The Toymins
Some infodumping about them under the cut !!!
One of the story's main characters, Bloggs, is a Toymin! What in the world is that?
A Toymin is a doll-like, sapient creature. Their limbs are stitched to their body, and many of them move similarly to ragdolls if they had muscles (think raggedy ann and andy!). Their insides are made of mechanical organs and teddy bear stuffing, all of which have remarkable restoration properties, but rip and tear quite easily.
The Toymins are a highly curious and highly playful kind of society. Their top values include creativity, exploration, and most importantly, information. Their population is over fifteen billion, spread out over multiple planets. That's a pretty impressive number, but they dwarf in comparison to other colonizing beings out there.
As a collective, they are the most well known for their unmatched ability for altering and fine-turning ecosystems on a planet-wide scale. Their technology allows them to weave their own mini-worlds as they see fit, allowing for them to explore as far as they're motivated to. Any new finds reaped from the effort isn't wasted. Toymins write in reports and hand them in to an archive, where they get handsomely rewarded with currency. This currency can be used to buy more technology and more customization, and thus the cycle continues.
Toymins aren't birthed. Instead, they're created in tubes of liquid data- some neon orange substance where all the information in the archive is stored. It's an ancient device, and the identity of who made it and how it works are lost to time- for the Toymins of the modern age to figure out. The tubes are buried in lengthy underground passages on their home planet, operated by old machines. Toymins are assembled slowly and remain dormant until someone else disposes the contents of the tube.
Once they're out, the new Toymins are blank slates. They're stiff and don't have the proper structure to express themselves. It's during this time where they figure themselves out and begin to specialize. In the meantime, they write basic reports to build up enough savings to buy customizable parts. Wigs to weave into their heads, extra limbs to stitch onto their bodies, masks to mould their faces. The possibilities are endless- a Toymin could make themselves more animalistic, or more fantastical, or more mechanical. The only catch is that their body and organs are wired for bipedalism.
The placement of their organs are pretty similar to a human's, though they're missing a ton and they serve different functions. For example, the stomach leads right into the heart, because the stomach breaks organic material into something their heart needs to spin into thread. And their brains are tubes of liquid data that have been flushed of information- just for them to fill up for a person!
The majority of their innards consist of basically plushie stuffing, made of alive cells. That means its nutritionally viable! There's multiple different kinds of stuffing that look the same, but.. that's because I didn't want to draw different parts to represent string-like things in the body. It's like blood vessels, nerves, and muscles all in one! And it works because its cool like that.
It's pretty easy to rip a Toymin apart. Their skin is fabric and their flesh is fabric 2. Luckily, it's just as easy to stitch back together, and separated parts stay alive for really long amounts of time.
Oh yeah, and they're really short.
Bloggs is slightly taller than average. Not counting accessories and modifications to make someone taller, a tall Toymin is at most 167cm/5'5. A short Toymin is at most 117cm/3'10. Of course, there's always exceptions and extremes in size, but those are the healthy heights.
They're exceptionally light! About one large watermelon's worth of weight.