#worldbuilding hcs

[kat-124]

Walks over and flutters my eyelashes…you should totally tell me about your region genetic headcanons

ACKKKKK hey.

michael vsauce here, first i gotta explain another system i have in my headcanons. because goodness these guys are very, very diverse! and theres subcategories! my favorite! (everything below is headcanon territory, however I'll be formatting it as if its a fact or sm)

all demons belong to a 1st species, which basically means they have traits from whatever region they're spawned in.

theres Lost Temple demons, Thieve's Den, Playground, and Blackrock.

if you want, in another part i can talk abt how evolution/genes occurs in the first place when theres not really a 'passing down' of genes because i have explanations for that aswell! infact I'll happily explain anything further on request, i loove yapping

a 2nd species is basically a second set of traits mixed with the 1st species, this can be animalistic, object, concept, etc. (for example: wolf, fishing hook, music)

a 2nd species isnt always present, but when it is it can override 1st species traits, seemingly at random with less concern for survivability according to environment.

however, animalistic 2nd species are seen to commonly reflect the region theyre born into, whether this is because matching-animal 2nd species are more common or just that they survive more is unknown.

ANYWAYS

region genetics (aka 1st species)

~~~~ Lost Temple

lost temple demons tend to have thicker, rougher skin all over, rougher palms/soles, longer eyelashes, etc.

claws: longest of all the regions, demons tend to trim them though, to make modern life things easier. tend to be nonretractable. duller than other regions, in color and appearance. very sturdy, can be used for digging through materials like softer rocks, dirt, etc.

skin: lost temple demons tend to have darker skin when spawned, but many also just tan (grey-en? idk) from the sun. skin colors are random when spawned, but think of it as just being more common to be darker.

diet: omnivores. dried insects or lizards, beans, cacti, etc. seen as cultural foods and are quite common to find.

horns: Lost Temple horns can start to flake if not maintained, they are very sturdy, and are the heaviest out of the regions. they are quite solid, seeing a Lost Temple demon with a broken horn is a rare sight as it tends to be easier for the whole thing to be detached from the skull rather than fracturing. this makes them harder to customize shape-wise.

scutes: tend to line the upper side of the hands and feet, (think like reptiles or bird feet) scutes would also sometimes appear in 'armored' areas, like outside of forearm, shoulder, back of neck, along back, shins, outer thighs, etc.

while 'inside' softer skin areas would not have scutes. like the belly, inside of forearm, upper arm, inner thighs, etc.

scutes are shed periodically, and tend to be a mix or offset of horn + skin color. can be polished, traded or gifted afterward.

temp sensitivity: very temperature resistant, as the desert has an incredibly harsh climate (hot during the day, freezing at night) they have to in order to survive, even with shelter.

they dont tend to sweat very much, if at all, as it conserves water amounts.

Lost temple demons tend to be naturally nocturnal, as to avoid the heat, but have adjusted to being awake during the day due to the development of towns, the lifestyle of other factions, and such.

towns historically developed around rivers and oasises.

Lost Temple demons are generally quite tall

they tend to have a third eyelid, its a thin membrane they can shut it over their eye. this helps be able to see partially during sandstorms or if its windy. it freaks other regions out though.

Playground

Playground demons tend to have thicker skin especially at the palms and soles, they have

claws: Playgrounders tend to have medium sized claws, shorter than Lost temple ones. non-retractable. noticeably curved, very sharp, used for climbing or grappling easily. Playground demons will also file or trim their claws down to improve dexterity. they come in brighter colors.

skin: Playgrounders tend to be dark-midtone but having more colorful hues, (ie. they might be grey but with an hue overlay of another color, usually matching horn color.) smooth in texture.

diet: omnivores, fruits and vegetation are very common food sources, spices and herbs are also very common here, and are used in cooking often. avian meat is the kind thats most commonly consumed, aswell as reptiles. Playgrounders tend to have a wide diet.

playgrounders horns are the most malleable, they are softer and more sustainable to breaking or chipping. broken, cracked, or chipped horns are a common sight in Playground. they are smooth in texture.

