deinocheirus

[deinocheirus]

The “Treebugs”, whose designs are still subject to some tinkering right now.

The grex emerged from the hybridization of two moderately related “flowerfly” species approximately ~7200 years ago, shockingly recent compared to the evolutionary history of other species. Like other flowerflies the Grex themselves are only the female gametophytes of their species, their society is heavily built on the maintainence and protection of their large sporophyte “mother trees” as well as their immobile gametophyte males

Despite centuries of contact the species’ cultures are among the most impenetrable and poorly understood. Partly from a lack of clear centralization, the closest thing analogous to government are networks of couriers, communication and distribution “guilds” in their society bridging their various industries. Partly from individuals short lifespan results in quick cultural shifts( traditionally at around 15 years of age they become sexually reproductive and die, advances in medicine have extended their lifespan into their 20s).

Despite their keen senses of hearing, grex languages are typically signed using the position and movement of their modified antenna-like forewings. Relying on echolocation at night and in their often unlit building interiors, the grex just as often hear their “visual” language as much as see it.

[deinocheirus]

It’s hard to say. Technological development of different species isn’t linear, the species that have reached “space age” are all quite different from one another with very different histories, only sharing in common of reaching a point of rapid technological development.

Snamels and Holophants both have a very very long literary history, things like agriculture and written record keeping has been around for well over 40,000 years in both species (tho only known in scattered remains now). Based on archeological discoveries it seems Holophants were industrialized at one point ~15,000 years ago but were discovered at a point vaguely comparable to Earth’s renaissance in technology. Holophants also have a very large written and “oral” body of knowledge but some of it is lost, and a lot of it is not attested or available to the galactic community yet.

The Grex, the other space faring species known, went from “Neolithic” to setting up colonies on neighbouring planet at a breakneck speed within only 3000 or so years. Their recorded history is vast, but what their body of knowledge gains in thorough record keeping and esoteric strangeness it lacks in narrative pazazz that tends to be more interesting for others species.

Among the other species contacted, one had a rich history but has fallen victim to censorship and revisionism upon the turbulent times they were contacted in, on top of further possibly censorship and revisionism post alien contact that is now taking years to untangle. One has a small body of art and knowledge stemming from the fact they are a species isolated in a body of water the size of Lake Erie. The other 3 contacted while having varied tech had no written language, all had extensive oral traditions that took a hit during the rapid influx of technology and information and the decline of many their languages.

@lycheeboy What aliens think of humans varies a lot, depending on the species or culture or just particular individual. Snamels are the oldest extant space faring species known and are the ones contacting other species, Holophants are the most recently contacted species whose general knowledge on aliens is currently broad and limited.

The broad strokes feelings on humans is that we are very gangly and tall (intimidatingly so for smaller species, just awkwardly so for larger ones). Some think we look ugly, a few think he actually look regal or elegant, most just think we look strange as much as any other alien does. Some aliens try to evo-psyche explain humanity’s fixation on height and building towers as us subconsciously yearning for our ancestral arboreal lifestyle. A lot of aliens like our funny head hair and think it’s amusing how much of a nudity taboo we have

Snamels have varied opinions on us. We were one of only two alien species Snamels have encountered that had any degree of space exploration and such intensive industrialization. Humans have one of the most detailed and well attested bodies of documented pre contact history and art of any known alien, which makes us a common curiosity amongst those who study alien culture. On the flip side while all species have messy histories, ours being so well documented is a bit of a disadvantage on our reputation. Sometimes we are admired as sophisticated and worthwhile allies, to being a planet of neurotic yahoos that Snamalkind ever so kindly “saved” from ourselves. We are an “acquired taste” to look at, and our cultural fixation on legally binding mate structures unpleasent to their own sensibilities.

Holophants mostly lump all aliens together and know little of the cultures of the various species. They find our (generally monogamous) pairbonding charming, and our striking physique and tendency to gesture with our arms and eye contact to communicate makes us seem more intense and perceptive then some other aliens come across, tho this is purely an anatomical bias of theirs. Our sexual dimorphism and comparatively strong social tendency to form hierarchies are “permissibly animal like”, aliens in general regardless tend to still be thought of as a strange society of talking animals from the sky.

[deinocheirus]

@lycheeboy What aliens think of humans varies a lot, depending on the species or culture or just particular individual. Snamels are the oldest extant space faring species known and are the ones contacting other species, Holophants are the most recently contacted species whose general knowledge on aliens is currently broad and limited.

