daedalus725
Kell of Kells, godking of Planet X
- Location
- Daedalus crater, The moon
-
For all readers and writers
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ideas for sapient species in fantasy world
- Thread starter Logan
- Start date
- Worldbuilding
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Multi-gender species which have 1 or 2 genders non-sapient are interesting to me, but I wouldn't use templates for that. Instead I'd either go with something like the Kzin, where females are more like dogs in terms of intelligence that humans, and they are like pets of the other (2?) genders, OR I'd go with sequential genders, which is like children mature into males, and if the survive for long enough and aren't starving then males will mature into females. In fact that would be great for the bio-weapon species thread... I'll go write it up there and come back and paste a copy here.
Article: Jellivines aka Members of the Green Hive
These are sort of like primal zerg, so on their home planet they aren't organized into armies and generally only kill their neighbors in small skirmishes. But they would be challenging for any other sentient race to coexist with, and if dropped onto an alien planet they would be invasive (in the sense that annoying plants are invasive). Cannibalism is normal part of their diet, so squick warning for that I guess.
So anyway: Once upon a time an alien plant that closely resembled the type of succulent plants known as "stone plants" evolved to be a carnivorous plant called a stonesnap (xenolithops arpazo) by developing a sticky tentacle which could snap out and grab an insect, or on a larger plant could grab a rodent. These carnivorous plants evolved to become more and more animal-like until they were basically "plantimals", animals which retain the ability to photosynthesize and absorb water and nutrients from dirt, in addition to their more animal-like abilities to (in some life stages) eat with a mouth and walk on leg-like limbs to search for prey. These started living in social packs, and competition with both prey and other packs encouraged them to feed the lead pack member enough for that individual to have a bigger brain and more intelligence. Eventually these plantimals developed into a species that lived in hives of which the top caste of individuals are sentient. This species looks like a green jelly or slime from an RPG with several vines sprouting out of it, so humans have dubbed them Jellivines. Their name for themselves means something like "green hive members", which might be translated as chloromelissi.
Modern Jellivines are a clear example of "ontology recapitulated phylogeny": they are birthed as a seed and sprout into an immobile, non-sentient "succulent plant" instar. These have no mouths and grow from photosynthesis and dirt alone; the other instars can subsist through periods of famine on sunlight, but only if they spend as few calories moving around as possible.
After 3 months of growth they progress from this first "succulent plant" instar to a second "carnivorous plant" instar. Specifically they sprout 2-4 vine tentacles and a mouth (which gives their mother the option to feed them if she has the resources to do so, and the will also feed themselves insects or small rodents or even small fish if they can catch them.) Second instars also gain the ability to retract their rootlets and slowly crawl short distances, if a sunnier spot or one with better soil is nearby. They are still non-sapient, with intelligence comparable to an insect or fish.
After at least 3 more months (depending on diet and environmental conditions) they develop into their third "plantimal" instar, which has 6-8 longer and stronger vine tentacles and has also developed eyes. At this point they are comparable to a mid-size mammal in intelligence; the most intelligent ones may learn to recognize a few spoken words. They aren't as mobile as their primitive ancestors, but have more fine motor control of their prehensile manipulative limbs (like octopus limbs only green and vine-like). They can quickly feed themselves if small prey wanders by, and if left unsupervised will happily eat smaller Jellivines. This isn't that surprising though, because young members of this species are actually the main cultivated "crop" of the intelligent adults. The average time from birth to the end of the third instar is about 1 year, but can vary from 9 months with abundant feeding and ideal temperatures to 3 years in extreme poor conditions. A queen jellivine can produce several pheromone pastes to be smeared on her hive members, one of which can freeze an individual in its current instar for a few months before it wears off and must be reapplied. This might be done if a hive already has all the warriors and juveniles it can support, or 2nd-instars intended to be eaten would be encouraged to remain in that form and get a bit larger rather than use up their accumulated calories developing into the third instar.
The fourth instar is the first sapient one, capable of full speech, and first fully mobile one. This could be called the "juvenile" or "worker" instar. They are gender-neutral, though they may feel puppy crushes. Socially they mainly try to be cute and helpful so older individuals will teach them life skills and share their food. Jellivines have a set of terms similar to kohai and senpai for juveniles who are adopted as apprentices by warriors, and the warriors doing the adopting.
After 1 year in ideal conditions or up to 4 years in bad conditions, they develop into the fifth instar, the male "warrior" instar. These are larger, stronger, and more armored than workers, and the largest members of a hive except for the queen. They hunt for the queen and themselves, and if there's any surplus they or the queen can choose which younger hive members to feed. They also defend their hive's territory, mate with the queen, and may transport queen-approved trade items to and from neighboring hives. The IQ of a warrior is about the same as a human, though the range is narrower: 80-120. Warriors remain warriors unless their queen dies or they leave their hive to start a new one. A queen can intentionally cause a warrior to mature into a queen with another of those pheromone pastes if she wants to support one of her heirs in starting a new hive.
So the sixth and final instar is the female "queen" instar, and there is normally only one queen per hive. Queens are the largest, and are mobile though slower and less agile than juveniles and males. They will occasionally travel to negotiate trades with neighbors or examine a new potential hive site, but when they do it's a slow procession guarded by warriors. Queens are regarded as being the only full citizens of their species, and all members of their hive are their property, that the queen has full rights to kill and eat them, to trade them to another queen, to mate with them, or to command them to do various work, including overseeing others. An individual warrior has the right to eat from his own kill and give some to any teammate warriors or apprentice juveniles before bringing it back to the hive, but once it's the hive's property the queen will eat as much as she wants and distribute the rest as she sees fit. Queens have an IQ in the 120-160 range, smarter than the average human though they are generally much less educated than any modern human, and they also don't reach the extremes of genius that humans generally do. They have the most advanced biological abilities of all the instars, including the ability to collect genetic samples from their food, and do minor manipulation on the genes of their seeds. They also have the pheromone abilities mentioned above, another pheromone paste which sterilizes a wound and encourages it to heal, and the ability to physically connect to an injured hive member and channel a healing super-nutrient blend to the injury site; this blend can be specialized for a bone injury, muscle injury, or skin injury. Jellivine bones (yes they do have some, though far fewer than humans) are made largely of silicon and as a result are somewhat brittle, and broken bones may require a queen to perform surgery to set the bone or amputate a limb that is too injured to repair.
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Reminds me of the genreomancers (I made up the name) from the Pals in Peril series.
Escapees from fiction serial novels. Their "powers" are that despite their existing in reality, the world around them warps into following the rules of their stories. A bunch of kid detectives will always be stumbling on new mysteries. A science hero can build impossible zeerust gadgets which actually work. An action hero's enemies will suddenly become terrible shots. The heroine of a fictitious Goosebumps knockoff keeps getting attacked by improperly buried classroom pet hamsters, having to disguise themselves as IRS to sneak aboard a UFO and retrieve their little brother from the meat locker, etc.
