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From The Primordial Soup

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Dysphoria said:
Why would we need to set up an early warning system? I don't think that eight feet tall elephant-apes are small enough to sneak up on birds at all. Plus, we get early establishment of the Great Birb Interweb System. The more hives we know of, the more places to retreat to if things go bad somewhere else.
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....good point

[X] Fly on to warn the next flock-clan in the area along with the rest of the scouts dispatched to multiple hives at once.
 
i have no clue any arguments nvm didnt see that comment

[X] Fly on to warn the next flock-clan in the area along with the rest of the scouts dispatched to multiple hives at once.
 
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Year 1 of 5, Month 3: Awakening
  • Threadmarks
    • Wow, did our opinions differ. My thought was that the Queens have enough messengers to spread the word already because their hives are almost at capacity, they could use someone trying to find the nearest one of these things in order to keep an eye on it. "Flying on", while a good idea, was worth only 1 point (originally 0 but I felt bad, so swapped the values of B and D).

    The Boreal Shadowbeak
    The Boreal Shadowbeak is a cold-dwelling cross between a macaw and a raven native to the southern tip of the Glacierbone Ice Sheets, making its home in the trees of special Alumwood Groves. Able to somehow digest shadows and darkness, instead of building traditional nests, it builds hives of darkness-aspected ice which does not melt on exposure to the sun. This takes a great deal of energy -- sometimes one bird will drop dead while making the hives for others in the flock-clan to live out of.

    One hive can support about 18 birds (eight males, eight females, two Queens), each with a specialized role / "caste" in the flock-clan such as hunter, scout, or builder. Birds of a particular caste will associate with identical caste members from other hives as well as their home flock-clan.

    This bird is the size of a Hyacinth Macaw, with a fourteen inch wingspan from tip to tip. Colored a sooty gray like the ice it conceals itself among, its talons are the first thing noticeable about it because they're a very dark black -- a sharp contrast to the rest of its coloration. Along its back between its wings is a clear, narrow oval-shaped window of clear, flexible chitin that grants a perfect view of its spinal column and nerves and which lights up with electrical activity and bioluminescence from its heart when it wants to attract a mate.

    Its bones are doublejointed, enabling crawling into tight spaces or escape points a breeze, and its elliptical wing shape allows for tight moves in enclosed spaces in order to escape predators. While not particularly strong, birds of this species are known to band together in tight social flocks; lonliness and losing their flock are major sources of stress. They do not migrate, picking a spot and staying there for multiple generations as long as the local food supplies hold.

    The bird is an opportunist insectivore, living off the cold-immune bugs and crawly things native to the local cave systems. It's not above feeding on carrion when the situation arises, though it has nowhere near the immune system of a hyena nor the resilience of the polar bear. It also feeds on the sweet fruit of their trees, known simply as Frozen Blood-Rubies for their rich color and weepy-exterior so that it looks like it's leaking blood.

    Its legs are springy and the inside of its talons is lined with thin gripping-scales much like a gecko's footpads, allowing it to jump and latch onto anything it can; the grip-scales prevent unintended removal. Upon its head is a unicorn-like horn half an inch in length which allows detection of magnetic fields, (limited) photosynthesis when no other food is available, or communication with others in its hive.

    Upon its legs are nodes that extrude a kind of icy substance that freezes and darkens on exposure to air; it uses this Dark Ice to construct its hives for safety and defense. It can also vomit this Dark Ice in liquid form.

    The Boreal Shadowbeak has a heart larger than would be expected for its size; this heart takes up one third of its body and has the ability to store kinetic energy that it gathers by flying. What used to be a shocking "node" on one of its legs has been internalized to provide a secondary feedback for the heart in case of damage or irregular heartbeat; this is a nod to its extremely powerful genetics preserving the species far longer than other creatures on the planet.

    The bird's heart gathers so much energy so as to discharge it if we are handled, through nodes on our chest and back (much like an electric eel's defense). Our cold spit has evolved to a Breath Weapon of liquid Dark Ice that can freeze (and poison) a small animal in place. Our bodies have limited color-shifting ability, and some feathers are an indication of age because the color shifting transfers to the feathers in a way much like a tree's rings.

    If hit by blunt trauma, our bodies harden as we play dead, preventing death through broken bones or impact. Our blood instantly thickens on exposure to air, preventing blood loss and death from shock. However, we lost our heat resistance (nothing up here uses heat-based attacks) and great heat of any kind will overwhelm us.

