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Nov. 30th, 2011 08:25 pmSo, uh... I haven't posted in this in over a year.
I'm still commenting places! Just... not actually posting in my journal, despite decided in one of my last posts that... I would post in my journal more! I know, I'm awful, and no one reads this so I'm basically talking to myself.
Anyways, just thought I'd include an update just... because! School is going fairly well... I'm not doing so hot in one of my classes, unfortunately, and I have some work I really need to get done, but other than that, it's great. I love most of my teachers.
Still don't have a job... thank my parents I can afford to live here at college. I need to consider getting a job at some point.
I haven't been able to do much roleplaying at all lately. Various things popped up, the forums I could RP on have been gone for a while... it really sucks, honestly, but what can you do? (Besides making my own, of course, but while I do have a project like that in the works, I can't possibly do it on my own, so it's just gathering dust.)
I did create some new races for writing and roleplaying purposes, lately! I'm diverging away from my normal habits of them being really humanoid for the most part, or extremely based on mythical creatures. (Though, as usual, they tend to be heavily magical. One of the races, though, can be magical OR non-magical without losing much, so, take that as you will.)
The first of these two races is the Dravari. They're... hmm, I need to learn to describe things more clearly sometimes. They're semi-bipedal desert-dwellers. The easiest way to imagine them is to take a lizard as a base. They've got this light-tan pebbled skin, and very long and thin bodies... fingers, arms, legs, tail, etc. They've also got a large frill that, by default, is kept back against their heads, but they can expand outwards in something like a mane around their faces... if you've seen some lizards, you know what I'm talking about. They use that to radiate away heat for body temperature maintenance. They've also got two extra eyelids. One is completely transparent and serves mainly to keep sand out of the eyes, and another is tinted so as to let them see better in the bright light of the sun (and reflected light off of the sand). Lastly, the tip of their tongue tip is hardened and there's a tube running through their tongue almost like a straw. (They use this to extract water from cacti.) And of course they have claws and teeth to protect themselves. (Skilled Dravari can use their tail very effectively as well by whipping it around.) And yes, they reproduce by laying eggs.
They've got a very honor-related culture. Their main law is to always keep your word if you give it. So they're primarily traders of services and goods. (Though they don't really use money! They don't like it because it's something you give in place of giving someone something precious to you, like your time or one of your possessions. They view it as holding no real value.) They're also very good at metalworking and glass-making, because of how well they withstand heat. They tend to live in either small nomadic groups of around 20-30 Dravari or larger cities made out of baked brick or sandstone. Because of their honor-based culture, the government is largely made of those that volunteer for a position as leader; to break your word is unthinkable for a Dravari, so they are bound by their oaths when they enter office. (When a leader, or ANYONE for that matter, breaks one of their oaths, well... it isn't pretty. Dravari that are discovered breaking their word tend not to survive the day.)
If you want them to be non-magical, you can leave them at that; if you want them to be magical, they have the power to turn into sand and back again. This has a drawback in that if their sand touches water, they say goodbye to that part of their body. There's even an allergic reaction of sorts if their skin touches water; they instinctively turn into sand, which then gets wet... yeah, it's bad, and the usual method of execution when they have this power.
The second race I haven't actually named yet. Instead of being desert-dwellers, they're deep-ocean dwellers. They have smooth dolphin-esque skin, with lines of bio-luminescence running across their skin. This bio-luminescence actually changes color based on their emotions. The lower half of their body is actually much like a jellyfish, with a large hemisphere with tendrils trailing out from the edges of the hemisphere. They move like jellyfish or squid, by sucking water into that area and compressing it out to propel themselves forward. The top half of their body has four tentacles coming out on each side of a cylindrical body with a large spherical eye on top, providing an ability to see in almost all directions. The tips of the tentacles are actually where their mouths are; inside those tentacles is their throats.
They communicate entirely visually, through patterns of bio-luminescence; they have fine control over which parts of their body light up and which do not. They even have enough control so as to determine the color of the patterns, much like if a person was to fake being happy so well that everyone around them was fooled. This serves a dual-purpose; they can hide their emotions when necessary if they really need to, and the same 'word' or pattern with different emotions can have a largely-different meaning, expanding their language greatly. Another thing that changes the meaning of the 'word' slightly is the brightness of the pattern, as they can shine brightly enough to light up a small chamber by themselves, or barely bright enough to be seen.
Culturally, I don't have them defined yet. I do know that they possess magic allowing them to manipulate water temperatures, which they use to transport lava from the volcanic vents they live near in order to make structures out of pillow lava. This has the result of making their cities seem carved entirely out of a single piece of rock. They can dye or stain rock in such a way that it doesn't wear off despite being underwater. This allows them to use stone as writing materials, altering temperatures in order to reshape the stone's surface, and using dyes to give emotion to the recorded 'words'.