Things only get more extreme when genreomancers travel. They can enter their own fictionalized worlds by traveling to corresponding real locations. When an edisonade adventurer goes on a trip (to Delaware), he ends up in a fantasy world perfect for adventures which is much larger than the actual state of Delaware. While leaving, other characters remark that they couldn't get back to the same Delaware without the adventurer coming with them. Not only this, multiple genreomancers mean hybridized fictionalized worlds. Taking the heroine of monster novels along with means fictitious Delaware has a serious pest control problem with rampaging Mountain Squids and dinosaurs. An insane military dictator takes over Delaware's government to create a suitable society so the hero of a spy thriller has genre-appropriate enemies.
Genreomancer powers are dependent on people continuing to read their books. Once their series decline into unpopularity, reality strikes back. They lose their powers, can undergo character development and start aging. While their powers are active, they can't entirely notice that anything's wrong. The hero of a sixties era scifi adventure gets the date wrong. By forty years since when his books went out of print. He's then corrected by the fictitious Goosebumps knockoff heroine who also gets the date wrong, corresponding to the publication of the last book in her series. Then she's corrected by the perfectly normal protagonist of the novel... ...with the actual book's publication date.
Gremmler: The Gremmlers are an artificial race, the descendants of minions created by an ancient, long destroyed "dark lord" figure. While not "born evil" or the like this origin has left its imprint on them.
A Gremmler is a large, dark grey leathery-skinned humanoid. Tall and wide they have a muscular but rounded look, almost chubby. They are completely lacking in hair and their heads are wider and flatter than a human's; with large eyes but almost no forehead. They also have large, pointed ears that are tall enough that they extend above the top of their flattish skull.
Sexually dimorphic, they have about three males for every female. The males are usually somewhere between six and seven feet tall and strongly built. Gremmler females are between eight and nine feet tall and wider for their height; they were built large to be able to produce many minions quickly.
While stronger than a human on a pound-for-pound basis, one of the Gremmler's most notable features is their sheer toughness. They were built to be hard to kill, and they are. Their rounded looks are because most of their body is covered by thick flexible armor; hard to cut but resilient hide with layers of overlapping "bony" discs embedded in it to defeat piercing weapons. It's even fairly fire resistant. In some areas of the body this hide can be an inch thick or more. Their flat heads are that way because they keep their brain in their chest where a human keeps their heart.
Most of their bones are made of something other than normal bone; a strong but resilient substance that bends rather than breaks. Most of their organs are much less centralized than those of a normal creature; it's possible to punch holes entirely through one in multiple places without seriously injuring them. Their major blood vessels are wrapped in strong muscles allowing them to serve as both a distributed heart, and to stop bleeding from any injuries. Their flesh is tough and fibrous; cutting into one is possible but it's more like hacking through tough plants than flesh even once you get past their hide. And even if you manage to cut something off they can regrow it eventually. Gremmlers are of course extremely resistant to disease and poisons; they are also almost impervious to pain.
One side effect of this is that their society is by most human standards very violent and brutal; highly unusually for such societies they are much more brutal to each other than to outsiders. Because for them it just doesn't hurt. They like to fight, it's one of the things they were made for; but they are much tougher than their own strength, so much so that a Gremmler accidentally killing another is extremely difficult barring environmental hazards like high cliffs and deep water. A Gremmler will punch another Gremmler to get his attention, or stab one to express mild irritation. Gremmler settlements tend to build everything possible out of stone instead of wood because wood tends to get broken with all the constant brawling.
They are usually much less violent towards outsiders, although typically in a rather patronizing way; they don't really think of themselves as tough, they think of themselves as normal. It's everybody else who is ridiculously flimsy.
Gremmler families are polyandrous and matriarchal; Gremmler societies on the other hand tend to be borderline anarchic. Gremmlers have very little ambition for power, something engineered into them but their creator to prevent any attempt to supplant him. They were also created to obey him, and only him*; due to him being dead Gremmlers just are not emotionally inclined to follow anybody seriously as a leader. A result of that is few Gremmlers want to be a leader; it's a difficult job that they don't even find satisfying. The most organized parts of Gremmler societies tend to be individual families led by their matriarchs.
*They are it should be noted highly resistant to any form of magical/mystical control; part of how they were made to be controlled only by their creator. He could do it - but with him gone there are no "authorized users" left.
In general their society tends to be directionless. They do things because they feel good or find them interesting, but are generally lacking in long term plans or a greater design. They don't have ambition. Even their fighting tends to just end when the participants just get bored and walks away - they don't really care about winning, just fighting.
Gremmlers don't appear to age as such; they reach around a hundred years without visibly aging and simply drop dead one day.
Dyvthian: The Dyvthians are an apparently all female humanoid race. Biologically however they are sapient plants that have acquired the ability to emulate such a race.
In appearance they are green women with brightly colored hair that comes in any shade a flower can have, because that's basically what it is; their "hair" is thicker but softer than human hair. It also has a light dusting of pollen if examined closely. The exact details differ because they resemble the local humanoids, whatever they are.
The insides of their bodies however are a lot less humanoid than they look. They have a woody brain at about their center of mass with rootlike nerves extending from it, a digestive system that's basically a long tube filled with roots, and a womb that's not much more than an internal cavity. And that's pretty much it as internal organs go; they don't even have bones.
Even their limbs have no bones, but merely normally move as if they did. However if a Dyvthian feels like it they can stop pretending their arms and legs are human-rigid and flex their limbs in a highly inhuman fashion like a snake - or an animated vine, which in a sense it is.
They are pretty hard to hurt with normal weapons, between the lacking of vulnerable organs and the toughness of their "flesh". Even a sword jammed into them will only penetrate few inches and become wedged and immobile. Their brain being a woody solid organ in their chest rather than a jellylike one in their head makes blunt force less effective too. And a Dyvthian wearing armor is really hard to kill or even seriously injure. Even poison works much more slowly, since they don't have a bloodstream as such.
While technically photosynthetic, they don't have nearly enough surface area and are too active to survive off sunlight alone; they need to eat to keep up their energy. Dyvthians can eat almost anything, but their favorite food is meat.
Dyvthian reproduction is unconventional, and involves a physical and magical component. Biologically, they reproduce like plants; they exchange pollen. Their flower-hair is constantly producing it, and even casual association can transfer some; close contact does so much more efficiently. Technically something as simple as rubbing their hand in another Dyvthian's hair then their own would work as "close contact", but they are close enough imitations of humanoids that they generally find "exchanging pollen" by a sexual relationship both much more fun and emotionally satisfying.
If that's all the Dyvthian does then eventually she will birth a large seed which if planted will grow into a "dynthias plant"; a large, odd-looking non-sapient flowering plant that is apparently their natural form (in fact if you cut off a Dyvthian limb and plant it, the Dyvthian will regrow the limb, and the severed body part sprout into a dynthias.) While obviously plants they are strange looking, with many features that look derived from humanoids; such as five limbed branches, knots that vaguely resemble eyes or ears and so forth. They also will move their branches; slowly, but just fast enough to be noticeable. Dyvthians tend to like having them around, almost like a human with pets. If they want to produce a new Dyvthian they need to find a humanoid partner.
The humanoid, sapient form of the Dyvthian is epigenetic; it requires an external imprint from a sapient humanoid. Another Dyvthian won't do; apparently their is a "copy decay" effect, a Dyvthian who tries to get an imprint from another Dyvthian will produce something monstrous, dangerous and of subhuman intellect. They don't like to talk about it.
