Playing with some ideas mostly regarding gender/reproduction in RW, and slugcat colonies.
Full transcript under the cut!
Creatures in Rain World are typically simultaneous hermaphrodites but require partners to reproduce, with either individual capable of being a genetic donor or carrier. Alongside what we are familiar with, this has lead to interesting reproductive strategies such as rotating donor/carrier roles, or dual/simultaneous genetic swaps.
Rotating donor/carrier roles - A K-selection reproductive strategy. One partner carries the first child, the other partner carries the next child, and so forth. Allows each partner to recover from the demands of childbearing.
Rain Deer aren't quite monogamous, but they tend to choose the same breeding partner whenever mating season rolls around. They serve as a donor one season, then bear and raise a child the next. Calves are raised away from the rain and worm grass, in places that have less food but more safety. Calf wool is softer, not yet gunked up by the dirty rainfall. Their legs are sturdier as children, allowing them to run for cover while the parent wards off threats.
Dual/simultaneous genetic swap - An r-selection reproductive strategy. Parents fulfill the donor and carrier role for each other. The more children you make, the more likely some are to survive!
Multiple batflies lay thousands of eggs in a single "blue fruit." Several eggs congeal and become nutrient paste for the surviving eggs (and for hungry slugcats). Like some plant seeds, batfly eggs that are consumed before pupating can survive passing through the digestive system. Ew.
Ancients also fell under this umbrella. Their genders (and the genders of iterators by extension, who have no sex anyways) could have been determined by a variety of other factors, such as societal role, donor/carrier preference, or simply different categorizations of personal expression.
It's difficult to say how well their common pronouns would translate to ours, but it seems they can translate to an extent, given what Moon and Pebbles use canonically.
Slugcats, like real slugs, can have children with a partner or self-fertilize. Unlike real slugs, they are often known to adopt.
In the case of self-fertilization: children who are born from one parent may display a large amount of genetic diversity despite the circumstances. Maybe slugcats have some sort of... genetic reservoir independent of their own genetic code?
Slugcats live 20-30 years on average... if they manage to reach adulthood. Their mortality rate is sadly rather high, especially in pups. If they were to develop as a civilization, it's likely their lifespan would increase dramatically.
Slugcats in a colony are more likely to have more children, and to successfully rear those children to adulthood, than those who wander alone or in small groups. The safety and stability of a colony cannot be understated.
Colonies either have a set, cycling migration path, or wander continuously. Survivor and Monk's tree home was a nesting site that their colony frequents about once a year. So it's likely that they'll see their family again!
...also, the strength of large colonies are why scavengers are likely to become the dominant species. In the time of Saint's era, continuous migration has become more of a risk, and it has become more difficult to support large populations. Slugcat populations have shrunk back to the more forgiving equatorial zones.
Saint's tongue is pretty unusual and probably unique to them, or to a small population that they hail from. Fur (of varying thickness) is much more common.
Meanwhile, scavengers are bulkier and covered in thicker insulating fur. They:
have seemingly massive populations
have a burgeoning society (the existence of merchants, tolls, bartering, elites and leaders)
are adept at communicating (non-verbally)
manipulate their environment
can build structures (scavenger-made structures were a scrapped idea from Saint's campaign)
can create complex weapons and tools
may have agriculture behind the scenes (unsure if scout parties prioritize exploration or hunting)
I would wager on scavengers developing more quickly than slugcats, but it would be nice if there was a future where both could co-exist.
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I know this is a weird question, but what exactly do the bigger sharks eat in your world? I know Rocky is a Great Hammerhead and they (as a species) are known to be other shark eaters, so is there like an alternative meat that they eat, or do they just stick to stingrays and bony fish?
That's a curious question, and I was quite inspired when I thought about how to answer it!✨
In the past, they used to hunt wild fish, but with the advent of the modern age, they stopped fishing and adapted entirely to the practice of pisciculture. 🐟✨
In a hypothetical future on this Earth, fish are incredibly larger and more abundant. Some have been domesticated, just as we humans used to do, and are treated with deep respect.
In order not to cover too much, I've focused only on the fish that have been domesticated for consumption in the region where my main characters live, called "Santa Maré".
They are the descendants of species we know, such as Arapaima, Tuna, Tilapia, Sardines, Anchovies, Salmon, Cod, Octopus, Squid, Crab and Shrimp.
