Diaemus Project - Biology

[Seonid]

Welcome everyone, to the general thread about Life on Diaemus! Here you will find a master list of all of the inhabitants of Diaemus, sentient and not, as well as discussion on possible new life forms, various ranges and overlaps between species, and how they interact with the magic system. Even better, it's all conveniently gathered into one place!

 

By way of bookkeeping, the main information thread can be found here, and a discussion of maps and claimed areas can be found here.

 

Sapient Species

Major Species

There are four widespread sapient races on Diaemus, the Dromeans, the Rachnyx, humans, and an unnamed maritime species. These are widespread across the planet, and can be found on any continent, in almost any biome (or in the case of the maritime species - in any of the oceans). In most regions, one of these three will be the dominant species, although there are likely a few places where a minor sapient species will be dominant.

 

Humans (Homo sapiens sapiens)

 

Of all the races of Diaemus, humankind is the newest. These were imported to the world of Diaemus no more than twelve thousand years ago, and are totally alien beings. They stand at roughly two meters tall. Like sticks pointing out of the ground, they hold a vertical stance from their feet to their scalps. Their faces are flat and their bodies are mostly hairless, save for for the sparse patches boasted by some of the males. They are physically weak, but they make up for their shortcomings with keen and greedy intellects.

 

The defining characteristic of a human is the hand, four fingers with one opposable thumb. With a pair of hands, a human being can craft anything from a pointy stick to a fire to a steam-powered engine. They can create tools for practically any situation, and can adapt their culture itself for lifestyles in every biome. Since their arrival humans have splintered into dozens of distinct cultures and several ethnicities. They can be found from the northernmost jungles to the barren tundras of the south. Only the seas themselves remain safe from these strange beings, and even they are being steadily prodded and explored.

 

The typical human culture revolves around a nuclear family unit, a mated man and woman who together rear a brood of one to five offspring. Multiple families can form a tribe led by a patriarch or chieftain, and especially large coalitions of human families can form complex hierarchies led by monarchs or democracies. Some human empires can grow quite large and powerful...

 

As a species, humans have no particular affinity for lumuoles. Some societies, however, are descended from daring (or sometimes incredibly stupid) individuals who somehow incorporated lumuoles into their bodies, passing down anomalous traits to their offspring and granting the gift of magic to their culture. Human societies lacking magical progenitors must rely on their wits to incorporate lumuoles into technology, or else do without magic altogether.

 

Dromeans (Ethnoraptor diaemi)

 

Before those no-good primates were shuttled here, Diaemus' dominant overworlders were the Dromeans. Anatomically modern Dromeans appeared roughly a million years ago, evolved to specialize in the cleverness that makes dromeosaurs successful all over Diaemus. Their craniums are slightly larger to cultivate large and complex brains, with the result being that the child stage of the species is longer and more arduous for the parents than in other raptors. Hatchlings must be allowed to grow from barely sentient lizards to intelligent and high-functioning adults, which takes a little over a decade.

 

It is the necessity for intensive child-rearing that first began drawing packs of Dromeans together. While non-sapient raptors tend to be aggressive and highly territorial, Dromeans have become cooperative. Their society tends to revolve around pack units consisting of an alpha male and female, with grown offspring that help rear younger hatchlings. Packs can congregate together in a similar fashion to humans, forming fierce coalitions that will pool resources, share intellectual findings, and fight together when necessary.

 

Dromean biology produces opportunistic mating seasons, with the females becoming receptive when food is abundant and the temperature is suitable, after reaching sexual maturity. This leads to a wide variety of mating regimes, which are highly location-dependent. During the mating season, the females give off distinctive pheromones, which incite subtle changes in the males, leading to mating conflicts which can be violent and sometimes fatal. Despite this, some Dromean groups are able to maintain monogamous relationships, with a single mating pair producing clutches together year after year. This is largely due to the fact that Dromean females have some control over their own receptiveness, being able to delay the onset of pheromone production for several weeks. Once they have started delaying, they can also induce the onset of these pheromones in sometimes as short as an hour, allowing them control over who they are near when they go into heat.

 

Dromeans possess three fingers on each hand, one opposable to the others. They are equipped with long and razor-sharp claws, which must be filed down to not impede the dextrous manipulation of items. A sturdy scratching post is an important centerpiece in any civilized Dromean household, and only the crazed ferals of the deep jungles leave their claws as long and lethal as nature intended.

 

The primary obstacle for Dromean colonization is not in temperature or biome preference, as their feathered coats can protect them from the cold and their bodies can easily adapt to new germs or conditions. Rather, it is their status as obligate carnivores that makes things difficult for them. Omnivores like humans can eat just about everything under the sun. Dromeans are a step below the great tyrant-lizards as apex predators, and require extremely plentiful numbers of large prey animals in order to sustain their communities. In some harsh regions, pastoral Dromeans can rear the meat they need to survive. The majority, however, stick to temperate and tropical regions that are flush with large game.

 

More innately magical than humans, Dromeans have almost universally evolved the ability to assimilate lumuoles into their bodies. By eating a diet rich in the microorganisms, lumuole colonies can develop practically anywhere in the Dromean body, allowing for fantastic feats of magic. As communities are rarely segregated by class and thus usually consume the same foods, this has the tendency to create entire cultures centered around systems of magic uniquely suited to their habitat and region.

 

Rachnyx (Sofiarachnus spelaeus)

 

The most ancient of Diaemus' dominant sapients are the Rachnyx, giant spider-like creaturess that dwell not on the surface but in the hollow cavities sprinkled throughout the crust. They are the smallest of the three major races, standing scarcely a meter high when pulled to full height. Nonetheless, they are among the most dangerous of them all.

 

A Rachnyx stands on four thick legs, using its foremost pair to feel the path in front of it and the intermediate pair as multi-fingered manipulatory appendages. The hands have four main digits and two extras in opposition to the primary digits as well as each other. The wrists are often bloated with nerve ganglions that make the fine weaving of silk webs an almost purely mechanical process.

 

As a general rule the Rachnyx have a poor sense of sight, as evidenced by the front pair of feelers, but the Rachnyx are arguably Diaemus' most innately variable race. Their earliest ancestors have been traced back four million years, and there are many subspecies that have come about since them. All have evolved for millennia in symbiosis with colonies of lumuoles spread throughout the abdoment, giving the Rachnyx access to the most streamlined, efficient magic systems on Diaemus. Common abilities include the production of silk with radically improved tensile strength and venom with heightened potency, but ESP and even dramatic powers of elemental control are well within the limits of Rachnyx parabiology.

 

Originally, the Rachnyx and all their subspecies appeared to be solitary predators with no language, culture, or civilization, dwelling entirely in the vibrant caverns deep underneath the surface. Their opposable digits appear to have evolved for weaving huge and mindbogglingly complex web systems throughout the caves. Their minds developed to enhance the efficiency of their labors, and seem especially geared towards memorizing the movements of hundreds of individual prey animals and calculating long-range statistics. Rachnyx at this stage in their development would usually eat any others that entered their territories, even if those others were their own offspring.

