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 Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 8:46 pm
Christ I need to get the place a name. ...Meh, worst comes to worst, I'll call it Midgard. Okay, guys! Today we are learning about the wonderful world of Dark Polaris! First off, the place is bigger then Earth. ( About two Earth masses, actually. This is known as a "super-Earth" in Astronomy. ) There's quite a bit of geological activity, although it doesn't normally affect anyone not near a plate boundary. The atmosphere is suspiciously similar to ours, at least in terms of composition--it's a bit denser then Earth's atmosphere. Not enough for you to notice right away, but it's a bit like coming down from the mountians to a sea level area--you'd be a bit sick for a while afterwards until your body adjusts. ((No, you can't just go up and down mountians without an adjustment period. I know this because my parents have a friend in Colorado, and when he visits Virginny, he has to deal with what we would call altitude sickness, just on a milder level.))Most of the large continents are in the drier Northern hemisphere. Which is drier because of the continents. I haven't fleshed this area out much, although they would have a relatively large human population, with no Tori-Ryuu or intellegent dragons. They probably have kiminomimi, and maybe some Sirens. Not sure yet. At least one of the cultures is highly isolationist. The Southern hemisphere has two continents and a large archipelago. The smaller of the two continents is about the size of Australia, give or take a few dozen square miles. This is the Tori-Ryuu homeland, and the Destroyer's "Creation Dump Site". It's a fairly harsh place to live, due to the relatively large amount of things, plant and animal, that are at least partially carnivorous. The primary biome is rainforest, with a magically created steppe/desert region in the center area. The archipelago covers a relatively large area, totaling about the combined size of the island chains in Southeast Asia. ...shut up i can't spell the names. The largest island in the chain is slightly bigger then England, with the smaller ones varying depending on their position in their chain or the overall sea levels. Critters! Humans are humans. Pretty much your jacks of all trades. Their primary advantage is that they breed really, really fast in comparison to other intellegent species. Kiminomimi are what TV Tropes calls "Petting Zoo People". They are the descedents of humans who agreed to let the Destroyer experiment on them. There are four types; felines, canines, avians, and reptiles. Most types can shift into whatever animal they're heavily based off of, although some, like the Lizardmen, cannot. There are a few "unique" types, otherwise known as those without a viable breeding population for various reasons; octopi, lagomorphs, and saurians. They are fairly reclusive, and tend to avoid mingling with other species. Tori-Ryuu are magically created creatures that resemble six-limbed Velociraptorines but internally resemble mammals. They were jointly created by the Goddess of Balance and Lady Death ((who is really more the afterlife's top beaurocrat then anything else...)). They have a limited genepool due to their population going through multiple bottlenecks in their history--twice due to an epidemic, and once due to a concentrated attempt by all other species to wipe them out. They tend to be extremely xenophobic and isolationist, although they have softened their stance over time. Their average lifespan is about 2000 years, and the maximum lifespan is somewhere in the 3000s. The female can fertilize her own eggs, which causes a gender bias and helps the "can only reproduce every twelve years" for male/female pairs. They tend to give live birth to litters of 2-4. Dragon is the term used for both the intellegent constructs and their... not as intellegent... offspring. Intellegent Dragons (note the caps) are one-off creations, each consisting of a different species. They usually have powerful mental abilities, and were sometimes made as weapons of mass destruction. The animals called dragons are the offspring of the first Dragons. They are about as bright as any top predator, which really isn't saying much. They aren't too special--the various species are about as diverse as the legends of dragons on earth. Most dragons have six limbs, and all Dragons are immortal until the pointy end of something tells them otherwise. Demons are called that because of their resemblance to the creatures of myth. While they vary in shape, there are constants--all demons have horns, wings, goat-like feet, and tails. They are fairly reclusive, though this is more due to humans tending to kill them on sight then anything else.
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:34 pm
Wow. That's fantastic! The thing I have the most trouble with in worldbuilding is geography, but it looks like you've put a lot of thought into that aspect of your story.
You say humans are jacks of all trades--what do the other "critters" specialize in? What makes them interdependent or not interdependent?
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Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 6:13 pm
Geography is fun. 3nodding It helps to have classes in such things and to be a neeeerd about it, though.
Humans can breed quickly--but not too quickly; they can cast spells--but not that strongly; they can fight well without weapons--but not without years of training; they live long--but not too long.
