LORE
Mignyans are small, parasitic alien creatures with an instinctual drive to infect the species of other planets. The term "Mignyan" refers to both the parasite itself, and a host infected with a Mignyan parasite. It's unknown what their goals are beyond simply "invading," and it's yet to be seen what happens when a planet is completely overtaken by Mignyans...
All Mignyans are spawned from a "Mothercrab." There are currently two known Mothercrabs- one floating at an unknown point in space, and one embedded deep into the Earth itself. This second Mothercrab is colloquially known as "Auntcrab" among those aware of her existence. The Mignyan crab is a very simple creature anatomically, consisting of solid, non-specialized "meat" tissue and a rudimentary nervous system. Despite this, Mignyan crabs are sentient and capable of thought without being in a host body. Mignyan crabs have no mouths, and do not need to eat to survive, but a Mignyan without a host makes an easy target for wildlife. As a defense mechanism against this, Mignyan crabs taste terrible. Each Mignyan probably tastes different, but no one's been brave enough to test this.
Upon finding a host to infect, a Mignyan crab will crawl in through any available orifice and make its way to the skull. At this point, the crab will root itself into the host's nervous system, and essentially become its new "brain." This kills the original host outright, replacing their mind and personality with that of the Mignyan crab. This is also the point at which Mignyan meat overtakes parts of the body, such as the ears and tail. The crab will have access to the host's memories, and most will use these to more effectively mimic the host's mannerisms pre-infection. They will also have full instantaneous control over the host's body, although it may take some time to adjust to being in a new host.
Once situated in a host, a Mignyan is capable of hiding any visibly infected body parts and disguising themselves fully as the original host. However, this disguise cannot be maintained indefinitely. Most Mignyans are only capable of maintaining a disguise for a few hours, but this can be increased over time with training. A Mignyan placed under high amounts of stress will forcibly vacate the host, causing the head as well as any other infected body parts to explode and ejecting the Mignyan crab within. Without a head, the host body is rendered unusable, and a new host will have to be located. The amount of stress that a Mignyan can withstand before ejecting is highly subjective, and can range from serious threats such as discovery/life or death situations to everyday annoyances like being stuck in traffic.
BASICS
Mignyan meat is simple in composition, lacking any sort of muscle fiber or fat. It's generally the same color and texture throughout, but can have spots of mottling or bruising.
To be considered valid, a Mignyan needs:
- Meat somewhere on the body. The ears and tail are the most common places for meat to manifest.
However, a Mignyan is considered valid if it only has meat in one of these places- or neither, if using Meat on body [UC] or Meat on face [R].
- Teeth growing out of the meat somewhere. With the proper slot or upgrades, teeth can be substituted for the toothlike variant of Quills [UC], or for Bones [UC]. Teeth do not need to be present on every part of a Mignyan's meat, so long as they're visible somewhere. (I.E. On the ears, but not on the tail.)
- Eyes growing out of the meat somewhere. Similarly to teeth, eyes do not need to be present on every part of a Mignyan's meat.
When submitting a Mignyan design, a reference for the disguised form is not necessary, except for in special circumstances like strange placement of features (I.E. arms on head) or when specifically asked by a moderator. In most cases, submitting just the meat form as a single fullbody is perfectly acceptable.
HOSTS AND DISGUISES
Mignyans aren't picky parasites. You'll see Mignyans in all sorts of bodies; whether feral, anthro, human, kemonomimi, taurs, or anything else you can think of... They are capable of infecting just about anything, living or dead, so long as the host is at least 60% organic, has (or had) a functioning brain, and is larger than a penny (19mm). You could have a Mignyan in a cyborg host, but not a robot, or a brain in a jar. Mignyans are also incapable of infecting hosts with multiple heads/brains, or hosts with other parasites present in their body, as Mignyans are very territorial. A Mignyan will also not infect a host that would leave it visible to the outside world, such as a host with a fully transparent head.
A Mignyan's undisguised (meat) form can have radical differences from the disguised form, ranging from eye color to a completely different body shape. Mignyans can also infect hosts with multiple forms, but meat will only be able to manifest on one form.
However, regardless of which form of a host has meat, the parts with meat present on the undisguised form must also be present on the disguised form. This means that you can't have traits like Horns [UC] or Wings [R] present without the host also having horns/wings. This also applies to meat ears and tails, if present- a Mignyan with meat ears must have ears in the same position as the host did. The one notable exception to this rule involves Mignyans with Multiple tails/crabs [R]. A Mignyan with multiple crabs in one host can have more sets of ears/more tails than the host, as long as the number of ears/tails present is equal to or less than the number of crabs within the host.
In special circumstances, such as a Mignyan losing a limb post-infection, the Mignyan can regrow the damaged parts of the body using their own meat. However, something in this process makes it so that the newly grown body part will be unable to be disguised. This is untraited, and does not need to be included in MYO Approval comments unless desired.
