corporation.

Her full name, and really all of her native tongue, is unpronounceable unless you have an insectile mouth and mandibles to use.