The Diaemus Project

[the winter system]

That is awesome. Human villages in the steppes use something which I haven't determined yet. 

[Seonid]

Lindel, no need to modify your concept - we could easily have different breeds that differ cosmetically, much like modern dogs.

Another important feature of my Skitches that I forgot - 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.

The Sorukaana cut off these horns after taking a Skitch slave - it has a very humiliating and demoralizing effect without preventing them from breeding. The females have much smaller horns, small enough that slave-takers file them down instead of cutting them off.

Finally, a question. I was thinking of starting a second thread to keep track of all of the information about the creatures of Diaemus, sapient and non. That way it would be easy to see what the fauna look like at various places, and to see where bleed over might happen between regions. Would anybody have a problem with me doing that?

Oh, and Lindel answered your question correctly, Venture.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Seonid

[The Honey Badger]

I really hope this project doesn't die, I have some ideas that I've developed a lot, I just need to set some deadlines to post a lot of real content. I'll make a long post detailing my stuff on Friday probably, Saturday definitely. 

 

Thanks for the Maps Sir Jerric, they look great.

[Mailliw73]

I should hope this isn't dead, since I've been working hard(ish) on this map stuff that people wanted.

 

Progress Report: (Lots!)

One fully labeled map for ease of reference:

The interpretations of these labels can be found on the Köppen climate classification page on Wikipedia.

 

A version of this map without the Köppen labels is also available, if they get in the way too much.

 

And because I had some spare time, I made a pretty colors version too.

 

Wow! Great maps, Jerric, thanks!! I haven't decided how the Mirani keep a calendar, but I don't think they will. They typically focus on the now, as evident in their language being devoid of a future tense and the past tense is current-centric. They will only keep a vague idea of the seasons to know when the best times for certain plants and trade are, and being closer to the equator than most of our civilizations, their seasons will be less dramatic anyways.

[Seonid]

Thank you, Sir Jerric, that map looks amazing. When I'm not on my mobile anymore, I'll put in a claim for a couple spots in the north.

While I'm waiting for feedback on whether or not to start a new thread to collate all of the Diaemian fauna in one, easily accessible place, I'll post a brief profile of my second intelligent race - the Haornithi.

Haornithi

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.

Hope y'all enjoyed that one too!

[Kobold King]

@SirJerric: That map looks awesome! I'm glad to finally have a defined calendar system in place. As for dating systems, I'm going to guess that every culture is going to wind up using a different system with scholars trained in converting dates between calendars, simply as we haven't established any spectacularly world-shattering events recent enough for use in a calendar.

 

 

@Seonid: the Skritches and the Haornithi couldn't be more perfect. I've dubbed them Anaxosuchus and Sapienavis respectively, by the way.

 

Query: phylogenetically, would the Skritches be considered "related" to any group of organisms found on Earth? Are they archosaurs, like dinosaurs and crocodiles? If one were to trace their lineage back into Diaemus' prehistoric past, would they be descended from Permian-esque mammal-like reptiles? Apologies if I'm trying to apply too much reason and science to this.

 

For my part, I would not object to a "Life of Diaemus" thread.

[Seonid]

Skitches are certainly archosaurs generally, and trace their lineage back to a common ancestor with both Dromeans and Haornithi. I envision Permian-like ancestors to them.

Also, don't worry about trying to get the science right. In my view, there's no such thing as too much reason and science in worldbuilding. There is only "not enough," and "I need to stop worldbuilding and actually start writing."

[Young Bard]

OK. Long story short, Rubix doesn't think a new subforum is 'necessary at this time'. I presume he means that a subforum with a single page on it would be completely silly, which is fair enough. What that means is that we should probably create pages as we need them now, and the subforum will probably go up if the admins deem it nescessary.

 

In keeping with that, I've started a new post with my latest maps, in addition to Sir Jerric's latest maps, here. If you would like to add a second spot, or change your current one, this is the place to do it. Kobold, do you want to link to that post (and possibly all the other new threads until the subforum is up) from your OP?

 

EDIT: Kobold, do you want to start a species page? I'd do it, but yoou seem to have created about 3/4 of them so far, so I think you should do it. Maybe McKeedee should start a 'Magic' page as well, just for the fine-tuning?

Edited October 4, 2015 by TheYoungBard

[Seonid]

And since I saw more Diaemus threads start popping up, and since there hasn't been anything but a positive response to the idea of a Life in Diaemus thread, I posted it here.

[Kobold King]

And since I saw more Diaemus threads start popping up, and since there hasn't been anything but a positive response to the idea of a Life in Diaemus thread, I posted it here.

 

I was going to make that thread later, once I'd separated everything into their proper biomes. But I'm glad you took the initiative. My one suggestion would be, could you change the name to "Diaemus Project - Biology"? That would give us some crucial conformity between the species and maps threads, making the threads easier to navigate and understand at a glance. Conformity and organization will also be crucial in getting our own sub-forum, if that is indeed the goal of many of our participants.