So, the Dyvthian finds and seduces a humanoid partner (gender is irrelevant). Magically speaking the sex is necessary; it produces the right kind of magical resonance for reproduction, for obvious reasons. If the process takes (they are generally not averse to repeating the performance "just to be sure") then the seed within them will be imprinted with the basic physical and spiritual pattern of the humanoid partner. This is why Dyvthians vary a great deal in appearance; they get their basic form from their mother's partner, not their mother.
It also affects their personality. While their are some basic Dyvthian psychological traits, their mental structures are primarily derived from their spiritual imprinting, not genetics.
As a result of all this Dyvthians tend to be fragmented into small extended families that attach themselves to various groups of other species that are sufficiently tolerant to associate with them, instead of forming mostly Dyvthian societies. Not only do they need other races to breed with, but because of how their imprinting process works a Dyvthian will have in many ways more in common with the race they imprinted on rather than with Dyvthians who imprinted on another race.
A Gremmler is a large, dark grey leathery-skinned humanoid. Tall and wide they have a muscular but rounded look, almost chubby. They are completely lacking in hair and their heads are wider and flatter than a human's; with large eyes but almost no forehead. They also have large, pointed ears that are tall enough that they extend above the top of their flattish skull.
Sexually dimorphic, they have about three males for every female. The males are usually somewhere between six and seven feet tall and strongly built. Gremmler females are between eight and nine feet tall and wider for their height; they were built large to be able to produce many minions quickly.
While stronger than a human on a pound-for-pound basis, one of the Gremmler's most notable features is their sheer toughness. They were built to be hard to kill, and they are. Their rounded looks are because most of their body is covered by thick flexible armor; hard to cut but resilient hide with layers of overlapping "bony" discs embedded in it to defeat piercing weapons. It's even fairly fire resistant. In some areas of the body this hide can be an inch thick or more. Their flat heads are that way because they keep their brain in their chest where a human keeps their heart.
Most of their bones are made of something other than normal bone; a strong but resilient substance that bends rather than breaks. Most of their organs are much less centralized than those of a normal creature; it's possible to punch holes entirely through one in multiple places without seriously injuring them. Their major blood vessels are wrapped in strong muscles allowing them to serve as both a distributed heart, and to stop bleeding from any injuries. Their flesh is tough and fibrous; cutting into one is possible but it's more like hacking through tough plants than flesh even once you get past their hide. And even if you manage to cut something off they can regrow it eventually. Gremmlers are of course extremely resistant to disease and poisons; they are also almost impervious to pain.
One side effect of this is that their society is by most human standards very violent and brutal; highly unusually for such societies they are much more brutal to each other than to outsiders. Because for them it just doesn't hurt. They like to fight, it's one of the things they were made for; but they are much tougher than their own strength, so much so that a Gremmler accidentally killing another is extremely difficult barring environmental hazards like high cliffs and deep water. A Gremmler will punch another Gremmler to get his attention, or stab one to express mild irritation. Gremmler settlements tend to build everything possible out of stone instead of wood because wood tends to get broken with all the constant brawling.
They are usually much less violent towards outsiders, although typically in a rather patronizing way; they don't really think of themselves as tough, they think of themselves as normal. It's everybody else who is ridiculously flimsy.
Gremmler families are polyandrous and matriarchal; Gremmler societies on the other hand tend to be borderline anarchic. Gremmlers have very little ambition for power, something engineered into them but their creator to prevent any attempt to supplant him. They were also created to obey him, and only him*; due to him being dead Gremmlers just are not emotionally inclined to follow anybody seriously as a leader. A result of that is few Gremmlers want to be a leader; it's a difficult job that they don't even find satisfying. The most organized parts of Gremmler societies tend to be individual families led by their matriarchs.
*They are it should be noted highly resistant to any form of magical/mystical control; part of how they were made to be controlled only by their creator. He could do it - but with him gone there are no "authorized users" left.
In general their society tends to be directionless. They do things because they feel good or find them interesting, but are generally lacking in long term plans or a greater design. They don't have ambition. Even their fighting tends to just end when the participants just get bored and walks away - they don't really care about winning, just fighting.
Gremmlers don't appear to age as such; they reach around a hundred years without visibly aging and simply drop dead one day.
Dyvthian: The Dyvthians are an apparently all female humanoid race. Biologically however they are sapient plants that have acquired the ability to emulate such a race.
In appearance they are green women with brightly colored hair that comes in any shade a flower can have, because that's basically what it is; their "hair" is thicker but softer than human hair. It also has a light dusting of pollen if examined closely. The exact details differ because they resemble the local humanoids, whatever they are.
The insides of their bodies however are a lot less humanoid than they look. They have a woody brain at about their center of mass with rootlike nerves extending from it, a digestive system that's basically a long tube filled with roots, and a womb that's not much more than an internal cavity. And that's pretty much it as internal organs go; they don't even have bones.
Even their limbs have no bones, but merely normally move as if they did. However if a Dyvthian feels like it they can stop pretending their arms and legs are human-rigid and flex their limbs in a highly inhuman fashion like a snake - or an animated vine, which in a sense it is.
They are pretty hard to hurt with normal weapons, between the lacking of vulnerable organs and the toughness of their "flesh". Even a sword jammed into them will only penetrate few inches and become wedged and immobile. Their brain being a woody solid organ in their chest rather than a jellylike one in their head makes blunt force less effective too. And a Dyvthian wearing armor is really hard to kill or even seriously injure. Even poison works much more slowly, since they don't have a bloodstream as such.
While technically photosynthetic, they don't have nearly enough surface area and are too active to survive off sunlight alone; they need to eat to keep up their energy. Dyvthians can eat almost anything, but their favorite food is meat.
Dyvthian reproduction is unconventional, and involves a physical and magical component. Biologically, they reproduce like plants; they exchange pollen. Their flower-hair is constantly producing it, and even casual association can transfer some; close contact does so much more efficiently. Technically something as simple as rubbing their hand in another Dyvthian's hair then their own would work as "close contact", but they are close enough imitations of humanoids that they generally find "exchanging pollen" by a sexual relationship both much more fun and emotionally satisfying.
If that's all the Dyvthian does then eventually she will birth a large seed which if planted will grow into a "dynthias plant"; a large, odd-looking non-sapient flowering plant that is apparently their natural form (in fact if you cut off a Dyvthian limb and plant it, the Dyvthian will regrow the limb, and the severed body part sprout into a dynthias.) While obviously plants they are strange looking, with many features that look derived from humanoids; such as five limbed branches, knots that vaguely resemble eyes or ears and so forth. They also will move their branches; slowly, but just fast enough to be noticeable. Dyvthians tend to like having them around, almost like a human with pets. If they want to produce a new Dyvthian they need to find a humanoid partner.
The humanoid, sapient form of the Dyvthian is epigenetic; it requires an external imprint from a sapient humanoid. Another Dyvthian won't do; apparently their is a "copy decay" effect, a Dyvthian who tries to get an imprint from another Dyvthian will produce something monstrous, dangerous and of subhuman intellect. They don't like to talk about it.