Playgrounders tend to be shorter/smaller, however they tend to have longer tails than other factions. and these tend to be prehensile tails.

decorating yourself with colorful items and foliage used to be a sign that you were stronger/a threat, however, now its moreso just self expression and is very common.

very quick, along with being small they tend to be nimble and agile, good at evading something trying to chase them. theyre strong in a way that would make them not great at arm wrestles, but would be at tug of war.

very resistant to the humidity and heat. they do poorly in colder or less humid environments. they have pretty good poison tolerance.

Playgrounders also tend to be naturally nocturnal, but now are more active in the afternoon, especially at dusk. Playgrounders tend to nap often rather than taking long sleeps. theyre also light sleepers.

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ok ive been letting this sit in draft for aaaawhile, im gonna post this now, ignore any mistakes they arent there, trust

might yap abt the other two factions in a 2nd part i dunno, feel free to ask me specific questions about my hcs, i find it easier to make a response if the question is more specific/narrow ^_^

[atomicraft]

many days i have worked to create this creature in the depths of my mind palace and now i impart it upon all of you

(tell me what you get in the reblogs 👀)

[linkedin-offficial]

finally made refs for these two! (+ some doodles)

also some news : im tentatively taking commissions! i never fully announced it anywhere but they are open. you can find more details here!

[bunnieswithknives]

Could you explain changelings? I'm curious it sounds like interesting lore for fop

Changelings are the outdated practice of leaving a fairy baby to be raised by (usually) a human. This can take many forms such as Replacement: where a child is taken and replaced, Mimicry: where the original child remains and the fairy child is to be raised like a twin, and Gifting, where a fairy child is given to someone who doesn't have kid but often wants one, sometimes as part of a more elaborate deal.

Fairies evolved as a type of Aggressive Mimic, specifically they are very good Brood Parasites. The fairy child would be put under a specialized charm to suppress their magic and make them look like an exact copy of the child they were replacing. Most changeling children wouldn't even know that they were changelings until their teen years, at which point they start molting and presenting classic fairy bug features (pasta puberty is not real to me I am closing my eyes I do not see it). Their magic would start returning to them too, and through a mix of magic and deeply ingrained instincts they would find their way back to Fairy World.

Over time though many fairies started to agree that this was an extremely unethical practice which led to a catastrophe of them trying to raise their own children. Since their lifespans were so long and their population was fine they eventually decided to put a temporary ban on having children as they figured out more ethical and practical solutions. This ban did not end up being temporary. By the time Peri was born basically all the knowledge related to raising fairy children was lost and forgotten.

Bonus some peri for lifecycle reference. Unfortunately the Glimmer spell has been mostly lost to time so no Glimmer for him!

Bonus info: Dog fairies/other animal fairies are not a separate species from normal fairies they're just changelings/the decedents of changelings that were raised by animals

[bisexualmcqueen]

whats under the bumper?

mouth, chassis, rollcage, and radiator of course. mouth functions similarly to a grille.

took his hood too. horray for hi-revvin smallblock chevy motors

+apoc au escape moment:

get mcqueen'd, idiot

and whose blood is that?

[bastart13]

How do you imagine hybrids work in love and legends? We've seen elf/humans.

So there are 6 different species and aside from the mermaids, they're all compatable to have children.

I headcanon life expectancy, colouration, and the shape of facial or body features to be gradient traits, so they pretty much randomly combine between the two parents like any other child

Magical traits are probably more binary. So a fairy hybrid child could inherit the eyes, wings, and/or sparkles, or none, with no middle ground. A demon hybrid will usually inherit a faded form of the markings, but they won't always be able to transform or earn horns. Dwarf hybrids might inherit the ability to echolocate vs just having larger ears.