 

 

 

 

Question here for anyone with a love for dinosaurs and speculative animals. We decided early on that dinosaurs will be a common sight on Diaemus, but so far it's unclear whether they will comprise the dominant clade of fauna. There are otters in Mailliw's biome and giant flesh-eating scorpions in Winter's; Diaemus is already a more variable place than Earth.

 

With that said, I feel some small degree of planet-wide continuity would be pleasing to the mind to have. After all, life on Earth is extremely diverse, but you can still find differing breeds of the same rodents, ungulates, and carnivorous mammals on every continent.

 

For my own part, I've been fleshing out the south of Diaemus with a concept of predominantly early-Cretaceous fauna coupled with advanced flora from the Cenzoic era. I have been treating pterosaurs as a replacement for birds, marine reptiles as replacements for seals and whales, and for land animals I've been focusing on iguanadonts, nodosaurs, and carnosaurs as the dominant families of dinosaurs.

 

(Pictured here in order, for reference.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my vision for Diaemus, these three groups are the most successful of the world's large land animals, comprising the bulk of terrestrial megafauna. However, Diaemus isn't about my vision, nor would I want it to be. It's about all of us bringing out our own unique visions to the world, and stitching it together in a beautiful Frankenstein of imagination.

 

Still, I enjoy conformity, so here is my question to you plural: are my dinosaurs the typical inhabitants of Diaemus, or are they a a rare exception found only on the barren tundra? I'd love to imagine relatives of the snowsaber stalking the temperate forests to my immediate north, or scuzzard-like pterosaurs that gather around carcasses on the dry savannas. Are these things I can expect to see or help to create, or am I essentially creating "The Lost World" of Diaemus, an exotic land populated with animals found nowhere else on the planet?

[Seonid]

Whoops, sorry Kobold. Didn't realize I'd be stepping on your toes there. I thought I had a go-ahead from you. That was my bad...

 

Anyways, I edited the post title, and I'll post more thoughts here on my non-sapient critters of the north when I have more time.

[Kobold King]

Whoops, sorry Kobold. Didn't realize I'd be stepping on your toes there. I thought I had a go-ahead from you. That was my bad...

 

Anyways, I edited the post title, and I'll post more thoughts here on my non-sapient critters of the north when I have more time.

 

Nah, my toes are nigh-unsteppable. Don't worry about it; I was just trying to make myself seem less useless by pointing out that I was planning on doing something, eventually.

 

Thanks for editing the title.

[Mailliw73]

Ooh, snowsabers could hunt in the forests north of the Meran. that'd give them predators aside from "many-teeth"(which can be any kind of sea creature that has many teeth and eats meat.).

[Mckeedee123]

OK. Long story short, Rubix doesn't think a new subforum is 'necessary at this time'. I presume he means that a subforum with a single page on it would be completely silly, which is fair enough. What that means is that we need to create new pages for various things in the Creator's Corner as we need it, clutter up the Creator's Corner, and then we get a subforum.

 

In keeping with that, I've started a new post with my latest maps, in addition to Sir Jerric's latest maps, here. If you would like to add a second spot, or change your current one, this is the place to do it. Kobold, do you want to link to that post (and possibly all the other new threads until the subforum is up) from your OP?

 

EDIT: Kobold, do you want to start a species page? I'd do it, but yoou seem to have created about 3/4 of them so far, so I think you should do it. Maybe McKeedee should start a 'Magic' page as well, just for the fine-tuning?

 

I don't think that we really need a special thread for magic. As far as I can tell, everything we have to say about magic (and maps) could be stated in the OP of this thread. Here are some threads we probably do need if we're doing this, though:

 

Diaemus- Biology (already up. This would cover the plants and animals of the world, as well as the biology and basic culture of the sapient races. I'd suggest structuring it by putting all sapient races in the OP and then having each region have its own post for all climate, flora, and fauna info.)

Diaemus- Societies (This is where people would post about the culture, composition, and history of their societies. The OP would contain a very basic history of Diaemus, and then each region would have its own post for... well, the culture, composition, and history of it and its societies

Diaemus- Stories (This is where people would post the lore of the world... not sure if it's really necessary, but we have written quite a bit of it so far...)

The Diaemus Project (The equivalent of Questions Threads in RP's. This is where people would notify others about edits and new content in their projects, and is where all of the discussion would take place (including questions, requests for help, fishing for compliments, etc.) The OP would contain the maps and basic info, like races and the magic system.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my vision for Diaemus, these three groups are the most successful of the world's large land animals, comprising the bulk of terrestrial megafauna. However, Diaemus isn't about my vision, nor would I want it to be. It's about all of us bringing out our own unique visions to the world, and stitching it together in a beautiful Frankenstein of imagination.

 

Still, I enjoy conformity, so here is my question to you plural: are my dinosaurs the typical inhabitants of Diaemus, or are they a a rare exception found only on the barren tundra? I'd love to imagine relatives of the snowsaber stalking the temperate forests to my immediate north, or scuzzard-like pterosaurs that gather around carcasses on the dry savannas. Are these things I can expect to see or help to create, or am I essentially creating "The Lost World" of Diaemus, an exotic land populated with animals found nowhere else on the planet?