So, the Dyvthian finds and seduces a humanoid partner (gender is irrelevant). Magically speaking the sex is necessary; it produces the right kind of magical resonance for reproduction, for obvious reasons. If the process takes (they are generally not averse to repeating the performance "just to be sure") then the seed within them will be imprinted with the basic physical and spiritual pattern of the humanoid partner. This is why Dyvthians vary a great deal in appearance; they get their basic form from their mother's partner, not their mother.
It also affects their personality. While their are some basic Dyvthian psychological traits, their mental structures are primarily derived from their spiritual imprinting, not genetics.
As a result of all this Dyvthians tend to be fragmented into small extended families that attach themselves to various groups of other species that are sufficiently tolerant to associate with them, instead of forming mostly Dyvthian societies. Not only do they need other races to breed with, but because of how their imprinting process works a Dyvthian will have in many ways more in common with the race they imprinted on rather than with Dyvthians who imprinted on another race.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Is there any specific mechanism that makes this occur?
It's built into their genes. They're artificial, remember; their creator wanted it that way.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Right, I just wondered what method the genes used to cause the gender imbalance. It could be something like, females are XY while both XX and YY result in males. Or it could be something like, the mother's body responds to the hormones produced by a male zygote with a chemical message causing that zygote to split into twins or triplets, but doesn't do this for female zygotes. Or it could be something like, the first child of a female is always female, but that pregnancy causes changes in the mother's body chemistry which make female offspring less and less likely, such that child #4 and onward are always male.
Soulrune: A Soulrune is a sort of sapient enchantment; the first being the result of an animation enchantment cast wrong and then left unattended for decades in a high magic area. The already unstable enchantment over time became stronger and drifted away from its original purpose, eventually becoming a focus for spiritual energies that slowly became self aware and sapient. At first there was only the one, but since that time they have learned to make more of themselves and become a race, of sorts.
Physically they are quite simple; an elaborate rune inscribed upon an object. While they share a certain style no two Runes are alike; each is unique to the Soulrune it is a focus for. The rune can be of any material and of varying quality; however the better crafted it is the more magic it can focus and hold.
The Soulrune can take that magic and use it to strengthen, enhance & animate whatever it is inscribed upon. As well as communicate with others and perceive the world. However the animated object can only move if it's naturally flexible; it can make a doll walk, but a rock would just sit there. As well the amount of magic it can focus controls how large an object it can focus its magic into. A rune of fairly good quality can animate a man sized object; but if the Soulrune wanted to animate a giant sized construct the focusing rune would have to be crafted with exquisite precision and expensive materials. The other side of that is that damaging the rune weakens or destroys the ability of the Soulrune to control the object it's inscribed on, or if it's badly damaged to inhabit the rune at all.
However that brings up an interesting thing about Soulrunes and their focusing rune. They need the runes to exist; but it can be any copy of their personal rune. So long as any copy of that specific rune is inscribed anywhere, the essence of the Soulrune can transfer there at will, or if the one they are presently using as a focus is destroyed. This does make them quite hard to permanently destroy; so long as one copy of their rune exists anywhere they are immortal.
However there are practical limits. They can only animate flexible objects; and flexible things tend to be breakable or decay over time. There's always the risk that the backup rune they inscribed somewhere will have been destroyed by mischance, or the object it's on too damaged to be useful. While something like a large stone is likely to last for centuries or more even unattended, it's also immobile. Sure if they inscribed their rune on a large rock and hid it in a deep cave the chances of it being found and destroyed are tiny, but if they were reduced to that one rune they'd be trapped inside a deep cave alone and immobile, permanently.
Another important limit (and sometimes advantage) is that they or someone else has to inscribe their rune in the first place. If all they have is a single rune on a rock, they can't make any more because they don't have any hands. On the plus side if a flesh-and-blood ally of theirs knows their rune, they can inscribe it somewhere. Some Soulrunes have therefore cultivated good relationships with mortals, so they will be inclined to always make sure a copy of their rune is in existence. Certain scholarly groups for example maintain books with pages inscribed with copies of known "runes of good character", making sure that a new copy of the book is periodically made; and if the book ever starts talking to them, they can arrange for the Soulrune that has taken up residence to have a new copy inscribed on something more mobile.
For the purposes of animating it, "object" is fairly loosely defined; basically it just has to have all its parts touching to qualify. So suits of armor can work for example.
Some Soulrunes for that reason have their rune engraved on objects meant to be worn or held by mortals. When in contact with a person they can then extend their influence into the mortal in question and animate them as if they were an "object". Some Soulrunes do in fact use this trick to steal the bodies of people; others have a more symbiotic relationship. Since a Soulrune strengthens & enhances the object it's infusing its energies into, it can do the same for a mortal host; improving the strength, health and lifespan of the host. And they can offer to do so if, for example someone allows it to use their body while they sleep. There are cases of Soulrunes making an arrangement with several people, using their bodies in shifts while they sleep. For example, such a Soulrune may have itself engraved on a sword that is shared among a small group of mercenaries in turn, enhancing both the sword and its wielder.
There are also cases of more benevolent Soulrunes arranging to share the use of a body with someone paralyzed, since its animation power isn't affected by anything as simple as a severed spinal cord. In such cases where the relationship is expected to be permanent, the Soulrune will often have a copy of its rune tattooed onto the body of its host.
Physically they are quite simple; an elaborate rune inscribed upon an object. While they share a certain style no two Runes are alike; each is unique to the Soulrune it is a focus for. The rune can be of any material and of varying quality; however the better crafted it is the more magic it can focus and hold.
The Soulrune can take that magic and use it to strengthen, enhance & animate whatever it is inscribed upon. As well as communicate with others and perceive the world. However the animated object can only move if it's naturally flexible; it can make a doll walk, but a rock would just sit there. As well the amount of magic it can focus controls how large an object it can focus its magic into. A rune of fairly good quality can animate a man sized object; but if the Soulrune wanted to animate a giant sized construct the focusing rune would have to be crafted with exquisite precision and expensive materials. The other side of that is that damaging the rune weakens or destroys the ability of the Soulrune to control the object it's inscribed on, or if it's badly damaged to inhabit the rune at all.
However that brings up an interesting thing about Soulrunes and their focusing rune. They need the runes to exist; but it can be any copy of their personal rune. So long as any copy of that specific rune is inscribed anywhere, the essence of the Soulrune can transfer there at will, or if the one they are presently using as a focus is destroyed. This does make them quite hard to permanently destroy; so long as one copy of their rune exists anywhere they are immortal.
However there are practical limits. They can only animate flexible objects; and flexible things tend to be breakable or decay over time. There's always the risk that the backup rune they inscribed somewhere will have been destroyed by mischance, or the object it's on too damaged to be useful. While something like a large stone is likely to last for centuries or more even unattended, it's also immobile. Sure if they inscribed their rune on a large rock and hid it in a deep cave the chances of it being found and destroyed are tiny, but if they were reduced to that one rune they'd be trapped inside a deep cave alone and immobile, permanently.
