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| Areotervia; Fantasy Earth | |
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| Topic Started: Dec 5 2010, 07:15 AM (594 Views) | |
| Cephylus | Dec 5 2010, 07:15 AM Post #1 |
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Torando of Terror
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I haven't given up on my fantasy land yet.... I've always had a stuff for fantasy universes ever since I read Lord of the Rings, and I've been developing my own fantasy world building project for several years, drew several maps, creatures and sapient races.... It was a rather cliche, raw fantasy world, with very cliche Lord of the Rings rip-off stuff like humanoid races with magic (ya know elves, dwarves and such) with some very biologically impossible mythological creatures like dragons, griffins. But now that I've been doing speculative evolution for some time, I've decided to revive my fantasy world in a more speculative-evolution-ish way. I've already done the previous version, an alternate Earth with different landmasses but with very similar Earth fauna, including some recognizable clades, with several sapient races. Well, I broke down the project again and decided to start all over again. Unlike the previous scenario of a parallel Earth with different landmasses, I'm settling with a different but similar concept for this fantasy world. The scenario I'm most comfortable with for now is that Terran creatures (fauna and flora) from several different clades from different time periods were seeded upon an extremely Earth-like parallel or alien planet, millions of galaxies away or perhaps in a different universe altogether for unknown reasons the result of some alien seeding program. The animals I'm inserting in this world are mostly small, adaptable animals from any random time periods, but mostly from the Late Cretaceous since most of the animals I like are from that period. However, I'm excluding most dinosaurs because dinosaurs in themselves are too cliche... the creatures I'm planning to seed upon this world are some Mesozoic mammalians and reptilians (what I mean by 'reptilian' is all sauropsids excluding dinosaurs, such as crocodilians and various squamates) but I may include some omnivorous maniraptoran (probably a unenlagiine since I'm so fond of them), some ceratopsians, some basal therapods and ornithopods. I'm also including some Cenezoic, Permian and Trassic fauna, some aquatic reptiles, large amphibians, mammal-like reptiles, with some large fish. I like this scenario because it has more potential than regular alternate evolution, with different landmasses and different Earth history with different climatical changes and therefore different extinctions and evolutions. Areotervia is exactly the same size as Earth, with exactly same environmental conditions... The same chemical composition in everything, the same atmosphere, the same gravity, the same distance from its Sun, the same moon and even the time this planet takes to revolve around the Sun is same. The only things that are different is the landmasses and Earth history and therefore the fauna. The fauna here is very unique... A strange mixture of fauna from different periods. Mammals, avian birds and reptiles are the dominant type of megafauna here, with a few dinosaurs, giant amphibians and mammal-like reptiles. Mammals are the most diverse clade... including not only modern Holocene clades but also some extinct Cenezoic and Mesozoic clades such as creodonts, oreodonts, notoungulates, glyptodonts, multituberculates, gondwanatheres, metatherians. They range from tiny rodents to big, rhino-sized beasts, but most don't excede sheep size, with the majority being cat to wolf sized carnivores and goat to sheep sized herbivores. Reptiles are also abundant, with crocodilians with mammalian gaits ranging from herbivores to specialised megafauna hunters, flying reptiles called 'dragons' convergently similar to pterosaurs, but plumed (bird-like feathers but composed of entirely different substances) except for the wings with longer tails and legs with a bipedal stance, with dolphin analogues related to thalattosaurs... etc. There are also several lineages of synapsids, egg-laying reptilian mammals... gorgonopsids (mostly middle sized predators filling feline niches) and various diccynodonts ranging from marine, early whale-like forms to hippo-sized mighty beasts. Dinosaurs are here, but non-avian dinosaurs are not a majority, including a few large herbivores, omnivores and 'rarely' predators. Avian dinosaurs have a better fate, with both flighted and flightless birds occupying various niches with some enantiornithes and other almost-birds. Giant fish (sarcopytergians, paddlefish, rays) are the large filter feeders, with some temnospondyl descendents occupying smaller filter feeder and larger toothed whale niches. There