The broad strokes feelings on humans is that we are very gangly and tall (intimidatingly so for smaller species, just awkwardly so for larger ones). Some think we look ugly, a few think he actually look regal or elegant, most just think we look strange as much as any other alien does. Some aliens try to evo-psyche explain humanity’s fixation on height and building towers as us subconsciously yearning for our ancestral arboreal lifestyle. A lot of aliens like our funny head hair and think it’s amusing how much of a nudity taboo we have

Snamels have varied opinions on us. We were one of only two alien species Snamels have encountered that had any degree of space exploration and such intensive industrialization. Humans have one of the most detailed and well attested bodies of documented pre contact history and art of any known alien, which makes us a common curiosity amongst those who study alien culture. On the flip side while all species have messy histories, ours being so well documented is a bit of a disadvantage on our reputation. Sometimes we are admired as sophisticated and worthwhile allies, to being a planet of neurotic yahoos that Snamalkind ever so kindly “saved” from ourselves. We are an “acquired taste” to look at, and our cultural fixation on legally binding mate structures unpleasent to their own sensibilities.

Holophants mostly lump all aliens together and know little of the cultures of the various species. They find our (generally monogamous) pairbonding charming, and our striking physique and tendency to gesture with our arms and eye contact to communicate makes us seem more intense and perceptive then some other aliens come across, tho this is purely an anatomical bias of theirs. Our sexual dimorphism and comparatively strong social tendency to form hierarchies are “permissibly animal like”, aliens in general regardless tend to still be thought of as a strange society of talking animals from the sky.

[deinocheirus]

I’ve barely drawn lately, but I have been thinking about different populations of snamels.

They have been space faring for Millennia, different colonies have varied looks from a combination of genetic drift and genetic modification to suit different words (or to make themselves look like rainbow sherbet)

[deinocheirus]

Over the past few days I've become very enamored with your blue moon concepts. Lots of very interesting stuff going on, it's really got me thinking a lot. It's also the name of my favorite beer, which is a nice plus.

The name "Blue Moon" is actually literal in this setting. The holophant homeworld has an uninhabited watery twin planet that is of interest to various parties as a potential colony world (despite how uh..dubious it is to establish a colony on another sapient species' moon...)

The downside of potentially living there is the two planets are mutually tidally locked and have a day/night cycle thats nearly a week long. Good news is solar and lunar eclipses are a daily occurance at certain times of the year if you live by the equator

[deinocheirus]

Art fight for @dimetrodone of the weird hydra Thuban.

[deinocheirus]

Continuation of this post of notes on alien sexuality with my other species. Oddly the Snamels and Holophants in the other post have some of the more “human-like” experiences with it physically and socially compared to the species here.

Sorry for the lack of names given on most of these guys, I’m not settled on most of them.

[deinocheirus]

After i made Tot i couldn't stop thinking about this until i made it

Failed their classes at dragon school

The handsome beauty brothers

[deinocheirus]

Added my dragons to art fight this year!

[deinocheirus]

I have come up with a terrible dragon idea.

He was probably an egg kicked out of a nest, and unfortunately got picked up by a bird. He spends his life being utterly delighted by the joys of being a little pigeon in a lovely little forest, tries talking to everything else, which often leads to him being shot, attacked or partially eaten, but he's just so thrilled by being such a lovely, pretty little pigeon he does just fine. If he knew he was a dragon he would probably be incredibly miserable with the knowledge of being a small, weak, useless little reptile the size of a purse dog with no redeeming qualities, but as it is he thinks he's a little magical pigeon who's prettier and cleverer than all the other pigeons, so he's very delighted.

He's not very smart.

YES

[deinocheirus]

Is regeneration in dragons tied to self-esteem? Thuban cannot go back to the only home he knew and is stuck with absolute strangers physically-and-culturally speaking, and Greytooth is no longer at the top of the heap and not quite the untouchable manslayer she thought she was

Great guess but not quite.

All dragons are theoretically capable of healing seemlessly from any injury..if their self image and mental state remains exactly the same as before. Fear or anger or shame or general trauma around injury makes it become part of themselves whether temporarily or perminantly. Even pride can interfeer with healing, a tough battleprone dragon may end up coverered in scars like a tally of all the fights they had. Injuries can even kill dragons, even ones that are completely survivable for others. Its a bit like how people react differently physically and mentally to the same experiences.

Thuban's injury is relatively recent (a few years before the present). It's healing, but doing so abnormally as he tries to rush himself back into the ocean. Greytooth's injury happened longer ago but sometimes still bleeds..

The dragons that tend to be the most most seemless at healing from injury tend to be the unfelteringly optimistic or the coldly stoic.