Another important limit (and sometimes advantage) is that they or someone else has to inscribe their rune in the first place. If all they have is a single rune on a rock, they can't make any more because they don't have any hands. On the plus side if a flesh-and-blood ally of theirs knows their rune, they can inscribe it somewhere. Some Soulrunes have therefore cultivated good relationships with mortals, so they will be inclined to always make sure a copy of their rune is in existence. Certain scholarly groups for example maintain books with pages inscribed with copies of known "runes of good character", making sure that a new copy of the book is periodically made; and if the book ever starts talking to them, they can arrange for the Soulrune that has taken up residence to have a new copy inscribed on something more mobile.
For the purposes of animating it, "object" is fairly loosely defined; basically it just has to have all its parts touching to qualify. So suits of armor can work for example.
Some Soulrunes for that reason have their rune engraved on objects meant to be worn or held by mortals. When in contact with a person they can then extend their influence into the mortal in question and animate them as if they were an "object". Some Soulrunes do in fact use this trick to steal the bodies of people; others have a more symbiotic relationship. Since a Soulrune strengthens & enhances the object it's infusing its energies into, it can do the same for a mortal host; improving the strength, health and lifespan of the host. And they can offer to do so if, for example someone allows it to use their body while they sleep. There are cases of Soulrunes making an arrangement with several people, using their bodies in shifts while they sleep. For example, such a Soulrune may have itself engraved on a sword that is shared among a small group of mercenaries in turn, enhancing both the sword and its wielder.
There are also cases of more benevolent Soulrunes arranging to share the use of a body with someone paralyzed, since its animation power isn't affected by anything as simple as a severed spinal cord. In such cases where the relationship is expected to be permanent, the Soulrune will often have a copy of its rune tattooed onto the body of its host.
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Sounds like a sentient version of my improved mimics but without the memetic hazard qualities. Maybe they're a related species?
Nature sprites, but totally metal.
Imagine a horde of such creatures but based off potatoes rather than strawberries. Fist-sized lumpy brownish tubers growing in vaguely humanoid shapes.
Now imagine hundreds of them have gathered, they've built a scavenged mouse world shrine by dragging together discarded rubbish and stones and they've dressed themselves in improvised mayincatec outfits made from shiny beetle wing cases, feathers and brightly colored fragments of garbage.
Come sunrise, they bring out one of their number swollen much larger than the others with the beginnings of buds and thoroughly restrained with stolen string, then drag them to the cinderblock alter stone and ceremonially dismember them with flint knives or discarded shaving razors. They then bury the remains of their victim all over the place and go home, leaving any eyewitnesses to their ritual with a hilariously unbelievable story until the sacrificial victim takes root.
I'd recommend Cryptomen of Antiquity by thomastapir on deviantart and William and the Lost Spirit by Gwen de Bonneval and Matthieu Bonhomme then.
thomastapir said:Reading a pretty good book about the history of mythological monsters like vampires and werewolves, and during a discussion of some of the exotic humanoid monsters of classical legend, I was struck by the fact that they could easily be reinterpreted as either "prehistoric posthumans" (genetic experiements on the part of an Atlantis-type superciv) or as alternate primate, even hominid, lineages. And from there it seemed like a natural step to an "alternate antiquity" RPG world where the player characters--as Greeks, Egyptians, Romans and the like--get to interact with some of the exotic "monster men" of mythology...without invoking the trappings of magic or mysticism. A "hard pseudo-science" alternate history RPG, if you will! So here is my thinking on a few of the classical favorite "cryptomen," as I've dubbed them.
In this scenario, the Blemmyes become hulking orangutan-like anthropoids, perhaps along the lines of Gigantopithecus, whose low-hanging heads and broad facial flanges lead to the misconception that their faces are located in their torsos. This misapprehension would easily be reinforced by the incidence of "eyepatch"-like display features (note the sleeping but "unblinking" gent at top), with the myth further embellished to include "eyes in the shoulders." I think these guys have all kinds of potential for somewhat dim-witted but powerful enemies and allies.
The "dog-headed" Cynocephalii become fully bipedal baboon-derived pseudohominids. My original image for the styling of their artifacts and acoutrements was something between Masai or Zulu and Roman Egypt (that doesn't really come across here). I think there are also a lot of possibilities for tribal scarification as a supplement or compliment to mandrill-like facial display features (I'm aware that mandrill aren't technically baboons, but I'm picturing multiple variants and subspecies). There's also an obvious overlap with the idea of the Egyptian animal-headed deities, especially the naturalistic way in which they were depicted during the Ptolemaic era. Reinvisioned like this, I think these guys would make great "NPCs" and occasional bestial player characters, something along the lines of gnolls in D&D.
The Sciapodes are much more heavily modified or derived and would probably be better explained in "game terms" as genetic experiments rather than as alternate hominids. Here they become blubbery, amphibious quasi-humans with conjoined legs and feet forming a floppy "fluke" or paddle with which they shade themselves when hauled out on river banks. The tarsier-like toe pads allow for the possibility that they are partially arboreal, and sleep hanging upside down from (presumably stout) tree limbs like bats (which could conceivably give rise to some of the more exotic Indian "vampire" legends, depending on their geographic distribution). The way I've reinvisioned these guys deviates significantly from the original myth, in which the Sciapodes were said to lie supine (on their backs) rather than prone. This "error" could be put down to a garbled mistranslation, I guess.
The Panotii probably also work better as engineered beings, in my estimation. Here the hypertrophied sheltering ears become almost a cocoon completely enveloping the body. I was thinking along two different lines: that the ears could either protect the being from dehydration and exposure while in a state of aestivation (i.e. during desert droughts), or that the Panotii are a race of religious ascetics who spend long periods of time in trance states, perhaps with the body metabolically suspended during meditation. (Or perhaps one ability or predilection arose from the other.) To this end I've depicted two different forms here: a wiry, leathery "Khoisan" or "Bushman" and a cherubic "Buddhist sage" with distended lobes resembling angel wings.
I was picturing most of the "action" taking place in Africa and the Near East, but I think any of these guys could easily be relocated to other continents and cultures...The South American Sciapodes become something like Amazon river dolphins, for example, and the Blemmyes become derived sloths. I'm well aware that there is tons of room here for reinterpretation, elaboration, and improvement, so if you'd like to take a crack at this idea, please be my guest. I'd love to see what other people come up with!
Kraken: The enormous Krakens are widely believed to be mere mindless monsters, but in reality they are highly intelligent, civilized beings. This lack of knowledge is primarily due to communication difficulties, and them having little interest in surface world affairs; the result of which is that almost the only Krakens encountered by surface worlders are their criminals, barbarians and psychotics. Far from being monsters the Krakens have built great cities beneath the waves; the rare times surface worlders see Kraken artifacts and constructions, it seldom occurs to them that the "sea monsters" created them.
Physically, a Kraken is a long serpentine creature with a vaguely reptilian head. From the back of their head there extends a deeply scalloped, bony shield; somewhat resembling that of a hornless Triceratops. And from behind that shield there trails six long tentacles, each of which further splits into three parts near the end. Most of their body appears to be covered with heavy scales. Their eyes have very large, noticeably glowing irises; this is a form of bioluminescence, and lets them see even in the deepest depths of the ocean. The deep scallops on their neck shield are meant for use with their tentacles; when brought forward those tentacles fit neatly into the indentations.