Most humans are average. sweatdrop But they're still the most successful species on the planet because they can live pretty much anywhere and survive.
Tori-Ryuu are primarily magic users--even their fighters know some basic healing spells--but they are physically very strong. However, you can kill them fairly easily, both because hitting a wing can lead to severe blood loss and they need very large amounts of food and magic to live. Some cultures allow them in as trading partners, although they don't usually stay year-round due to cold. Their political system tends to be rather unstable as well; having anyone capable of fighting able to take over means that you could theoretically wind up with a coup every few weeks. Instead, it's every few generations. Also, massive xenophobia. Most areas are intensely racist against humans ib particular, to the point where you need a Tori-Ryuu protector if you like life.
Dragons can't breed true, despite their prowess in battle and such. They also can be bribed very easily with enough shinies. It doesn't have to be valuable, just shiny. They also have been reduce to four living members and one technically dead member of the genus. They have a lot of knowledge and are willing to trade for the right price, though, and dragon ivory and hides are highly valued.
Kiminomimi are physical fighters. Next to none of them are mages, and they're good at fighting, although they're pretty much average in every other way. They are more resistant to magic, though, which means that healing spells don't work as well and they're immune to minor magic, so human healers usually go to them for herbal advice, because they're nearby.
Demons don't have much too them, I'm afraid. I only have one demon character, and he's fairly minor. So, not much on them.
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Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2010 9:35 am
Christmuffins, it's been a while since I've updated this AND THINGS HAVE CHANGED duh. ANYWAY ELABORATION TIME.
Tori-Ryuu
Biology/Psychology: Tori-Ryuu are large, primarily carnivorous omnivores that externally resemble dromeasaurids. They have six limbs, usually grow to around seven to eight feet, four digits, and have true thumbs on their hands. And wing-fingers, but those are pretty much useless when you have ~*~thumbs~*~! Also a throat pouch for both temperature control and eating whole prey items. They aren't usually totally feathered as adults--most of them lose their body feathers at around twenty years or so. In adults feathers are limited to a crest that usually stops before the hips, the last foot or so of the tail, the wings and the lower arms. The feet are structured somewhat like a T. rex's feet.
They cannot live without eating meat. Period. Fruit and tubers are used mostly as supplements to the diet, and they can live without them, although they probably wouldn't like it. Please note that, like dogs, they have a lot of issues with digesting grain--it makes them sick--they can't digest lactose, and they usually dislike the taste of chlorophyll. So, no, you can't exactly invite them to a human dinner with the expectation that they'll eat everything you put in front of them. sweatdrop They also need a LOT of food to survive, which is to be expected.
Their teeth are built like an omnivorous mammal's (think bear or dog), not a dromeasurids'. They do, however, constantly lose/grow teeth, like an alligator, and their teeth generally aren't all at the same stage of growth. Their jaws, incidentally, pack enough power to crush bone without much trouble.
Their reproductive cycle is... odd, compared to most placental mammals. A female can become pregnant as long as she meets certian conditions while she is ovulating, in addition to the normal fertilization process. The conditions are usually only met through sex, but occasionally an unmated female will become pregnant after combat. And please, minds out of the gutter.
After conception, the pregnancy lasts for twelve months, and assuming the kids make it to term--stillbirth and miscarriage are relatively common--they're born the usual placental mammal way. They're usually about the size of a small dog when born, and... well, let's just say that "cute!" doesn't occur to anyone but the mother(s) before their feathers grow in. Like baby birds, only less hideous. They're blind for the first few months, and are fairly sensitive to the sun--the tiny things tend to flinch away from bright light. They drink their mother's milk for a year or two before moving on to puked up meat then to actual ripped-from-the-carcass meat.
Yes, milk. They have milk pores and grooves on their abdomen, like platypi. 8D AREN'T YOU GLAD TO KNOW ME?
Vision, vision... Their eyes have slitted pupils, to help with light gathering, although they don't have that reflective structure on the back of their eyes gdit, what is it CALLED?! gonk and thus don't have nightvision that's as good as, say, a cat's, although it's still better than a human's. Their color vision is excellent, with a visual range extending into the near ultraviolet, and their binocular vision is also extremely good--the visual field overlap is only a few degrees off of a human's.
The magic sense is usually interpreted as smell/other sense for them, with vision being the usual option (not including smell). Hearing is a distant second, with taste and touch being very rare, mostly because it's pretty distracting in a high-magic environment.
TBC. getting bored.
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