If two species with strong magic have a child, they're more likely to inherit magical traits (e.g. elves and fairies with strong magic vs humans and dwarves with low magic)

Considering the domains are all friendly with each other, I imagine it's fairly common to have mixed ancestry and there's no real taboo aside from the grief of lifespan differences

[joltrify]

Do you think Kineceleran tails are important?

Not just important - useful too!

[ash-and-starlight]

Do you have any really specific and/or personal Zukka headcanons that you’d be okay with sharing? I eat up every hc you put into your drawings like they’re candy, I was wondering if you had any others :D :D

OH boii i sure have,,, nothing coherent is coming to mind atm so ill just expose my Extensive backstories of zukka bethrotal armbands that idk if i will find a way to sneak into art.

sokka’s armband for zuko is forged back at Piandao’s mansion, and it's one of the most fine stunning pieces of jewelry ever crafted. it’s not the usual southern ivory but metal, more similar to the armbands worn as an accessory in the fire nation. it’s made of intertwining bands of gold and black meteor metal, with patterns of waves and dragon scales that seem to ripple and move when the light catches on them just right. and the pendant is a traditional blue stone from the swt.

There are no particular engagement gifts traditions in the fn, so zuko goes on a deep dive into southern water tribe ones, asking sokka’s family and friends about jewelry making and learning to engrave over the course of several trips to the swt. He makes sokka’s armband with ivory from his own first (successful) solo hunt. i’m not sure abt the material of the pendant lmao maybe gold? but amber would also be cool methinks

as for the pendant engraving they display a unique single braincell moment (untrue i just want them to match). love the fact that both of them are sea savvy navigators, love to think that in their pining era they spent a lot of time watching the stars and showing each other the different constellations and navigation pointers of their nations, so in both of their armbands’ stones are depicted the constellation used to guide sailors back home, sokka engraving the swt’s one on zuko’s armband and vice versa.

if they were sun’s out guns out kinda guys before this only gets worse during the first weeks of their engagement. shirts are banned. everyone look at the bethrotal armbands NOW.

[solomiracle]

there's definitely some devildom languages that the human mind literally can't comprehend. like satan stubs his toe and lets out a curse in some ancient demonic tongue right as mc passes by and they fall unconscious

[proudchimera]

A worldbuilding sketchpage for my comic/au :p

Zonai Commoners!

I imagined them to be more enclined to physical strength compared to higher classes zonai, which would be more focused on magical arts/spirituality/engineering/etc etc.

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

When your name literally means “Battle Survivor” but you’re starting to wonder if Tolkien meant that as some kind of joke:

Seriously, though, I am still DEEP into my feelings about Obscure Blorbo Guthláf, and I remain fascinated by Tolkien’s thought process on his name, which really does mean “Battle Survivor.” In the drafts, Guthláf the banner bearer’s name was Guthwin (“Battle Friend”). Tolkien changed it later and gave that name to Éomer’s sword (written instead as Gúthwinë), but at that point he had ALREADY written that the banner bearer died at the Pelennor Fields. So he made a conscious decision to bestow the name Battle Survivor on a character that he knew full well had died in battle. Why? Who knows! Maybe it was ironic commentary. Maybe he thought it was funny. To me, it is just one more tragic element in Guthláf’s story and one more thing to get all emotional about. But then again, I do so enjoy getting weepy about my favorite horse boys.

[starflungwaddledee]

A little off topic but do I spy tail feathers on gk in the last panel?

thank you for noticing thank you for noticing thank you for n oticing thanky nyou f

yes, you most certainly do!

voilà!

he's had them in every picture of him i've posted, but they're not always easy to see! i was really wondering when someone would notice!

it is a swallow-like tail! when you have big ol' wings i figure that having a rudder helps significantly with manoeuvrability. here's some sketches where you can see it a little more clearly.

and an extra bonus; with all those feathers he's obviously gotta have a way to preen them...

[happi-dreams]

me and my sister was thinking of little master builders world building before tlm and we had the silly idea of — hey maybe they did lil fun games as moral when things looked dire ?