Most of the "scales" however are nothing of the sort. They are actually a variant of coral that has established a symbiotic relationship with them, and among other things colonizes most of their skin. Besides serving as self-replenishing armor this coral layer links itself to the Kraken's nervous system, and shares its senses with that of the host Kraken. This variety of coral has even developed simple eyes, allowing the Kraken useful if crude omnidirectional vision to supplement their own excellent eyes. As well, the Kraken's tentacle-tips are covered with coral colonies that can extend their own much smaller tentacles under the Kraken's control to allow fine manipulation, and secrete several useful substances.
These substances have allowed the Kraken to achieve a reasonable level of technology for a fireless underwater civilization. Most importantly they can produce a powerful glue (the same glue the coral uses to attach itself in fact), another substance that dissolves this glue, and the hard material the coral naturally uses to create its shell. It's slow, but under the Kraken's conscious control extremely complex objects can be created this way layer by layer; often with various other substances and materials mixed in. Deep under the sea over centuries cities larger than any human one have been made this way. Many of their artifacts are also semi-living and self repairing, due to having their own colony of coral built onto or inside them.
Krakens when hatched are roughly ten feet long, and grow continuously afterwards. While they never truly stop growing, the growth slows once they reach their typical adult size of a hundred yards long. They don't appear to age as such but aren't immortal; they simply die to injury, disease or systemic failure rather than a set lifespan.
The Kraken language is much like whalesong, save for being more complex. They speak to each other over great distances, in tones mostly too deep for a humanoid to hear even if it was above water.
Kraken society is loosely organized; being so large and physically powerful means they have few threats they need to organize against. Generally, a Kraken society lacks anything like a single ruler, instead having some variety of ruling council.
Physically, a Kraken is a long serpentine creature with a vaguely reptilian head. From the back of their head there extends a deeply scalloped, bony shield; somewhat resembling that of a hornless Triceratops. And from behind that shield there trails six long tentacles, each of which further splits into three parts near the end. Most of their body appears to be covered with heavy scales. Their eyes have very large, noticeably glowing irises; this is a form of bioluminescence, and lets them see even in the deepest depths of the ocean. The deep scallops on their neck shield are meant for use with their tentacles; when brought forward those tentacles fit neatly into the indentations.
Most of the "scales" however are nothing of the sort. They are actually a variant of coral that has established a symbiotic relationship with them, and among other things colonizes most of their skin. Besides serving as self-replenishing armor this coral layer links itself to the Kraken's nervous system, and shares its senses with that of the host Kraken. This variety of coral has even developed simple eyes, allowing the Kraken useful if crude omnidirectional vision to supplement their own excellent eyes. As well, the Kraken's tentacle-tips are covered with coral colonies that can extend their own much smaller tentacles under the Kraken's control to allow fine manipulation, and secrete several useful substances.
These substances have allowed the Kraken to achieve a reasonable level of technology for a fireless underwater civilization. Most importantly they can produce a powerful glue (the same glue the coral uses to attach itself in fact), another substance that dissolves this glue, and the hard material the coral naturally uses to create its shell. It's slow, but under the Kraken's conscious control extremely complex objects can be created this way layer by layer; often with various other substances and materials mixed in. Deep under the sea over centuries cities larger than any human one have been made this way. Many of their artifacts are also semi-living and self repairing, due to having their own colony of coral built onto or inside them.
Krakens when hatched are roughly ten feet long, and grow continuously afterwards. While they never truly stop growing, the growth slows once they reach their typical adult size of a hundred yards long. They don't appear to age as such but aren't immortal; they simply die to injury, disease or systemic failure rather than a set lifespan.
The Kraken language is much like whalesong, save for being more complex. They speak to each other over great distances, in tones mostly too deep for a humanoid to hear even if it was above water.
Kraken society is loosely organized; being so large and physically powerful means they have few threats they need to organize against. Generally, a Kraken society lacks anything like a single ruler, instead having some variety of ruling council.
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Lapera: The Lapera are a very small race that closely resembles rabbits; the most obvious differences being larger skulls and somewhat longer forelimbs ending in hands rather than paws. On close examination their pupils have a small secondary pupil. They are in fact related to rabbits, around as closely as humans are to monkeys.
Much like true rabbits they by preference live in warrens dug into the ground; although unlike rabbits their warrens are nicely furbished underground homes and towns rather than dirt tunnels. In places where the local humans are tolerant of non-humans, they've been known to build their settlements in parallel; human farm or town on the surface, a Lapera settlement underneath. Like their rabbit relatives Lapera are very good burrowers, especially since they use steel tools instead of their bare paws.
Lapera have excellent hearing, and can also sense & locate vibrations by resting their long ears on a surface; they can often detect creatures walking on the surface by feeling the roof of a tunnel. Their sense of smell is likewise excellent, nearly as good as a dog's.
Their side-mounted eyes grants them nearly 360 degree vision; however their secondary pupils give them short-ranged binocular vision for close-in work. They have better color vision than rabbits, but differently than humans; they are trichromats like humans, but their vision extends well into the ultraviolet. Their transparent nictitating membrane protects their eyes from being damaged by the powerful ultraviolet of sunlight, at the cost of blocking that part of the spectrum; as a result to them daytime is brightly lit but relatively colorless compared to night. Their night vision is very good, letting them see in near pitch darkness even not taking into account the number of things that glow ultraviolet.
The Lapera make heavy use of a symbiotic fungus they have bred, a dustlike organism that has the useful trait of ultraviolet bioluminescence. They sprinkle it in thin layers over everything in their warrens and often themselves, creating a dim glow they can see but very few others can, even with no other light sources. The fungus can subsist on the natural nutrients found in the environment with minimal active care, and also sops up moisture helping keep their underground settlements dry. It also eliminates the need to try to conventionally illuminate miles and miles of underground tunnels. Lapera expecting to go outside wash themselves clean however, just in case there's actually someone or something that case can see the UV glow out there (like owls, for example).
Lapera are biologically herbivores, but in practice actually quite like meat and eat it regularly. They have a type of domesticated rodent that serves them as the equivalent of cows, for milk, leather and meat. They avoid eating rabbits and hares, both because they tend to find the idea creepy and because such animals are more likely to carry diseases that can affect them. They have also developed many variety of crops which produce something that translates as "root fruit"; edible extensions of the roots which can be plucked free and eaten without harming the plant. There are even cooperative farms, where humans farm plants from above, while Lapera farm them from below. While the Lapera do demand their share of the resulting harvest, such techniques increase yield well enough to more than make up for it.
Such cooperation between humans and Lapera works out well, usually. Humans keep away or kill off the large predators that are dangerous to the diminutive Lapera, while the Lapera hunt and kill all sorts of destructive pests that humans find difficult to handle; not to mention simply eating things like weeds. And fighting each other is awkward enough for both races that it happens less often than you might expect. It's hard for humans to even find a Lapera if they don't want to be found, and while they can if they have to for obvious reasons Lapera aren't really enthused by the idea of fighting a bunch of giants.
