#Cool sophonts

[styllwaters]

Baby Knight??

I'll do you one better - baby knights!

[crabussy]

god I love being an artist I can draw whatever I want forever and that includes redrawing a 1912 la vie parisienne illustration with my speculative biology alien characters

[thylacoleocarn]

heres to a new year of new things!

process pics below cut. a fun first attempt at polymer clay. learned a few things and honestly i really enjoyed the whole process! hopefully ill figure out how to take better photos. and paint! needs another coat at least.

[funeralprocessor]

Art from Mundus Carnis, a geiger-esque biopunk worldbuilding project by Screeble on DA.

I'm a huge huge fan of their art and writing and worldbuilding, have been for years. They did some fantastic work in a collaborative spec evo forum game I lurked.

Which have lived in my head ever since.

[iguanodont]

The Monoculi (informally dubbed ‘peebs’) are not exactly a new species from me, but they’ve gone through a pretty drastic redesign since I last posted anything about them. These are a spacefaring species from the same universe as birgworld! Details under the cut.

The Monoculi are so-called for the large compound eye that comprises the “head”. The densely packed ommatidia allow for crisp image resolution, and a variation in the depth of the lenses give the eye a range of acuity from only a few feet along the lower half to hundreds of meters along the top. Monoculi are nocturnal creatures which evolved to navigate complex cave systems by day and tangled branches by night; they have good depth perception and low-light vision but are nearly blind in regular daylight, and cannot perceive color.

The Mono homeworld is peculiar for the presence of a ring, the remnants of two moons which collided early in the planet’s history and bombarded the surface with chunks of space rock long after the planet’s crust had cooled. The result is an unusual abundance of heavy metals in the environment. Iridium, a prohibitively rare mineral on earth, comprises orange-yellow compound which carries oxygen through a Monoculus’s veins. The ring itself also has drastic effects on seasonal surface temperatures, though as on birgworld, life there has adapted accordingly.

Monoculi molt to grow like earth arthropods, but they only do so one segment at a time. A newborn larvae, one of 2 - 5 siblings, will remain soft and aquatic for about 8 months, until it loses its gills and hardens for the first time. They do not begin growing the first proper body segment until the thorax is as large as an adult’s. Molting and mating are both intimately tied to mineral pools found deep in their ancestral cave system. Without them, a molt will invariably fail and lead to severe health complications. Monoculi are hermaphrodites, and mate by pressing the gonopores (small openings under the first pair of arms) against the soft carapace of a first - third instar body segment, fresh after molting. The spawn will bore directly into the segment and trigger its transformation into a reproductive segment, which falls off after young are produced.

These sophonts are relatively large and long lived, with 200+ year old individuals sporting nearly 20 body segments not unheard of. They are also well into their space age, with a once-thriving space tourism industry buckled by a massive recession in recent decades. Rumour has it that several of the abandoned exoplanetary retreats still harbor stranded staff… but the company that built them dissolved and nobody has scraped up to funds for a rescue mission. They avoid contact with other sophonts, with the exception of the swimslugs, with whom they maintain a friendly cultural and technological exchange.

————

Btw, I do still post almost weekly sketches and worldbuilding notes on my patreon

[becdecorbin]

show me radially symmetrical creatures/sophonts

bilateral symmetry is pretty common, I mean. we are bilaterally symmetrical (on most part, obviously our internal organs like heart placement and how intestines are organized are very much not so, not to mention fluctuating asymmetries). but radial symmetry in creature design and spec bio is something I don't see as much.

anyway last time I made a radially symmetrical thing was this "lion" with a sort of triskelion thing going on.

@jarofwyrms also drew this cool art of the lion, making the sea anemone influence even more obvious.

anyway jesus I gotta make more weird creatures.

[queeninyellow4]

a terran transguy who is really into superhero stuff. So much that he fantasizes about becoming one but you know, capitalism and stuff make it a bit hard to get time and money for it BUT THEN AFFINI ARRIVE. And they not only give him unlimited resources but also a classic superhero situation that is alien invasion. So he starts preparing. Dude is an enginer so he can create some cool gadgets and costume for himself. And thats how he creates his super hero identity WILD PHEONIX (wild because feral would be too on the nose) (and pheonix because if affini have any weakness its fire even if its less harmfull to them than some would like).