If someone actually sees this and feels like responding to this question... anyone have any idea what I could name this second race?
I'm still commenting places! Just... not actually posting in my journal, despite decided in one of my last posts that... I would post in my journal more! I know, I'm awful, and no one reads this so I'm basically talking to myself.
Anyways, just thought I'd include an update just... because! School is going fairly well... I'm not doing so hot in one of my classes, unfortunately, and I have some work I really need to get done, but other than that, it's great. I love most of my teachers.
Still don't have a job... thank my parents I can afford to live here at college. I need to consider getting a job at some point.
I haven't been able to do much roleplaying at all lately. Various things popped up, the forums I could RP on have been gone for a while... it really sucks, honestly, but what can you do? (Besides making my own, of course, but while I do have a project like that in the works, I can't possibly do it on my own, so it's just gathering dust.)
I did create some new races for writing and roleplaying purposes, lately! I'm diverging away from my normal habits of them being really humanoid for the most part, or extremely based on mythical creatures. (Though, as usual, they tend to be heavily magical. One of the races, though, can be magical OR non-magical without losing much, so, take that as you will.)
The first of these two races is the Dravari. They're... hmm, I need to learn to describe things more clearly sometimes. They're semi-bipedal desert-dwellers. The easiest way to imagine them is to take a lizard as a base. They've got this light-tan pebbled skin, and very long and thin bodies... fingers, arms, legs, tail, etc. They've also got a large frill that, by default, is kept back against their heads, but they can expand outwards in something like a mane around their faces... if you've seen some lizards, you know what I'm talking about. They use that to radiate away heat for body temperature maintenance. They've also got two extra eyelids. One is completely transparent and serves mainly to keep sand out of the eyes, and another is tinted so as to let them see better in the bright light of the sun (and reflected light off of the sand). Lastly, the tip of their tongue tip is hardened and there's a tube running through their tongue almost like a straw. (They use this to extract water from cacti.) And of course they have claws and teeth to protect themselves. (Skilled Dravari can use their tail very effectively as well by whipping it around.) And yes, they reproduce by laying eggs.
They've got a very honor-related culture. Their main law is to always keep your word if you give it. So they're primarily traders of services and goods. (Though they don't really use money! They don't like it because it's something you give in place of giving someone something precious to you, like your time or one of your possessions. They view it as holding no real value.) They're also very good at metalworking and glass-making, because of how well they withstand heat. They tend to live in either small nomadic groups of around 20-30 Dravari or larger cities made out of baked brick or sandstone. Because of their honor-based culture, the government is largely made of those that volunteer for a position as leader; to break your word is unthinkable for a Dravari, so they are bound by their oaths when they enter office. (When a leader, or ANYONE for that matter, breaks one of their oaths, well... it isn't pretty. Dravari that are discovered breaking their word tend not to survive the day.)
If you want them to be non-magical, you can leave them at that; if you want them to be magical, they have the power to turn into sand and back again. This has a drawback in that if their sand touches water, they say goodbye to that part of their body. There's even an allergic reaction of sorts if their skin touches water; they instinctively turn into sand, which then gets wet... yeah, it's bad, and the usual method of execution when they have this power.
The second race I haven't actually named yet. Instead of being desert-dwellers, they're deep-ocean dwellers. They have smooth dolphin-esque skin, with lines of bio-luminescence running across their skin. This bio-luminescence actually changes color based on their emotions. The lower half of their body is actually much like a jellyfish, with a large hemisphere with tendrils trailing out from the edges of the hemisphere. They move like jellyfish or squid, by sucking water into that area and compressing it out to propel themselves forward. The top half of their body has four tentacles coming out on each side of a cylindrical body with a large spherical eye on top, providing an ability to see in almost all directions. The tips of the tentacles are actually where their mouths are; inside those tentacles is their throats.
They communicate entirely visually, through patterns of bio-luminescence; they have fine control over which parts of their body light up and which do not. They even have enough control so as to determine the color of the patterns, much like if a person was to fake being happy so well that everyone around them was fooled. This serves a dual-purpose; they can hide their emotions when necessary if they really need to, and the same 'word' or pattern with different emotions can have a largely-different meaning, expanding their language greatly. Another thing that changes the meaning of the 'word' slightly is the brightness of the pattern, as they can shine brightly enough to light up a small chamber by themselves, or barely bright enough to be seen.
Culturally, I don't have them defined yet. I do know that they possess magic allowing them to manipulate water temperatures, which they use to transport lava from the volcanic vents they live near in order to make structures out of pillow lava. This has the result of making their cities seem carved entirely out of a single piece of rock. They can dye or stain rock in such a way that it doesn't wear off despite being underwater. This allows them to use stone as writing materials, altering temperatures in order to reshape the stone's surface, and using dyes to give emotion to the recorded 'words'.
If someone actually sees this and feels like responding to this question... anyone have any idea what I could name this second race?