Being organized, small and herbivorous means they can achieve really ridiculous population numbers compared to humans in the same conditions. One result of this is that they are often significantly more sophisticated than humans in the same region, especially when it comes to anything that doesn't require muscle power.
They are strong for their size and agile, able to hop to chest height on a human. They are also very quick; any human watching a Lapera is struck by how twitchy and hyperactive they are, how they move quickly and often. In fact Lapera actually live more quickly than humans; they literally think faster as well as move faster. Lapera have a forty year lifespan; but from their viewpoint that's more like a century and a half. Humans who deal in a friendly way with Lapera learn to do things quickly, to avoid irritating the Lapera in question with their sheer slowness.
The Lapera have three genders; male, female and neuter. Female Lapera are noticeably larger than males; while neuters are smaller than either, with smaller heads as well. The neuters are also not truly sapient, which is why the small head; they have smaller brains. Lapera females have conscious control over their fertility; they can both choose to have offspring or not, and even roughly choose how many. They can also choose whether to produce gendered Lapera or neuters (but not whether the gendered are male or female). The Lapera name for the non-sapient neuter gender translates as Sleepers, for the reasons below.
Lapera lack an afterlife, and instead undergo a form of reincarnation. Each newborn Lapera inherits a soul, and as they grow they recover more and more memories from that soul. This is a gradual thing; they only gain access to the memories of former lives as their own mental sophistication increases. So a baby only has the past life memories of babies, and so on; this lets Lapera develop faster than human children, while still developing their own personality. They rapidly learn knowledge and skills they possessed in past lives, as it's remembering as much as learning. They can however consciously suppress unwanted or unpleasant soul-memories. Over time a Lapera tends to develop into a blend of new personality traits and the older soul-memories.
This grants them a sort of semi-immortality. As the remember their past lives, to a certain extent that past life lives again. It also gives them an interesting variant on the concept of damnation; as they can consciously choose to reject & forget soul-memories, a Lapera who commits evil deeds has the risk of suffering a form of damnatio memoriae; being denied the only afterlife their kind has by being deliberately forgotten.
This soul-memory is why their non-sapient neuters are called Sleepers; the Sleepers have access to the knowledge of their past selves, but not the ability to truly understand it. Those memories however do give them the ability to understand far more than an animal can, and to understand language as well. As a result the Sleepers are used as a servant caste, they do all the mindless labor and scutwork because they are both capable of understanding what is desired but not intelligent enough to do anything more creative. In effect, robots.
Sleepers are treated quite a bit better than such castes usually are though; the other Lapera remember being Sleepers themselves after all. It's simply regarded as a social useful rest between lives, rather than something deserving of abuse or contempt.
Another effect of their soul-memory is a strong tendency towards egalitarianism. They tend to dislike the concept of creating an oppressed class due to the risk of being reborn as a member of it.
Much like true rabbits they by preference live in warrens dug into the ground; although unlike rabbits their warrens are nicely furbished underground homes and towns rather than dirt tunnels. In places where the local humans are tolerant of non-humans, they've been known to build their settlements in parallel; human farm or town on the surface, a Lapera settlement underneath. Like their rabbit relatives Lapera are very good burrowers, especially since they use steel tools instead of their bare paws.
Lapera have excellent hearing, and can also sense & locate vibrations by resting their long ears on a surface; they can often detect creatures walking on the surface by feeling the roof of a tunnel. Their sense of smell is likewise excellent, nearly as good as a dog's.
Their side-mounted eyes grants them nearly 360 degree vision; however their secondary pupils give them short-ranged binocular vision for close-in work. They have better color vision than rabbits, but differently than humans; they are trichromats like humans, but their vision extends well into the ultraviolet. Their transparent nictitating membrane protects their eyes from being damaged by the powerful ultraviolet of sunlight, at the cost of blocking that part of the spectrum; as a result to them daytime is brightly lit but relatively colorless compared to night. Their night vision is very good, letting them see in near pitch darkness even not taking into account the number of things that glow ultraviolet.
The Lapera make heavy use of a symbiotic fungus they have bred, a dustlike organism that has the useful trait of ultraviolet bioluminescence. They sprinkle it in thin layers over everything in their warrens and often themselves, creating a dim glow they can see but very few others can, even with no other light sources. The fungus can subsist on the natural nutrients found in the environment with minimal active care, and also sops up moisture helping keep their underground settlements dry. It also eliminates the need to try to conventionally illuminate miles and miles of underground tunnels. Lapera expecting to go outside wash themselves clean however, just in case there's actually someone or something that case can see the UV glow out there (like owls, for example).
Lapera are biologically herbivores, but in practice actually quite like meat and eat it regularly. They have a type of domesticated rodent that serves them as the equivalent of cows, for milk, leather and meat. They avoid eating rabbits and hares, both because they tend to find the idea creepy and because such animals are more likely to carry diseases that can affect them. They have also developed many variety of crops which produce something that translates as "root fruit"; edible extensions of the roots which can be plucked free and eaten without harming the plant. There are even cooperative farms, where humans farm plants from above, while Lapera farm them from below. While the Lapera do demand their share of the resulting harvest, such techniques increase yield well enough to more than make up for it.
Such cooperation between humans and Lapera works out well, usually. Humans keep away or kill off the large predators that are dangerous to the diminutive Lapera, while the Lapera hunt and kill all sorts of destructive pests that humans find difficult to handle; not to mention simply eating things like weeds. And fighting each other is awkward enough for both races that it happens less often than you might expect. It's hard for humans to even find a Lapera if they don't want to be found, and while they can if they have to for obvious reasons Lapera aren't really enthused by the idea of fighting a bunch of giants.
Being organized, small and herbivorous means they can achieve really ridiculous population numbers compared to humans in the same conditions. One result of this is that they are often significantly more sophisticated than humans in the same region, especially when it comes to anything that doesn't require muscle power.
They are strong for their size and agile, able to hop to chest height on a human. They are also very quick; any human watching a Lapera is struck by how twitchy and hyperactive they are, how they move quickly and often. In fact Lapera actually live more quickly than humans; they literally think faster as well as move faster. Lapera have a forty year lifespan; but from their viewpoint that's more like a century and a half. Humans who deal in a friendly way with Lapera learn to do things quickly, to avoid irritating the Lapera in question with their sheer slowness.
The Lapera have three genders; male, female and neuter. Female Lapera are noticeably larger than males; while neuters are smaller than either, with smaller heads as well. The neuters are also not truly sapient, which is why the small head; they have smaller brains. Lapera females have conscious control over their fertility; they can both choose to have offspring or not, and even roughly choose how many. They can also choose whether to produce gendered Lapera or neuters (but not whether the gendered are male or female). The Lapera name for the non-sapient neuter gender translates as Sleepers, for the reasons below.
Lapera lack an afterlife, and instead undergo a form of reincarnation. Each newborn Lapera inherits a soul, and as they grow they recover more and more memories from that soul. This is a gradual thing; they only gain access to the memories of former lives as their own mental sophistication increases. So a baby only has the past life memories of babies, and so on; this lets Lapera develop faster than human children, while still developing their own personality. They rapidly learn knowledge and skills they possessed in past lives, as it's remembering as much as learning. They can however consciously suppress unwanted or unpleasant soul-memories. Over time a Lapera tends to develop into a blend of new personality traits and the older soul-memories.