 

Dinosaurs are cool. 'Nuff said. Not very many megafauna continue to exist in my Mediterranean climate zone (most were driven extinct by millennia of human dominance) but the few that do are either herbivorous dinosaurs or ground sloths. I'm on board with the whole dinosaur thing, is what I'm trying to say.

 

It's difficult to imagine human history without horses, though, which is why I've been assuming that they exist in Diaemus. I guess cavalry mounted on terrorbirds is not out of the question...

 

I've also been assuming that chickens don't exist, but I did invent a dromeosaur called a Raptid. These would have been tiny pack hunters domesticated early on by humans. Raptids would fulfill all functions performed by dogs in our society. They could be used as guard animals, pest control, hunters, or just simple companionship. Naturally, their eyes would have become bigger and "cuter," and their coats would have become fluffier and taken on a huge variety of shapes and sizes due to artificial selection. Here's a picture I "drew":

Edited October 2, 2015 by Mckeedee123

[Young Bard]

Please Note: This is idle speculation on my part, and by no means canon.

 

Theory for the Diaemus Original Continent Timeline (I'll work out the second continent later):

 

1: In the beginning...: Dinosaurs reign supreme. Humans haven't yet crossed the ocean, and they are the only major sapient species. (Except maybe the spiders, I don't know.)

 

2: Armageddon: I'm leaning towards the idea of a war for this, but it doesn't have to be. I'm thinking that the humans cross the ocean, try to claim the land for themselves, and move in (it wouldn't be the first time). The dinosaurs, understandably, aren't very happy about this. They have a war, and eventually a hazy stalemate is reached. The dinosaurs still live, and do so in the regions that humans... don't really want, e.g. tundra. (For reference, this is the time when they start using lumuoles, initially weaponizing their new-found powers.) Also, my species, which I still haven't really developed, got caught in the crossfire, and moved underground in this period.

 

3: Plague: A plague of some sort spreads through the humans, leaving them too as a shadow of what they were before. This allows a new Cambrian Explosion to occur, meaning that a number of species can now flourish without the oppression of the humans (just for reference, they're not gone altogether, just drastically reduced in numbers.

 

3. Now: Dinosaurs are found in a few remote areas, such as the tundra, all over the continent. Humans themselves have developed a few mutations from their exposure to lumuoles (Mailliw's, for example, have developed the ability to survive better in water), and live in small clusters/hubs/villages/cities (e.g. Torbud Empire???). So small clusters of humans around the place, small clusters of dinosaurs around the place, as people want them.

 

If this goes against anything anyone else has done, let me now, and I'll edit it.

[Mckeedee123]

Please Note: This is idle speculation on my part, and by no means canon.

 

Theory for the Diaemus Original Continent Timeline (I'll work out the second continent later):

 

1: In the beginning...: Dinosaurs reign supreme. Humans haven't yet crossed the ocean, and they are the only major sapient species. (Except maybe the spiders, I don't know.)

 

2: Armageddon: I'm leaning towards the idea of a war for this, but it doesn't have to be. I'm thinking that the humans cross the ocean, try to claim the land for themselves, and move in (it wouldn't be the first time). The dinosaurs, understandably, aren't very happy about this. They have a war, and eventually a hazy stalemate is reached. The dinosaurs still live, and do so in the regions that humans... don't really want, e.g. tundra. (For reference, this is the time when they start using lumuoles, initially weaponizing their new-found powers.) Also, my species, which I still haven't really developed, got caught in the crossfire, and moved underground in this period.

 

3: Plague: A plague of some sort spreads through the humans, leaving them too as a shadow of what they were before. This allows a new Cambrian Explosion to occur, meaning that a number of species can now flourish without the oppression of the humans (just for reference, they're not gone altogether, just drastically reduced in numbers.

 

3. Now: Dinosaurs are found in a few remote areas, such as the tundra, all over the continent. Humans themselves have developed a few mutations from their exposure to lumuoles (Mailliw's, for example, have developed the ability to survive better in water), and live in small clusters/hubs/villages/cities (e.g. Torbud Empire???). So small clusters of humans around the place, small clusters of dinosaurs around the place, as people want them.

 

If this goes against anything anyone else has done, let me now, and I'll edit it.

 

Is this supposed to be a new idea or a compilation what we've come up with so far?

[Young Bard]

Mixture of the 2. Both Kobold and I mentioned some sort of disaster for the lore, and it was decided that humans came from over the sea. Besides that, I think it's relatively new.

[Mckeedee123]

Mixture of the 2. Both Kobold and I mentioned some sort of disaster for the lore, and it was decided that humans came from over the sea. Besides that, I think it's relatively new.

 

I thought they were brought to the planet by aliens or... something. Did I miss something?

 

Either way, I'm sort of apprehensive about this because I imagined humans as having a short (2,000 year-ish minimum) history of being hunter-gatherers before they picked up the plow. This would allow for the establishment of races and ethnicities and languages and whatnot.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Mckeedee123

[Seonid]

I wasn't aware that humans came from across the sea. The current working model (obviously not set in stone) was that humans were not native to this world.