 

The details of the modern Rachnyx's evolution are sketchy, but it appears that a period of geologic instability roughly ten thousand years ago caused enormous ecological damage in the subterranean caverns. Thousands of Rachnyx starved, and the survivors were forced to conglomerate into loosely bound societies in order to cooperatively hunt what prey remained. The social systems they came up with either ended with one enormous, very well fed Rachnyx sitting among the remains of the others, or in successful constructs that are still around today.

 

Nowadays there are Rachnyx living in almost every way imaginable. Some live in eusocial colonies akin to ant nests or bee hives. Some have built sprawling underground cities. Some have even taken to slowly colonizing the surface world.

 

A pregnant mother Rachnyx gives birth to thousands of live young, each about as large as a common house spider. Parental care was once non-existent, and close individual care like in human and Dromean socities is impossible, but some Rachnyx colonies have taken to feeding prey animals and foreigners to swarms of their young offspring.

 

The Rachnyx are everywhere, just under your feet. Some are no more malevolent than the worms in the soil. Some are as sage and learned as the wisest scholar. Some are hordes of violent conquerors that could convert entire cities into tightly crammed slaughterhouses. They are not vertebrates, and they seldom follow the rules of conduct that vertebrates take for granted. They are so innately magical that the conventional laws of physics might as well not apply to them. If you have reason to meet with Rachnyx, expect the unexpectable.

 

Unnamed Maritime Species

Minor Sapient Races

Skitches (Anaxosuchus)

Skitches are large, reptilian sentients who stand about 2 to 3 meters tall when fully erect, and mass between 150 and 200 kg when fully grown. Their scaly skin is quite hard, and serves as a natural armor against their predators. Skitches are comfortable moving around on their hind limbs only, but they can move at a much greater pace on all fours, Their arms are have less musculature than their legs, but to a much less significant degree than either Dromeans or humans. Their tail is about a meter long, and is highly flexible. In addition, they have a prominent secondary sexual characteristic - the adult males have large, heavy horns protruding above their eye sockets. Their ancestors may have used them during mating contests, but modern Skitches use them mostly in self-defense. Females have significantly smaller horns.

 

Skitches are partially aquatic, and primarily inhabit the marshes and other wetlands around the northern inland sea that separates the two continents, as well as the waterstreams and lakes of the taiga further to the north. They are omnivorous, and their primary sustenance is fish, small mammals, and several species of underwater plants that they cultivate in and near their communities. Many Skitches also "herd" schools of fish in the lakes and shallow seas of their preferred habitats.

 

A skitch is air-breathing, not amphibious, but can hold their breath for hours at a time. Their homes are built along the waters edge or in the shallows, with places for sleeping above the water level, but most of their life is spent underwater.

 

Their societies range from primitive tribal arrangements to sophisticated city-states with complex social systems. They are able to interact with lumuoles in a similar manner to the Dromeans, and do so primarily by ingestion.

 

Skitches are among the most anthropomorphic of the northern sapient races, and in combat they tend to use weapons that would be familiar to humans, although sized for their massive bulk. Their fighting styles, however, are unique, and incorporate both natural claws and their heavy, flexible tail. A single Skitch is a fearsome opponent for any sapient creature.

 

Haornithi (Sapienavis)

The Haornithi are a small, avian race standing no more than 130 centimeters high and massing between 35 and 45 kilos. They likely share some distant common ancestor with the Dromeans, but are certainly not a close relation.

The Haornithi, unlike their relatives both avian and saurian, stands fully erect on its feet, which have for claws (three forward facing, one back). Their wings have a ball joint not unlike the Dromean shoulder joint, which shows them a full range of motion. Their finger-claws are quite agile, and the innermost one has a superb range of motion, allowing it to function practically as if it were an opposable digit. Both their shoulder and elbow Jon's are capable of semi-flight, which restricts the range of motion but makes flight much more energy-efficient. They tend to fly horizontally, where they can use their large, broad tail feathers to control their motion.

Haornithi are restricted to a single mountain range on the northern continent, and generally live in clans of 20 to 50 individuals. However, there do exist a few large population groups, and at least three of them have built cities song the high ledges of the mountains, where there is no easy land access.

Haornithi are very clever with their hands, and often build flight aids, including glider wins that let them free up their arms during long flights.

 

Nixos (Capranith extarnia) 

 

The Nixos are one of the most studied and talked about races in Diaemus. They stand over 2 meters tall, the average adult male is about 6' 7". They have dark hair covering their heads, like humans, and have tanned skin the color of bronze. However, what separates them from normal humans, is the fact that their skin is tinted blue/green, they have pointed teeth, and they can breathe underwater. 

 

The Nixos are also incredibly strong. An average male can lift up to 500 lbs. in one hand by adulthood. The most defining trait of the Nixos is the fact that, on mental command, they can produce bone protrusions from the top of their wrists for use as blades in combat. A large amount of Nixos society is based of the blades, they have developed little to none weaponry because of the blades and personal challenges are common.

 

Non-Sapient Species

Fauna

Spaksnout (Pyrorhinosaurus)

 

Medium-sized dinosaurs the size of muskoxen, these iguanadonts wander the tundra in small herds, grazing the moss and lichens that grow in the cold soil. They are warm-blooded animals with thick umber coats, usually walking on two legs as they migrate across the plains in search of food.

 

The spaksnout's most notable attribute is its nose. Within the skull is a hollow cavity just above the nostrils, filled with warm air. This can be used to produce a loud trumpeting sound for communicating with other members of the herd, but that's only one use. More important are the colonies of red lumuoles that inhabit the cavity, absorbed into the body during times of the year when red lumuole-infused flowers bloom in the frosted soil that ordinarily could never support them.

 

The red lumuoles warm the leaves and roots of the flowers, and are used for a similar purpose in the spaksnout. The microorganisms produce supernatural heat within the animal's nostrils and respiratory system, warming the dinosaur from the inside out even in the coldest blizzards and the darkest winters.

 

Of course, such power isn't limited solely to homeotherm regulation. In the long springtime males will voraciously seek out and eat any plants which will provide them with new lumuoles, and their bodies work overtime producing the hormones necessary for upkeeping the ones they already have. The magical red microbes fully fuse with the bulls' bodies, producing immense amounts of heat while simultaneously granting the animal some immunity to it.

 

The magically derived heat has to go somewhere, and bull spaksnouts know how to put it to good use. In elaborate displays to attract females, spaksnout males will snort enchanted flames from their nostrils, causing spouts of fire a few feet long. (Though in one record case, a male was spotted producing a plume of red flame twenty feet tall.) It is an obscene expenditure of energy, especially for the woefully inefficient mechanisms within the spaksnout body. It quickly tires the bulls out, leaving them weak and drained. It's absurd and it's wasteful, but it's extremely attractive to spaksnout cows. 

 

Once the excess lumuoles are burned out of their systems, the spaksnouts mate and produce offspring, which will remain huddled close to their mothers until their own lumuole colonies begin to populate their nasal cavities.

