For millions of years eking out a simple existence as specialised fishers or experts in carvery, the Kina have only very recently started to integrate technology from off-world into their daily lives, catalysing the spawning of a bizarre hybrid society that is starting to take root in their planet's northern regions. Filled to bursting on the inside with pale mush, they lack almost totally in conventional structure and are instead a species whose minds are spread evenly throughout their formless bodies - hemmed in only by a brittle green shell. Not possessing vital organs in a conventional sense, it is still possible for them to come to grievous mental harm in the event that they lose too much of their flesh. Eerily their disembodied organs can function in a reduced capacity after being cut away from the main host, supposedly because of the vestigial parts of the brain that they contain being capable of independent thought. If this is the case they would border on animalistic in sophistication and can greatly reduce the wider bodies ability to think critically if they are not properly reattached. Cloudy and soaked through with near perpetual light rain, islands of a moderate size proliferate across their homeworld, separated by vast tracts of ocean and necessitating the passing down of complex navigational techniques so that each of their communities can maintain occasional liaisons.
Studded all over with tiny protrusions, almost imperceptible apart from to the touch, the Kina rely on the unique arcs that each of these rows of spikes are angled at to identify one another. Apart from lacking completely in facial features this seems natural to them because of the importance in their culture of being able to rapidly discern the precise trajectory or geometry of an object. To off-worlders their process of greeting one another can seem uncomfortably personal because of the fact that they can feel only with the use of specialised organs in their fingertips, and that to recognise somebody they must trace along that person's body to pick up on the contours of their ridges. For the benefit of friends who might be in the company of a large cohort of their kind, the Kina wear necklaces to make up for the fact that others cannot pick up on their subtle individuality with the same certainty. The circulation of liquid throughout their bodies is vital to stave off desiccation, which naturally starts to set in if the rain abates for longer than half an hour. This can be disastrous and kicks off the atrophying of their limbs, so during dry spells most communities spend their days idling in the water - checking fish traps laid out the day before and otherwise just keeping one another company while they wait for the weather to lapse back into rain. Luckily they are very used to this cycle and don’t consider it an annoyance which keeps them away from their personal pursuits but rather a way to ensure that they remain embedded within the communal life of the town. Porous as a result of miniscule holes that range rather a lot straighter over their shells, tissue that has dried out can be revived if submerged quickly enough, and in this way function can be maintained usually in each of their limbs. If for whatever reason they can’t find a source of water, shrivelling can set in very quickly and permanently immobilise the afflicted part of the body - which can no longer be moved and remains stiff. After a while the flesh inside will have wasted away and that part of the shell will be completely hollow.
Understandably their culture doesn’t fear impermanence, but expects it. Material possessions are pretty scant to begin with but there is a common practice of leaving old things on the beach to be taken away by the waves, probably to lie on the sea floor but maybe one day to be washed ashore somewhere else. In lieu of this tradition a Kina’s favourite things are often the artefacts that they have found thrown up after a particularly brutal storm, items that they will keep for a while before one day giving them back to the sea. Wooden totems float very well and are the most commonly found objects, potentially even having belonged to more than one person in the past. A favourite practice of theirs is to carve new objects especially to cast them into the ocean, producing them in the likeness of a friend or relative to survive their memory. It is possible to discern what kind of deeds a person was famous for in life based on subtle clues in their pose or accessories, and Kina love to create intricate stories to help them imagine who it was that inspired the items they find, some of these are even guessed semi accurately.