Orx of Twinleaf
Branch into Psyche
- 273
- Posts
- 9
- Years
- The Corner of Hither and Yon
- Seen Mar 12, 2023
Differences All Around
A world in which not only multiple sapient species coexist, but entirely different ecosystems, as well.
Each sapient species is capable only of ingesting substances from its own paired ecosystem, and so they push against one another, terraforming the land for themselves and encroaching upon one another's borders. Rarely do they come to full-scale war, but distrust mounts and relations are uneasy throughout.
The dark oceans lap at the shores of the land and eat away more of it with each passing year, and the sapients have less and less land to share among themselves. With true conflict likely ending in the absolute ruin of what land is left, they must ban together to find a mutual solution. But how can one ally with things so different from oneself?
The World
The land is largely flat and barren in many places, made of a softish earthy substance called soil. The sapients impose their ecosystems overtop of this soil base, and if an ecosystem is destroyed without being replaced, it returns to this state. Destroyed materials of all sorts and dissipated sapients gradually wither away and become soil, and this is true even of materials for which this might not seem natural, like those of the airheads or cracklers.
The sky is blue and empty at all times. There is no sun or moon or stars in this world, and no clouds beyond what is introduced by the sapients and their ecosystems. There is no day or night cycle: time still passes in this world but to no visible end, except the machinations of the sapients and their ecosystems.
Ridging the land on all sides is the vast ocean, a huge boundless body of a special liquid called "water" that erodes and accelerates the dissipation of all materials that make contact with it, including soil. The ocean has lapped at the land forever, and threatens to eventually consume the land entire. There is the possibility that more land exists somewhere out in the ocean, but any sapient with materials strong enough to withstand the water for long enough to make the attempt is of too self-interested species, and unconcerned with the problem. Any sapient with enough force of numbers to construct a vessel that might carry them don't have the material to withstand water for anything like long enough to realistically travel.
So it is that the land is defined by the actions of its people, and grows ever smaller as those people refuse to unite and cross the ocean.
The Sapients
There are seven strains of life in this world. An ecosystem formed produces material of a certain sort, and sapients and life forms of the same sort can consume this material to rebuild themselves and repair damage. Without substance to intake, a life form will eventually dissipate and die. A life form cannot utilize incompatible materials.
Periodically, a sapient will collect materials from an ecosystem and combine them into a new sapient individual. This is the manner in which new sapients come to be, and there is a similar process through which the animal-like life forms in the ecosystems procreate. The stationary aspects of the ecosystems rise from the soil after a sapient allows itself to vent fluids onto bared soil in a process called "bleeding." A sapient may construct another sapient of any species with the right materials, but it is a taboo most unspeakable to make a sapient of a species other than one's own.
The Squishies
People made of flesh, bone, and hair. They are emotional and hot-headed, and have developed long barrels of bone called "guns" that fire chips of bone for long distances. Squishies are currently the most numerous sapient in the land, although squishy ecosystems aren't especially widespread. Squishy ecosystems consist of fleshy stalks that rise from the ground, and the bone-and-hair mammal-shaped creatures that consume them.
Squishies are hated for their moodiness and arrogance. They dissipate in a matter of months without material but are otherwise quite hardy and adaptable to many situations. Squishy materials decay at an accelerated rate when exposed to the black sludge that pumps through clankies, and it is the clankies who destroy squishy ecosystems.
The Clankies
People made of metal, glass, and plastic. They are cold and unempathic, and have developed long, sharpened lengths of material called "blades" that cleave through other materials. Clankies don't group up as often as other sapients do, and largely lead individual existences, wandering across the world to find one of only a handful properly-established clanky ecosystems, although they will terraform their own when necessary. Clanky ecosystems are set apart by the the tall metal spires that jut from the ground, and the insectile glass-and-plastic creatures that gnaw upon them.
Clankies are hated as demon-men, unfeeling and not above cleaving through anyone that bothers them; including each other a lot of the time. Clankies can go longer than any other sapient without material, and won't wear away for decades. This is unless they come into contact with the green fumes coughed up by airheads, which corrode clanky materials and destroy their ecosystems.
The Airheads
People made of vapors, smoke, and fog. Airheads are the least-numerous of all sapients and are incredibly frightful. They can fly above the land and from here can drop special balls of gas called "bombs" that detonate and damage other materials. Airheads keep in small groups with friends or family and flit about to convert more land to airhead ecosystems. These ecosystems are easily-identified by the blanket of pink fog that covers the ground, and the wispy bird-like clouds that dip in and out of it.
Airheads are hated as cowards and terrorists, who flee true battle and rain destruction from out of reach. Airheads will dissipate in a matter of hours without their materials, and so spend much of their time converting land, which encroaches heavily on the rare clanky ecosystems. Airhead materials are summarily destroyed when inhaled by the knockknocks, and nothing is more horrible to an airhead than a knockknock's gasp.
The Knockknocks
People made of wood, leaves, and plantish materials. Slow-moving, they clump up in bigger groups than other sapients do, and together they use large wooden headed sticks called "hammers" to shatter other materials. Knockknocks don't talk like all the other sapients do, and are named for the drumming sounds they make on their chests to speak to others. Knockknocks don't often move outside their ecosystems, which have huge wooden stalks covered in leaves frequented by colorful reptile-esque things made of jagged wood that they use to tear leaves away from the stalks.
Knockknocks are hated as unthinking brutes incapable of holding proper conversation, and other sapients dislike that they fiercely defend their ecosystems rather than roaming to claim more land. Knockknocks will dissipate in roughly a year without their material, but these materials are entirely annihilated by the red fires of the cracklers.
The Cracklers
People made of fire and lightning. Faster than any other sapient and armed with long lashes of energy called "whips," they travel in large groups to lay waste to other ecosystems and to attempt to drive out knockknock populations so that they may introduce their own ecosystems. Crackler ecosystems are all over fire, broken up only by the electrical fish-like lumps that jump about in the flames.
Cracklers are hated as aggressive killers who mar the land with their destructive materials. Cracklers will dissipate in a little less than an hour, though, and their raids are thus only ever very short in duration, and even shorter when their materials are absorbed and destroyed by the crystals of the bumkump ecosystems.
The Bumkumps
People made of stone and crystal. They are the largest of all the sapients, calm but judgmental, and carry stone shafts tipped with crystal that they call "spears" that pierce through other materials. Bumkump ecosystems are set apart by the presence of huge, round crystals covered in the stony amphibian-shaped life forms that scrape against them.
Bumkumps are hated for their provoking nature: although not very aggressive, they are wont to passing judgement on whomsoever comes near, and other sapients find their holier-than-thou behavior enraging. Bumkumps dissipate only a few years before clankies will when without materials. Their materials are absorbed and destroyed by the bluish syrup spat up by splooshes.
The Splooshes
People made of dark syrups and colorful liquids. They are the smallest of any sapient and given to manic episodes of cycling euphoria and depression. Splooshes carry amounts of a purple fluid called "poison" that hobbles other sapients that touch it. Sploosh ecosystems are covered in a film of multicolored liquid through which worm-like lengths of murky liquid swim and thrash.
Splooshes are hated as mentally-unstable and untrustworthy thanks to their behavior, and their reputation is not at all helped by their habit to throw their poison onto anything that looks at them funny. Splooshes last a year or two without material, and this material is destroyed through contact with the red fleshy fluid that pumps through squishies.
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