 

 

Crimsobeest (Thermosaurus)

 

A less dramatic animal than the spaksnout, crimsobeests are members of the nodosaur family. Stocky, heavily armored dinosaurs with curved spikes along their shoulders, these mammoth-sized creatures live in small, loose herds on the few areas on the tundra capable of sustaining them.

 

Unlike spaksnouts or the mammalian inhabitants of the tundra, crimsobeests have no shaggy coats or thick blubber reserves to keep them from the brink of freezing. Instead, the plates on the animal's back are matched with hot scutes on the underbelly of the beast, which are hollow and used for insulating colonies of the red lumuoles. In an example of a species becoming evolutionarily lazy as a result of magic, crimsobeests rely entirely on the lumuoles for their continued existence. The animals essentially wander the frozen tundra with heating units attached to their undersides, warming their bodies and putting a warm red glow into the air around them. In the darkness of the long tundra winter, herds of these animals can be made out by the light they produce, and a freezing traveler would do well to follow them and sap whatever warmth he can from their proximity.

 

Skitterhair (Thoosaura)

 

While some dinosaurs rely heavily on lumuoles for survival, the skitterhair scarcely has need of them at all. These two-legged herbivores are covered in woolly grey coats broken up by the faint glow of blue lumuole stripes, and bound across the tundra eating whatever small plants they can scrounge up. In freezing weather they will huddle with others of their kind, sharing natural body warmth and waiting out the frigid wind.

 

Snowsaber (Cryokopisaurus)

 

There are certainly mammalian predators on Diaemus, but in many places they are overshadowed by the great carnivorous dinosaurs. Towering bodies, enormous skulls, and banana-sized fangs characterize this group, and they have (presumably) colonized many distinct habitats. In the frozen snow fields of the tundra, one such predator, the snowsaber, reigns supreme. This beast is forty feet long and weighs over a ton, and its roar is a note of terror for many polar species.

 

Theropod dinosaurs usually have short arms and walk upon two legs. The snowsaber has long since evolved past that. The arms of the snowsaber are almost as long and powerful as the legs, and the animal frequently bounds on all fours when covering distance. Its scales are shielded by the cold by a coat of shaggy ivory feathers, and the jaws are fringed with colonies of blue lumuoles bright enough to blend in with the pure white landscape of the winter tundra. In summer, when the tundra turns green, the snowsaber molts and gains a auburn coat, and the jaw lumuoles turn deep navy as the males attempt to attract females.

 

The naming characteristic of the snowsaber is the pair of lethal saber-shaped fangs at the front of the mouth, visible even when the animal's mouth is closed. The teeth are curved and fulfill the same function they did for the saber-toothed cats of Earth--killing. When hunting the snowsaber will ambush its prey, bounding to its side and using its powerful front forelegs to wrestle and pin it to the ground. Once the unfortunate megafauna is fully helpless, the snowsaber will swiftly sever its jugular veins with a bite to the throat, allowing the animal to bleed out in the snow before digging in to the carcass.

 

Because of the delicate saber teeth in the front, the snowsaber must be cautious when eating and hunting. Small and bony prey like humans are generally shunned, in favor of large beefy herbivores like spaksnouts and the few other iguanadonts of the tundra. Humans nonetheless must fear the young of the snowsaber, which will happily prey on humans and other small game before their fangs grow in. And snowsabers of all ages will be a serious threat to any people who rely on large livestock to secure their sustenance on the frozen plains.

 

 

Scuzzard (Erythopterus)

 

Snowsabers, because of their teeth, have difficulty making use of an entire prey animal and often leave the remnants of the carcass lying out in the open. In addition, large animals from the sea regularly wash up upon the coastline, and make for an easy meal for scavengers. The tundra's resident scavenger is the scuzzard, the pterosaur equivalent to the avian vulture.

 

Any meat left exposed to the elements with quickly assemble a throng of these condor-sized pterodactyls. They are covered in thick silver hair except for their wings, which are also hairy but also blink dark red from red lumuole colonies that take up residence there. The lumuoles generate something like a thermal air current in flight, allowing the pterosaur to glide with ease across the frigid landscape.

 

The scuzzard is magnificently adapted to its chosen habitat. A keen sense of smell allows the animal to smell an animal the moment it keels over; a dark, semi-transparent membrane can be closed over the eyes at will, filtering out snowglare but allowing the pterosaur to spot a dead animal from high in the sky. Finally, scuzzards have extremely thick, sharp beaks that are perfect for ripping into the hides of dead dinosaurs, exposing the cold flesh within.

 

Once meat has reached the digestive system, part of it remains fermenting in the stomach acid for weeks on end. This is not an inefficiency in the animal; this is a defense mechanism. If a small predator threatens the scuzzard, the red-winged pterodactyl will open its beak wide and let loose a barrage of steamy projectile vomit, in some species heated to dangerous degrees by extra lumuole colonies in the stomach. This deters 99% of all the predators a scuzzard is likely to face, and is often used in displays for females during the breeding season.

 

The scuzzard may be the only life form on Diaemus that doesn't see anything gross about this.

 

Pliod (Kardosaurus)

 

At first glance, one might confuse a pliod with a huge crocodile with flippers for legs, with a dark black back and a tan underbelly. The pliod rather belongs to the pliosaur family, and is one of the more savage predators of the Twilight Ocean.

 

Pliods are antisocial creatures, which nonetheless share a lot of beach space as they wallow on the shore in between hunts. They maintain fiercely defended personal space, and it's not uncommon for angry bull pliods to rip each other's faces off over choice patches of turf. In the water they become fearsome and deadly carnivores, capable of catching and eating practically anything smaller than themselves. (And for a Volkswagen-sized predator, this means that animals a pliod can't eat are few and far between.

 

Blue lumuole colonies flow through the animal's body, preventing its blood from freezing in the ice-cold water. They are acquired through dietary means, as most polar fish use the lumuoles for the same purpose. "Hotspots" are extremely numerous in this ocean, and pliods rarely find themselves in the position of having malnourished lumuoles.

 

Scorpia (Plural: Scorpi, Group Name: a territory)

The pouch on the Scorpis' faces, which I mentioned before holds their lumoles, if they ingest any. Their mandibles pull the lumole out of the air and it's squeezed through a small tube, along with regular food. When regular food goes down into the digestive system (a work in progress), the lumole splits off and bounces around in the pouch. The pouch is sealed off and until the lumole's magical affects are absorbed into the Scorpia. Then the pouch opens up again and another lumole can be eaten. If they try to eat another lumole, their system forcibly opens the pouch and the next lumole replaces the half-absorbed lumole. 

They 'see' via echolocation, similar to bats. Right in front of the lumole pouch is where the holes are. They emit a high pitched shriek from the holes and they get an image from that. They can't sense color from this, only the distances and textures. They can also alter the notes of the shriek and communicate instead of seeing. The normal echolocation pitch is so high most creatures can't hear it. They receive noise through these holes as well. 

