ASK: Syndicate and its coorporations involvement in Catamaran NaronAnonymous asked over on Tumblr Would the Syndicate or/and its coorporations have any involvement in Catamaran Naron ? In my view of them, thus how they are within the world of Catamaran Naron, Syndicate themselves concerns with where Nanotransen business concentrates, and since Nanotransen itself does not have a big presence within Catamaran Naron, the Syndicate does not have any hands there. The name Syndicate is also plastered on anything that gets in the way of Nanotransen, I like to imagine many received ideas, and the overall reputation is partly built by NT itself. They're both terrible. Traffic around the planet is highly regulated since Thousand Tripwire formed, there are only 200-300 people on the planet side all year. And the groups of interests around Catamaran Naron are not a part of the big corporations seen in-game, mainly because I want this to be research and government stuff rather than megacorporations. NT is there as a treat and reminder that this worldbuilding started for station ocs and concepts lol.When it comes to corporations behind Syndicate (cybersun, gorlex, and interdyne) having a presence on Catamaran Naron, Cybersun is only distantly related, related being a nice way to put it, as they mostly provide some equipment through working as a third-party cargo. But Cybersun does not have a research team on the planet and did not acquire a permit for it either. While there is some interest in the matter, in the grand scheme of things, they do not have profit to be made there. Out of the megacorporations, only NT managed to get a permit for a research station. Though they were positioned in the Arctic Circle's Blind Spot (tho it doesn't exactly the artic and is more of an oval shape on maps), the Blind Spot is known to cause data loss, technological malfunctions, and communication errors. The choice of their location was not theirs. They were also located in an area with an assimilation rate of almost none. So it took them decades until Little Mule formed and could be monitored by them. NT did not care about Catamaran Naron before CCs started appearing and being documented, with information being filtered before being released to people. Because before that, Catamaran Naron was just a planet with Cambrian era-like wildlife within its coeans, the planet was used as a cradle to stabilise populations of purpoises as well as study how their language may evolve in a new environment. Nothing NT would want to step in until it became "interesting" on a research level there.Sketches for Catamaran Naron + SS14 spec bio HCA literature post to compile sketches that came with the text under them Nanotransen Catamaran Naron Pilot concept pilotmechCN2026 - Catamaran Naron WIPS, first image has NT spelling error and I don't care. Mech design is to be desired, will be redrawn to make more sense mechanically later. But the idea is here. nanotrasen has the most budget in terms of idependent vehicles, mostly amphibian ones for research in assimilation zones of Catamaran Naron.<hr> Arachnid Speculative biology spidercrouch Arachnids are one of the default playable species of SS14. Honestly, one of, if not sometimes my favorite species of the roaster. But it took me over a year until I figured out how I'd like to draw them. And tube animal it is. I've thought about how a few times, I'd see a male tegenaria run across my room in summer, what if arachnids were small sprinting animals? arachnidrungifi'm not animation professional, i haven't animated in perhaps two years now, but here is an example of their run cycle. Though, looking back at it, there should be less wobbling, i guess this is more of a trot than an actual sprint?arachnidrun sketch silouhette They're small on average, and can only sprint for a few seconds in bursts of acceleration. They have blue blood and are stated to metabolise copper, which isn't great for oxygenation of the blood regarding activities like running. But they (somewhat) counter it with two hearts, and a breathing system that lets them constantly inhale air into their air chambers when skittering. Arachnids hold the championship in speed acceleration, but humans are still the winners of endurance, despite how some other sophonts are much faster.The length of race tracks for arachnids in Olympic Games would be really short distances compared to humans, it would look quite silly to us. I imagine how the replay would feature a lot of camera slow down to comment on an athlete's acceleration pattern. People pointing out who started accelerating first, but who won the race, and strategies around where you should speed up. Arachnids would think human marathons are a form of sadomasochistic torture. Getting silk out of their body requires external help, it's a social interaction because their body plan does not let them harvest it themselves. They physically cannot bend around to use their manipulating arm, or first pair of legs (which kind of acts as a second arm) to reach their silk glands. They need a friend for it!The silk gets spin around a wooden handle, it gets processed later. Arachnids do not use silk to catch their prey like earth's spiders, it is used for various crafting, mainly turned into fabrics. Evolutionarily, an arachnid that could produce more silk, thus make more elaborate weaving craft/writing, would find more success in finding a partner. How this affects modern day arachnid? It makes them prone to infection because their gland "clogs". To avoid such issues they get it harvested every couple of months.arachnid clothes naronOn Catamaran Naron, Arachnids were the first to set foot there, their ships arriving at the north pole, although they were not the first to discover Catamaran Naron, the discovery was made by humans in the 21th century. The exoplanet was discovered in the HSSCY ████ by the James Webb Space Telescope , many years before arachnids arrived, but many years before humans arrived. This caused lots of issues regarding who "owned" the place, especially with the different standard and operating systems.