are sapient races as well, including 'humans'. Humans are genetically similar to us, although a bit shorter and stockier. Humans have a culture status ranging from primitive neolithic-level tribal societies to building great civilizations. The Northern human civilizations are the ones that are more primitive, generally tribal societies heavily dependent on hunting, with many deities related to the abundance of hunting game and a successful hunting expedition... The Southeastern human civilization is highly advanced, building great cities near coastal areas. They do farm, but their primary source of living is trade and fishing. Their culture is a combination of Greek and Egyptian culture, building great walled cities, stone temples and ports that can withstand heavy waves... They have their own complex religious system with many deities and spirits with their own mythology and legends. The Western human civilization is also advanced, similar to ancient Indian culture with ancient Egypt-level technology... they build strangely shaped stone temples similar to that of ancient Indian temples, with a fairly 'oriental' culture. There are also other humanoid sapients, 'Tirvhem', 'Rudhuhid', 'Mirihiuq'. The 'Tirvhem' are very similar to humans, except being hairy and with a very pale skin tone; they live in human cities, generally as low-class slaves, but some are live in tribes near forests, with their own tribal culture, a cross between aboriginal and Native American culture. The 'Rudhuhid' are this World's neanderthals; they are short, stocky, hairy and muscular and are mostly outcompeted by humans, due to less advanced technology and cross-breeding with humans. The Rudhuhid lives in nomadic, male-centered tribes heavily dependent on hunting, mostly in isolated mountain ranges. The 'Mirihiuq' are insular denizens, extinct on mainland due to lacking adaptablity and restricted shoulder movements. They are intelligent as humans, but far smaller, basically a more intelligent version of Terran hobbits. They prefer warmer environments, and are found in some tropical/subtropical island which they migrated to and built a civilization the combination of Polynesian culture with Meso-American level technology. Outside of humanoids, there is a bird sapient and a strange mammalian sapient. The bird sapients are related to Terran ground cuckoos (roadrunners) and uses a manipulatory beak and sometimes feet to maeneuver objects. The bird sapients have a culture similar to ancient Indian or Meso-American cultures, building pyramids and great cities with sewers and canals, with others having a blend of Polynesian and ancient Mesopotamian culture with advanced technology. The other looks like a sapient mixture of squirrel and ape, descendents of primate-like plesiadapids. They inhabit fertile grassland regions, in places with favorable conditions for agriculture, having a rather simple culture. They dwell in clumps of settlements near rivers and lakes, forming smallish towns and villages with farms. They have domesticated several species of animals and farm some species of crops, and they are heavily dependent on agriculture, and they are experts on ways of farming different crops. They have Neolithic-style tools, living in small huts made of grass, mud and the bones of large animals inhabiting grasslands. They also create art, sculpting small idols of deities (they have their own religious systems with gods associated with weather and agriculture) and building smallish temples out of stone. So what do you think? |
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| dialforthedevil | Dec 5 2010, 08:03 AM Post #2 |
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Frumentarii Administrator
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Im loving the sounds of it already especially the fact that it has very unique sapients
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Please come visit A Scientfic Fantasy http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/3433014/1/ ALSO!!! JOIN THE NEW RPG SITE!!! FOR ALL MEMBERS!!! IM GOING TO RUN MA GLOBAL SIMULATORS THERE!!! http://s4.zetaboards.com/jasonguppy/index/ Join the Campaign to save minotaurs from extinction!!! (include this in your signature to show your support!) | |
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| Cephylus | Dec 5 2010, 08:53 AM Post #3 |
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Torando of Terror
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Thanks, I'll get up more when my exams are finished and I'll work on this and Alterniverse (which is not dead yet, just suffering changes) |
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| dialforthedevil | Dec 5 2010, 09:18 AM Post #4 |
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Frumentarii Administrator
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Oh cool i miss alterniverse...
