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Before roleplaying, please don't forget to read through our Continuity. Thank you!
This page is to help you easily adapt characters from another continuity, or make a new species/mutant. If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know. We are happy to help you come up with ideas to help your character fit right in. -
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⠀⠀➥Character Limitations
⠀⠀Our goal is to make a somewhat believable continuity for animals of diverse shapes, sizes, and designs to live in, so we are using speculative evolution & mutagenic sludge mutations as backstory.
⠀⠀While we want our world to be fun, and to promote creativity, we do have to draw the line somewhere to maintain the atmosphere.
Fortunately our world is broad, so if you can find examples in nature, you can use it for your character. In other words... pretty much almost anything goes.
... That said, with our atmosphere in mind, there are a FEW limits to the sandbox:
⠀⠀🚫 Overpowered characters
For every extra advantage you give your character, you'll need to incorporate an equal disadvantage to make for a balanced design and to be fair to others. Read more here about combat.
⠀⠀🚫 Magic
Try to imagine biological alternatives to magic. If you need help with particular ideas, we're happy to chat!
Dragons / fantasy style animals need serious consideration given to speculative evolution or mutations (see restrictions on flying animals below)
⠀⠀🚫 TechAlmost nonexistent. No fire. This is tribal level society here. Animals do not use tools hardly at all, there is no agriculture and most are foragers or nomadic and assist each other with these activities, sharing food. Read more about culture here.
Clothing is rare and extremely simplistic. The most complicated it gets is cord and rough square shapes of cloth. Dexterous animals assist non-dextrous ones with tieing on clothing. (Please nothing complex like a hoodie or backpack.)
⠀⠀🚫 Humans or anthros
This is a feral-focused continuity. Two legged animals, such as ostriches, are okay, as are apes / monkeys
⠀⠀🚫 Canon Characters/Races
While characters and their species must be original in terms of backstory and family connections, players are free to incorporate various elements from existing media. In other words, you may draw on existing works for inspiration, but please do not make your character a carbon copy of an existing character, or species, from another canon.
Ex 1: a character may use Balto as a name and have a similar appearance, and even similar backstory to the original Balto. But it can't be from Alaska with an enemy named Steel and a mate named Jenna.
Ex 2: The species of your character must also not be a carbon copy from existing media. They may look similar to one that's preexisting (for example a Pikachu), but the species' history cannot be the same, nor can the name of the species itself. As always, thought must be given to speculative evolution, or mutation, to explain any traits. (No magic.)
⠀⠀🚫 Ocean creatures
Ocean based NOT allowed (society is land-based)
Aquatics allowed (as in lakes, beaches, or rivers)
⠀⠀🚫 Certain digos
Overly fantasy-style digos NOT allowed
Large flying digos NOT allowed (see restrictions on flying animals below)
⠀⠀🚫 Unrealistic hybrid offspring
While we aren't here to put a damper on cross-species mating, there's a difference when it comes to what actually makes babies. Since two species who share 99% DNA, like humans and chimpanzees, can’t produce viable offspring, incompatible species cannot create any offspring (ie a tiger and a dog).
However, if the parents are closely related species (like a horse and a donkey) they can produce sterile offspring (ie mules).
Alternative: families here form irrespective of species and they often foster or adopt children to raise who need it. Read more about Primordia culture.
Alternative II: If a cross-species couple insists on having their own genes involved with regard to children, the mutagenic sludge can create mutant "children" when parts of the parents are "donated" to it. Read more about sludge mechanics.
⠀⠀Size restrictions
Max: elephant (The climate does not support anything larger)
Min: insect
Prehistoric species restrictions
Prehistoric inspired species are allowed but are subject to max size rules!
⠀⠀Flying restrictions- Regular-sized, normally flying earth animals allowed (Birds, bats, and insects).
- For mutated characters, decorative wings allowed, at any size. Decorative wings are used to glide, or assist in jumping / running. Just not flying.
- Functional wings (flying/soaring for extended durations) on mutated characters are subject to approval.
- No approval needed if mutated character is small (songbird size / could be cupped in your hands)
Guidelines on larger mutated / unique flying species
Main rule: 90% or more of the body plan is streamlined for flight. In other words, here are some considerations:- Head aerodynamic, set close to body (short neck)
- Tail part of flight design (serves as a rudder, etc)
- Wings aerodynamically shaped
- Wings proportionately large enough, surface area wise, to lift creature off the ground (80% + bigger than body)
- Legs / arms designed to liftoff / land
- Animal eats enough calories
- Body / limbs small, lightweight, short as possible
- No extraneous bits interfering with aerodynamic aspects (things that dangle / would get in the way)
⠀⠀Designs with plants / insects restrictions
Want plant parts? Use symbiosis as the explanation; plants are decorative rather than functional.
In other words, vines / moss on a character are a separate plant with a symbiotic relationship to the animal (not one of the animal's limbs, such as Bulbasaur).
Want insect parts? There's two options:
You can have a symbiotic relationship with insects, such as having a bee colony inside of your back like a mama pipa-pipa toad(!)
Or you can have insect parts in the design. However, they are subject to the"square cube law:"
What this means is, as a shape grows in size, its volume grows faster than its surface area, so gravity squishes them more than one might expect. (I.e. the reason bugs aren't huge is because they would get squished by gravity and die.)
So if you have a tiny character, it can have an exoskeleton and also feature mammalian parts. But if you have a large character (anything bigger than the biggest bug on present day earth), you may only have bug parts that look insect-ish (within reason) but are actually endoskeleton based.
(In other words, if you stabbed a large "insect looking" character, it would still have flesh, bones, and blood on the inside.)
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