Skinskitter

These elusive oddments resemble discarded hides of butchered animals and fleshwarping experiments, floating like so much meaty detritus in the bloody filth of Ecanus's charnel-clogged sewers. Skinskitters, named for their fluid, erratic movements, scavenge the city for leavings of fleshy waste. They prefer discreet, non-violent ways of procuring these biological materials and shy from combat, seemingly possessed of a nervous temperament. Nexian fleshforgers quip this is entirely reasonable, as skinskitters are little more than nervous systems wrapped in dying skin. Nexian guards who actually have to hunt these fleshforged pests aren't quite as jocular; confronted by the oddly childlike pleas of these cornered puddles of flesh, hair, and eyes, many recruits simply choose to leave the city watch.

On occasion, curious scholars or soldiers have questioned why skinskitters pursue organic tissue, and whether this is a simple instinct or in pursuit of a grander purpose. Most fleshforgers assume that skinskitters consume organic matter to repair themselves in a process similar to eating, and give the matter no further thought, showing no more interest in the creatures than a smith might show in a bead of melted slag. The most paranoid Nexians claim that skinskitters are attempting to build something out of their collections of cast-off skin, perhaps even reconstructing themselves into fleshforged conformers. There is no recorded evidence of this ever occurring, however—if the creatures have any awareness at all, it's more likely that skinskitters are driven by the basest of instincts to better themselves through the same methods used in their creation but lack the understanding and self-direction to ever succeed.