    The Boreal Shadowbeak is a poisonous bird; when its feathers are plucked it leaks a foul-smelling toxic substance that will bring necrosis to open wounds. This "venom bile", if swallowed, will kill most other creatures. Underneath its layer of poisoned feathers is a second layer of razor-sharp feathers, and we can "fling" these to a range of ten feet by whipping a wing.
    [SLIDE title="Positive Perks" align=center]
    We are very intelligent, capable of grasping complex problems, coming together for defense, and discussion of situations and news.
    Our Queens enter a state of rage if the eggs are threatened. One squawk from them and the rest of the hive follows.
    We have a significant Cultivation Instinct and know the value of seeds, storing them for future need.
    We are immune to toxins and poisons as our blood is too dense.
    We have advanced danger sense capabilities, enabling us to react lightning-quickly, preventing predation by most other avians.
    Our feathers are waterproof, allowing us to dive into the ocean to look for other kinds of food (or hide from predators, although there's stuff living in the ocean too...)
    Negative Perks
    We are resistant to the developing "spirit world" that is taking form, and may not be able to enter it later when the opportunity arises.
    We are weak to magnetic distortions (or extremely abrupt atmospheric pressure changes, such as sudden storms).
    Exposure to fire for more than five minutes will boil our blood and cause us to burst.
    We are weak against impalement and piercing damage.
    Upon exposure, toxic metals (mercury, and such) and injected poisons will kill us almost immediately.
    Contact with free flowing water slows us as our bodies harden against the temperature change.
    Predators and Prey
    (Undiscovered)
    Interactions
    Coming Soon
    Our Nest's Resources
    No nest yet...
    Secured Resources (including SAs/FH)
    Standard Actions available: 3 of 3
    Finest Hour available
    Threats and Interactions
    Something BIG stomped our home flock-clan. Some kind of Elephant-Ape thing.
    Lu'Fels -- double-sabretoothed wolf-cats. (Allies)



    Awakening 22, 760k BS: 4/25 Survival Points

    Spring has arrived.

    We spent most of the time with the flock in between scouting, hunting, and warning new flocks of this beast. In the meantime we've since learned four important things about it.

    One, it has a subsonic growl that terrifies its targets and "shuts off" its brain for a second. Birds drop like rocks and it smashes them out of the air. Two, if it walks on its "hands" (well, front legs) with its butt in the air, it can clop its rear legs together for a stronger eardrum-smashing sonic attack behind it -- this it uses against groups that would attack it in order to scatter the attackers. There are paw pads on its back feet that when flexed and crashed together, may as well be cymbals.

    Three, when in fear (which is rare) it bends and rolls its face skin back, revealing muscles and its skull as a scare tactic. It seems to be working on most beasts (it's what makes the Lu'Fels doubt themselves when faced in combat...) however we seem to be unusually resilient against it. And finally, four, it thrives on destruction. It kills for *sport* more often than food and busts down trees for its own amusement.

    Now that the flocks know what to look out for we can keep watch for this beast (give it a name, I'll use the one I like best).

    With spring's arrival comes the beginning of mating season and a new threat: imagine an arctic goose with a narrow build, powerful wings to swat others out of the air, and an extra pair of legs/eagle-like talons on the front of its body. They're coming for the flock-clan's eggs (and sometimes us), and they're larger and stronger than we are so they can bully us around.

    Getting whacked with one of their wings feels like getting hit by a wooden board, while their talons are specifically geared for grabbing us since we're pretty weak to being impaled.

    The queens of this flock-clan agree that since you're the new bird in the nest, you prove you're valuable to the flock-clan and give the strategy for dealing with them.

     
  • Threadmarks
    • damn we did not make a good choice might have to think it through more in the future

    Now while i think its a bad idea cause it can easily backfire i wanna go for C. cause if it works we get a posible future ally and get rid of an enemy
     
    Storm Claps ( loud and destructive like a storm)
    Destrobeasts (destructive beasts)
    Mega Destrobeast ( I mean, theyre big)
    Thunder Beast
    Aporm ( ape- storm)
     
    @SleepyCaterpilar We're now intelligent; while not fully intelligent we do grasp important concepts (seeds for cultivation, the idea of family, the "greater good" of the flock-clan) and can mimic things we see a lot easier. We'd know things work but not completely how or why (making repairs likely impossible). Invention/innovation will be rare, but it can happen.