Now he gotta figure out what to do with all this. He can't start an open fight cuz he will immediately lose so he needs to be smart about it. He starts chatting with people online to search for ideas and he gets really close and becomes friends with one person who supposedly has access to "secret affini information base" and tells him that one affini plans to kidnap one indepedent off the street tomorrow cuz she thinks the sophont is cute. THAT IS HIS CHANCE, get to this sophont before the affini and warn them of the incoming danger.

He does just that and once there he explains to that sophont in how much danger they are and that they need to escape but they dont need to worry cuz wild phoenix is here to save them. But when he grabs their hand he realizes something, they are really cold… OH NO HE HAS BEEN TRICKED. That is an android floret and this was a trap for him!!!! He passes out and wakes up few hours later in an evil layer of an affini that tricked him into doing that and that now decided to roleplay as a super villainess to make domesticating this cutie more fun.

Her first floret that is actually hab ai also joins in the fun as an evil minion of their mistress. So two of them tortures our poor superhero together to make him abandon his ideals and join them in their EVIL PLANS.

They also give him slutty porn parody version of his costume with heart shaped hole on his ass to humiliate the guy a little. And because superhero are about their ideals i can imagine he would be opposed to orgasming during sex with them so he is constantly on orgasm denial xenodrugs to force him give and beg his captor to be allowed to pleasure

and of course he gets bird body mods at some point.

[entelodante]

Finally finished my Whorl redesign. They were cute before but idk, I wasn't digging their eyes. I gave them a frisbee head and they are much better for it now! More in depth info to be found below!

Whorls are a sophont from the slime ball planet Backera, the planets crust is entirely covered in miles thick microbial mat so the floor is always very much alive. The main form of "animal" life on the planet are the pentapods, analogous to Earth tetrapods in terms of niches and all that. Pentapods are distinguished by their five limbs, five jaws, partial exoskeleton, and an internal boney limb girdle. Whorls are from a clade of predatory pentapods who branched into frugivory a while back, eventually leading to tighter knit communities built around maintaining their farm mats. Whorls live in towns with populations between a few dozen to a few thousand, their settlements are also how they get their name. Their buildings are spiral shaped, expanded by spiraling them outward! I'm getting around to drawing that, its v cool. They eat mostly 'plant' matter, fruiting bodies from sessile organisms and maybe some choice floor scrapings. Meat is also greatly enjoyed, but is typically reserved for older Whorls or very small children. Children who by the by, go through a little aquatic stage before committing to wet land. Babies are traditionally left to grow in slow moving rivers, but modern times find communal pools to be a lot more popular.

Whorl families consist of one 'bearing' parent and anywhere from 1-5 'seeding' parents. Whorls do not have sexes, but they do have a few genders! Mostly they have to do with who is stabbing/getting stabbed and gender will change throughout a Whorls life. An important note here though is that most pentapods, including Whorls, fertilize via traumatic insemination stab. This is understandably rough on the stabbee so generally only older, larger individuals will be the ones going through pregnancy. That's the basic gist, will get more into it as I get around to it. But just wanted to reboot them a little!

[catboymoments]

Ohh LOVE you trying the Dungmesh way of showing variations of a species! It's so cool to see everyone compared. Are you gonna make a separate one for hybrids?

Yup! I’m gonna make them for all the sophonts :3

[potatosapien5]

the sillies!

This is one of the guys(sophont aliens) I’ve been cooking up, for now calling them the fluffbugs(a better name will be made)

This is a portrait of a fluffbug, just showing their head and arms, but they’ve got more cool stuff going on that I didn’t draw here. Gonna try to make a good ref for them sooner rather than later wish me luck 🫡

Some info below: 

I can’t say too much rn(I’ll go into detail about them more when I actually make the ref) but for now I’ll say they’re semi-arboreal sophonts, who have a tech level(before human contact) around that of the pre-Industrial Revolution. They’ve got colorful flaps on the pedipalps just behind their head that they use to communicate emotion, along with a complex system of movements. Most fluffbug languages are divided between spoken words and hand signs. They can use a vocal organ(akin to the mammalian larynx) in their forwardmost pair of spiracles to talk, but they can’t articulate much, and their mandibles can make clacking noises and stridulations if moved right, but that’s about it. Individuals that wish to hold conversations(not just answer simple questions) with humans either have to use a modified human sign language(they only have four fingers so it’s slightly difficult but not impossible), or use a speech generating device(which is the main way one of my characters speaks). 