How long ago was this catastrophic event? I'm not sure what I think about a cataclysmic, continent-spanning war. That presupposes a level of past unity (on both the humans and Dromeans) that at the least doesn't match what is happening now. And we are looking at widely varied human cultures here. On the whole, I think I prefer a gradual colonization model on the human's part.

Also, when you say dinosaurs, are you taking about Dromeans? Because they are the only ones so far that are sentient and would be able to have a war with humans. The rest of the dinosaurs described so far are either herd beats or predators. They would be able to participate in a war about as well as cows or bears.

In response to kobold's question, I am in favor of widespread dinosaurs (above and beyond the sentient Dromeans). The model I've been working on has a balance of saurian megafauna and mammalian beasts. Later tonight, probably, I'll post some of my fauna ideas for the northern continent, as well as specifically delineating my areas there. But, to whet the appetite, I've got domesticated hadrosaurs and large cervids as the primary food source of the Sorukaana, titanosaurs both domestic and wild (sometimes used for war), and perhaps even a few ceratopsians. The colder northern forests are home to some hypsilophodontids, as well as some medium sized mammals.

I'm not sure how to evolutionarily justify large mammals alongside large dinosaurs, but I'm sure it can be worked out.

[Kobold King]

RE: the timeline.

 

I like it, and there are some things we can take from it, but I don't think it all works.

 

 

Humans arrived only twelve thousand years ago on Diaemus, and the general consensus is that they are not native to anywhere on the planet. At least, that's the impression I've gotten. 

 

The Dromeans had been on the planet for well over a couple million years already, and considering the hefty lumuole presence in the natural ecosystem, it's almost certain that Dromeans already had a symbiotic relationship with the little magical critters since the beginning of their existence They are a part of an inherently magical ecosystem. Almost all living things on Diaemus connect with lumuoles in some way; that's what makes humans so strange in this world, as they're the only ones that don't naturally have an affinity for them. The Dromeans are native Diaemites. We shouldn't think of them in terms of "when they started using lumuoles." Lumuoles are a fact of life on Diaemus, and all living things have been using them since the dawn of time. I don't think we can establish a point at which the Dromeans "started using them" any more than we can define our own history by how long we've symbiotic bacteria in our guts. They've simply always been a part of the Dromeans, since before the earliest of their ancestors could be called a Dromean.

 

 

For the "Armageddon" stage in your timeline, I would prefer a thousand-year period of general unrest to a full-blown war. A full-blown war would imply organized empires capable of waging a continental interspecies conflict, which implies unified cultures with long histories of their own, which would restrict the independent lore-making capabilities of our participants. While the Dromeans and humans would probably compete--and I say 'probably' because it would by no means be a necessity in every region--I feel that this competition should take the form of accelerated breeding on both sides and maybe the occasional scuffle between isolated cultures. There'd be a lot of pressure on species, which could drive some underground or deep into the tundra, but anything so catastrophic as a continental war seems a bit much.

 

Besides which, I prefer McKeedee's timescale of human development on Diaemus. In his idea, humans would only have been civilized for the last two thousand years, making any conflict between them and Dromeans extremely recent events. As hunter-gatherers, humans would be perfectly capable of existing alongside Dromean packs, especially if they preyed on different food sources like lions and hyenas, or tigers and dholes, or any other large Earth-predators that exist in the same ecosystem.

 

 

Where the plague is concerned, I feel it would be unnecessary. If we make the earliest humans on Diaemus hunter-gatherers, then there's more than enough time and space on the map for them to have split up and founded different cultures and ethnicities, without muddying our lore with an ancient unified super-race that fell because of a vaguely defined virus. On Diaemus we should celebrate a diversity of cultures that rose from countless unique circumstances, not the crumbling remnants of a single empire that fell because of a single incident.

 

 

Finally, judging by Seonid's Sorukaan Empire and my own Ice Kin metropolises, the Dromeans are by no means a beaten, crumbling race confined to the parts of the map humans don't want. If anything, it seems like the Dromeans get first pick in regions, not the humans. Though like I said, there's really no reason that the two should inevitably go to war just from coexisting in the same space. Humans and Dromeans don't necessarily fill the same ecological niche, any more than lions and jackals do.

 

 

 

Hope I'm not sounding too aggressive in my counter-arguments. I would like to propose my own humble, loose timeline for Diaemus, one founded with the intent of providing maximum freedom for individual participants.

 

 

 

The Wild Age

 

This was the primordial dawn of Diaemus. In this era, which stretched millions of years from the beginning of the world to around  two million years ago, wild things struggled in a game of tooth and claw, forging the modern dinosaur-dominated ecosystems that make Diaemus distinctive. The caverns were opened up, allowing many unique forms of life to evolve within their cavities. Lumuoles appeared and began bonding to flora and wildlife across the globe, and the first Rachnyx intelligences began dreaming from inside their deep underground webs.

 

The First Age of Wisdom

 

The wildness of early Diaemus gave way to the Dromean Age, a time when the first anatomically modern Dromeans began exerting influence over the world. This era began three million years previously and ended twelve thousand years ago.

