QUOTE (MNIDJM @ Dec 10 2020, 12:47 AM)

Someone who I'm curious about is Jlind11. I always liked their art.

Do you happen to have any basic information about them? There's a stunningly large number of Jlind11's.

This falls under direct air. In beta's flyway system, the two would be connected by flyway as well. If not, I can just add the troposphere for spores only or something.

Even that wasn't a rejection. You just need to edit that phlyer to follow the rules.

These rules existed before the limbo. If you never ran into them beforehand, that was due to them being mistakenly unenforced.

Ironically, the "stricter" Beta actually lacks a lot of these rules.

An unexpected update: Yesterday, I googled various members' names to see where they went after Sagan 4. There's two in particular whose statuses gave me quite a shock that I've only just now fully recovered from.

Solpimr apparently rejoined Beta under a different name, Kopout. Solpimr and Kopout are the same person. They really improved. That was more mild surprise than shock, though.

What's really shocking is the status of Vivus. I don't have absolute confirmation (they didn't post sagan 4 art and they have not replied to my tweet, but homestuck fanart and their later sagan 4 art that were made around the same time have similarities in how they were shaded and textured), but it appears that Vivus...worked on Homestuck as an artist and even animator, then later worked on officially licensed Avatar and Adventure Time comics. They are now a background painter on The Owl House. I could be wrong, but the chances seem slim of there being 2 vivuses on the internet at the same time who are both artists and have styles this similar. (though, judgement is difficult due to the different subject) (edit: apparently the homestuck fanart I looked at for comparison is official art. Much like Sagan 4, Homestuck is powered heavily by fan contributions, so the boundary between the two can be hazy)

I'm gonna be honest, for this use case that rule is dumb. I think the rule is supposed to be to prevent ridiculous variation that's hard to keep track of whether it's extant; this is logical, mild color variation that's specified for an identifiable amorphous range that does not need to be tracked.

I thought maineiac volcanic was temperate. The volcanics have inconsistent types, which is really annoying to work with.

Fuzzpile (Polycaudofolium congeries)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Mainland Fuzzpalm
Habitat: Maineiac Temperate Beach, Ox Temperate Beach, Hydro Tropical Beach, Soma Temperate Beach, Ramul Temperate Beach, BigL Tropical Beach, Jindy Tropical Beach, Dass Temperate Beach, Wind Temperate Beach, Elerd Temperate Beach, Chum Tropical Beach, King Tropical Beach, Clarke Temperate Beach, Fermi Temperate Beach, Maineiac Temperate Woodland, Maineiac Chaparral, Barlowe Temperate Woodland, Barlowe Chaparral, Drake Temperate Woodland, Drake Chaparral, Ramul Temperate Woodland, Dixon Tropical Woodland, Dixon Tropical Scrub, Darwin Temperate Woodland, Darwin Chaparral, North Darwin Tropical Woodland, North Darwin Tropical Scrub, South Darwin Tropical Scrub, South Darwin Tropical Woodland
Size: 6 meters tall
Diet: Photosynthesis
Reproduction: Sexual (Hermaphrodite, Puffy Spores, Berries)

The Fuzzpile split from its ancestor. It is named for a change to its growth pattern; namely, it now has more leaves and berries all along its trunk, causing it to look like a pile of fuzzy leaves with many blue berries. It is present in a great number of habitats, due to it becoming extremely useful to the Seashrog; though its berries being waterproof, sticky, and almost glue-like has little functional use for its spread inland, this feature is selected for because Seashrogs will harvest large amounts of these berries for use in construction, which makes them a major contributor to the species’ otherwise ludicrous spread. It retains the adaptive trunk of its ancestor, but the change in shape is not externally visible due to its full coat of leaves.

Outside of the beaches, the Fuzzpile can be found in younger forest growth and scattered around shrublands. Though preyed on often, its ridiculous number of berries--in the tens of millions over its lifetime--ensure that it will continue to survive and spread.

Air pressure can't be sensed in this way, that only really works with a tympanic membrane. If it works like a mosquito ear, then it's acting like a radio antenna but for sound and would be vibrating against sensitive receptors inside the follicle.

