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The coralfolk (sg. coralmaid) are a species of diminutive, shell-covered things, who can (and almost always do) merge their bodies to produce Composites of varying shapes and form; most commonly, Composites are safiroid in form, almost always presenting as female. They are not native to Daia — their homeworld is instead a single-ringed planet known for its many natural wonders — but they visit it and Lessa in large numbers.

The individual shell-covered things, known as polyps, aren’t sentient by themselves, their intelligence extending only so far as the ability, and urge, to seek out others with whom to merge; a Composite form, known as a coralmaid, is considered individual and indivisible, by coralfolk themselves as well as others. Coralfolk society is very stratified, with different castes and kin groups discernible by their appearance or even their form.

The most common Composite is about six feet (183 cm) tall, and has a slim, athletic safiroid build, with broad shoulders and either two or four arms; her body is colorful, and hard to the touch from the calcium carbonate exoskeleta of her component polyps, with many spiny protrusions as a result, especially on the top and back of her head in place of hair. Elaborate racks of such protrusions are a status symbol among the upper castes.

Most coralfolk obtain the majority of their energy and nutrients from symbiotic photosynthetic single-celled eukaryotes that live within their tissues; these symbiotes also give the polyps, and therefore the coralfolk, their color. They can also eat marine fauna such as fish, sîndisèi, or even tejasiq, and have been known to dive as deep as 492 feet (150 m) in pursuit of them; however, due to their need for sunlight, they will typically stay above depths of 200 ft (60 m). Coralfolk will also avoid water that isn’t sufficiently clear.

A coralmaid whose polyps become overly stressed from excessive heat, illness, or sunlight deprivation will instinctively expel the symbiotes that photosynthesize for her, turning a ghostly white as a result. This is known as bleaching, and leaves her vulnerable to disease and starvation; nursing a bleached coralmaid back to health is a delicate process.

Coralfolk have no reproductive organs as we know them; while, on a coralmaid level, they seem to reproduce asexually, the individual polyps actually reproduce sexually by broadcast spawning, in which the individual polyps, which are simultaneous hermaphrodites, release gametes into the water, which meet and fertilize to spread offspring. This occurs in the water at night on days following a full moon; in Daia’s case, since there are two moons, it only occurs once a year, the night after both moons wax full.

Local communities of coralmaids will synchronize their spawning times by means not yet fully understood to ensure maximal genetic diversity among their spawn; it is believed that the main environmental cue for reproduction is the dark portion of the night between sun(s)set and moon(s)rise; with others possibly including day length, water salinity, changes in air (water) pressure, changes in the host planet’s magnetic field, and possibly chemical or psionic signaling.

Coralfolk can reconfigure their bodies to an extent, and will often merge their legs into a mermaid-like tail in the water, that they may swim more efficiently. Other coralmaids will have bodies befitting the task to which their caste or kin group is set. Coralfolk are effectively immortal, but an individual coralmaid usually tires of her form within 50 (62½ Terran) years, upon which she disperses the component polyps, which go their separate ways and seek to form new Composites.