Tamarinton is a planet of near-human telepaths. They stand an average seven feet tall,and weight about two hundred pounds. Their skin is a pale yellow to pale brown color. It is smooth, entirely hairless, and slightly slick and slimy.
They are an amphibious species with wide (seven fingers on hands and toes) hands and feet with webbing between fingers and toes. They can breathe underwater by means of gills for several days, but living on land is less costly in personal energy. They need to visit land occasionally to replenish themselves on fruits and to rest on the warm islands that make up Tamarinton. In the water, they must work harder to breathe, to move, and to keep warm despite the great warmth of the close sun (they are in a Venusian orbit), and the volcanoes that dot the water, and breathe warming fire into the shallow seas.
They do not have a mouth on their head. Instead, they have 'medusa' hair which plucks plankton and other tiny creatures from the sea in a continous flow of work. However, they can place a large chunk of fish in front of the 'medusas' and this will enable the always questing medusas to eat faster and mor efficiently.
Due to their telepathy, they can read the thoughts of others, and even pierce deep into the minds of others. This has made them a communitarian species, and insulated them from materialism.
They consider the notion (that a few of their less clever philosophers have taken up) that 'mind is meat' to be silliness. They also tend to judge by intention more than by effect (although they do have the saying 'good heart, but a clumsy hand' to describe the well-intentioned klutz).
They have less illusions about others, and their own selves.
They do struggle when certain groups such as the Northwater Teaching Flock turns from having children to having parties, and tries to destabilize the ancient patterns of society. While the NTF decries the danger of 'overpopulation', the more far-sighted realize that the NTF plans to party now, and then have the children of the STF take care of them in their old age. The NTF is trying to change ancient arrangements and treaties to benefit itself in the present moment, and its showing signs of being violent if it does not get its way.
Earnest entreaties, and telepathic messages have been sent, but the NTF, due to some now obvious flaws in its educational corp of bards and songsingers, seems determined to ignore the facts that work against its case for 'party now, worry later'. It decries the emmissaries from all the other flocks in that section of the world as 'traditional worrywarts determined to hold on to their power', and 'reactionaries'.