I assume that internally the feather ears are something like the ears of a mosquito? That's the only analog I can think of on Earth.

Barlowe is currently classified as an island for island gigantism rule purposes. That said, I do agree that's kinda large.

Though, I thought this was meant for Ramul. Did you change your mind?

@Detoxicated do you intend to continue this?

Id suggest changing the diet to say Larvae: Sanguivore, otherwise it sounds like it eats the blood of its own larvae like a vampire ant.

The "ancestor" part of the form is missing. There's a few typos as well, but I'll wait for Coolsteph because she'll probably spot more than me.

Does it have any defense against the Opportunity Shrew? That particular species abuses the fact that saucebacks use echolocation to locate and sneak into nests and eat their eggs and larvae, and it sounds like this species sticks close by.

This violates the diet transition rules. A species cannot jump straight from only eating one kingdom to only eating another kingdom. Purple flora and crystal flora are in different kingdoms and, further, require different adaptations to eat them because they are made of different materials (cellulose vs chitin). This will need to eat from both or have a transitional form that eats from both.

This is in violation of the diet transition rule. A species cannot go directly from carnivore to herbivore.

Also, I think there was a size limit of 50 cm for cave creatures? It's not in the rules anymore but it was before

I'm thinking just water. That could be a future idea though.

I chose to give it a slight blue tint because just using shades of grey looked less like black than dark blue did. Outside, the lighting is generally slightly bluish anyway.

Okay, edits done.

oops, I forgot about this. I'll do my edit, hold on.

Young specimens still have to deal with predators, yeah. There's also wind resistance being a thing, I'll mention that.

Obsiditall (Leucofolium longitruncus)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Obsidibarrage
Habitat: Barlowe Temperate Rainforest, Barlowe Temperate Woodland, Barlowe Chaparral, Hydro Tropical Rainforest
Size: 60 meters tall
Diet: Photosynthesis
Reproduction: Sexual (Airborne Cylindrical Spores)

The Obsiditall split from its ancestor. To make itself more difficult to prey on or knock down, it has become significantly taller. To help support its height, it also has more leaves. In order to avoid overheating in the warmer parts of its range, it has gained a set of white, highly-vascularized leaves which excess heat radiates from. These are near its top as to prevent them from being eaten and to place them in the coolest air it can access. It uses nastic movement to raise and lower these leaves as needed, such as to move them out of the way or shade overheating leaves. The main black leaves, too, can move, helping to prevent any given leaf from overheating while still tracking the sun. Living in environments wet enough where dehydration isn’t an issue, it can even secrete fluid--in this case, water mixed with some amount of waste--to evaporate and take excess heat with it; in essence, this tree can sweat. The leaves are similar to palm leaves in shape, as this makes it where (in young trees) only part may be bitten off instead of a whole leaf; though they are more numerous and redundant than its ancestor’s, its leaves are so large that doing otherwise would be very expensive. The change in shape also improves the Obsiditall's ability to survive powerful gusts of wind.

The Obsiditall has more leaves than its ancestor. This helps support its immense size. It now has multiple reproductive stalks, which are hidden deep in its leaves for protection. As before, they keep growing more and more spore chambers, which eventually drop and release their spores into the wind on the way down. The chambers do not get trapped in the leaves because of their round shape, which rolls and slides with ease. In addition to wind, fauna and rainwater will also spread the spores. Indeed, water is a necessary component for unrelated spores to meet and form a zygote.

Due to its airborne spores, the Obsiditall is present in both Hydro and Barlowe, the spores easily being carried between the two islands by wind.

I went with large flat ears with the intent that it's using them to release heat.