<hr> Vox spec bio idea voxheadFancy Vox. They have a lump of skin/lip with fat attached from the upper beak's mouth. Serves no purpose but to look fancy socially. The fatter the better and more healthy they look to other members of their species. Can be pierced for extra fancy points too. If you pinch it it's just squishy.voxpinkA sketch of him in pink. I imagine that decorating the peak with a nail polish-like equivalent would be quite common. Here he is with a painted beak tip, the top having a heart shaped pattern. As much as beak polish decoration are cute, they wouldn't last long and would start chipping pretty fast, i imagine most Vox do not paint the entire tip ofthe beak to avoid fast chipping, more like the side of it, or the very top, but not around the mouth. But this vox is the exception because he's extravagant, and also borrowing from human fashion standards. The body plan ins't perfect to me here, i'm still figuring out how i want to proportion voxes. They're bipedal running animals like humans, they hold their run for longer than arachnid but they do not outspeed them, voxes would outspeed humans but humans are still better at endurance and body temperature regulation when running. I imagine their head to be quite large and the hands small compared to how human proportiosn are sized. Arm mobility isn't great, they wouldn't be able to throw and would've mostly used short range weapons during their history. They need to have that "large bird" look to me, the specific kind that animals like emu radiate. I'll figure eventually thogifAsk: Would mannuls have pouches at their rear to prevent water getting in it like thylacines?Annonymous asked over on Tumblr You mentioned that your sophonts have pouches. Would mannuls have pouches facing their tail to prevent water getting in it like thylacines? 2026 -Their upright locomotion and height, and how maanuls are from open areas with low vegetation, do not require their pouch to be at the rear to prevent debris from getting in like thylacines do. To prevent water from entering their pouch, maanuls have a strong ring of muscle, a sphincter , to make it water-tight. Like a water possums !It is at their lower stomach because they also need easy access to it, for grabbing their young in and out, and other basic social interaction between the parent and the fledgling for bonding. But most importantly, they need easy access for egg transfer. The biological family the sophonts of altuyur are a part of, lies a soft, basically a meat egg / amniotic sac, onto their hands before rapidly transferring it into their pouches. If the egg is not transferred, it dries up, or other damage happen because of the sun's UVs, causing death for the embryos.The transfer triggers "gestation," where the pouch itself seals, not through muscle sealing as it would cause strain during extended periods of time, but through the growth of tissues at the entrance, and all around the egg sac. The membrane is pierced by the hatclings or cut by the parent if the baby is unable to do it themselves once gestation is over. The pouch is basically an external womb first, then later becomes a transport pouch for the striped fledglings.(Though I say they lay into their hands, this isn't possible for mierthri's anatomy. They require external help from entourage/direct family to do so. Out of the 3, theirs is pretty difficult, while maanul probably has it the "easiest".) Maanuls pouch is still positioned much lower than what the other two sophonts have; Mierthri has it at the highest because interactions are mainly with their jaws and not their hands, which are not very good at being manipulators. Maanuls and kyhuines will sit on their rear in order to access their pouches easily, though they are capable of bending their bodies around to do so (more flexible than you think!), it is not the most comfortable and safe way to do so. Now, why does the biological family have this complicated cycle that involves extra steps instead of just having a full gestation internally? Millions of years ago, before any of the sophont's recent ancestors were even a possibility yet, they used to be specialised in brood parasitising a now extinct family of distantly related species. As the species they preyed upon became rarer, individuals developed temporary pouches of folded skin, similar to what echidnas do, to carry the egg before they eventually found their target. This turned into a permanent, all-year-round pouch that they rely on as they had to abandon the parasiting as the targets went extinct.There was a split in the family where some just kept the egg inside the body until it hatched, while others became pouch reliant. The sophonts of Altuyur, are a part of the pouched group.2 Ask: How did you come up with names? + Does Maanul have an in-world meaning? Annonymous asked over on Tumblr : How did you come up with the names for your species? I don't remember why maanul is called maanul, to be honest. It was back in 2021, i think i just compiled letters togheter until it clicked. I wasn't thinking ahead about conlang, which i doubt is something i'd dip my toes into seriously, aside from some rules i've given to myself related to the vocal lungs.Kyhuines used to be called Okapies back in 2021- 2022, but since the spelling was so close to the spelling for okapi, I changed it.Mierthri are recent (late 2024-early 2025 if i'm correct), but my memory is horrendous i can't recall last week, so i can't recall why they're named mierthri. Sadly i didn't think of noting down the process. Most of what I remember is that they're named after a scrapped biome I already created. The biome isn't fully scrapped, it has become different enough that i consider it a seperate thing than the base idea. For maanuls, I didn't think about "are there things named like this already?", in fact, there is, pallas cats are also named manuls! Though how manul is pronounced is different than maanul. "Okapies" (Kyhuines), I knew of okapis, so the name didn't stick long because of the reseamblance. If you want to think of your sophont as named from an outside viewer, go for it, if you want an in-world name, go for it, too. You'll just have to think of what the name means in the language chosen someday, haha.