 

Also known as the Dromean Age, this era was marked by the evolution of most of the notable sapient beings of Diaemus' surface. Anatomically modern Dromeans emerged at the beginning of the age, quickly spreading across several continents and founding varied cultures and societies. (Most of these were hunter-tribes, but this would be the ideal age for any ancient advanced empires that anyone would like to incorporate into their region's history.) Presumably Haornithi, Skitches, water drulgas, and Nixos also arose in this period, though probably not in the precise cultural configurations that distinguish them today.

 

The key to understanding this time period lies in its mixture of budding civilization and an endless wild frontier. A massive Haornithi empire could hold court on one end of a forest, while a primitive tribe of Dromean hunters resided on the other. The evidence of both cultures could either be preserved in the fossil record, or washed away by the hundreds of thousands of years that separate the First Age of Wisdom from the modern day. The First Age of Wisdom would be the time of proliferation for most of Diaemus' unique species, and the time when they were channeled into their modern forms. Most of its history would be lost to the millennia, but cultural remnants, artifacts, and even gods could be leftover from its wonder and splendor.

 

The Time of Seeding

 

This was a particularly chaotic time, and extremely recent too--this occurred only twelve to thirteen thousand years ago. Nonetheless, it shook the delicate primordial balance of the First Age to its core.

 

Unknown forces, presumed divine or magical but ultimately unfathomable, "seeded" an entirely new species onto the surface of Diaemus. Human beings were sprinkled seemingly at random across the surface, left naked and without any form of oral tradition on every continent and in nigh-on every biome. The occurrence was completely inexplicable, and most of the prehistoric inhabitants didn't believe it until the hairless primates were already on their land, spearing game animals and crafting tools out of wood and flint.

 

The result was a long, slow period of unrest. In some areas, humans got along swimmingly with the natives. (Twi's tundra would be a prime example of this.) In other areas, brutal tribal wars might break out between staunchly entrenched holdouts from the First Age and the alien invaders. There were no set victors. In some areas humans became dominant, in some they were driven out, in some they allowed to live by benign but superior overlords, and in a few they began to peacefully coexist with equal but radically different neighbors.

 

The Time of Seeding also brought with it an unknown cataclysm which resulted in the toppling of the subterranean ecosystem, which prompted the Rachnyx to leave the safety of their webs and to begin forming civilizations.

 

The important part of this era, to us as worldbuilders, is that it brings humans into the world and provides an element of chaos for us to work with. Do you have a group that chose to live in isolation from the rest of Diaemus because of a mysterious catastrophe? Clearly they were out-competed by humans or by another group displaced by the humans, or else they thought it was the end of the world or some such mythology. Do you have a group that lives among the ruins of an ancient kingdom that fell long ago? Clearly the Time of Seeding wreaked the fall of this kingdom.

 

If we wanted to spark maximum drama, we could even say that the non-dinosaurs of Diaemus, like some of Seonid's beasts and Mailliw's otters, were also brought to the planet during the Seeding. Maybe mammals wreaked enormous havoc with the ecosystem, sparking further famines and other hardships that would shake the world to its foundations.

 

The Second Age of Wisdom

 

Finally, the dust settled. Humans (and possibly their mammalian cousins) found their roles within the planet's ecosystem, and no longer did cruel, savage Darwinism drive Homo sapiens' interactions with other intelligent beings. The wars slowed down and became less severe. Famines halted as the ecosystems resettled themselves. Life on Diaemus was going back to normal.

 

Two thousand years ago, a handful of human societies learned how to grow grain crops, and began to form the peculiar social structure we call civilization in the Diaemite ecosystem. Cities were built from the ground up. Some humans began smelting metals like copper, bronze, and even iron, much to the amusement of the handful of Dromean societies which already knew how to do it. In time, bustling trade routes started criss-crossing the map, as goods were produced and shipped across the continent.

 

This is the modern era, a second golden age. It is largely medieval in feel; merchants and a handful of travelers might see the outside world, but by and large most people regardless of species prefer to stay at home. It's a dangerous world, with roads packed with bandits and wild beasts. Occasionally, the skies are darkened by the smoke of wars and marching armies. This new age promises advancements and discoveries never dreamed of in the First Age of Wisdom, but with those promises come the tidings of strife and turmoil.

 

How will Diaemus fare now? Will the diverse cultures of the world learn to get along in peace and harmony, trading goods and culture as they forge a better world? Or will the planet be plunged into war by an angry empire, or consumed whole by one of the foul ancient gods whispered of in legends? Will this age flow into an age of heaven, or is all of our work merely the calm before the storm?

 

Well don't ask me. That's for you to figure out.

 

 

 

...

 

 

It's not perfect, and it needs some filling in for the gaps, but I hope this could provide a loose framework for our history. The Wild Age gives us prehistory and evolution. The First Age of Wisdom gives us a foundation for our non-human species. The Time of Seeding gives us humans, Rachnyx, and a hefty dose of chaos and turmoil. The Second Age of Wisdom gives us a playing field for our current cultures and civilizations, watered by the chaos of the Seeding but with roots anchored in the First Age.