    I don't have real examples because I let the players feel out the waters. In the last one of these I did that had SAs, I just wrote to what I thought would work. So if you're going to use an SA or the FH, feel free to experiment. There's no wrong way to do the SA or FH.
     
    maybe it wouldn't cost many resources if we phrase it so that when we lose feathers we just cover it not spending time finding feathers that fall off away from the nest
     
    [X]Attempt socialization; they're almost as smart as we are and know the value of a flock

    We could attempt this, im concerned about possible us vs them stuff but... A success would be cool

    And if theyre smart, we also have to consider the possibility of starting a war

    [X] Add extra protection to eggs by covering them with feathers and sticks
     
    Year 1 of 5, Month 4: Creation
  • Threadmarks
    • Sorry it took so long. Something involving an absolute lack of compassion on the part of my roommate and a suffering cat with a hole in her neck almost the size of a quarter from scratching so much. Then Youtube blocks those who use adblockers outright, so my source of funny videos is gone.

    Once again our opinions differ -- I figured the rage of a mother would give anything pause. Socialization, which won out, was worth 0 -- they're xenophobic. Why would they ally if they were already out to eat your eggs?

    The Boreal Shadowbeak
    The Boreal Shadowbeak is a cold-dwelling cross between a macaw and a raven native to the southern tip of the Glacierbone Ice Sheets, making its home in the trees of special Alumwood Groves. Able to somehow digest shadows and darkness, instead of building traditional nests, it builds hives of darkness-aspected ice which does not melt on exposure to the sun. This takes a great deal of energy -- sometimes one bird will drop dead while making the hives for others in the flock-clan to live out of.

    One hive can support about 18 birds (eight males, eight females, two Queens), each with a specialized role / "caste" in the flock-clan such as hunter, scout, or builder. Birds of a particular caste will associate with identical caste members from other hives as well as their home flock-clan.

    This bird is the size of a Hyacinth Macaw, with a fourteen inch wingspan from tip to tip. Colored a sooty gray like the ice it conceals itself among, its talons are the first thing noticeable about it because they're a very dark black -- a sharp contrast to the rest of its coloration. Along its back between its wings is a clear, narrow oval-shaped window of clear, flexible chitin that grants a perfect view of its spinal column and nerves and which lights up with electrical activity and bioluminescence from its heart when it wants to attract a mate.

    Its bones are doublejointed, enabling crawling into tight spaces or escape points a breeze, and its elliptical wing shape allows for tight moves in enclosed spaces in order to escape predators. While not particularly strong, birds of this species are known to band together in tight social flocks; lonliness and losing their flock are major sources of stress. They do not migrate, picking a spot and staying there for multiple generations as long as the local food supplies hold.

    The bird is an opportunist insectivore, living off the cold-immune bugs and crawly things native to the local cave systems. It's not above feeding on carrion when the situation arises, though it has nowhere near the immune system of a hyena nor the resilience of the polar bear. It also feeds on the sweet fruit of their trees, known simply as Frozen Blood-Rubies for their rich color and weepy-exterior so that it looks like it's leaking blood.

    Its legs are springy and the inside of its talons is lined with thin gripping-scales much like a gecko's footpads, allowing it to jump and latch onto anything it can; the grip-scales prevent unintended removal. Upon its head is a unicorn-like horn half an inch in length which allows detection of magnetic fields, (limited) photosynthesis when no other food is available, or communication with others in its hive.

    Upon its legs are nodes that extrude a kind of icy substance that freezes and darkens on exposure to air; it uses this Dark Ice to construct its hives for safety and defense. It can also vomit this Dark Ice in liquid form.

    The Boreal Shadowbeak has a heart larger than would be expected for its size; this heart takes up one third of its body and has the ability to store kinetic energy that it gathers by flying. What used to be a shocking "node" on one of its legs has been internalized to provide a secondary feedback for the heart in case of damage or irregular heartbeat; this is a nod to its extremely powerful genetics preserving the species far longer than other creatures on the planet.

    The bird's heart gathers so much energy so as to discharge it if we are handled, through nodes on our chest and back (much like an electric eel's defense). Our cold spit has evolved to a Breath Weapon of liquid Dark Ice that can freeze (and poison) a small animal in place. Our bodies have limited color-shifting ability, and some feathers are an indication of age because the color shifting transfers to the feathers in a way much like a tree's rings.