[serpentface]

Do you have any information on the root scholars that you can share? They’ve always been a cool cult/organization to me

Ok it’s a facet of the Eterhimhamdli religion, which is The most widespread single belief system east of the inner seaway (which isn't saying much in terms of scale but it's still pretty significant) and also one I've barely introduced so I'll go over it a bit here.

Eterhimhamdli has spread past its initial sphere of old (~500 years BP) southern Lowlands Yuroma kingdoms, has many folk practices, and has schismed a few times, so there's a good deal of cultural variation. But its basic tenants/tendencies are:

-Creator deities are wholly rejected, the universe is an interplay between non-personified dualistic forces of Body(evil)/Mind(good). In one schism, the interplay of these two forces is the Dream, in others dreaming is an aspect of Mind.

-Deities in general are not wholly at odds with Eterhimhamdli, but their importance is de-emphasized and worship is usually discouraged in favor of making them objects of contemplation and/or tutelary figures.

-The Mind of the universe exists as a collective soul from which human souls emanate

-every person has two souls: an egoistic soul that animates the body and an ethereal soul that animates the mind. The latter is conceptualized as a single drop from a greater sea of the collective soul.

-belief that true wisdom is derived through access to this collective soul.

-belief that the trappings of the the ego-soul and the body's demands inhibits access to said collective soul.

-belief in the concept of enlightened beings who gain full experiential knowledge of the collective soul while remaining in a body, thus becoming capable of directly communicating aspects of their wisdom to the masses.

the biggest schism in this religion is over whether enlightenment just means experiencing full knowledge of the collective before you die, or whether it means transcending the limits of the body entirely and functionally becoming an immortal, godlike being.

deities of older/other religions absorbed by Eterhimhamdli are often reframed as enlightened mortals.

-most sects believe that only sophont life (or sometimes Only humans) have a etherial-soul along with the ego-soul, while animals exclusively have the ego-soul. Plants and inanimate objects Usually aren't ascribed souls outsides of heavily syncretic folk practices.

-belief in a fundamental good-evil cosmic dualism, though in a fairly complex way (evil is a necessity for life that is to be tempered and grappled with, rather than outright vanquished from the world entirely). The notion of 'evil' here is most associated with bodily desires (this includes all bodily needs like hunger and thirst, necessary to support life but viewed dangerous in excess, and being the root of conflict and pain).

the evil nature of bodily desire is not About sex, but does translate to non-procreative sex being frowned upon to varying extents.

-belief that life is a state of internal warfare between the evil ego-soul and the good ethereal-soul, with the former being more powerful and influential. To lead a good life is to bring the ego-soul into equilibrium with the ethereal soul. To live a wise and venerable life is to fully tip the balance in the latter's favor (this is not an expectation for lay followers, as it is considered profoundly difficult and requires separation from worldly life).

-lay followers practice forms of temperance to bring these forces into equilibrium, priests practice forms of asceticism to subdue the ego-soul and gain experiential wisdom in the process.

-The way you balance your life has consequences for the afterlife. An evil life causes an eternal death (this is usually posited as an underworld), a life in equilibrium causes one to be reborn into a new human body (a neutral fate), and a good life results in full return to the collective soul (this is a state of complete peace and contentedness and access to infinite wisdom).

-A selection of hallucinogenic plants are central to the monastic/priestly aspects of the religion, being seen as the key method through which the body can be transcended and the ego-soul can be quieted in order to tap into the collective. Lay followers do not participate in this facet on a regular basis.

-Priests also participate in self-flagellation, as the struggle with physical pain is a key microcosm of the broader internal war with the ego-soul, and can be a source of wisdom and contemplation. They are extensively tattooed for partly related purposes. Laymen are not expected to flagellate as a practice but rather to apply teachings to/learn from struggles with everyday pain.

-Very complicated relations with violence as a concept. Some strains of Eterhimhamdli philosophy see violence as an exclusive result of evil to be avoided whenever possible (usually more completely by priesthoods than the wider societies they live in), others see it as a neutral tool in of itself that Can be a force for good when used wisely. (Large scale 'wise usages of violence for the sake of good', shockingly, tend to favor the in-group's position in preexisting ethnic/religious/territorial conflicts).

-Most sects are proselytizing and see conversion as a necessity to create a better world, and have broadly unfavorable views of other religious practices.

This does not extend to seeing all societies that practice Eterhimhamdli or even The Same Schism Of Eterhimhamdli in a positive light (the birthplace of this religion is currently about 60 semi independent city-states organized into leagues that are frequently at war with each other)

-Highly favors education, literacy, rhetoric, debate, and the acquisition of material knowledge along with deeper spiritual wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom are venerable traits and societies should be led by the learned, or at least by people under their guidance.