 

Above their head is two tubles. One is the air outtake and one is the air intake. The tube goes down, next to the food tube, and the breathing system is along the side of their body. 

 

The tail has plates of armor and at the top of the thick, scorpion like, tail is a barb shaped like a heart (see earlier posts). Its edges are razor sharp. It can use these with a very fine precision. Usually they use them to cut through the grass, but they also use them when cracking the hard and stiff carapace of their prey. A lot of creatures of the steppes have stiff and thin armor covering them with lots of joints.

 

In fact, the Scorpi all have thin carapace covering their body. Except for a soft underbelly, the Scorpi are coated. They also have the common joints all over their body.

 

Scorpi often live in solitary, but join together to hunt down the larger prey. Although there are many really large creatures on the steppes and a single hunt will last a territory a month, Scorpi are usually considered the most dangerous because of their ability to work in teams. A group of Scorpi will join together to hunt down a large creature, then leave the corpse in the center of their region. The territory will come and eat together every morning, then spend their days building up back up supplies of smaller prey or searching for lumoles. They will also join together to fight off rival territories. Often times, a Scorpi territory will invade another territory's region and kill everyone there to get at their lumoles. 

 

The males search out mates by traveling to other territories and emitting a mating frequency. The female Scorpia may respond by ignoring the male or emitting a challenge frequency. When emitted by one male to another male, this frequency signals a fight to the death. When given by a female to a male, it means that she expects him to bring her gifts of prey. If the female Scorpia is impressed by the males gifts, she will emit her own mating frequency and they will become a pair. They will return to the male's territory's region and they will have a new Scorpia. When young, a Scorpia spends their time around with the female, who will forgo their hunting and lumole searching duties to teach the new Scorpia.

 

Babhlas

Babhlas are large, docile herbivores about four feet tall at the shoulder and six-seven feet long. Babhlas are incredibly intelligent. They have large, bowl like shells that they use, in addtition to their size, to protect themselves from predators. They roam around in small herds of ten to fifteen individuals. They have short, wide tails that they store fat in, and two short, fleshy appendages on the ends of their noses. Babhlas use these to interact with their environments. They're basically a mix between turtles and elephants.  At the moment I don't really plan on the babhlas using any magic. 

 

Fiacla

Fiacla are the apex predators of the Karraig Plains. Fiacla live and hunt alone, only interacting with their own species to mate and raise their young. These creatures are fiercely territorial, attacking almost anything they discover inside their domain. They have long legs, which they use to run down their prey. Fiaclas have broad, flat heads and a mouth chock full of pointy teeth. They also have retractable claws on their forepaws, and claws on their back paws which they cannot retract. Their tails are long to help them keep their balance in high speed chases. Male fiaclas determine dominance by the amount of yellow lumuoles that they have ingested. The male with the higher lumuole count wins, and gains the other males territory. This is significant because the larger a males territory, the more likely he will impress a female and convince her to mate with him. Fiaclas also use green lumuoles to help them detect their prey, by seeking out the life....ness..... of their prey. The point is it helps them hunt.

 

Sarmu

Sarmu in general are similar in appearance to earthly sarmus. They are carnivorous, furry mammals. Their bodies are long and slim with proportionally small limbs. Their paws are webbed. Male sarmu stand about chest-high and females are a hand or two shorter. They are about 12 feet long. Sarmu have two layers of fur: the soft underfur and the outer, longer, fur. This keeps them warm in cold water. They eat any type of marine life, typically fish or smaller crustaceans. They spend about half of the day in the water and the other half on land. Some prefer sleeping in shallow water, but that is a personal preference, as most sarmu sleep on grass.

 

The gestation period in sarmu is about 60 to 86 days. The newborn pup is cared for by the mother, father and older offspring. Female sarmu reach sexual maturity at approximately two years of age and males at approximately three years. After two months, a sarmu is able to swim. The pup lives with its family for approximately one year. Sarmu live up to 16 years.

 

Green lumuole-using sarmu emit an aura of happiness that varies in strength from sarmu to sarmu. The aura dulls senses of fear and alertness, with greater effects on smaller masses, that make it easier for the sarmu to hunt. They also can gently manipulate winds to enhance the currents around them to aid them in swimming. Both of these powers are automatically achieved through chemical signals and the aura is a constant presence. These are more playful sarmu, each usually has a favorite rock or two that they will play with on land. Meran children often play games with smaller sarmu. Green-using sarmu are larger and furrier than their yellow counterparts. These sarmu are kept by the Meran.

 

Yellow-using sarmu have a small, crackling electric field around them that doesn't do much on land, aside from provide the occasional shock. In water, though, the electricity is conducted much better and kills small sea creatures that get too close. Humans that get near to the sarmu while in the water will feel a sensation similar to a gentle tasing (if such a thing can be called gentle). Niran keep these type of sarmu. Yellow-using sarmu are leaner and less furry than the northern type. They are also less playful and more solitary.

 

Lumur (pl. Lumurna)

The Lumurna are parasites, plain and simple. They're tiny creatures with four long and thin insectlike legs. They originally evolved in the Steppes but expanded quickly and can be found all over Diaemus. They are not sentient. 

Their body glows faintly with the color of whatever Lumole they have attached themselves too (more info later). The body is short and thin. Their head is heartshaped with lots of black, beady, eyes speckled all over the face in a symmetrical pattern. They have a tube going down from the middle of the face into the Lumole they attached themselves into. Once the Lumole is injested by a larger creature, the eggs are released through the tube. Their claws hook into the Lumole. 

 

The Lumurna can climb and they jump onto Lumoles. They catch a ride on the Lumole, sucking out the inside of the Lumole and corrupting it. The corrupted Lumole no longer releases power, instead it weakens the creature who ingests it. Once the corrupted Lumole is injested and weakened, the Lumur lets go of it and releases their eggs into the creature. The eggs are creating using the corrupted Lumole's power. The larger the Lumole, the more eggs. Besides being severely weakened for a day or so, there's no outside sign affects of a Lumur's presence until the creature starts to get bad headaches and sharp pains. Then the creature will fall to the ground and the Lumurna will bury out of the body. They were eating the creature from the inside out. The creature is dead.

To counter-balance the danger of the Lumurna, they only ever attach themselves to Lumoles once every ten years.

 

Woodstalker (Arbokopisaurus)

 

Like a dinosaurian grizzly bear--or better yet, a freakish cross between a theropod dinosaur and a dirk-toothed wolverine--the woodstalker prowls the southern taiga of Diaemus, preying on a wide variety of mammals and dinosaurs. It is a temperate relative of the snowsaber, with which it shares multiple features; chief among these are the animal's powerful forelimbs and specialized front fangs.

 

The woodstalker takes the quadrupedal gait further than the snowsaber. While the snowsaber runs on all fours only when covering great distances, the woodstalker is as much a quadruped as any mammalian carnivore. The forelimbs are just as strong as the hind legs, and the woodstalker rarely rears itself upright. The only times you'll find an upright woodstalker are when the animal's making a threat display, or when it's snapping branches off trees to mark its colossal territory.

