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InspectorSands — Farofel Species Reference Sheet
Published: 2012-04-13 21:38:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 3290; Favourites: 26; Downloads: 142
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Please click download for full view, text might be hard to read otherwiseTextures from cgtextures.com
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Comments: 38
Waaahh!! They are so.. so.. omgh I'M AFRAID
but
I love those
What software did you use to make the background and which one to draw these.. hum... aliens? animals?
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Haha, thank you. Encouraging words are always nice. I suppose I should work on some more farofel art, then...
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I like these aliens because they are very believable
Nicely done.
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Why thank you, I suppose I managed to do something right!
Now if only I stopped being lazy and worked on them some more...
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Haha, I've been meaning to make a ref sheet like this for my Exodrake critters, but I'm too lazy XD
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Reference sheets take much effort, but they are fun to read so I hope you will make it one day. I would like to see it.
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At the moment I have a text version [link]
And a realllllly out of date visual one with crappy art that is also obsolete.
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Oh, that is a great start, interesting little (well, not so little) concept you have there. Very throughout reference too. A visual version would be a great extra thing to have and they would balance each other nicely.
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I really love my species, can you tell?
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Just the way it should be! It will be interesting to see where they will go.
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my species is part of a whole fictional alternate universe I created. I have a whole cast of Earthlings and Exodrakes and I want to make stories about them
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Creating species and conworlds tend to go hand in hand. You're going to have a lot of work ahead of you, so good luck! I will always be interested in hearing more about your universe and creatures.
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It's not terribly important that I thoroughly develop every aspect of their world. I know that their planet is almost identical to Earth in its mass, tilt, orbit, and chemical composition, hence it yielding such Earth-like lifeforms. And there are lots of trees. The Exodrakes are an arboreal race, after all.
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Oh, absolutely, you have to know when to stop or otherwise you won't have time to write the story. Though writing that story is going to be hard if not the hardest part here, so don't give up on that.
Sha Ruel is rather Earth-like planet as well, though smaller. Otherwise farofels would probably look pretty crazy... Such worlds are interesting, but not what I wanted to work on.
Speaking of your Exodrakes, it's nice to see that they don't follow the whole females being smaller, prettier and having full breasts for no reason other than human females having them too. Or maybe it's for sexual appeal, I'm not sure. Shows that you're not afraid to try out weird things too. Well, things weird for us humans, of course. We are pretty weird compared to most animals.
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I absolutely cannot stand seeing the same sexual dimorphism in humans being tacked on to alien species. Or, worse, when people EXPECT it from every other species, because we're the norm of all biology, yo.
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Obviously, duh. I mean, what are you even thinking, of course that's how it is.
I'm not sure if you ever got enough praise for the way you decided to handle the whole thing, so I felt like I had to give some well deserved praise, haha.
There are other ways to make one's species familiar to us if that's what they're trying to achieve with it. Sexual dimorphism can be pretty fun... But it's not required either. That's kind of the way I went with farofels and it gives me some ideas how to shape their society.
Suddenly this turned into a rant about sexual dimorphism. Well, I suppose there would be worse things to talk about!
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In my species, even though the sexes are drastically different, they are treated as equals. The males make up for their comparatively diminutive stature in other ways. The females hunt with brute force, while the males use agility and venom. The females do have venom, but it's a weak neurotoxin that only causes pain and localized paralysis for a few days. It's worse than a bee sting but definitely nowhere near a bullet ant or tarantula hawk sting.
The males' venom is a cocktail of painkillers and endorphins that initially make the victim feel good, neurotoxins that spread while the target is high and (temporarily) paralyze the central nervous system, and necrotic agents that digest the target alive right when they cannot move and the endorphin dose wears off. It's not a fun way to die. The 4% who survive without antivenin have severe deformations due to gangrene, as well as trauma due to the extreme pain they suffer.
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Nice for the tiny guys to be able to keep up with the huge and powerful females, otherwise gender equality probably wouldn't be a thing for them. Small and helpless males would soon be in a much different situation, I feel.
Oh, I'm not sure if you ever said it and if you did I'm sorry, I must've forgot, but are Exodrakes immune to their own venom or could a male kill a female easily with a well placed sting? Because that sure would be a reason to keep males happy in their society too!
Farofels don't really care about gender, so it would've been a bit funny to make females and males very different, though I'm sure someone could work with something like that and make it believable.
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Both sexes are immune to both venom types. And they don't sting, they bite. Sexism is highly stigmatized in their race, so gender-based quarrels are extremely rare. They view the features of the other gender with respect.
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I suppose they don't have to live in fear of getting a lethal bite then, which in a way would probably help the equality when there's no fear. How was life before they gained sapience and such society, or is that a thing you haven't really thought of/don't even care/they never had time like that? I could see a time when the stronger females tried to oppress the males if evolution took place, so it would be interesting to know how the males fought against that.