 

What do you guys think?

[Seonid]

I like it quite a bit. I wanted to suggest that all mammals were seeded at the same time as humans, but was afraid it night be too interventionist. Reading your summary, though, it flows naturally in. I like it a lot.

[Young Bard]

I agree. That's a lot better than mine. Sorry if I confused anyone.

 

And... I must have got completely off on the wrong foot. I knew they weren't "native" like everyone else, but I'd presumed that had meant "from across the ocean" not-native instead of "created by super evil god of destruction" not-native. Oops.

 

So, are we leaving what caused humans to arrive ambiguous, or are we explaining it?

[Mckeedee123]

RE: the timeline.

 

I like it, and there are some things we can take from it, but I don't think it all works.

 

 

Humans arrived only twelve thousand years ago on Diaemus, and the general consensus is that they are not native to anywhere on the planet. At least, that's the impression I've gotten. 

 

The Dromeans had been on the planet for well over a couple million years already, and considering the hefty lumuole presence in the natural ecosystem, it's almost certain that Dromeans already had a symbiotic relationship with the little magical critters since the beginning of their existence They are a part of an inherently magical ecosystem. Almost all living things on Diaemus connect with lumuoles in some way; that's what makes humans so strange in this world, as they're the only ones that don't naturally have an affinity for them. The Dromeans are native Diaemites. We shouldn't think of them in terms of "when they started using lumuoles." Lumuoles are a fact of life on Diaemus, and all living things have been using them since the dawn of time. I don't think we can establish a point at which the Dromeans "started using them" any more than we can define our own history by how long we've symbiotic bacteria in our guts. They've simply always been a part of the Dromeans, since before the earliest of their ancestors could be called a Dromean.

 

 

For the "Armageddon" stage in your timeline, I would prefer a thousand-year period of general unrest to a full-blown war. A full-blown war would imply organized empires capable of waging a continental interspecies conflict, which implies unified cultures with long histories of their own, which would restrict the independent lore-making capabilities of our participants. While the Dromeans and humans would probably compete--and I say 'probably' because it would by no means be a necessity in every region--I feel that this competition should take the form of accelerated breeding on both sides and maybe the occasional scuffle between isolated cultures. There'd be a lot of pressure on species, which could drive some underground or deep into the tundra, but anything so catastrophic as a continental war seems a bit much.

 

Besides which, I prefer McKeedee's timescale of human development on Diaemus. In his idea, humans would only have been civilized for the last two thousand years, making any conflict between them and Dromeans extremely recent events. As hunter-gatherers, humans would be perfectly capable of existing alongside Dromean packs, especially if they preyed on different food sources like lions and hyenas, or tigers and dholes, or any other large Earth-predators that exist in the same ecosystem.

 

 

Where the plague is concerned, I feel it would be unnecessary. If we make the earliest humans on Diaemus hunter-gatherers, then there's more than enough time and space on the map for them to have split up and founded different cultures and ethnicities, without muddying our lore with an ancient unified super-race that fell because of a vaguely defined virus. On Diaemus we should celebrate a diversity of cultures that rose from countless unique circumstances, not the crumbling remnants of a single empire that fell because of a single incident.

 

 

Finally, judging by Seonid's Sorukaan Empire and my own Ice Kin metropolises, the Dromeans are by no means a beaten, crumbling race confined to the parts of the map humans don't want. If anything, it seems like the Dromeans get first pick in regions, not the humans. Though like I said, there's really no reason that the two should inevitably go to war just from coexisting in the same space. Humans and Dromeans don't necessarily fill the same ecological niche, any more than lions and jackals do.

 

 

 

Hope I'm not sounding too aggressive in my counter-arguments. I would like to propose my own humble, loose timeline for Diaemus, one founded with the intent of providing maximum freedom for individual participants.

 

 

 

The Wild Age

 

This was the primordial dawn of Diaemus. In this era, which stretched millions of years from the beginning of the world to around  two million years ago, wild things struggled in a game of tooth and claw, forging the modern dinosaur-dominated ecosystems that make Diaemus distinctive. The caverns were opened up, allowing many unique forms of life to evolve within their cavities. Lumuoles appeared and began bonding to flora and wildlife across the globe, and the first Rachnyx intelligences began dreaming from inside their deep underground webs.

 

The First Age of Wisdom

 

The wildness of early Diaemus gave way to the Dromean Age, a time when the first anatomically modern Dromeans began exerting influence over the world. This era began three million years previously and ended twelve thousand years ago.

 

Also known as the Dromean Age, this era was marked by the evolution of most of the notable sapient beings of Diaemus' surface. Anatomically modern Dromeans emerged at the beginning of the age, quickly spreading across several continents and founding varied cultures and societies. (Most of these were hunter-tribes, but this would be the ideal age for any ancient advanced empires that anyone would like to incorporate into their region's history.) Presumably Haornithi, Skitches, water drulgas, and Nixos also arose in this period, though probably not in the precise cultural configurations that distinguish them today.