---

The Scholarly Order of the Root is one order of Lowlands Eterhimhamdli monastics, functioning as a closed cult/mystery religion. They’re based out of Suurota (one of the biggest Yuroma city-states and dominant member of its league). They're at the top of the league's hierarchy of monastics, very wealthy, and have some involvement in governance (being an advisory body to the magistrate).

The Scholars primarily interact with the general public by hosting many of the league's institutions of scholarship and philosophy, and some of the biggest libraries in this part of the world. Their institutions are used by laymen Suurota citizens and members of government for study, and they host monks and priests (uninitiated to the inner cult) in their halls.

Actual membership to the Scholars cult is limited, they neither expect nor want associates to participate in their rituals. Rather, they position themselves as teachers- revealing small aspects of their secret knowledge to laymen and the lesser monastics as a form of guidance, while keeping dangerous knowledge for only the trusted inner circle.

Their baseline belief system aligns with the general schema of Lowlands Eterhimhamdli (one of three major schisms of this belief system), but their closed cult practices revolve around fairly unique interpretations, understood to be the ultimate underlying truths of this worldview.

The Scholars focus on an extention the Mind-Body model of the universe where their synthesis is the Dream (this itself is not unique to this cult, but the depths of their focus is). Under this model, the world is the dream of the collective consciousness, and achieving enlightenment or even temporary lucidity can allow the dream to be shaped to one's will.

One of their most secretive practices is god-building, in which they utilize altered mental states to shape the fabric of the dream into entities they can use as personal teachers of secret knowledge (also as a type of magic in general, they use it to 'build' guardians and curses and the like).

The process involves using mild doses of Ur-Root brew (mostly derived from roots of the clonal Ur-Wood colony, whose bark has notable concentrations of dimethyltryptamine and also hosts milder fungal hallucinogens) while maintaining an object and concept as a focal point of concentration. The altered state provided by the Root allows the user some access to the wisdom of the collective soul, and they will experience secret knowledge and revelations about this object, how it can best be used (this will be supplemented by material knowledge about the subject). This process is repeated until the user experiences a sense of Presence in the object, which must be interacted with, given a name and a face. Through more repetition, the object is believed to be shaped into a sort of thoughtform god which has come into material existence via manipulation of the dream.

This is considered to take immense time and effort to come to completion, god-building projects can last for years and be the combined effort of multiple Scholars. In the end, you have shaped an entity to your will that can operate independently of you.

The Ur-Wood itself is the center of Scholar cult practice, as it is both the purveyor of their most important hallucinogen and believed to have been the first god ever shaped by this form of lucid dreaming (it's a pilgrimage site for Eterhimhamdli where thousands of followers have undergone Ur-Root trips over the past four centuries, using the woods as an object of contemplation). To them the Ur-Tree is the ultimate teacher of their cult, an extremely powerful built-god that has been involved in almost every journey to enlightenment and contains all these journeys within its substance.

They believe that communing with the tree via Ur-Root can grant access to all enlightened mortals- full trips (with a DMT breakthrough type experience) will often involve sensations of encountering entities, which they interpret to be these historical figures. Within their religious framework, they're kind of speedrunning enlightenment. Under most conventional frameworks, the teachings of wise and/or enlightened people are conveyed in writing or speech as things to Contemplate on one's own journey- you might be able to understand them Conceptually but true understanding is Experiential, a process that can take a lifetime. In their framework, they're both receiving these teachings directly AND embodying states in which they can experientially comprehend them.

That summarizes most of their secret practices, and the rest of their practice is pretty standard for devout Lowlands Eterhimhamdlist priests. They live a partly ascetic lifestyle, they bear extensive tattoos as a contemplation of pain and marker of their journeys, they flagellate, they use tutelary hallucinogens, they refine their non-experiential body of knowledge through debate and rhetoric, they work to accumulate both worldly and spiritual knowledge, they work as scribes, etc.

[twocupsofsugar]

The Dram

A slight redesign of one of an older design, in color this time. These are the Dram, a mammal-like sophonts from an very earth like planet. On the left is a female and the right a male. They're the closets your going to get to a "humanoid" alien in the known galaxy.