 

Preying on a more varied diet than its polar relative, the woodstalker has front fangs that are less developed and more multi-purpose. They are not quite as efficient at slicing the jugular veins of large prey animals, but in exchange are shorter, sturdier, and allow the woodstalker to pursue a wider range of prey. This makes the twenty-foot long carnivores far more dangerous than the larger snowsabers, as they're more than willing to chase down and devour a stray human or Dromean...

 

Fortunately for their prey, woodstalkers are solitary creatures, and cannot usually be found coexisting within a territory. Their fur is a deep brown, almost black, and the animal makes little to no use of magic save for stripes of orange lumuoles which strengthen the limbs when climbing trees. It is not uncommon to find the carcass of a medium-sized animal stuffed at the top of a tree, the only clue to its demise being the savagely torn holes in its throat from a woodstalker's fangs.

 

Song Krake (Asproceras)

 

Meanwhile, the Twilight Ocean resounds with the haunting, mournful songs of large white animals pushing through the arctic water. An Earthling boater might catch a glimpse of the pale white shapes moving under the surface of the waves, and conclude that they were beluga whales or some hitherto unknown white seal. Those guesses could not be further from the truth, for a glimpse at a pod krake under the water reveals an ivory-white shell curled above a mass of squirming tentacles and two huge, squid-like eyes.

 

In the Twilight Ocean, ammonites are highly prevalent. These mollusks are much like squid save for the spiral shells they shield their bodies with, and which can be used for the storage of buoyant gases to aid the ammonite in floating or diving at will.

 

The song krake is a particularly large ammonite, just over the size of a small car. They swim in pods of twelve to twenty animals, which keep in touch with constant mournful tones blared at each other through the water. It is for these songs that the animals are named, and it is for them that they are known amongst the tribes and people of the southern coasts.

 

Like most marine animals of the Twilight Ocean, song krakes make use of blue lumuoles sprinkled throughout their bodies to keep their blood from freezing in deep, icy waters. The highest concentrations are located at the tips of the tentacles, which are swirled and dangled in the water enticingly to attract arctic fish which require lumuole consumption for their survival. Some fish get away with nibble away bits of the tentacles, which the song krake can grow back given enough time; the majority, however, are snatched up and shoved into the white-shelled beast's gaping maw.

 

Sniffler

Snifflers are hairy, tapir-like creatures that stand about a foot tall, and inhabit a wide range of Diaemus' southern continent. Several different breeds of snifflers are extant, adapted to their widely varied climate, heavily supplemented by generations of directed breeding. Many snifflers are domesticated, although wild herds still roam the continent in many areas.

 

Snifflers reproduce by laying eggs.

 

Dunestriders:

Dunestriders resemble massive brown beetles, standing over three meters tall and eight meters long. There are cavities in base of their front legs which house colonies of blue lumuoles. These lumuoles grant the creatures the ability to sense the presence of water deep beneath the sand, a valuable asset on the dry dunes of the Kashora'an Desert. When Kashora’an nomads are looking for water, they simply watch where the dunestriders dig. Local tribes rely on dunestriders in many ways, not just using them to find water, but also building huts from their shells and living off their tough meat. Domesticated dunestriders aren’t exactly common, but they aren’t unheard of either.

 

Charbacks:

Medium-sized Ceratopsians, Charbacks earn their name from the colonies of red lumuoles imbedded between the plates on their backs, which are used to reflect excess heat back into the air. Enough heat is absorbed to maintain an ideal body temperature, but any excess heat is stored up and released over time, creating a powerful heat shield around the Charback. Charbacks have limited control over the intensity of this heat, increasing it when they feel threatened or lowering it when calm. Directly touching a Charback’s scales causes severe burns, and even coming too close can be dangerous if their heat shield is flared. Domesticated Charbacks must be carefully trained to never flare their shields unless commanded. Charbacks are often used as pack animals in caravans or ridden as mounts, though riding one requires a thick leather saddle. Charbacks have an additional use when the sun sets, providing welcome warmth during the freezing desert nights.

 

Shockback (Pacifos Mortifero): 

Located in the Asohos region, this large gentle creature roams around, eating grass and leaves. A Shockback is about 13 feet long and weighs 4,000 lbs. They have a dullish brown mixed with forest green skin and and a large head with a prominent snout. Like I said, they are mostly vegetarians, and eat grass and hedges. 

 

Shockbacks travel in herds spread over several miles, but they gather in a home nest, usually dug out by them. The children stay in the nests while the males and females gather food. Every full moon, the Shockbacks pack up and travel to find a new nest. They will travel as far as they need to go in Asohos to find a nest. 

 

How do Shockbacks use lumoles? In the pores of their bodies colonies of electricity lumoles reside. On command, Shockbacks can release an EMP like blast for show and protection against smaller predators. This blast can stop smaller animals hearts. 

 

The Shockback are hunted by the Nixos for their skin and meat, so the population is thinning out, only about 20,000 Shockbacks live in Asohos Region.

 

Flora

Blueroot Pine (Pagopinus)

 

In a conventional tundra, there are no trees. There is too little precipitation, and a thick layer of permafrost prevents deep roots from penetrating into the earth. However, the standard rules of nature work differently on Diaemus. Blueroot pines are evergreen trees mostly unremarkable save for their sophisticated root structure, which attracts and utilizes blue lumuoles to tap into the hard permafrost. The lumuoles possess a strong affinity for water in all of its forms, and in the case of the blueroot, can be used to change water from one of its states to another.

 

The roots convert the unusable ice in the soil into damp, valuable water, which is greedily extracted from the soil by the blueroot and plants that are adapted to grow near them. The blueroot sprinkles the landscape with dense foliage in between the desolate plains, and provides valuable habitats for small tundra-dwellers with meager needs. The local Dromean culture will travel deep into the tundra to gather blueroot sap, which when distilled is extremely useful in efficiently controlling blue lumuoles.

 

This is all of the detailed information I could find on various species. As this project grows, I'll separate these out into regional variations, given that we have tundra-dwellers next to steppe-dwellers all mixed up with everything else. But for now, since I don't have enough time for a massive organizational project, here we go.

 

If I've missed one of your creatures, post it's profile here in this thread and I will eventually get it into the OP. I hope that this will become the go-to resource for all of our different species.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Seonid

[Mailliw73]

I'll work on getting a profile for the Sarmu and Mek, can you do one for the snifflers?

[Mailliw73]

Here is a profile on the sarmu. It's kind of brief, so if there's anything specific that you want to know more about, let me know.

 

Sarmu in general are similar in appearance to earthly sarmus. They are carnivorous, furry mammals. Their bodies are long and slim with proportionally small limbs. Their paws are webbed. Male sarmu stand about chest-high and females are a hand or two shorter. They are about 12 feet long. Sarmu have two layers of fur: the soft underfur and the outer, longer, fur. This keeps them warm in cold water. They eat any type of marine life, typically fish or smaller crustaceans. They spend about half of the day in the water and the other half on land. Some prefer sleeping in shallow water, but that is a personal preference, as most sarmu sleep on grass.