 

The key to understanding this time period lies in its mixture of budding civilization and an endless wild frontier. A massive Haornithi empire could hold court on one end of a forest, while a primitive tribe of Dromean hunters resided on the other. The evidence of both cultures could either be preserved in the fossil record, or washed away by the hundreds of thousands of years that separate the First Age of Wisdom from the modern day. The First Age of Wisdom would be the time of proliferation for most of Diaemus' unique species, and the time when they were channeled into their modern forms. Most of its history would be lost to the millennia, but cultural remnants, artifacts, and even gods could be leftover from its wonder and splendor.

 

The Time of Seeding

 

This was a particularly chaotic time, and extremely recent too--this occurred only twelve to thirteen thousand years ago. Nonetheless, it shook the delicate primordial balance of the First Age to its core.

 

Unknown forces, presumed divine or magical but ultimately unfathomable, "seeded" an entirely new species onto the surface of Diaemus. Human beings were sprinkled seemingly at random across the surface, left naked and without any form of oral tradition on every continent and in nigh-on every biome. The occurrence was completely inexplicable, and most of the prehistoric inhabitants didn't believe it until the hairless primates were already on their land, spearing game animals and crafting tools out of wood and flint.

 

The result was a long, slow period of unrest. In some areas, humans got along swimmingly with the natives. (Twi's tundra would be a prime example of this.) In other areas, brutal tribal wars might break out between staunchly entrenched holdouts from the First Age and the alien invaders. There were no set victors. In some areas humans became dominant, in some they were driven out, in some they allowed to live by benign but superior overlords, and in a few they began to peacefully coexist with equal but radically different neighbors.

 

The Time of Seeding also brought with it an unknown cataclysm which resulted in the toppling of the subterranean ecosystem, which prompted the Rachnyx to leave the safety of their webs and to begin forming civilizations.

 

The important part of this era, to us as worldbuilders, is that it brings humans into the world and provides an element of chaos for us to work with. Do you have a group that chose to live in isolation from the rest of Diaemus because of a mysterious catastrophe? Clearly they were out-competed by humans or by another group displaced by the humans, or else they thought it was the end of the world or some such mythology. Do you have a group that lives among the ruins of an ancient kingdom that fell long ago? Clearly the Time of Seeding wreaked the fall of this kingdom.

 

If we wanted to spark maximum drama, we could even say that the non-dinosaurs of Diaemus, like some of Seonid's beasts and Mailliw's otters, were also brought to the planet during the Seeding. Maybe mammals wreaked enormous havoc with the ecosystem, sparking further famines and other hardships that would shake the world to its foundations.

 

The Second Age of Wisdom

 

Finally, the dust settled. Humans (and possibly their mammalian cousins) found their roles within the planet's ecosystem, and no longer did cruel, savage Darwinism drive Homo sapiens' interactions with other intelligent beings. The wars slowed down and became less severe. Famines halted as the ecosystems resettled themselves. Life on Diaemus was going back to normal.

 

Two thousand years ago, a handful of human societies learned how to grow grain crops, and began to form the peculiar social structure we call civilization in the Diaemite ecosystem. Cities were built from the ground up. Some humans began smelting metals like copper, bronze, and even iron, much to the amusement of the handful of Dromean societies which already knew how to do it. In time, bustling trade routes started criss-crossing the map, as goods were produced and shipped across the continent.

 

This is the modern era, a second golden age. It is largely medieval in feel; merchants and a handful of travelers might see the outside world, but by and large most people regardless of species prefer to stay at home. It's a dangerous world, with roads packed with bandits and wild beasts. Occasionally, the skies are darkened by the smoke of wars and marching armies. This new age promises advancements and discoveries never dreamed of in the First Age of Wisdom, but with those promises come the tidings of strife and turmoil.

 

How will Diaemus fare now? Will the diverse cultures of the world learn to get along in peace and harmony, trading goods and culture as they forge a better world? Or will the planet be plunged into war by an angry empire, or consumed whole by one of the foul ancient gods whispered of in legends? Will this age flow into an age of heaven, or is all of our work merely the calm before the storm?

 

Well don't ask me. That's for you to figure out.

 

 

 

...

 

 

It's not perfect, and it needs some filling in for the gaps, but I hope this could provide a loose framework for our history. The Wild Age gives us prehistory and evolution. The First Age of Wisdom gives us a foundation for our non-human species. The Time of Seeding gives us humans, Rachnyx, and a hefty dose of chaos and turmoil. The Second Age of Wisdom gives us a playing field for our current cultures and civilizations, watered by the chaos of the Seeding but with roots anchored in the First Age.

 

What do you guys think?

 

That's pretty long. How did you write it so quic...? You know what? Nevermind.

 

I don't really care what we end up doing, but I might as well throw in my idea of what human/non-human interactions would have looked like, historically, and what I've been basing my region on.