<hr> Jamesofangus reblogged , asking: Does Maanul have an in-world meaning? Maanul is a word from the Shumatt's common language, Shuaait. While many ethnic groups spread across the territory still speaks their native languages, what's considered as "standard" language to speak under Shuamatt is Shuuait. Shuuait takes from the Nuinuk and Sani languages, as these are their close neighbors.Most words across my blogs referring to maanul concepts, inventions, or how other maanul groups are called, are in Shuaait. Some words are more so how they would phonetically read words from other languages into their own, deforming them in their language not having the same whistling as another. Maanul is one of many ways to refer to the species, making a distinction between the word for people as a whole. "Maaui" means "People", which includes all species together, and the word for the species they are. Maanul is referring to the maanul species.Like the way we'd call another sophont a person, but we would use human to distinguish which species we are talking about. "Maa" is for "my people". The "my" refers to "people who look like me". Like how in "Maaau" the maa is pronounced with a pitch in the whistle near the end, to sound like a deformation. Maaau means "Almost my people", it is the species name for maanul's closests living relatives. "Nul" is a deformation of Nuaulu, referring to the sea as a neutral gendered person rather than an object, more akin to reffering to a parent. So basically, if taken apart, maanul means "My people from the Sea", tales of people washed over the waves because they were born by the ocean itself are very common in traditional maanul mythology for the population who were seaside, which a third of Shuamatt is, and the oldest part of Shuamatt originates there too. The name carries it too.Ask: What draws Monmartre and Tchaark together?+anonymous asked over on Tumblr Monmartre and Tchaark seem to be close (going off of Tchaark's TH profile), what draws them together?And what genders are Tchaark, Ikinih, Tua, and Uyonah? 24-10-2025 Tchaark basically worked as a sentinel , he'd detect gas in advance with his smelling nerves, "tahofahs". Because mierthri's tahofahs are more sensitive, evolved to protect themselves because they have the most fragile lungs of the 3 species, they can detect hazardous gases in advance before it's too late. Miethri in the mining industry are employed as sentinels, not miners, because their build isn't good for it. One mierthri is attributed to a miner group per route. When Monmartre was sent, Tchaark was grouped with her, he stuck closely because she was the youngest of the group, and this was her first time down there. This is how they first crossed paths.denMonmartre was in a constant cycle of wanting him away from it because of how Tchaark could predict its behavior, something it hated more than anything. Yet she occasionally sought the non-hostility he'd offer, when she felt tired of being on alert so much, she knew Tchaark was reliable to be with, knowing it could settle for a moment. But the similarity they had would still cause aggression in Monmartre.Tchaark could read what Monmartre was trying to achieve when it engaged in violent behavior with people of the colony, with strangers to even friends, because this was a behavior he used to do too in his youth. And Tchaark had the idea of being able to manage her and prevent what he believed was going to happen to Monmartre eventually.The feeling of someone trying to lead her on a leash, even if the promised destination was not hostile, would drive Monmartre up the wall. She was so obsessed with having control over everything that even guidance, no matter the source of it, was rejected by her. headPeople in sulfur , Chèka, are all from different places and ethnic backgrounds, so their genders are not always easily categorisable, especially if they're from places with large influences from other species' standards (coughs, kyhuines). Maanuls have no sexual dimorphism, so their concept of genders is often role-based within community. However, we can group them by what their pronouns translate to.For Tua, Meri'kn, On'maa, they all use she/her. Tchaark He/they, Ikinih They/them. For Uyonah and Omati, it's He/him. For example of culture influencing pronouns: Monmartre is she/it because of how, by default, in Ayêsh, people are referred to as it until they age and work their way to basically obtain pronouns socially through being a member of the community. It ends up being seen as a pronoun that refers to youth, since children and teens are not eligible yet. Monmartre left home before it ever obtained those socially, so for most of its life, even during young adulthood, it is still referred to as it. Though you'll see me use it/she interchangeably, as it does obtain a title later in Mosaic that gets it referred to as she by others. Thank you for readingSulfur Worldbuilding notesayesh patternSulfur is quite short, and what I call sulfur mostly revolves around three specific versions Mao/Monmartre made of herself, all taking place in the mining foundry community. Monmartre is a singular person who has an overly complicated relationship with her personhood. Figuring out how to reclaim it, how to stand out and bring her own meaning to her name, while knowing she's just another animal within the world. But she doesn’t want the animal it is to represent her self , it wants her self to mean something else than what