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Please come visit A Scientfic Fantasy http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/3433014/1/ ALSO!!! JOIN THE NEW RPG SITE!!! FOR ALL MEMBERS!!! IM GOING TO RUN MA GLOBAL SIMULATORS THERE!!! http://s4.zetaboards.com/jasonguppy/index/ Join the Campaign to save minotaurs from extinction!!! (include this in your signature to show your support!) | |
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| Cephylus | Dec 6 2010, 03:51 AM Post #5 |
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Torando of Terror
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I already have 4 species up in the NEW topic... three hoofed hardrosaurs and a weird coelurosaur (called Itreeks) |
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| dialforthedevil | Dec 6 2010, 01:36 PM Post #6 |
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Frumentarii Administrator
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I know i just got confused about which is which... |
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Please come visit A Scientfic Fantasy http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/3433014/1/ ALSO!!! JOIN THE NEW RPG SITE!!! FOR ALL MEMBERS!!! IM GOING TO RUN MA GLOBAL SIMULATORS THERE!!! http://s4.zetaboards.com/jasonguppy/index/ Join the Campaign to save minotaurs from extinction!!! (include this in your signature to show your support!) | |
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| Cephylus | Dec 11 2010, 02:34 AM Post #7 |
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Torando of Terror
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I'm still working on the concept of dragons... I think they should look kinda like an azhdarchid-bat-large bird (stork, crane, teratorn, terror bird) mix... Most will be bipedal, long legged creatures with long, hooked beaks, whip-like tail, pterosaur wings and plumed with feathers (not actual feathers, sort of a hollow scale-feather in-between structure for insulation and maybe aid in flight?) except for their wing membranes. They should fly pretty much like a stork, but they won't be too good at flying unless they're using thermals like teratorns, and maybe they will 'dance' like cranes and maybe they'll clap their beaks to produce threatening sounds much like storks. Most will be opportunistic scavengers like teratorns and terror birds, but I think some can take to a more airborne lifestyle and evolve into sharp-eyed aerial predators in thickly wooded jungles... those would be the lineage that would look more like bats. Their beaks would vary, long hooked for teratorn analogues, long straight beak for stork/crane analogues and maybe shorter hooked eagle-like beaks for the aerial predators. I also got idea for the gorgonopsid predators. I'm going to introduce macropredatorial terrestrial crocodilians, filling a niche more or less similar to gorgonopsids, but I'm restricting the crocs to the southern hemisphere of the planet. The gorgonopsid predators are more arboreal than most of their Terran relatives. They are sabre-toothed, much like Homotherium and they are also specialized megafauna hunters, maybe preying exclusively upon giant mastodon-like oreodonts and elephant-sized dicynodonts. They're going to be large cat analogues, with rather short, thick jaws than the real Permian gorgonopsids, kinda giving them a cat-faced look with a bone-crushing bite. Also should I keep them scaly or furry? For the temnospondyls, they'll be the largest animals on the planet (excluding the giant sarcopytergains, paddlefish and rays), filling gigantic toothed and baleen whale niches. These temnospondyls are the descendents of the lineage of temnospondyls which adapted to life in saltwater. They'll mostly end up like sperm whales, deep-diving hunters with toothed jaws for grabbing large fish and squids. I'm including the Kraken, a species of gigantic squid related to the vampire squids, since there is already a giant prehistoric vampire squid relative, Tusoteuthis longa. The Krakens will be coastal predators and favourite prey of the giant temnospondyls, and some may give off a strange greenish 'glow' in darker waters, kind of like that glowing squid from Dougal Dixon's the Future is Wild. Anyway, back to the temnospondyls. Some will develop baleen, starting out as primitive sieve-like structures for catching smaller fish and then developing into real baleen for feeding on small fish, crustaceans, squids and zooplankton. I've also got ideas for dinosaurs, both avian and non-avian. At first I wondered if I should even include non-avian dinosaurs, but I decided to include just a few, although they are not the dominant type of megafauna. Non-avian dinosaurs are more common in the southern hemisphere as mostly as herbivores and omnivores. The majority are small ornithopods, which rarely exceeds