These are some of the typical dishes of the Santa Maré region, most of which are variations on recipes handed down from the ancient human presence that marked this region a thousand years ago. Lots of seafood-based dishes with a spicy touch! 🌶️✨
Some of these dishes were inspired by real recipes from my country such as: Casquinha de Siri, Tuna Poke, Vatapá, Bobó de Camarão, Moqueca de Peixe, Octopus Rice, Acarajé, Cod Baked in Olive Oil, Cod Croquettes and the sweet dessert called Manjar, which is a coconut pudding with plum syrup!
Things like corn, wheat and other fruits, vegetables and animals domesticated by humans disappeared millions of years ago. So I wondered what other options they could find to use as the main ingredients.
Algae Flour, Palm Oil, Palm Butter, Coconut Milk, Palm Sugar, Domesticated Snake Eggs, Sea Salt. In the Santa Maré region, palm is widely used as the main ingredient, while other regions may prefer ingredients based on algae, for example.
Some domesticated fruits and vegetables are only used to season and enhance the flavor of dishes, but they don't make much difference to their bodies. They eat several meals a day, and food is plentiful in this civilization, so the great sharks wouldn't need to devour their friends to satisfy their hunger, hehe.
And speaking of Roberto/Rocky, my great hammerhead shark, if he gets really hungry, a Tuna Poke is enough to make him very happy and satiated! 🍣✨
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"Alright, thanks for your patience. I just got off the line with Sasha and the rest of the assembly- they confirmed your credentials so you should be cleared to proceed with docking maneuvers. Welcome to the Station, comrade."
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The thing about people writing "subversive/deconstructed/whatever" fantasy/fairy tale/myth is that some people really want to dive into the implications of a certain genre and some people do it purely in the service of making sexy goths the good guys all along.
And like, nothing is wrong with the latter, but it's annoying when people insist upon it when you're trying to do the former.
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Another @iguanodont 's birgworld fanart.
A Birg climbing a mountain while a Cliffstriker watches... Where are they going...
A simple gouache practice this time with new techniques such as layering an underpaint before painting. Still need to tame this new brush...
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Did you know running too many colors at once degrades a plasma screen? It's called colorburn
Plasma was once thought to replace CRTs but it seems that even by 2095, tubes were still king.
You can still run color content on a plasma field, but most UX needs to be monochrome to reduce the amount of time multiple colors appear on screen.
(this is all bullshit science that only exists in Sunset, thanks for visiting)
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Imagine dating a fallen angel, and having to comfort them nearly every day. And sweetly telling them that they still matter to you, and that they don't need heaven's approval to be good, and letting them rest and lay down in a pile of blankets, and reassuring them that its ok for them to be happy. Telling them that they're body is pretty, and complimenting them as they get more demonic, and watching their cute little face light up because they've never really been complimented before. And when you have sex they can really only bottom because they don't have genitals, and they seem really embarrassed at first, but as time goes on sex makes them feel warm and safe, and you cuddle afterwards and make them feel so warm and safe, and make sure they know they're loved.
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Two player world building games?
THEME: Two-Player Worldbuilders
Hello there! Almost everything I found for this request required a deck of cards of some kind, so I hope you like card games!
Strata, by Vincenzo Ferriero.
A Mythopoeia Micro-RPG
Welcome fine archaeologist to your new digging ground! Strata is a tabletop role-playing game where you dig to uncover the history hidden under the many layers of rock that have formed over the millennia. Hope you brought along your Equipment!
A fairly simple one-page game, Strata mostly consists of rolling for random discoveries as you dig through each layer of rock. You’re also responsible for naming each age, usually after something you discover there. While this game looks like it could be played solo, with two people you’d be able to bounce ideas off of each-other as to what each discovery means about the age you’re digging through.
HOME, by Deep Dark Games.
HOME is a roleplaying and mapmaking game for 1 to 4 players.
You are a Mech pilot who must protect their home from Kaiju. Explore and map an alien realm as you search for the source of the Kaiju. Prepare for battle by gearing up, building bases, and uniting the world against the terrifying monster. And when the moment of truth arrives, clash against increasingly dangerous Kaiju that will destroy your home if you fail.
Important relationships keep you going in your darkest hour, veteran pilots make sacrifices for the greater good, and you must decide whether to protect important military locations or cherished cities.
This game is much more focused on action, moving your characters through a battlefield using d6’s to determine what boons and banes will help or hinder you in your battle across an alien space. While you’re going to be spending a considerable amount of time in battle, the game’s map is meant to be added to and elaborated upon as you play.
The link above is for the Kickstarter page, but the Quickstart is available now on Itch if you’re interested.