Some bits on Biology

I call them mammal like but their not like placental mammals, they're really more akin to marsupials and monotremes in that young are hatched very underdeveloped and are nurtured in a pouch. While not depicted accurately here male dram are considerably larger than their female counterparts, and are around 2x times their size on average. They're feathers are display features which are used to express mood, and in mate selection. Oh and they're also venomous, they've got two fangs in their mandibles which in ancient times they'd use on their prey. They're aren't exactly immune to their own venom, but they are resistant to it.

The average global temperature on the dram home-world is considerably cooler than earth is while they are capable of regulating their own body temperature they do terribly in temps greater than 80 degrees fahrenheit, and often find room temp uncomfortable. When working in environments of other sophonts they tend to wear refrigerated chill suits.

Some bits on Culture

Dram family structures are similar to lions, so polygamy is the norm and their societies tend to be matriarchal. Their home-world is currently in its glacial maximum stage of their ice age so the northern hemisphere is largely covered in permanent ice sheets. Due to over industrialization by nations in the south their planet is unfortunately dealing with gradual global warming. The effects of which were much more intense and immediate due to their planets larger axial tilt than that of earth, so as you can imagine they're dealing with a lot of issues as a result. They were contacted by aliens , ~20 years ago and interacting with the wider galaxy has only added to their list of political and socio-economic problems.

In terms of tech, they're a little more advanced in some aspects and behind in others but they've got a comparable tech level to 21th century humans. (so us right now!) And they've already made crewed missions to other neighboring planets in their star system.

I really like the idea of the sort of role reversal, where instead of humans getting contacted by aliens its the other way around. Like I can imagine the dram equivalent of SETI discovering human ship or message and all the shenanigans that would cause. Would be a cool story i think.

[independent-adventures]

hey guys! Me and Joyce went to this cool bakery that specialized in pastries that have different xenodrug cocktails in them we both had an éclair that had a class S in it that made us able to taste emotions, pared with a little bit of A's and E's. spending time cuddled up with Joyce was a nostalgic taste for me, warm and hearty, like the soup my mom would make for dinner if the kitchen she worked in had produce they were going they throw away. Joyce described the taste as really sweet and fruity but dense and warm like a peach cobbler. it was really nice to spend time with her, she seems to just sort of get me, I don't need to try and be entertaining or even interesting around her I can just relax and be myself.

I've been accompanying Nerine on her tours a lot lately and people are starting to assume I'm her floret. I can kind of understand it with the bracelet and the fact that I'm around her so often but still its starting to rub me the wrong way, when I correct sophonts, especially Affini on this, I'm staring to get this look like they don't quite believe me, Its starting to really get under my skin, and like i don't want to spend less time with Nerine but also I really value my independence i spent so long stuck being ordered around and not having the ability to make choices for myself that i really value having autonomy. Idk what to do, i should just talk to her about it but all the people assuming I'm her pet has me paranoid that that's what she wants as well and is just slowly luring me into florethood, and i know this sounds bad and paranoid but my brain is freaking out about this a bit Like I trust Nerine a LOT but theres this paranoid of my brain screaming at me that i cant trust anyone, its really bad its been getting louder and harder to ignore recently, I thought I worked through everything with my ex and all her lying to me but I think its really gotten into my head, I dont want to be paranoid like this and im scared that I'll be put in a wardship because of it I should probably book a therapy appointment tbh

sorry yall this post went in a really weird direction I'll try my best to be more back to normal for the next one, we are leaving Silvae in like 6 days now so I'll update then

[dahlia-verdantus-first-floret]

Do you and your Affini ever play games together? Anything from Fields and Florets to Fetch to Riptides! I know other florets & wards relationships to their Affini are different from mine and I wanna learn more about everyone!

o-oh recently me and mommy have been getting into a cool card game but the cards that come in the affini exclusive packs are op, i hear the sophont that created it is putting themself up as the prize for whoever wins a tournament they set up for it

[gardenofeden5457]

.decided to draw my interpretations of the aliens from the book and short stories by @marlynnofmany , since recently an actual drawing of the silly sophonts was released by the author herself, and i realized now would be a great chance to share how i'd seen them as well.

first, the heatseekers! i don't know why i made them centaur-like. i just like unconventional body plans, i guess. they're also pretty big, with their height (measured at the head) usually being about the same height as the average human. i remembered marlynn saying at some point that they were dragon-like...? not sure where, but it definitely influenced how i see them, lol

next up, the frillians! i dont remember much about these guys to be honest (sorry, marlynn!) but i tried my best based on the description. i headcanon that they are short :>

nothing much to say about the mesmers, except for the little "wrist fingers" detail i picked up from the short story Clues. i like these guys, they have antenna that puff out when they're surprised or angry. they're very tall, being average human height measured at their back.

last but not least, strongarms! i realized far too late into reading marlynn's short stories that they're actually octopus people and not really buff dragon guys with tentacles... oops. at least i managed to get my cool dragon head in there, and gave it some cool extension thingies that from the top, kinda look like the fins of a squid!