people want it to be. Monmartre creates a new persona whenever something from the outside signals that it’s time to “kill” her current chapter and start a new one.Example: Obtaining the salvaged bronze helmet marks the distinction between when it allowed people to call her Monmartre and wanting to be called Guinêsh (guinêsh mao for full, but she doesn't allow people to use mao). She had the thoughts simmering in her mind about what to do and be. The new persona is not there in the snap of a finger. Guinêsh was like an accumulation of frustration, anger, everything that it never had the chance to scream at ██████, the desire to return to a simpler animal but a loud one who makes itself known to everyone, compiled with the imagery of some posters for a shadow puppetry show that was around the colony at the time (miners sometimes get entertainment braught to them), is what creates the idea of guinêsh. Gaining the helmet was just the kick to make it exist to people. 12 - 10 - 2025<hr> bronze toyThe Chèka mining colony is isolated from other groups to avoid cross-contamination of water and air pollution in areas inhabited by non-workers (the sophonts have dainty lungs). They have their own self-sustaining basic supplies, such as poultry, but are still linked to several larger facilities for shipping out raw ore or the products of the foundry. Sometimes they receive shipments that Chèka cannot produce on their own, like medical supplies, replacement filters, etc. Living quarters are in the area itself; people don't take the train to leave work. The train is mostly a cargo train, sometimes with a passenger wagon or two, depending on what was planned ahead, such as a worker transfer. Chèka, the mining colony Monmartre was located in, although this pertained to the foundry part of it, received a shipment of bronze helmets from the Shuamatt Republic. And while chekà is not in Shuamatt, it's actually in neutral grounds; technically, they're free to take request forms from any party. Although the act of sticking to one specifically results in being given benefits and protection by them.Shuamatt's chosen ore for helmets, thus armors, is bronze because copper is one of the most common resources that can be mined out in Shuamatt territories and is valuable for durable protection. The helmets cast have issues sometimes. When Monmartre was tasked to do a shakeout (removing the casted object from the mold), one of them came out with a defect where there was a large hole on the right side. It was told to put it with the other defective ones meant to be melted back and redone, but it kept it for itself, for Guinêsh . That's how it obtained it. In the drawing, New chapter , it is early spring, where Guinêsh starts, the flowers within the piece are the first ones to bloom in the region at the end of winter, so they're a symbol of a new cycle since they announce the end of spring. Fun fact: Spring came in late this year.The pattern at the bottom of the piece is just simple ayêsh decoration that would be sewn at the bottom of the fabric piece, where the content within the bands is a sequentially made-up story 21 - 10 - 2025Kier - altuyur faunaI've posted the art 8 months ago here. However, back then, I didn't write the text that was supposed to come with it. Today, I remembered to and finished it (hurra). You can view extra art and text + images over on Tumblr .<hr> kierheadKier is a domesticated working animal by kyhuines. Most of their domesticated animals are either herding cattle or flying critters. Kier is part of the flying one. Their olfactory receptors, tahofahs, are densely compacted and strictly used for sensing smell, and like most terrestrial animals, they use them to detect nefarious gases in the air. Used for hunting small animal, ranging around rat sized prey to fox sized, it can also be deployed to reduce pest infestation in crop fields, its tactic being to stand immobile and just catch passing critters with its jaws, or fly above and hover around for any moving pest in the field.Kiers have been used in armed conflicts for millennia in order to kill messengers nikars (messenger pigeon, basically), and in some cases even messenger Mierthris. Some breeds are slightly bigger, if not larger than their wild counterpart. Said wild counterpart is distinguished by being named Kier'kh and usually range in the south of the cresent, the native range of mierthri, and where most of their population still reside in mordern day. It is to say that the southern khawir kyhuines domesticated a species that preys on various small animals, which includes mierthri people, although they weren't aware of the latter. Trading animals between the two species isn't very common, nor is it something mierthris are usually interested in; this goes for maanul's cattle too. Since every animal the other species have is usually massive next to them, it's most of the time not practical. But kier is one of the few who can be useful to them, as a guard for the youth who would repel predators. However, most groups are quite apprehensive about having a domesticated version of a predator they are familiar with being so close to them. Them being small, and moving around in front of the kier, may make a kier show aggressive behavior if the hunting breed wasn't properly trained and desensitized to mierthris. And while incidents are rare, they spread around fast and are thought to be happening all the time.kiercolorbonus sketches,including their default natural coloration, red. The white is a mutation that is commonly bred because people like the way it looks. As well as it being viewed as a bonevolent messenger of dieties in several mythologies. Although funnily enough, kiers are mediocre in terms of transmitting messages to another party, as they function more like a hawk, and are a pain to train in general. While Nikars are much more suited for this task as they are natural homing flyers, no training is needed.