I Low-key Love The Fact That Sci-fi Has So Conditioned Us To Expect To Be Hanging Out With A Bunch Of

Dinosaur Ghosts (WIPs)

the son of the dragon lives up to his name

Something I love doing is building the natural lore of my universes too. I love the idea of magic influencing evolution in some way. In a universe with natural magic, it makes sense it would, because of the inherent sway it must have on the environment. Evolution can be roughly described as “environmental pressures driving natural change over millions of years.” The rat that accidentally runs through some magical energy spewing out a ley line, and thus accidentally turns invisible, is going to survive longer than its fellow rats that cant turn invisible. Millions of years later, you have what is essentially a rat that turns invisible briefly when startled lol.

A predator may evolve true sight to counter that. Eventually over millions of years, you could see how a dragon possibly evolved true sight. With speculative magical evolution, the options are kind of endless, but this is how I headcanon you get inherently magical beasts like griffins, dragons, or unicorns.

quick hancock and valentine doodle

the two halves of my brain/the two wolves inside me when making up a fantasy/sci-fi creature:

Side A: okay but what niche is this species occupying? They’re eusocial and cave-dwelling, did they evolve in natural caves or do they dig warrens, or some combination of both? Are all castes blind, or only some of them? Do they have any kind of special thermoception or electroreception sense? Could they have evolved to be bipedal, or is that stupid and they need a different body plan more suited for tunneling/noodling around in cramped parts of cave systems? If they’re smaller than humans but still fairly large creatures, how do they get the energy they need in a resource-scarce subterranean environment? You have to read these three journal articles right now!! Read them right now!

Side B: aww and this character wears a little knitted hat with holes for her little ears

did you know red snapper can live for over 100 years…. whatre they DOING down there

Click on it twice. These are your two super powers.

Ass deep in the Dragon Age wiki again, and apparently there’s a mysterious chanter character who appears around the Hissing Wastes.

the part that gets me:

Based on @just-another-ghoul-lover 's post here, I wanted to throw in my two cents on ghouls, but I didn't wanna take over their post nor make it look like I think they're wrong, which they aren't canonically.

But, since when have I ever let canon stop me?

My HC is more like what we get in Fallout 4: ghouls are more like horribly scarred by the radiation, but not in a constant state of rotting. If their ability to heal is keeping them alive, then eventually that healing will win out. I figure ghouls are also prone to losing other bits of themselves when injured and such, and let's face it, in 200+ years a lot of injury can happen. And, I like that some ghouls keep their hair for whatever reason, or if they didn't, I mean, if Deacon can get surgery to change his face very other week, why not hair transplants for ghouls? Or just wigs, if you want. Either way, everyone is different and it stands to reason, at least in my HC, that ghoulification is different for everyone. With Hancock's coming from an experimental drug, I feel like his body is reacting a totally different way, just like I think that Eddie Winter probably should've looked a little more unique as well.

As far as being radiated, radiation degrades over time. Hence the whole idea that eventually you can actually leave a vault - even if Vault Tec never intended that to happen in some cases. I can see it being low level radiation in ghouls, but thing is at this point, they are either about the same as the background radiation that the whole world exists in - so not much of a problem to people around them who already deal with it daily - or it's just enough to warrant some worry and keep Rad-Away around.

I don't think the more intelligent ghouls smell awful more than intensely musky, which isn't a smell everyone likes. And, it's worse when they're wet. So, if you don't like wet brahmin smell, you probably don't like ghouls. Intelligent ghouls, I feel, probably try to take care of themselves as much as possible. I mean, Daisy, for instance, strikes me as someone who is probably rather fastidious about it. And, there are ways to mask smells.

Feral ghouls, on the other hand, do not take care of any hygiene and will eat anything that moves which means they are constantly covered in gore, so they smell absolutely like dead things. Bodies who exist in that manner absolutely will start to rot after a while. Especially if they injure themselves and don't tend it, which they won't, so they get infections which causes more rot. So, I mean, being around ferals will absolutely make certain people jump to the assumption all ghouls smell that way, especially if they're racist against ghouls to begin with.

And, hey, again, I know my HC isn't canon, and I'm okay with that. I am also okay with people preferring to stick with canon. That in itself offers some interesting ideas in ghoul/human relations.

so this bizarre drow source material is a grand example of How Not to Write your Fantasy Races 😭 it's just eugh

telling him to read more was a bad idea