[ntls-24722]

Homo Mousike updated species refs + redesigns!

The Debu didn't get a redesign, more like an updated reference picture but nonetheless, the current Debu lore:

Debu are the most technologically behind out of all 3 sophonts in the homo mousike planet, they are in their stone age and still live in caves. They have recently begun to be sedentary to practice agriculture, and while they don't have metals, they have invented cement, where they will dig/carve out molds to pour it in and create whatever structure they need. They are an immensely successful species that have been sapient for significantly longer than the two Zebrapeople, yet have not moved meaningfully past their stone age, but this technological lag isn't due to a intellectual damper, but a lack of need.

Debu are enourmous, strong, but because their skin is bare and sensitive, if they they can't beat the daylights out of their attackers, they can just scale cliffsides as dubiously as a mountain goat and create massive caves for themselves for shelter. They are HEINOUSLY well adapted and the only reason they got sapient was because tool use got Debu insane amounts of hoes.

Debu used to be solitary, and they would call to one another like birds and at some point down the line, 1 proto-Debu was getting insane play because he was knocking on shit rhythmically while singing. This led to 2 species-wide realizations: Girls like cool sounds, so if you can make cooler sounds (by making instruments) you get more girls, and If MULTIPLE guys play together in a little band, they collectively get way more girls. These 2 combined brought the species to be communal through "concerts" and sapience through the tool use.

Zebrapeople are the most technologically advanced, in terms of humans, they're kind of at their ancient Sumerian point in history - meaning technically their world history just started but that's still miles ahead of the Debu.

Zebraelves came from something that kind of filled the niche of monkeys, crawling along land-coral branches like chameleons but became semi-hexapodal when their ancestor adopted their eusocial nature, in order to carry food across the branches to the rest of their colony. Speaking of, they have a eusocial social structure where most of the population are nonreproductive worker females, nomadic drones that group into a fraternity and migrate circularly around subcolonies to lay pipe to the reproductive female Queens that are thrice their size (around the size of humans)

Their biggest strength, as you might expect, lies in their eusocial nature - much like Argentine ants, the entire species is a part of one massive supercolony, meaning the entire species, fascinatingly, does not have wars with one another. Subcolonies do have tensions and general beef, of course, they're not a hivemind, but they're just extremely passive aggressive about things. Their tool use was actually what facilitated this - the Zebraelves were smart before this, and were not just workers in a colony, having much time to play. Any neighboring colonies would fight tooth and nail against eachother, the only truces being over liquor and their dances, where two colonies would temporarily relieve tensions to play and mess around. The intraspecies violence was actually insane to the point that inventing instruments to make larger dances and merge colonies actually became essential to their survival.

Wars with other species is on the table, as hypocritical as that is. Interestingly, they like to siege war on their "cousins" the most.

The Zebramen evolved from Zebraelves on an island close to the mainland, their eusociality and treedwelling status fading away as they got bigger and bigger. Eventually, like us, they became fully hexapodal to run across flat ground rather than across land coral branches. Interestingly, their civilization didn't start when they stopped being nomads, their civilization started when they got up and began to keep moving across the savannah. Inventing instruments for music helped them communicate as they herded the cattle that their entire livelihoods relied on, without wasting so much precious breath.

Interestingly, even though they're their closest extant relative, zebraelves are kind of hardwired to hate zebramen the most - to most zebraelves, zebramen are recognized as a seperate supercolony and there is some instinctual tension. But peace and union between the two species is not rare nor unheard of, cultural exchange is abundant and the two species are so closely related that hybridization occurs, creating the variably fertile, back problem-prone and human-sized zebragnomes.

Zebramen have 2 main ethnicities at this time, the black-and-white mainland zebramen, and the hot-pink insular zebramen, located exactly as their names suggest. They are big fans of the razzle dazzle, as when they were without queens and fraternity nomads, their evolution began to skew towards sexual selection, leading to an enjoyment of overly detailed, fancy decor and the bright-pink stripes on the insular Zebramen to this day.