Feed my endless questions with knowledge omnomnom
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Oh, ancient cultures were definitely backward with sexism and matriarchal oppression. They overcame this as society evolved, but they weren't always so open. No race is perfect, after all.
Their evolutionary ancestors had a "female carried the babies and protected them while the males hunted" sort of gender role structure. The females would guard the young and also their mate if need be, and it was very effective since NO wild animal had the stones to stand up to something so huge just for a semi-defenseless baby (the babies have venom but it is only as potent as the females' in both sexes until they reach ~500 years of age where the toxins diverge). In modern societies where food is easily accessible in a refrigerator a few yards away, though, these roles have diminished and modern society doesn't pay them much heed.
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Well it only makes sense, the females are pretty huge and scary. Nothing would want to piss something like that off, other animals or the males themselves. And of course something like that would be abused.
It would pretty interesting to see how Exodrakes looked like a very long time ago.
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Their ancestors had elongated muzzles and overall sported a visage much more typical of our own mythical dragons. Fetal and infant Exodrakes still retain this muzzle to some degree [link] as well as a vestigial bill that disappears with age. Some individuals exhibit a form of neoteny where they partially or fully retain the muzzle and/or bill. An example of this can be seen here [link]
The bill is actually an ancient remnant from their egg-laying Mesozoic predecessors. They used it as an egg tooth. Even though all extant Hrothgarian dragons, including Exodrakes, give birth to live young, they still retain this ancient evolutionary scrap. Like many vestigial structures, it still serves a similar but different function; the newborns use it to rupture the amniotic membrane and to cut their own umbilical cord. The umbilical cord is attached right between the pectoral muscles, so biting it is easy for whelplings.
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Hah, cute little egg teeth. At first I thought I had never heard of your Exodrakes before you mentioned them here in the comments, but that infant picture I have seen before somewhere a long time ago. It never clicked in my brain before this. You should advertise them more, otherwise we will miss all the drake action!
Learning more of the flora and fauna of their planet would be nice too, they are my favorite parts of conworlding.
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I never really bother much with flora. I imagine them as being quite similar to Earth plants in how they generally work, even if they look different. Hrothgar has a lot of vegetation, especially huge trees.
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Plants tend to feel pretty boring - they are plants after all, they don't do anything. But then you sort of start thinking and realize that they do things. And it sure is a way to create an ecosystem and figure out what plants are edible and how they look like. But creating nice plants is different from creating nice animals so it might not be fun for everyone.
Huge trees with some nice strong branches probably. Maybe lots of layers with some creatures never stepping on the ground. That's the feeling I'm getting now, maybe it will change as I learn more.
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That's precisely what the trees are like. They do support half-ton female Exodrakes swinging through them, after all. The limbs are large and strong enough to build houses on. Exodrake cities are constructed in the trees. Touching the ground is a rare novelty to them.
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It must be a sight to see an Exodrake chasing something up in the trees.
Do they build their houses out of wood? Plenty of that around, but you might not want to bring down trees or branches too close to where you live... Oh, do they use metal? It might be imported these days or perhaps they have some drakes living on the ground for some mining if they like metal. Or do the trees themselves have some special materials we wouldn't have here on Earth?
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Their planet has almost the same chemical makeup as the Earth, so they build their houses out of metal, wood, and concrete just as we do since it's simply the ideal building material. The trees are strong enough to take the weight.
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Well yes, but the question was more about how they actually get that metal in their hands... Would be hard if they lived their whole lives in trees, yes? Perhaps they even didn't know of metal before they saw someone else with shiny things. I don't suppose the Exodrakes evolved with other creatures who might've liked digging a bit more and wanted to trade? They got humans now at least, how far ago was it when they first met?
Or then some brave Exodrake just happened to find some on his or her own. Maybe they even got really far without any metals, they would probably be really skilled in woodworking then. I suppose a question then would be how they could cut the wood, but surely they would find a way even without metal. Something like flint would be hard to find in trees, maybe bones from their prey... Plenty of worldbuilding options going in many different directions.
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Some individuals have jobs as miners, etc. The ones who don't usually never touch the ground.
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Hah, well that explains it nice and easy. At least it shows that they have the curiosity to leave what they feel is safe and do some exploring. And that is good.
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Females tend to spend some time down there. It's usually the males that stay in the trees.
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Land probably has some pretty mean creatures too. Forests might not have gigantic ones, but plains and such might... Anything that could take on an Exodrake female?
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Their planet does have some pretty large wild dragon species that could take one down. But the Exodrakes have the wits on their side.
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That they do. Maybe it was different a long time ago and that would be a really good reason to climb up trees for safety.
I think I'm finally starting to run out of questions. I'm sure that will change the next time I see something Exodrake-related...
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