The Whimsy Collectors, by Stori_Lundi.
The Whimsy Collectors is a cooperative game for two people about exploring a fantastical universe together, finding unique items, and selling them to their special customers. You'll need a tarot deck, 2 tokens, and 2d6.
Using a tarot deck, this game uses the cards as locations where your characters can search for items and add them to their bag. You’ll also use the cards to represent customers and their wants; but be careful, your characters can only carry so much. As a result you’ll have to manage your resources carefully. You’ll tally up points according to how well your finds are suited to your customers.
The game comes with a chart to help you determine what members of the Major Arcana are like as customers, as well as a worksheet where you can record what you find where. The game also comes with two pre-generated characters with special abilities, which you can use to move strategically across the map. If you like a game that the two of you can huddle over while drawing cards, this might be your game.
This Old House, by CarrionComfort.
This Old House is a GMless game for 1 to 4 players that uses the act of building a House of Cards to tell the story of just that, a house. You will use a standard deck of playing cards, a 4-sided die, and prompts to tell the story of a home, the family and things that inhabit it, and the land it sits on.
These stories will be crafted by you, even with some friends, as a way for you to create land, give it life, and then tell the full history of a single home. From the first piece of lumber laid, through its first family celebrating new life, mourning death, and dealing with heartbreak. Then that story ends with the house being consumed by fire, lost in foreclosure, or just left vacant depending on whether the House of Cards tumbles or if a Joker is pulled.
This game looks like a good option for games that zoom in on the personal and intimate. You will focus on a house throughout its life, using playing cards as a construction material as well as a game oracle. If you want a game with an unexpected ending, this might be the game for you.
The Ground Itself, by Everest Pipkin.
The Ground Itself is a one-session storytelling game for 2-5 players, played with household materials (a coin, a six-sided die, and a deck of cards).
Focusing on place- one specific place, chosen by the group - The Ground Itself unfolds over radically disparate time periods that may range from 4 days to 18,000 years. By casting wildly into time, it considers how places both change and remember themselves. Fundamentally, The Ground Itself is about the echoes and traces we leave for others after we are gone.
This game is a reflection on a place that 2 or more people create together, using playing cards to generate questions about the location. Time may pass by as days, years, or even millennia. Players can choose when to zoom in onto what the game describes as a “focused situation”, allowing them to add an omen, a party, or some other narrative element to the story.
The game is meant to be played in a single session, so at the end you should find yourself with a location that bears the meaning of a number of events. The designer has also added a number of ways to change the game, such as using tarot cards instead of playing cards, playing places that have no inhabitants, or changing how much time passes in between each round of play.
A Traveller in the City, by Palleon Press.
A Traveller in the City is a collaborative map-drawing game in which you (& any friends you bring along) visit a CITY from your own imagination, drawing it out step-by-step! All you need is a deck of standard playing cards, a single six-sided die, & some stuff to draw with.
Work together to guide the solitary TRAVELLER thru their stroll. Picture the sights they see, the people they meet. Gradually, sketch a map– not of the place itself, but of your own memory of it. For you are not its creator, nor any kind of expert. You are a visitor. How well will you know this place, when it’s already time to leave?
This is based on the Carta system, which involves using a series of cards to represent a map that your character will explore. In this game, both players will control the same traveller, and draw on a grid to represent what this traveller discovers while exploring the city.
The game itself is rather small, and can be printed as a pocket zine for easy of transport - great for just carrying in a pocket for a spur-of-the-moment game.
Aurora, by World Champ Game Co.
Aurora is a tabletop roleplaying game for 2-6 players. This game is deliberately designed to be played comfortably while practicing social distancing or together around a communal table when the necessity for distancing has ceased.
Aurora uses 3 phases or modes of play, each of which can be used or removed from the entirety of the game, depending on how the group wants to play. In the first phase, players mail blank cards to another, which will be turned into a custom deck using the zip codes and other numbers. I can see using 5d10 as another way to generate random numbers to help create your custom cards.
In the second phase, city creation begins. Regardless of the setting you decide to create, the city is going to be torn between a Darkness and a Light. Your cards will help determine both of these, as well as the map of the city and the people who live there. If you don’t use the first phase, a deck of tarot cards might work as a good substitute for the oracle.
The final phase uses the map and the cards to generate a story inside the city that you’ve just created. Each player may be responsible for their own character, or they might take ownership of a faction or a number of characters - which might be a good option if there’s just two of you.
If what you want is a lot of room for creativity, this might be for you.
You Might Also Want To Check Out...