[deinocheirus]

Some Thubans. Some people were curious about how he looked before his body blown to smithereens. He was much larger and..headier then he is now.

[deinocheirus]

Given that they're seemingly some of the older dragons in the cast, have Thuban and Greytooth known each other before Thuban's city went underwater? If not, what's their opinion of each other?

(Love that Thuban's based on an oarfish btw!)

The two never met until Thuban washed up on shore. He has always lived by or under the sea, while Greytooth has lived most her life in the mountains.

Greytooth finds him a fascinating fragment of a time before she was born, but too ignorant of the way of things are outside his ruins to be particularly insightful.

As with all his new neighbors, Thuban finds Greytooth extremely grotesque, more like a gaudy chimera then what he thinks a “dragon” outta look like. Despite that he does holds some degree of respect to her, being a better alternative to Belette and Craigore’s dominance.

Both are very aware of how they share a history of..similar injuries, and notice how each are not healing or doing so abnormally. They never bring this up with one another.

[deinocheirus]

@cctinsleybaxter @plasticseaslug you asked the same question for a Cow and Chuck.

They know eachother well (tho Cow overestimates himself a bit here), a more complete understanding of themselves is hampered by the fact that they largely only talk about humans and human related information with one another.

[deinocheirus]

(considering the extent of how many types of dragons there are.....is there any dragon social equivalent of a misconception or a myth? Like...is there a SPECIFIC type of dragon that humans think exists but actually doesn't according to the dragons? Also how is their hierarchy like?)

The biggest misconceptions humans have about dragons is believing they have well defined "types" at all. A dragon hatched out of any egg could theoretically become anything, but social and "cultural" pressures (the anatomy of it's neighbors and local fauna) as well as individual temperment mold and shape a dragon into usually recognizable forms. Things that dragons say are rules about themselves in one area could be not the case in another.

The social hierarchy of dragons is esentially a crude pecking order that forms within an area where they live. Dragons larger or stronger or fiercer push their weight around enough that other dragons no longer challenge them, while meek ones become subservient or avoidant.

[deinocheirus]

Answering these together

@theload In terms of when i started posting him here then yes ("A king of worms" as a name is named after basilsiks after all). In terms of my creation of him as a character in general then no.

Chuck started as a childhood Dragonology character with strange "mutations". It wasnt until much later after revamping my dragon characters into their own thing (and started posting them on tumblr) did I decide to make him a basilisk to explain his appearance. Dragonology's own basilisks being shapeshifting brood parasites of dragons was probably still an inspiration on Chuck tho.

The extend that Chuck has used his abilities has largely been for food. Vegetable-based food disgusts him, but the idea of killing animals also disgusts him. Often he just becomes starving enough that animals around him will start to drop from the air and trees dead, which he thinks is just him being very lucky and living as a noble scavenger (just like the human, who scavenge for chunks of meat at the grocery store). Chuck has also horribly poisoned several dragons and other creatured who have tried to maul him.

Some basilisks really do kill everything in a 10 foot radius of them, usually imfamous ones where everything wants them dead (which makes them only more deadly). Most people think chuck is just a little weirdo amd not a threat.

@artistic-octopus I largely have no set in stone voice claims for them but have loose ideas for some of them. I think Chuck has a fairly flat mumbly voice, not as whiny as one might expect from him. Cowparsley has a gentle somewhat "feminine" voice (by human standards anyways). Pyrite sounds extremely abrasive and shrill. Craigore has a cartoonishly deep gruff "demonic" voice. Hogg sounds like Carl ATHF in my head..

@the-greatest-being

[deinocheirus]

What significance would there be for a dragon changing sex (apart from the obvious practical part). As a basilisk, does Chuck posses similar abilities?

The most common reason for a dragon to change sex is from acquiring a new mate. Two initially same sex dragons will often become a fertile male/female pair, but even new pairs that’d already male/female often “swap” sexes. In terms of self perception it’s less to do with a change in gender identity itself, and more to do with a reflection on having new strong feelings or change in relationship status. Most dragons have changed sex at some point in their lives.

Occasionally dragons obtain a more “clear cut” senses of identity around gender, usually the result of non dragon influence. Belette was gendered female by her..human family, and she’s remained female since.

Basilisks don’t have separate sexes and all and can readily lay eggs as long as they have mated before at some point. Chuck is referred to by masculine cause the ancient language created by humans millennia ago that dragons have taken to using amongst themselves made Chuck to choose one or the other and being called an “it” is for little baby wormlings.