Fixed

Great Leotam (Thytamus leo)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Sabertam
Habitat: Barlowe Temperate Rainforest, Barlowe Temperate Woodland, Barlowe Chaparral
Size: 3 meters long
Diet: Carnivore (Sansheh, Longjack, Beaktrunk, Megalosheh, Doboor, Grassblaster, Tusked Grassblaster, Leemalla, Tappipper, Buttpiper, Grand Buttpiper, Dusty Spelunkhoe, Xatakbrak, Spotted Sauceback, Dualist Bandersnatch, Sanguine Padfoot, Triplethorn Bounder, Sango, Amblister Bandersnatch)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Live Birth, Pouch and Milk)

The Great Leotam replaced its ancestor and outcompeted the Tyrant Gossalizard and the Woodland Gossalizard within its range, taking over the niche of apex predator due to endothermy making it better suited to the niche. While adults mainly hunt large prey, juveniles are independant earlier and hunt smaller prey, which is why it outcompeted a non-apex large predator as well. It mainly hunts by ambush, and it kills by pinning its prey with its thumb claws and delivering a killing bite with its saber fangs. It is capable of standing on its hind legs and tail to scan for prey further away, or to battle a rival. Similar to its ancestor, it has a shaggier winter coat. It typically sleeps in scrapes in the ground, shallow caverns, or hollow logs.

Great Leotams are generally solitary, and they mainly meet to mate. Rather than just showing off their teeth, rival males will often fight for mating rights, biting each other’s faces and sometimes even delivering fatal wounds. Similar to its ancestor, the Great Leotam has marsupial-like characteristics. Newborns are fetal and reside in their mother’s backwards-facing pouch, suckling milk for the first part of their lives. They eventually leave the pouch and are weaned off milk, and their mother teaches them to hunt by bringing them live small prey. The father does not participate in raising his offspring. The juveniles leave once they can hunt, filling a smaller predator niche until they grow large enough to be apex predators like their parents. The Great Leotam usually has 2-3 offspring at a time.

Megalosheh (Tateatamus grandis)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Sansheh
Habitat: Barlowe Temperate Rainforest, Barlowe Temperate Woodland, Oz Temperate Beach
Size: 8 meters long
Diet: Herbivore (Obsidibarrage, Obsidibend, Mainland Fuzzpalm, Mangot, Qupe Tree); Larvae: Detritivore
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Eggs and Larvae)

Megalosheh split from its ancestor and became larger, making it one of the biggest saucebacks to ever live (and certainly the heaviest). While there were several factors to this occurring, the biggest of them is its tail. Calling back to the two-tailed saucebacks of long ago, the Megalosheh’s tail is forked. Having not been an obligate tripod, this was retained long enough for it to be perfected for walking and permanently established in the species. The fork occurs well after the lung segments, affecting the last five segments of the tail, though only four are especially mobile. This allowed it to become an obligate tripod as it grew larger, as the twin tail tip is more stable than a single hoof. An adult cannot walk bipedally at all. The Megalosheh’s feather coat is thinner, as its colossal size makes a full coat disadvantageous, and it has taken on a greyish coloration because normal camouflage is pointless at large sizes and it may as well pretend to be a rock.

Being so large, the Megalosheh no longer needs to stand up to eat from trees, simply raising its beaked trunk to pull down leaves. However, it will balance on its tail to knock down trees for younger members of the herd to feed from. Similar to its ancestor, doing this helps control populations of black flora which otherwise block too much light from reaching the undergrowth. It has a large fermenting gut, which is visibly located in its chest area, as unlike tetrapods which have their lungs in their chest and the guts behind them, saucebacks have their guts in the same segment as their legs and brain and the lungs behind that.

The Megalosheh, in order to reach the point where they are consuming flora and therefore able to reach adult size more quickly, metamorphose much faster. While eggs still take 4 months to hatch, the worm-like detritivore larva stage lasts only a single month before their legs erupt, though it takes another month for them to be developed enough to stand, at which point they join a herd. They usually join their parents’ herd, as they stick around while the babies are still larvae, but if this is impossible they can join other herds just as easily. Young legged Megaloshehs are cursorial and bipedal, able to sprint deeper into the herd at any sign of danger while the larger, slower, but more powerful adults fend off the would-be predator. Much like its ancestor, male megaloshehs attract females with bellows and shaking displays. It lives for 30 years and breeds about every 5 years starting in warmer months, laying 20-25 eggs at a time.

Megalosheh activity has caused the Mainland Fuzzpalm and Qupe Tree, already having been spread to the beach by the Seashrog, to also spread inland into Barlowe Temperate Rainforest and Barlowe Temperate Woodland.