This grants them a sort of semi-immortality. As the remember their past lives, to a certain extent that past life lives again. It also gives them an interesting variant on the concept of damnation; as they can consciously choose to reject & forget soul-memories, a Lapera who commits evil deeds has the risk of suffering a form of damnatio memoriae; being denied the only afterlife their kind has by being deliberately forgotten.
This soul-memory is why their non-sapient neuters are called Sleepers; the Sleepers have access to the knowledge of their past selves, but not the ability to truly understand it. Those memories however do give them the ability to understand far more than an animal can, and to understand language as well. As a result the Sleepers are used as a servant caste, they do all the mindless labor and scutwork because they are both capable of understanding what is desired but not intelligent enough to do anything more creative. In effect, robots.
Sleepers are treated quite a bit better than such castes usually are though; the other Lapera remember being Sleepers themselves after all. It's simply regarded as a social useful rest between lives, rather than something deserving of abuse or contempt.
Another effect of their soul-memory is a strong tendency towards egalitarianism. They tend to dislike the concept of creating an oppressed class due to the risk of being reborn as a member of it.
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A magical species of pumpkin. When someone carves a face into one, it sprouts a humanoid* body composed of coiled roots and vines and animates. A newly created homunculus pumpkin possesses all skills that its creator did at the time they carved it but lacks other aspects of their personality, in effect being a mindlessly obedient drone. Typically creators will order their newly created homunculus pumpkins to only follow or at least to prioritize their commands. Furthermore, homunculus pumpkins are incapable of speech. They can master writing out messages and understand speech if their creator could, but they lack lungs, vocal cords, etc.
If a homunculus pumpkin is ordered to carve another homunculus pumpkin, the result lacks the standard copying of skills from the creator but is capable of learning, free-willed and sentient.
Probably created by some wizard who wanted a guilt-free slave labor force.
* Assuming that the carver was humanoid. If not, it'll be an equivalently shaped body of coiled roots and vines with a pumpkin for a head
If a homunculus pumpkin is ordered to carve another homunculus pumpkin, the result lacks the standard copying of skills from the creator but is capable of learning, free-willed and sentient.
Probably created by some wizard who wanted a guilt-free slave labor force.
* Assuming that the carver was humanoid. If not, it'll be an equivalently shaped body of coiled roots and vines with a pumpkin for a head
Imagine a species. Adults are herbivorous, a necessity since their environment lacks any animal life besides themselves, sentient and superficially humanoid, though clearly not human. They're all hermaphrodites so any two individuals can reproduce, each of them impregnating the other with multiple larva. Adults lack any way of giving birth and the tiny, non-humanoid larva remain inside the bodies of their parent, comatose and sustained by umbilical cords parasitizing from the metabolism of their parent. They can remain in this state indefinitely. When the parent dies, the flow of nutrients and oxygen cuts off causing the parasitic larva awaken from hibernation and eat their way out. Larva quickly grow from tiny parasites to ludicrously lethal but nonsentient superpredators. Their population exponentially increases as the larva from one adult kill other adults and free their larva as well. The inevitable result is the death of everything. Adults, animal life, plants, etc all devoured by swarms of ecosystem-wrecking deathworld monstrosities.
Then, all at approximately the same time since they were all "born" at approximately the same time, all the larva cocoon themselves while encysted seeds in their dung from the plants they consumed take root. By the time their metamorphosis into sentient adults is finished, the ecosystem will have restored itself until the next cycle.
The civilization of the adults is permanently neolithic since it has to restart from scratch every generation and they don't realize what their lifecycle consists of. They have no idea that they're even capable of reproduction until it's too late.
....
Depending on the setting, they're either isolated from the rest of the world on an unexplored planet or island.
Then, all at approximately the same time since they were all "born" at approximately the same time, all the larva cocoon themselves while encysted seeds in their dung from the plants they consumed take root. By the time their metamorphosis into sentient adults is finished, the ecosystem will have restored itself until the next cycle.
The civilization of the adults is permanently neolithic since it has to restart from scratch every generation and they don't realize what their lifecycle consists of. They have no idea that they're even capable of reproduction until it's too late.
....
Depending on the setting, they're either isolated from the rest of the world on an unexplored planet or island.
Koshachiy
Catman with the big sword
- Location
- Party Rally
I don't know if this fits here, but I've been considering a reinterpretation on a popular species in the fantasy genre.
Apologies if I misunderstood anything regarding the thread!
Oftentimes in fantasy, we hear about and see demon hordes being summoned. And defeated. All that good stuff. Hero gets his princess. Yadda yadda happy ending. But think about it from the demon's perspective. You're suddenly in a world you don't know, working for someone you probably don't trust. And everyone here seems pretty determined to kill you. You personally. You don't get to surrender. Which I imagine would seem quite unfair. You're basically just a merc, at the end of the day.
So my question was....Once the demonic horde was scattered, what happened to the remnants?
I imagine they'd do what anyone else in such a situation would do. Do their best to vanish. Build a life on the margins. Try not to get found out.
Of course, it hinges on a different take on demons. Once you stop treating demons like some sort of ultimate evil and look at them as just another race-they don't want to be here, particularly. They're here for payment, or because they were summoned and bound. Or whatever. At the end of the day they just want to go home.
I've always loved more nuanced, nonstandard takes on this sort of thing soooo...
I think it might be interesting to explore, but I figured I'd get a feel for it in public.
Apologies if I misunderstood anything regarding the thread!
Oftentimes in fantasy, we hear about and see demon hordes being summoned. And defeated. All that good stuff. Hero gets his princess. Yadda yadda happy ending. But think about it from the demon's perspective. You're suddenly in a world you don't know, working for someone you probably don't trust. And everyone here seems pretty determined to kill you. You personally. You don't get to surrender. Which I imagine would seem quite unfair. You're basically just a merc, at the end of the day.
So my question was....Once the demonic horde was scattered, what happened to the remnants?
I imagine they'd do what anyone else in such a situation would do. Do their best to vanish. Build a life on the margins. Try not to get found out.
Of course, it hinges on a different take on demons. Once you stop treating demons like some sort of ultimate evil and look at them as just another race-they don't want to be here, particularly. They're here for payment, or because they were summoned and bound. Or whatever. At the end of the day they just want to go home.
I've always loved more nuanced, nonstandard takes on this sort of thing soooo...
I think it might be interesting to explore, but I figured I'd get a feel for it in public.
- Location
- America
Half human-half birds.
Sapient rocks.
And Sapient Frogs
Sapient rocks.
And Sapient Frogs
Muhkat Lomorki
Draconic Sorcerer
What if they looked like humans... but had longer, pointy ears? And lived a long time?
Krazyfan1
Once again Grieving
- Location
- Australia
And we shall call these beings........Dwarves...
Muhkat Lomorki
Draconic Sorcerer
How about dolphin-like humanoids with psychic powers?