    If hit by blunt trauma, our bodies harden as we play dead, preventing death through broken bones or impact. Our blood instantly thickens on exposure to air, preventing blood loss and death from shock. However, we lost our heat resistance (nothing up here uses heat-based attacks) and great heat of any kind will overwhelm us.

    To protect our eggs, we cover them in our poisonous feathers; those that approach may stick themselves with one by accident.

    The Boreal Shadowbeak is a poisonous bird; when its feathers are plucked it leaks a foul-smelling toxic substance that will bring necrosis to open wounds. This "venom bile", if swallowed, will kill most other creatures. Underneath its layer of poisoned feathers is a second layer of razor-sharp feathers, and we can "fling" these to a range of ten feet by whipping a wing.
    [SLIDE title="Positive Perks" align=center]
    We are very intelligent, capable of grasping complex problems, coming together for defense, and discussion of situations and news.
    Our Queens enter a state of rage if the eggs are threatened. One squawk from them and the rest of the hive follows.
    We have a significant Cultivation Instinct and know the value of seeds, storing them for future need.
    We are immune to toxins and poisons as our blood is too dense.
    We have advanced danger sense capabilities, enabling us to react lightning-quickly, preventing predation by most other avians.
    Our feathers are waterproof, allowing us to dive into the ocean to look for other kinds of food (or hide from predators, although there's stuff living in the ocean too...)
    Negative Perks
    We are resistant to the developing "spirit world" that is taking form, and may not be able to enter it later when the opportunity arises.
    We are weak to magnetic distortions (or extremely abrupt atmospheric pressure changes, such as sudden storms).
    Exposure to fire for more than five minutes will boil our blood and cause us to burst.
    We are weak against impalement and piercing damage.
    Upon exposure, toxic metals (mercury, and such) and injected poisons will kill us almost immediately.
    Contact with free flowing water slows us as our bodies harden against the temperature change.
    Predators and Prey
    Four-Legged Geese: Predators of our eggs. Xenophobic to other creatures, especially other avians of any kind and twice as especially to its own species outside its home flock.
    Destrobeast: Predator. A beerslam of ape and elephant. Has a "magical" scare attack which we're resistant to. Kills for pleasure.
    Seukothi: Four-armed squirrel-centaurs. They hit the tribal stage before we did, though they're more akin to chimp intelligence than actual intelligence at the moment.
    Interactions
    Four-Legged Geese: Permanently hostile.
    Destrobeasts: Permanently hostile.
    Our Nest's Resources
    No nest yet...
    Secured Resources (including SAs/FH)
    Standard Actions available: 2 of 3
    Finest Hour available
    Threats and Interactions
    Something BIG stomped our home flock-clan. Some kind of Elephant-Ape thing.
    Lu'Fels -- double-sabretoothed wolf-cats. (Allies)



    Creation 14, 760k BS: 7/25 Survival Points

    That... did not go according to plan.

    Attempting to socialize with the Four-Legged Geese just made them launch what was effectively entire-tribal attacks on the Tree Hives. They're a birdbrained bunch of "we hate everything" and it's noticed that they also attack their weak or injured flock-mates to cull anything weak out of their bloodlines. The Tree Hive our bird has taken up residence in for the moment manages to fight them off, though at expense of liquid Dark Ice defense.

    A little annoyed, we took it a step further: We have begun coating our nests in a defensive layer of used feathers, tipped with venom. The Four-Legged Geese are too stupid to knock the feathers off with sticks or dropped stones, but there is a slight cost to this -- our undeveloped young sometimes don't evolve a resistance to our own poison (it's somewhat rare due to our genetics, but it does happen).

    Meanwhile the Four-Legged Geese have been harassing the Destrobeasts, trying to lure them to all of their enemies -- a flock-clan of Shadowbeaks to the east, some fire-spitting penguins on the southern coast, and those four-armed squirrel centaur things that are slowly moving back north... with spears and blowguns.

    The queens of this flock-clan have asked you to move on. They're not risking their Tree Hives further, and having you around may spell disaster (and it's attracting the Four-Legged Geese). By the same token they are not going to spread the word about the blunder; everyone makes mistakes and survival is important. They won't condemn you.

     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Bait the Lu'Fels into smashing the Four-Legged Geese's nests.

    War it is!
     
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