 

The gestation period in sarmu is about 60 to 86 days. The newborn pup is cared for by the mother, father and older offspring. Female sarmu reach sexual maturity at approximately two years of age and males at approximately three years. After two months, a sarmu is able to swim. The pup lives with its family for approximately one year. Sarmu live up to 16 years.

 

Green lumuole-using sarmu emit an aura of happiness that varies in strength from sarmu to sarmu. The aura dulls senses of fear and alertness, with greater effects on smaller masses, that make it easier for the sarmu to hunt. They also can gently manipulate winds to enhance the currents around them to aid them in swimming. Both of these powers are automatically achieved through chemical signals and the aura is a constant presence. These are more playful sarmu, each usually has a favorite rock or two that they will play with on land. Meran children often play games with smaller sarmu. Green-using sarmu are larger and furrier than their yellow counterparts. These sarmu are kept by the Meran.

 

Yellow-using sarmu have a small, crackling electric field around them that doesn't do much on land, aside from provide the occasional shock. In water, though, the electricity is conducted much better and kills small sea creatures that get too close. Humans that get near to the sarmu while in the water will feel a sensation similar to a gentle tasing (if such a thing can be called gentle). Niran keep these type of sarmu. Yellow-using sarmu are leaner and less furry than the northern type. They are also less playful and more solitary.

[Mckeedee123]

I'll work on getting a profile for the Sarmu and Mek, can you do one for the snifflers?

 

I'm no artist, so I'll just give you this:

 

[Seonid]

Alright, Mail, the sarmu is in now. Mek, I'll get the sniffler as soon as I can. Is there detailed information in the main thread? If so, can you link me there to save searching through all of it?

[the winter system]

Lumur (pl. Lumurna)

The Lumurna are parasites, plain and simple. They're tiny creatures with four long and thin insectlike legs. They originally evolved in the Steppes but expanded quickly and can be found all over Diaemus. They are not sentient. 

Their body glows faintly with the color of whatever Lumole they have attached themselves too (more info later). The body is short and thin. Their head is heartshaped with lots of black, beady, eyes speckled all over the face in a symmetrical pattern. They have a tube going down from the middle of the face into the Lumole they attached themselves into. Once the Lumole is injested by a larger creature, the eggs are released through the tube. Their claws hook into the Lumole. 

 

The Lumurna can climb and they jump onto Lumoles. They catch a ride on the Lumole, sucking out the inside of the Lumole and corrupting it. The corrupted Lumole no longer releases power, instead it weakens the creature who ingests it. Once the corrupted Lumole is injested and weakened, the Lumur lets go of it and releases their eggs into the creature. The eggs are creating using the corrupted Lumole's power. The larger the Lumole, the more eggs. Besides being severely weakened for a day or so, there's no outside sign affects of a Lumur's presence until the creature starts to get bad headaches and sharp pains. Then the creature will fall to the ground and the Lumurna will bury out of the body. They were eating the creature from the inside out. The creature is dead.

To counter-balance the danger of the Lumurna, they only ever attach themselves to Lumoles once every ten years. 

[Curiosity]

Lumur (pl. Lumurna)

The Lumurna are parasites, plain and simple. They're tiny creatures with four long and thin insectlike legs. They originally evolved in the Steppes but expanded quickly and can be found all over Diaemus. They are not sentient. 

Their body glows faintly with the color of whatever Lumole they have attached themselves too (more info later). The body is short and thin. Their head is heartshaped with lots of black, beady, eyes speckled all over the face in a symmetrical pattern. They have a tube going down from the middle of the face into the Lumole they attached themselves into. Once the Lumole is injested by a larger creature, the eggs are released through the tube. Their claws hook into the Lumole. 

 

The Lumurna can climb and they jump onto Lumoles. They catch a ride on the Lumole, sucking out the inside of the Lumole and corrupting it. The corrupted Lumole no longer releases power, instead it weakens the creature who ingests it. Once the corrupted Lumole is injested and weakened, the Lumur lets go of it and releases their eggs into the creature. The eggs are creating using the corrupted Lumole's power. The larger the Lumole, the more eggs. Besides being severely weakened for a day or so, there's no outside sign affects of a Lumur's presence until the creature starts to get bad headaches and sharp pains. Then the creature will fall to the ground and the Lumurna will bury out of the body. They were eating the creature from the inside out. The creature is dead.

To counter-balance the danger of the Lumurna, they only ever attach themselves to Lumoles once every ten years. 

 

 

I assumed that lumuoles were bacteria-sized, making it difficult to have a bug-sized thing attached to it. Perhaps this would be better suited to a virus or something? I do like the idea of an parasite that twists lumuoles against its host, though. 

 

In the mean time, I'll drop off some ideas I had for lumuole ecology: 

• A plant that has a symbiosis with lumuoles and puts them into its own fruits as an incentive for consumers. This could be interesting if it was treated as a sacred tree. What if the plant was directly over a source of lumuoles, leading to the possibility of a Great Lumuole fruit?
• Alternately, plants that have flowers with lumuole or magic mineral rewards instead of nectar to encourage pollination. All of his would eventually lead to some kind of trade/industry of cultivating magical flora. (Huh. I think I just re-developed apothecaries.)
• Hives or nests of insects could center on lumuole clusters, with the queen glowing most brightly in the center. Or bee-like insects that pollinate magical flowers to make magical honey!
• Lumuole-lit fungi caverns. Beautiful. Perhaps a unique deep underground ecosystem can be sustained by a strong lumuole "hot-spot" if there isn't another source of energy?
• Spiders or other predators that use lumuole bait.
• Predators that don't have physical camouflage, but use purple lumuoles to disguise their scent and/or sounds. Ooh! Flowers that use flies as pollinators by tricking them into thinking that they're dead corpses! 
• Prey using light-lumuoles (yellow, I believe?) to reveal these tricksy purple-lumuole-predators. 

And some questions to get the brainstorming started:

• What would happen to cheese, beer, or wine aged with lumuoles? 
• What would happen if a red-lumuole "hot-spot" was underwater? What sort of symbiosis would happen there? How about blue lumuoles in the desert? Orange lumuoles way up in the sky? 
• Do organisms that use blue lumuoles gain immunity to cold, or do they become cooler, enabling them to live in hot areas? Can it be used for both? (Extend this countering v. enhancing idea to other lumuole types.) 
• How "advanced" does a species have to be in order to active use magic?
• Do "hot-spots" ever overlap? (e.g., a blue lumuole pocket overlapping with yellow, allowing mingling) Would there be sharing of genetic information and possibly mixture of power?

[Kobold King]

• Do organisms that use blue lumuoles gain immunity to cold, or do they become cooler, enabling them to live in hot areas? Can it be used for both? (Extend this countering v. enhancing idea to other lumuole types.) 
• How "advanced" does a species have to be in order to active use magic?