 

So we have the arrival of humans at about 12,000 BCE (with the premodern era that we consider to be the present to be around 1,000 CE.) Early humans are, of course, outcompeted by Dromean groups in most areas, but the two species are able to coexist because while Dromeans tend to feed off of medium-sized terrestrial herbivores and their own herds of animals, humans stick primarily to plants and carrion (as historians seem to think that the earliest human societies did.) Human settlements attract small, omnivorous dromeosaurs which are slowly bred into raptids (a movement that I would consider to be analogous to the domestication of the dog.)

 

Within a thousand years or so, humans have spread to occupy almost every corner of the main continent. These humans would primarily identify with the tribe rather than with the concept of "humanity," and population movements would be very similar to those on earth, ie. more advanced groups would grow and outcompete other groups, and over long-ish periods of time, language groups and races spread over each other on the continent through population expansion. Some human groups develop hunting techniques and weapons advanced enough that they can go after megafauna even the Dromeans avoid hunting, and in some places, they simply outcompete the reptilian race, their 5-fingered dexterity being more valuable than saurians' strength and natural arsenal. I'm placing this period as starting at 11,000 BCE and ending in some areas as early as 9,000 BCE. In others, it's still going on.

Example: In the Emeezim region (where the Torbud Empire is,) the tall, medium-skinned Taiviev had lived disparately alongside Dromean hunters since the first human migrations. At around 9,500 BCE, however, lighter-skinned, large-nosed Emzimite societies expanded from out of the highlands with atlatls and advanced spearpoints, and displaced many of the Taiviev tribes as their population grew. Most of the Dromeans were also driven away by these groups. Nowadays, the region is racially and linguistically Emzimite with a few Taiviev holdouts living in the northern areas.

 

With the development of agriculture (kicked off by some sort of climate change and starting as early as 9,000 BCE in some areas) humans really did become more formidable than Dromeans. Dromeans had always been limited by their need for meat, but humans could farm plants instead of just animals, leading to massive population explosions. Walls and professional militaries also made humans more formidable in areas suitable for agriculture. Even in places where growing plants was difficult, humans often became pastoralists, possessing horses, which enabled them to stand their ground against Dromean attack. Of course, this didn't happen everywhere, but in many places the balance of power was tipped. Also, in the period we witness the first ascended humans giving birth to demigods, and these spirits could assist the human race.

Example: In the Emeezim region, human foragers sort of begin cultivating the Abab Tree for its starchy tubers to supplement a diet based on an environment that has become less productive in the face of temporary climate changes. The fire spirit Termid is created, and he modifies the emrunath plant to make it a suitable agricultural crop. Agriculture begins in earnest and prehistorical human towns grow along rivers over a period of 6,000 years. These city-states push pastoralists out as they take more and more farmland for themselves. Snifflers and Shupaks are domesticated, and the Termidine bloodline begins to rule over human society.

 

Civilizations arise, the first appearing about 3,000 BCE. Dromean "civilizations" had existed before, but they really take shape here as they defend territories to graze and hunt in. In some areas, Dromeans dominate. In others, humans shove the lizards out. Bronze metallurgy is adopted and the first empires arise. Humans establish dominance over the environment. Epidemic diseases ravage human populations, but remain local to specific centers of agriculture. I'd say this era continues until around 0 CE, with iron metallurgy taking root at around 1,000 BCE.

Example: The settlements along the Aums River give way to the First Torbud Empire. Over the course of the next few centuries, it uses military dominance to establish control over the entire region. Culture flourishes, and slowly homogenizes until the Ritsu language and societal structure stretch across the entire region. Some pastoralist Dromeans are allowed to return in exchange for paying taxes and whatnot. Carnivorous megafauna are driven extinct in the Emeezim region.

 

Disease pool homogenization. Increased trade and expanding political groups bring human diseases from one side of the continent to the other. The human population actually decreases, and many human empires experience instability, but the contacts lead to relatively rapid technological growth. By 1,000 CE, the functional "present," technology can be considered premodern (Earth 1,500's-ish?), with steel being relatively common.

Example: The Torbud Empire is weakened by disease and civil war, and Sesset tribes migrate in and turn the prosperous region into a series of warring city-states. By 700 CE, the region is reunited and enters an era of prosperity.

 

So there. Now, this model of history sort of ignores the other two races (this is mostly just for agricultural human societies, after all,) but the assumption is that they'd follow similar patterns in order to counter the human power shift. Dromeans in certain areas would have to band together to prevent themselves from being displaced, and the Rachnyx would respond by... doing whatever the heck Rachnyx do (those guys are wierd.)

 

I look at it this way because I try to see everything in terms of historical precedents. This was the underlying pattern of human history from 10,000 BCE onwards, and so I'm pretty sure it would be repeated in Diaemus, just with velociraptors and giant spiders and T-rex's running around.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Mckeedee123

[Voidus]

So kinda awkward but I only just realized this thread exists despite the insanely large number of posts and details from some of my favourite Sharders.   
Anyway, awesome work you guys!

[Edgedancer]

So kinda awkward but I only just realized this thread exists despite the insanely large number of posts and details from some of my favourite Sharders.   

Anyway, awesome work you guys!

It's never too late to join and i say this that got very little work down on paper and only has most of his stuff in his head. Talking about that, I should get that stuff written down.