therefore, ✨ Brick-lympics ✨

i think they’d have little categories they’d all play in like ‘who can build the fastest?’ <- (consistently benny) or ‘who can build the most creative design?’ ‘who has the strongest build?’

n maybe in tlm2 or tlm if they weren’t invaded literally seconds after, Emmet joins in and probably switches between judging and building every now and again

[beneathsilverstars]

hello for the ask game 9: any theories on stuff unexplained by the game?

I always love theories and thoughts and worldbuilding hcs etc so anything in that vein works :3

I think my favorite little worldbuilding headcanon is that Ka Bue is super chill about aromanticism and asexuality! Not in the same way as irl activism, but it's something that is understood and respected in their ideology, like transgenderism in Vaugarde. So if we combine the powers of everyone in the crew we'll get an entire queer-friendly worldview going lmao!

Maybe... Something about an overarching philosophy of understanding the self? In Vaugard they see the self as something you refine through making, creating and destroying and rebuilding, but in Ka Bue you're supposed to be uncovering and polishing what's already there. And part of that is understanding your position in relation to others, so they have a lot of little descriptive words for flavors of relationships and dynamics, and being the sort of person who seeks those dynamics. Like "oh i'm usually the comedic straight man of the friend group and i seek out jokesters who play well off of that". And that means that nonsexual romance, nonromantic sex partners, QPRs, etc, are all understood dynamics, and various kinds of friend and family and colleague relationships are seen as distinctly important, and being alone is seen as a valid dynamic!

Now that I've typed this out I love it more and more... I was originally just thinking about the metaphor of cutting and polishing a gemstone, but having a lot of little Dynamics that various people may find more or less relevant to themselves is a similar approach to having thousands of Expressions! And it meshes with the transphobia as well - you can describe yourself as having dysphoria but you're not supposed to go and try to change that.

And there's that Odile + Isabeau conversation where she gets really specific about their relationship: "We're not friends, we're associates. Colleagues. Allies at best." And she's obviously joking, but this hc puts some extra weight behind her making that particular sort of joke! Plus she's the one who's like, "I wouldn't call you all friends, that would be weird, we're more like family," and she gets mad about being called the mom. I love the idea that she has Very specific dynamic classifications in mind for her relationship with each member of the crew, and gets pissy that Vaugardian doesn't have the same nuance/connotations!

And this philosophy being the total opposite of the Change belief is so interesting for Odile in particular! It would definitely flavor people's perception of her in Ka Bue - oh, she's one of those fickle Vaugardians who change masks every day and will never truly understand themselves. No wonder she wanted to get actual Vaugardian perspective on their belief. Oh, how lovely it will be for her to synthesize the two extremes, and both discover and create who she is!!

[bisexualmcqueen]

once again it is monster design time

so back in 2017, I designed this little coyote as a metal-eating creature in the cars world

saw some modded harleys on tiktok + my apocalypse au mindset returned again to create an additional idea... a new but similar species: Direwolves. Metal-eating megafauna!

here are some sketches:

and chick for scale:

now imagine a full pack of these metal-crushing beasts 🥰

their jaws move Upward (and downward with their steering assembly) to have a larger range of motion, and their chunky tires are sort of like pawpads :p

both rear wheels are powered. if one gets stuck or goes down, they can still drive. theyre also faster than these little coyotes (dirtbikes) too, and about 2-3x their size:

hoping to get these things into a few fics, needed to make a visual.

rejoice, puppies Direwolves!

[beta-adjacent]

Hot take: bond marks (as commonly seen in the literature) are a little bogus. What do you mean bonding should be exclusively for mates? Why can’t I bond with my best friends instead? Does it really need to be romantic? What do you mean it’s a permanent scar??

Granted, I do love all those tropes a lot; they hit a really deep soft spot for me. And lots of new work nowadays are redefining how bonding works! I guess I just wanna keep that conversation open