The Clawdites were a sentient reptilian species that possessed the innate ability to transform their appearance. In their default form, Clawdites had roughly textured skin that ranged in color from pale yellow to dark green. Their two large eyes had slitted pupils with irises ranging from yellow to deep blue. The species’ shape-shifting ability was dependent on two inherent physiological traits: particularly sophisticated chromatophores found in their skin cells and precise, conscious control over aspects of their lymphatic system.

The chromatophores allowed Clawdites to change the color of their skin, and with enough practice an individual could match nearly any color that their eyes could perceive. The species’ control of their lymphatic system allowed trained individuals to grow or shrink parts of their body at will, stretching their skin to take on different shapes. Replicating a specific appearance with these two abilities required practice and due to their humanoid anatomy they could only ever superficially replicate organs. Due to the reliance on their internal abilities, a Clawdite could make minor changes to the density of their body, but not its mass, and they were unable to substantially grow or shrink in overall size. To offset this limitation, some Clawdites wore automated saline pumps that allowed them to adjust the amount of fluid in their body, allowing them to change their body size more freely within a limited range. Upon death, Clawdites reverted to their true form. Their changeling abilities were effected by wearing heavy armor, which could interfere with the process.

Clawdites were native to the warm and arid planet Zolan in the Mid Rim Territories and possessed strong predatory instincts and an inclination toward individualism, the latter of which meant that many had difficulty forming close bonds, even, or especially, with other Clawdites. This was partly caused by their shape-shifting ability, as the mutability of the species’ appearance meant that a trusted Clawdite acquaintance could easily vanish with a shared resource or their appearance could be assumed by a deceitful individual.

This inherent mistrust meant that Clawdite society developed various methods of identity verification. Even when greeting familiar individuals, Clawdites were generally guarded and depended upon conversational cues and personality traits rather than physical appearance in order to verify identity. Records were maintained in the open so that others could freely validate an individual’s work and social or political organizations depended upon a high level of redundancy. Despite these efforts, personal responsibility and accountability remained challenging concepts to enforce throughout the species’ history. The species’ culture and the way in which they viewed their shape-shifting ability was hugely impacted by their entrance on to the galactic stage.

Some Clawdites created a single preferred guise that they would transform into for all of their public dealings, never revealing their true form. The advantages of this included catching an enemy off-guard when the Clawdite did finally reveal themselves and avoiding suspicion that they might be an infiltrator.

Conversely, some Clawdites openly displayed their true form in public in order to take advantage of this caution and remind everyone of their unique ability, especially if transforming was an asset to their current role or task. In order to reassure others that they were acting in good faith, those Clawdites that did not rely on their shape-shifting abilities generally remained in their default state around others, although this expectation varied from individual to individual and depended on the expectations of the company they kept.

Although their native tongue was Zolanese, it was used as a primary language only in rural areas of Zolan, and rarely heard off planet. Virtually all Clawdites were fluent in Galactic Basic Standard and generally refused to teach offworlders Zolanese, although during the rare offworld encounters between Clawdites they would sometimes use Zolanese as a secret language to identify each other without breaking cover.