My Map-Making Games Post
My Town-Builders Post
My Worldbuilding Post
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What are the three ghosts of Christmas like in the other world canon. I believe jacob Marley worked tooth and nail to get them to help Scrooge and Is the ghost of Christmas yet to come an aspect of death
I call them the "Three Santas" in my Otherworld canon.
The Ghost of Christmas Past is the spirit of Saint Lucy, chosen due to her association with light and sight, as well as her holiday being in mid-December.
The Ghost of Christmas Present was always going to be obvious. Dickens based him on Father Christmas, an English folk figure that evolved from pagan traditions who later merged with Saint Nicholas.
And finally, keeping with the theme of choosing saints, it only made sense I find one that personified death in some fashion in order to represent the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The mexican folk saint Santa Meurte seemed like a perfect, albeit somewhat out of place, fit.
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Dogstomp #3148 - August 14th
Patreon / Discord Server / Itaku / Bluesky
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decided to go fawk it and make it so that nattramn and basilisks are able to hybridise in pareidolia yay!!! more info under cut
as for how its possible, irl clearly these species would be too distant from eachother to hybridise but ok its fantasy and also. i think part of it might be that as basilisk ancestors evolved their odd trait of picking up aspects of other fauna around them during fetal development, it just resulted in their genes being really wack and spontaneous and for some reason that made it so that they can procreate with nattramn again. i think the ancestors shown in the last image for example could not concieve together bcs the basilisk ancestor species had not evolved the wacky genes thing yet.
societally i think it varies on how they're treated. generally hybrids are accepted as parts of their societies, but depending on several factors they can be somewhat alienated. in nattramn society, "basramn" hybrids are generally more well accepted due to a combination of societal and religious reasons. "nattlisks" usually mingle with basilisk communities much easier for similar reasons. the kind of folklore that sprung up surrounding them in these communities may depend on the fact that basramns have an easier time fitting into nattramn society (due to nattramn putting a lot of importance on flight) while nattlisks have an easier time shapeshifting and can usually fit in basilisk communities easier because of it (basilisks celebrate their shapeshifting ability culturally quite strongly), and the folklore sprung up as sort of a "post hoc" justification for potential alienation/embracing of hybrids.
because of this this means that union between a basilisk and a nattramn and whether or not its accepted depends on the context bcs of what hybrid it produces. thinking this may be further reinforced with old legends about mythical (or real, potentially) historical figures in their cultures. (have to think more about this)
also i dont think ive mentioned it here but the reason why these hybrids arent TOO uncommon to see is that nattramn and basilisks are closely intertwined, and while its unusual to see a nattramn mingling with basilisk communities, its quite common for basilisk communities to exist within nattramn settlements and their attitudes towards one another are generally amicable/positive.
"nattlisk" and "basramn" are not canon terms for them, and in universe theyre generally referred to either as basilisk, nattramn or harpy depending on what the observer/local culture thinks they are lol. humans especially dont really know the difference - i think maybe nattlisks may be interpreted as some sort of other vätte like a rå or a troll due to their more humanoid look
generally have similar lifespans to nattramn/basilisks, overall they do rather well for being hybrids other than miscarriages (or, well, since theyre egg layers, failed/unhatched eggs) and nattlisks being more susceptible to illness early in life.
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i'm a sucker for friends to lovers, which means Desma is the love of my life🥹, but i've been wanting to play other routes so i wanted to know if it's possible to become friends with the ROs before romancing them (especially Sutek since we've got that enemies situation going on)?💕
100% yes.
I really feel like friendship is the backbone of romance. Without the presence of it, it feels more like lust than love. It's possible for you the routes to be attraction that grows into something deeper, or you can gradually develop a mutual respect that turns into romantic love.
With Sutek, this is especially true and even with characters like Aretas that will show interest more overtly.
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With how intense Twilight's magical surge was when getting her cutie mark realistically, she would have scars from flying debris. With how strong the magic was, she could have completely burned off the fur on her horn completely and made her horn unable to grow fur back.
If you want to go to extremes she could have lost the horn completely if Celestia wasn't fast enough.
She was probably extremely exhausted from magical overuse and i wouldn't be surprised if they had her stay in the hospital for a few hours at least maybe even a dsy or two. A magic surge that strong for a kid that young is probably pretty serious and seriously taken. She probably had to wear a magic dampener of some kind during the first few months or even year of being taught magic by Celestia just out of precaution. And more for Twilight's physical health than anything. Magic that strong in such a small body is probably uncomfortable at least
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