 

Blue lumuoles actually aren't directly related to cold--they're related to water, but as they can change water into any of its states of matter (and change the temperature as well) they can be used for hot-and-cold related feats of magic. For instance, a number of tundra animals use blue lumuoles to prevent their blood and cellular water from freezing, thus allowing them to live in extremely frigid areas. Likewise, creatures which use blue lumuoles to prevent the water in their bodies from evaporating should also be possible.

 

How advanced does a species need to be to use magic, you say? No "advancement" is needed at all! Non-sapient forms of life, including barely sentient forms of matter like plants and fungi, are more than capable of using lumuoles, and some of them can perform quite complex magical maneuvers. Technological advancement is also not necessary; in fact, many of Diaemus' most potent magic users are tribal cultures of hunter-gatherers.

 

 

• Do "hot-spots" ever overlap? (e.g., a blue lumuole pocket overlapping with yellow, allowing mingling) Would there be sharing of genetic information and possibly mixture of power?

 

I might be wrong--I hope not, since I've been working with this assumption--but I don't believe that hot-spots are associated with one particular type of lumuole. It seems like lumuole hotspots will recharge all lumuoles equally. Think of a hot-spot like a wall socket; you can plug a vacuum cleaner, a blender, or a lamp into it, and will get very different results, but the root energy powering all of the outlets is exactly the same.

[Young Bard]

Actually, technically speaking, what state water is in doesn't directly relate to water, it relates to density.

 

Before you ring up the mental asylum, let me explain myself. Liquid water becomes a gas because the particles that make up the liquid are forced apart. Usually, the way humans manage this is by heating the water. However, other things that will force the particles apart can also lead to the water becoming a gas. The only other way that humans can currently do this is by placing the water in a vacuum. Scientists have done this, and made boiling water at room temperature.

 

So, it's only because of human association in the past that people think that boiling water=hot (and ice=cool, the same principle applies, even though I can't be bothered talking through it). If you have any questions, ask me, or look it up on the internet.

[The Honey Badger]

I am going to post here to contain all of my information about my parcel of land, Section 13. I am linking google documents so that I can continue edits to make things cohesive. I always welcome constructive criticism, Just shoot me a PM so we don't clog up the threads.

 

This is a folder containing the documents, I have one regarding the race generally. One with specific Flora and Fauna. A name list that will be expanded and assigned. Everything here is a work in progress and will be expanded. 

 

The Arakeans

Edited October 4, 2015 by The Honey Badger

[Seonid]

Alright - I updated the post with the new creatures Kobold posted, along with the Lumur (although they may need tweaking per Lindel's observations - I'll watch the ongoing conversation and update as necessary) and a short profile for the snifflers, using all of the information I could find in the thread. Mek, if you have more information (in the vein of the other profiles) that you want in there, post it here and I'll put it in.

 

Honey Badger, that's a lot of material! I love it. As soon as I have time to sort through it to find the species profiles, I'll put them in the OP as well. We're getting to the point that I may need to rearrange the organizational structure already! This is cool. When I have time for that, I will do that as well.

[the winter system]

Wait, what size are Lumoles? I got the idea that they were fist-sized, maybe bigger. Because I designed my creatures with a pouch big enough for one Lumole. And it's an obvious bulge in the pictures. 

[Lindel]

Lumuoles are microorganisms. Due to their minuscule size, their actual anatomy is impossible to discern with the naked eye, though they are visible as tiny pinpricks of light. Many species on Diaesmus cultivate colonies of lumuoles within their bodies, giving them a self-sustaining source of renewable energy. Kobold's Sparksnouts, for example, house colonies of red lumuoles within their nasal cavities, and use them to spout bursts of sparks, like a natural fireworks show.

A species I'm developing called Dunestriders, on the other hand, has evolved unique cavities in the base of each leg which house colonies of blue lumuoles. These give them the ability to sense water deep beneath the ground, and anyone traveling the Kashora'an Desert should know that watching where the Dunestriders dig can often save your life.

I'll get a full profile of the Dunestriders up soon.

Edited October 4, 2015 by Lindel

[Kobold King]

I hope no one minds my presumptuousness, but I've put together a potential diagram of lumuole cell mechanics. This is just a suggestion, mind you, so nothing I brainstormed here is set in stone.

 

I'm no cellular biologist, so let me know if there are any glaring holes in the mechanisms I describe below. Also, I've been writing a lot of educational material lately, so apologies if I shifted into lecture mode anywhere in this crudely drawn presentation.

 

Edited October 4, 2015 by Kobold King

[Mckeedee123]

Ah. I misread you request for information as a request for a picture. :/ Well, in the wild, you can think of Snifflers as burrowing grazers, like rabbits. Wild varieties have long claws and shorter snouts. They life in deep group burrows in hutches of 12-15 members, venturing aboveground to forage and graze. Their trunks help them both eat without having to let their guard down towards the small, saurian carnivores that prey on them, and allow them to carry bundles of grass back to the burrows to sustain females whose eggs hatched recently. The claws of domesticated populations have shrunk down into vestigial structures, preventing them from burrowing or attacking handlers, and this allows people to keep them in different ways. In my region, farmers build small, wooden hutches aboveground that allow them to access the animal products through various doors. The more common way though, I think, would be basic herding (though caring for fertilized eggs would be an issue, obviously.) As for lumuoles, yeah. The word refers both to the microorganisms that make up the colonies and the tiny portals that feed them. A single colony will subsist off of a single portal, and the whole thing is about the size of... a piece of dandruff, maybe? Anyway, it would vary slightly, which strengthens that comparison. On the question of Lumures, yeah, bugs are too big, but if you don't care about specs on the creature, you could have it be a sort of floating rotifer that mimics lumuoles instead of attaching itself to them. Also, I'm not too hot on the "causing inevitable death" thing. Could you have them be either be highly regionalized or simply causing sickness? Okay, finally (I'm using my phone, and therefore cannot use "Enter," which is why this is just a big block of text) there's hotspots. Hotspot distribution is pretty much whatever whoever's making the region in question wants it to be. Yes, the type of lumuoles who spawn in different hotspots can be the same or different, because (if we subscribe to Curiosity's model) it's different layers of the spiritual plane spawning different energy portals. one hotspot might have all reds, another might have 15% green, 70% blue, and 15% white. Some might be big, some might be small. Some might be weak, some might be strong. In some regions, there aren't really traditional hotspots and instead the portals can be willed into existence through biological processes. Anything you could possibly think of. Oh, wait, three more things to add: one, Winter, did you happen to imagine the Dromeans as four-legged? I got the impression they were two-legged, like raptors. Two, good point (whoever it was,) water's state has to do with density, not temperature (darn it, Avatar, you got me all messed up.) Do we want to go with temperature manipulation anyway? Three, I think we'ved moved on from the original lumuole model to one where creatures (except demigods) use biological processes to control the lumuoles themselves instead of some sort of magical "residue." Kob, do you want to edit that in the TDP OP?

Edited October 4, 2015 by Mckeedee123

[Lindel]

I hope no one minds my presumptuousness, but I've put together a potential diagram of lumuole cell mechanics. This is just a suggestion, mind you, so nothing I brainstormed here is set in stone.