sheep size. These ornithopods are descended from hypsilophodont-like basal small to middle sized ornithopods from the Mesozoic period. They are scaly or qilled, giving them a reptilian look and most are 'beaked'. Ceratopsians are pretty common in the southern hemisphere and some even radiated into more northern latitudes, although they face competition from mammals. Basal marginocephalians are also in abundance, mostly found in high altitude mountain ranges, with hypsilophodont-like omnivorous ornithopods found everywhere on the globe. There are also therapods, some maniraptorans descended from basal beaked unenlagiines and smallish microraptorines... with some scaly therapod predators filling smaller carnivore niches as well. Dinosaurian carnivores have generally seen better days. For avian birds, they are very, very diverse. I'm thinking of a clade descended from smallish beaked enantiornithes which enjoys success as aerial carnivores. While many stork/crane/teratorn/vulture niches are exploited by giant dragons, large omnivorous/carnivorous birds also co-exist with the larger dragons in this niche... They are descended from a lineage of birds called 'Gryphs', ranging from stork/crane/ibis like birds to smallish vulture like scavengers and some flightless terror bird like forms... They are the largest birds on the planet and quite intimidating creatures, often preying on humans and other sapients. Other than the Gryphs, there are smaller enantiornithes, mostly crow-like cosmopolitan animals found everywhere on the planet. These are opportunistic scavengers/foragers, ranging from extremely crow-like foraging birds to caracara analogues which mobs smallish predators of prey in large groups, with eagle-sized predators eating anything smaller than itself. There are also kingfisher analogues, diving smallish fish-eaters, a very successful clade of beaked nocturnal owl-like predators reaching some giant sizes and a clade of strange arboreal clawed hoatzin-like herbivores. There are neornithe birds as well, but I haven't thought much about them yet except for aggressive cassowary-like flightless omnivores and gull-like coastal scavengers. |
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| Cephylus | Dec 12 2010, 09:11 AM Post #8 |
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Torando of Terror
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The map of Areotervia: 1. Arvra 2. Feritivan Islands 3. Viraga 4. Mekirida 5. Acatrarca 6. Pantrean Islands 7. Vertrivian Bridge 8. Caravina Finger 9. Lemuria 10. Apparia 11. Camraka 12. Proktubu Islands 13. Meribidan Island 14. Trofu 15. Sivrak Trofu 16. Sirtriva 17. Yaparan Island Chain 18. Bonbu Island 19. Mirikii 20. Avakark 21. Arak Pantao 22. Sarav Pantao and a pic of a dragon: Edited by Cephylus, Dec 12 2010, 09:19 AM.
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| Ook | Dec 12 2010, 09:22 AM Post #9 |
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not a Transhuman
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looks interesting,i get bored with my speculative fantasy earth,i completely leave the scientifical point of my project(yay for griffins and magic) |
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| Cephylus | Dec 12 2010, 10:15 AM Post #10 |
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Torando of Terror
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Mine is going just the opposite. I'm trying to make it more scientific. I'm introducing a few ideas thrown around: - Hooved, macropredatorial choristoderes. I was thinking of calling them dragons, but since dragon is a term already used to call winged terrifying reptilian critters in this world, I'll call'em Draks. - Giant teratorn-like Gryphs (see post above) with flatter, cat-like faces. Apparently they're my version of griffins or gryphons or simurghs or ziz or rocs. - Dwarf crocodile-sized geckos. They live in deep leaf litter, ambush predators which hides submerged in the leaves, hidden by camouflage. When adults, they become slightly larger, becoming smallish fast-footed predators. - Some dragons tamed by some human tribes and used as... vicious, gigantic flying guarddogs. Maybe some flightless, long-legged ones will be tamed as steeds. They'll be hell hard to domesticate. - Sea serpents; they aren't anything special, just gigantic morae eels which reach lengths of up to 12 meters. Ambush predators, being rather sluggish. - A kind of birds more or less similar to a mix of our tropicbirds and birds of paradice. They are fish-feeding seabirds found in coastal areas. Called Feoniks. My version of the pheonix and the fenghuang - Either giraffids or camalids develop strange horns. My version of unicorns and the qilin. Some are domesticated by sapients and used as steeds, although being rather aggressive in nature they are hard to tame. Edited by Cephylus, Dec 12 2010, 10:17 AM.
