Sapient Orb

These enigmatic, orb-shaped beings seem to have no home world, organized society, traditions, or religion. Sightings of the orbs are sporadic—they briefly appear in large numbers, then vanish for a year or more, only to reappear in an entirely different region of space for a few months. Scholars and friends of the orbs have noticed that each time the orbs appear, their numbers have diminished. Sapient orbs occasionally form permanent bonds, merging three to six orbs (always of the same type, as far as anyone knows) into a cluster called a luminant. Only sapient orbs at advanced stages of their life cycle can form such clusters, and the merge is permanent and irrevocable. Luminants are highly intelligent but far more reclusive than other sapient orbs, making it difficult to discern their motivations or purpose in sapient orb society. Members Faltering Sapient Green Orb (Creature 1), Sapient Green Orb (Creature 6), Sapient Purple Orb (Creature 4) Sapient Gray Orbs Neither sapient purple orbs nor sapient green orbs are especially willing to acknowledge the existence of sapient gray orbs. The gray orbs, for their part, love to talk, though even after hours of conversation, it's difficult to discern what, if anything, they truly had to say. Sapient gray orbs are notable mostly for being completely dull; those who have encountered them often describe the experience as one that made them vaguely uncomfortable, but not for any discernible reason. Scholars who study sapient orbs once assumed that gray orbs' eagerness for conversation would lead to secret knowledge of sapient orbs' origins; they were wrong. No gray orb has ever been known to say anything interesting to anyone. Sapient Orb Origins Some who have interacted with sapient orbs believe, based largely on the imagery the orbs display, that they originate from The Drift—or at least that they once lived there in large numbers. However, anyone who's asked a purple orb about their home world has found that the beings are uniquely unwilling (or perhaps unable) to identify it, if such a place even exists. Sapient green orbs are willing to talk about their home world, but their inclination to lie makes them a terrible source of information.