Shan

The Shan are the former inhabitants of the planet Shaggai, who have been scattered across the Cosmos by their homeworld's destruction.

Biology
The Shan are carbon-based organisms, similar to terrestrial life. How much they converge upon terrestrial norms at a microscopic or cellular level is unknown. What is known is that, relative to Earth, Shaggai had a significant amount of chlorine in its atmosphere and water for life to take advantage of when generating compounds. The Shan are small organisms roughly the size of a pigeon, which exhibit convergent anatomical characteristics with insects. They have a segmented body covered in armor akin to chitin plating. The frontal segment comprises the creature's cephalon, the primary feature of which is three crude, featureless orifices--two on bottom, one on top, aligned with the Shan's limb rows. These primarily act as sensory organs, being both the Shan's method for chemoreception to "taste" the air, as well as crude cup eyes that can sense light and its direction. They also act as the means to intake water when a Shan needs to hydrate. The middle segment of a Shan is the thorax, which is oblong and considerably longer than the head or rear segment, containing most of the internal organs and bearing all of the Shan's limbs. A Shan bears two rows of jointed legs in its undercarriage, numbering six pairs in total. Shan have simple pincers at the end of each limb, wreathed in prehensile tactile cilia. On a Shan's back is a third row of limbs. In an adult Shan, the dorsal limbs are offset at an angle, half sticking out to the left and half sticking out to the right. The direction of each limb alternates: limbs 1-3-5 might tilt left, while limbs 2-4-6 tilt right, for example. Each set is connection by a membrane of photosynthetic webbing, so that they can be used both as a sail to collect energy and as a method for powered flight. The last segment of a Shan's body is the heavily armored pygidium, and primarily serves them in reproduction--it contains their equivalent to an ovipositor.

The Shan's armor plating is formed out of fused, interlocking triangular scales of teflon. These scales bulge out convexly because as the Shan grows new, larger layers of plating are added to them from below, much like the osteoderms of an armadillo or the plates of a tortoise shell.

Technology and Magic
[Kirlian Phasing, Teleporting Temples, Singularity Idols]