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| Cephylus | Dec 14 2010, 09:02 AM Post #11 |
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Torando of Terror
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My try at a dragon family tree: Drakosauria (includes all 'dragons' and relatives) Avidraconidae: A lineage of very basal dragon relatives evolved from varanids; this clade is the grandfather of all dragons. They resemble gliding, slender-bodied varanids, mostly small arboreal predators of smallish prey, using wing membranes stretched between the legs to glide tree from tree. Rhamphodrakonoidea: Beaked dragons; the dominant lineage of dragons which successfuly replaced all primitive toothed dragons. Pteropeloroidea: A lineage of mostly powerful, sharp-eyed airborne predators and scavengers. Generally good flyers, with broad powerful wings perfect for soaring. Fills the niche of sharp-eyed aerial jungle predators along with a few weird hornbill analogues. Bucerorhynchonidae: The hornbill analogue insectivore/fruigivores. Pterodraconidae: Sharp-eyed jungle predators; the most feared predators in rainforests. Istiodraconoidea: Clade of mostly large, airborne fish-eaters. Best flyers among dragons. Fills the niche of pelicans, albatrosses, giant petrels and other large seabirds. Pelicanimimidae: The pelican-mimic fish eaters and opportunistic scavengers. Most have serrated bill edges and are good soarers. Some are massive, rather appalling scavengers which rarely go out to sea. Procellariimimidae: Oceanic soarers, mostly albatross/giant petrel analogues which are mostly fish-feeders but also opportunistic coastal scavengers. Some reach huge sizes. Wyvernoidea: The most cosmopolitan dragon group; the 'true' dragons. They're the ones mostly referred to when one says 'dragons'. Gigantic in size, still passable flyers (although some flightless forms have produced terror bird analogues) with long legs and shortish wings. They fill stork/crane/vulture/ibis/teratorn/terror bird niches. Teradraconidae: The most feared dragons of all. The largest, most intimidating flying creatures Areotervia has ever seen. Fills teratorn/terror bird niches. Clumsy at flying, but still able to soar over long distances. Ciconiimimidae: The long-necked, large, straight-billed and long-legged dragons. Mostly large omnivorous scavengers, fills large stork/crane/heron/ibis niches. Gypsidraconidae: Smaller versions of the Teradraconids, and also their close and less impressive relatives. Large scavengers similar to vultures. Teracursoridae: Lineage of flightless dragons derived from Teradraconids; terror bird analogues. |
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| Cephylus | Dec 27 2010, 10:37 AM Post #12 |
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Torando of Terror
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I'm changing this a bit, but not too much. Only regarding the mammals. The 'transplant fauna' is generally going to be a bit smaller. I'm excluding all the dinosaurs and the larger mammals, only smaller mammals are transplanted, bandicoots, shrews, moonrats, hedgehogs, small lagomorphs, various rodents, small multiuberculates, cimolestans (mostly bats), small lemurian primates, you know. These will evolve into larger and specialised forms in a course of millions and millions of years. The rest, dragons, enantiornithe gryphs are all kept. Does anyone think the gravity should be weaker (like in Avaterris) because dragons are going to be pretty big, along with some gigantic bats, so if they have a flight system like storks a bit weaker gravity maybe needed to support the big aeiral critters. |
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especially the fact that it has very unique sapients
areotervia_map.jpg (144.09 KB)




1:49 PM Jul 11