General Biology:

Fordians are robotic, magical, omnivorous, viviparous, mammalian animals. They are an alternate form of life, based on a fictitious element known as alkahest: lifeforms of this kind are referred to as "alkahetic" rather than organic life. They exist in two variants: Zeta and Alpha. Zeta Fordians are the original intended design which have animalistic minds and were meant to be pets. Alpha Fordians were a mutation from this and are fully sapient people.

The first Alpha mutation occurred in a prototype female "Luciano Sinatra" Fordian. She spliced the mutation into other humanoid phenotypes, establishing the Alpha Fordians as a race. She only "uplifted" other humanoid phenotypes for practical purposes: building a society around people shaped like planets or cars would be unnecessarily difficult.

While originally believed to be entirely artificial in origin, this is not the case. Fordians are, cladistically speaking, heavily modified Zeborans. Their genetic code has been changed beyond recognition, and new base pairs have been implemented to the genome of the naturally-occurring alkahetic lifeform, allowing Fordians to form tissues that naturally occurring alkahetic life cannot, granting them their robotic body composition.

Make no mistake, though: while a Fordian's body may be made of metals, rubbers, and silicones, it is 100% a living creature, not a constructed automaton.

Also, very important to note, is that Fordians are a single species. They come in many diverse shapes and sizes, known interchangeably as "phenotype" or "models". A Fordian can look like literally anything an engineer wants to program it to look like, but regardless of what they look like, the core biology is the same because they are still the same species. The model is determined by a single chromosome which is randomly inherited from either parent. The remaining 99.999% of the genome is identical among the various models, so they are all sexually compatible with one another as a single cohesive species.

Technically, Alpha and Zeta Fordians can breed together, but this is highly taboo and illegal because the offspring will be mentally disabled as a result of only receiving a random mix of some of the mutations which make Alpha Fordians intelligent. Alpha/Zeta mixes are known as Epsilon Fordians.

The "magical" aspect comes into play with alkahest, which is less "magic" and more "fantasy chemistry". Alkahest has the properties of being able to bond things that normally would not bond, it can transmute elements, and it can rapidly change chemical makeups much faster than anything else. This is what makes Fordian "magic" possible. It's all really just hyperactive chemistry thanks to a fictional element.

One interesting quirk of all alkahetic life is that their physiology is dynamic. Their form is maintained by genetic programming; if this were to be altered or overridden in any way, an alkahetic organism's physiology would rapidly shift to match the new programming. This shapeshifting propensity is made possible by the inherently unstable nature of alkahetic compounds; without a consistent stream of fresh alkahest to replace the atoms holding the molecules together, they will degrade and self-destruct in a matter of minutes. Because of this, when Fordians or other alkahetic organisms die, they will disintegrate within minutes of death, leaving behind only their axial skeleton. The skull, rib cage and spine, which are made of an Ultrafordium compound to afford maximum protection to the animal's central nervous system, are more stable due to the presence of Ultrafordium in the molecules; it takes approximately an hour for the skull and spine to disintegrate.

Diet:

Fordians are capable of eating almost anything due to how their digestive system/metabolism works, but they prefer materials inedible to organic organisms as they were designed to live alongside them, and to not steal resources from them. They cannot eat pure Ultrafordium, a Fordian waste product which is completely useless to their bodies in its pure form, or Antifordium, a material which is to alkahest what antimatter is to matter.

Fordians have only a mouth, a throat, and a gut. They do not have intestines or an anus; all digestion takes place in the gut. They do not produce a lot of waste because alkahest can transmute almost anything to something usable by their bodies; however there is still a waste product, which is small amounts of Ultrafordium. Fordians accrue a lump of this super strong, dense, unreactive metal in their gut and, about once every two months, cough up a small metal nugget like an owl pellet. Coughing up an Ultrafordium nugget is not unpleasant to Fordians, this is a normal programmed process and is not painful for them. Their waste product, by nature, is not unsanitary so they do not need sewage systems; instead they place these Ultrafordium nuggets in bins which are taken to metalworking factories. They make everything from girders to chairs to silverware with Ultrafordium.