 

I'm no cellular biologist, so let me know if there are any glaring holes in the mechanisms I describe below. Also, I've been writing a lot of educational material lately, so apologies if I shifted into lecture mode anywhere in this crudely drawn presentation.

 

Seems reasonable enough to me, based on my limited knowledge of cellular biology.

[Mckeedee123]

I hope no one minds my presumptuousness, but I've put together a potential diagram of lumuole cell mechanics. This is just a suggestion, mind you, so nothing I brainstormed here is set in stone.

 

I'm no cellular biologist, so let me know if there are any glaring holes in the mechanisms I describe below. Also, I've been writing a lot of educational material lately, so apologies if I shifted into lecture mode anywhere in this crudely drawn presentation.

 

 

Looks good to me. I have no objections.

[Kobold King]

Looks good to me. I have no objections.

 

Awesome! Can we presume this makes mageia organelles officially

 

 

, then?

 

 

 

Also, I wanted to bring lumuole hotspots. By Curiosity's model, individual hotspots only accommodate certain varieties of lumuoles. Personally... I'm not very fond of that. I prefer the idea of having all lumuoles access the same "energy plane," with the colors serving merely as different outlets that channel the energy in different ways. That would give us a lot more room to explore different lumuole combinations, in my opinion, plus it simply makes the energy dimension all the more diverse and mysterious.

 

So I'm opposed to segregated lumuole hotspots, but in the event that everyone else votes them in, might I suggest incorporating a mechanism for hotspots to change over time? For instance, if enough blue lumuoles were brought to a purple hotspot, then they'd eventually "tear open" the portal and forge a connection to the blue dimension. This would make hotspots active, constantly changing entities, as opposed to still and perpetually unwavering features of the landscape.

 

Like I said, I'd prefer for all hotspots to access the same energy dimension, just to keep things from getting too complicated, but I thought it'd be politic to propose a compromise solution to go along with my strong and weakly argued opinion.

[The Honey Badger]

I agree with your ideas Kobold, I thought that this was the way it always was, any other 'color coded' system is news to me. I think in this world of varying regions and biologies, we need simplicity to enable that, having one 'plane' of power makes logical sense and aides  the idea of simplicity. Multi colored hotspots also enable vary creatures to live in one ecosystem, using different colors of lumuoles to accomplish their goals, yet having them exist in the same place. It makes everything easier people. Kobold's plan has my vote.

[Mckeedee123]

Awesome! Can we presume this makes mageia organelles officially

 

 

, then?

 

 

 

Also, I wanted to bring lumuole hotspots. By Curiosity's model, individual hotspots only accommodate certain varieties of lumuoles. Personally... I'm not very fond of that. I prefer the idea of having all lumuoles access the same "energy plane," with the colors serving merely as different outlets that channel the energy in different ways. That would give us a lot more room to explore different lumuole combinations, in my opinion, plus it simply makes the energy dimension all the more diverse and mysterious.

 

So I'm opposed to segregated lumuole hotspots, but in the event that everyone else votes them in, might I suggest incorporating a mechanism for hotspots to change over time? For instance, if enough blue lumuoles were brought to a purple hotspot, then they'd eventually "tear open" the portal and forge a connection to the blue dimension. This would make hotspots active, constantly changing entities, as opposed to still and perpetually unwavering features of the landscape.

 

Like I said, I'd prefer for all hotspots to access the same energy dimension, just to keep things from getting too complicated, but I thought it'd be politic to propose a compromise solution to go along with my strong and weakly argued opinion.

 

I agree with your ideas Kobold, I thought that this was the way it always was, any other 'color coded' system is news to me. I think in this world of varying regions and biologies, we need simplicity to enable that, having one 'plane' of power makes logical sense and aides  the idea of simplicity. Multi colored hotspots also enable vary creatures to live in one ecosystem, using different colors of lumuoles to accomplish their goals, yet having them exist in the same place. It makes everything easier people. Kobold's plan has my vote.

 

Oh. Now I see why you did the biology the way you did. 

 

Um... The entire point of the current model is that it can be structured however people want it to be. If the whole thing is too rigid (and I'm not just talking about "hotspots" here. The whole Spirit thing especially is best left vague) the world will end up looking pretty similar.

 

And Honey Badger... wait, what? Where did you... yes, you haven't really been imagining it wrong. The way you described is basically the way I was imagining the average ecosystem to work... I think?

 

I guess that everybody got off on a different tangent somewhere in the magic system discussion, based on how many different ideas there are on how it works. It probably stems from the fact that the first model was poorly described, and I'm not sure what to do about it.

 

The basic idea is this: aside from a few errors we've seen in how people visualize lumuoles (Winter, for example,) everybody's right! Lumuole spawning works however you want it to in your region. I've tried stating this multiple times, because based on how many ideas people have gotten about how it works, any other way would stifle our creativity. I'm pretty sure Kobold and Badge were actually describing different things, but I hope that answers both of you as to why I think we need it this way.

[Kobold King]

The basic idea is this: aside from a few errors we've seen in how people visualize lumuoles (Winter, for example,) everybody's right! Lumuole spawning works however you want it to in your region. I've tried stating this multiple times, because based on how many ideas people have gotten about how it works, any other way would stifle our creativity. I'm pretty sure Kobold and Badge were actually describing different things, but I hope that answers both of you as to why I think we need it this way.

 

...With all these misunderstandings afoot, I think we have the makings of a huge magical mess on our hands. We need to figure out precisely what is canon about lumuoles, and what that implies for the life on this planet.

 

 

You say that lumuoles "spawn." I've been operating under the assumption that you meant the lumuoles congregate and multiply around hotspots; the way you're talking now, though, I'm beginning to wonder if what you actually mean is that lumuoles simply appear around hotspots via spontaneous generation. This is a very important detail. If lumuoles are attracted to hotspots but reproduce normally, then that implies that they are natural, native organisms of Diaemus. If they simply pop into existence around portals to another reality, that implies that they are as alien to this world as the humans are.

 

 

And for the record, I agree that we need to keep the details of the magic customizable, but we absolutely need to have a solid idea of how the system works. Especially the "Spirit" thing. There's a difference between rigid rules and simply having a working idea about how the laws of physics work in this universe.

Edited October 5, 2015 by Kobold King

[the winter system]

Okay, that messes up what I thought the Lumoles were. How can they be seen, then?

[Kobold King]

Okay, that messes up what I thought the Lumoles were. How can they be seen, then?

 

Large colonies of them are visible to the naked eye, just like how enough microscopic algae in a pond can turn the water green. Lumuoles give off light, though, so when they live in an animal in large numbers the lumuole-containing parts of the organism tend to glow in the appropriate color.

 

Dromeans walk on two legs, by the way. Just like velociraptors.

[the winter system]

Well, that was one, um, sitting down. 

[Mckeedee123]

Okay, that messes up what I thought the Lumoles were. How can they be seen, then?

 

My visual anchor was fireflies. They'd have been little dust specks floating around in the air and glowing.