Reproduction:

Fordians have distinct female and male sexes. All phenotypes come in both sexes, regardless of the subject matter; even Fordians designed to look like human men or women can be either female or male at a 50/50 ratio. They are never intersex; sex chromosome mutations simply do not occur in the species. They are generally very lacking in sexual dimorphism; depending on the model, or "phenotype", some dimorphism may exist but if it does, it's only what is necessary for functional purposes. A major exception to this occurs in unchecked wild populations of Zeta Fordians. Because of Fordian genetics, females and only females can have phenotype mutations, so they are always the sex that becomes divergent. Fordians utilize the ZW sex determination system; a bug in the W chromosome results in the genetic checksum for the phenotype chromosome not actually executing. This is the reason why females can mutate/naturally evolve and males cannot.

In all phenotypes, sexual dimorphism is present in the color of the Fordian's alkahest: cyan in females, gold in males. Some phenotypes, such as those designed to resemble human men or birds, will also show dimorphism in larger females with much wider hips, to facilitate gestation and giving birth. Female Fordians possess mammary glands (2 in Alphas, 6 in Zetas), known as "alkahetic ports", in a location which is accessible to their offspring. These look nothing like the breasts of organic mammals or even the natural alkahetic mammals they are derived from; instead they resemble vertical USB ports, which glow with the female's alkahest inside.

Fordians are placental creatures. Viviparity is a plesiomorphic and necessary trait shared by all Fordians, because alkahetic organisms have too demanding of metabolisms for their development to be able to be supported by a severely limited supply of yolk. They gestate faster than naturally occurring life due to optimizations enabled by their artificial genetic base pairs, so they grow for about 4 months in-utero. All Fordians begin life in a universal, larval, "template" stage of life known as an EVO, shorthand for Embryonic Variable Organism. The EVO undergoes metamorphosis into its adult phenotype once it's developed enough to do so.

All Alpha Fordians and some Zeta Fordians give birth to already metamorphosed babies, who are born as miniature adults and bypass their larval stage in-utero. However, many zeta Fordians give birth to EVOs which metamorphose after birth. All young Fordians nurse, with the exception of the hyper-precocial "Klayzilla" females of one wild subphenotype.

The Fordian placenta is a massively important part of its anatomy, because it develops into the organ which generates the bulk of an adult Fordian's alkahest. When the Fordian metamorphoses into its phenotype, the placenta is resorbed into the chest cavity where it becomes the primary alkahest-generating organ. Because metamorphosis involves resorption of the placenta, it occurs right before birth in phenotypes which are born as miniature adults. For the Zetas born as larval EVOs, they crawl around on all fours using their umbilical cord and placenta as a tail until they metamorphose.

Interspecies romance between Fordians and organic races such as humans is entirely possible, though it has only occurred once.

Fordian Genetic Code can, through artificial means, be combined with the DNA of organic species to create Fordian chimeras. Only one chimera was ever created, to be "offspring" for the human/Fordian couple, though he was created a long time after his father's death using preserved remains of his DNA.

"Magic":

Fordian "magic" is like a hyperactive form of chemistry. Alkahest, when coordinated properly with genetic code, can do almost anything one wants it to. While not originally intended, Alpha Fordians have developed techniques to channel their metabolisms into generating attacks which fall into "elements", depending on the techniques their local castes have developed from their assigned roles in the world. For example, musician-caste Fordians are masters of the Aural element, able to channel their alkahest into intense sound waves.

Alpha Fordians can generally train Zeta Fordians to execute elemental magic. By default, feral Fordians can only use “draconic” magic, which is the basic, “primal” element, if you will.

Pregnant female Fordians can draw extra magic power from their EVOs to strengthen their magic attacks; this is known as "overclocking". They must take care not to overdo it, though, or it can kill their EVOs.

Fordians of a caste can, of course, trains themselves in other magic elements, but the element naturally pioneered by their caste will always be the strongest, because it is derived from what they are naturally best at. (One notable outlier is Ruberel, whose Aural magic is actually weaker than her second element, Draconic)