Lol i’m glad and surprised my question about the wildlife/creatures got an answer, that’s always the coolest part about alternate settings imo
I’m super intrigued and impressed Asha actually knows the taste of most these animals, she was perfect person to ask for a guide.
Wikuni – so that’s the llama thing we saw in the Nutaryu flashbacks. Seems like a dependable resource animal, this version seems a little mixed with Sheep by how much wool it has.
I’m sure it just bites their hair trying to groom it, that’s how they be nice to eachother. Also we finally have an answer to what Asha’s clothes-fur is from, I remember wondering about that before. If it can protect them from a snowstorm it can protect humans.
Wormhogs – they seem an obvious choice for keeping livestock too, though just for food. But they taste better than Wikuni by the rating, or Asha enjoys the taste more. Pigs already are kinda like that, evolved to breed lots, start out small then pack on size until they’re huge, like Sunfish and other animals with the same trait. I guess the Daera kind of exacerbated that evolution so now they breed more and grow even more meat
Catoblepas – are those multiple legs under its hide? What a nightmarish combination. Though they do seem to be a perfect choice for food, in taste and size (even the bad quality stuff), if people did use farms to avoid the venom
Capydogs – of course Capybaras would be the next domesticated animal from dogs, I couldn’t pick something better. These seem like dogs but bigger and furrier and rat-ier like Capies, and a more consistent phenotype than dogs have, or at least the breed of dog that Nutaryu uses. They seem to have kept their dog-like smarts though.
Birds – I didn’t think twice about the flying, world-migrating, low-energy-intensive animal family being the least affected by the Daera, but maybe they were protected by fae in some way, or at least Scott’s hometown seems to have some mystical fascination with them.
LoL Asha’s intrusive thoughts, that’s what she thinks of Scott’s birds? No wonder Scott doesn’t trust her.
Snowcat – I look at this and see both a mountain lion and those smaller black bears. They look too small and chunky to be threatening compared to tigers or grizzlies but when they’re actually out to kill they’re terrifying.
Asha’s gotta comb her hair one year, Scott is slandering her
Winxuka – seems like a combination of a leech and a black widow, but in appearance it’s like a beetle. The creepy crawly entry in the bestiary, I suppose the Daera compelled it to use a more risky hunting method by killing animals with a bite then feeding on their blood afterwards, leeches often irl target wounded and dying animals by the waters edge so this just cut out the middle man and poisons them itself. Animals bites with disease can be a lot deadlier in some cases than animals with venom, rabies for example.
It’s also really cool that there’s an attached legend in their history involving it! Where in our legends we usually use snakes or spiders
Tatu – an armadillo anteater. I actually remember there was an animal in the ice-age that looked like this, minus the snout.
This is the first one i’m surprised and amused Asha has cooked and eaten before
Wild Wormhog – really cool concept! A Warthog equivalent to the Wormhogs, plus that thing is huge compared to the humans around it. Maybe the livestock wormhogs would grow to comparable sizes if they were kept forever. It reminds me of Grizzlies or Moose, or a Wooly Mammoth more like.
Asha narration is intriguing, now I imagine she must have hunted one with her village as a kid. So that’s how she knows firsthand it can feed a village for a month, and how hard they are to kill. And its taste too she knows firsthand.
Damn if the story weren’t set in the present on adult Asha’s revenge quest, that’s an adventure i’d wanna see Kiddy Asha doing. Imagining it is epic
Great White – Whatever animals live in the sea full-time at this point in time must be horrifying. Even the sharks turned Amphibious to stand a better chance at living. Kind of interesting there’s frozen-over areas of water around Nutaryu, they would definitely be wary of that with this thing stalking it like an upside-down polar bear
You picked some cool qualities for it that make sense for me, like every arctic predator evolves to be bleached-white so they can blend in, and I would definitely think Sharks would be great at tracking by nature. Also Fish apparently have a reputation for growing legs when they have to.
The eyes are less scary than a regular shark’s, but being bloodshot is a different kind of creepy.
Hmm, I guess Atta knew some history of the before-Daera times! Though animal “history” is a lot easier to keep track of than human history
Wow, this is the Taste 10? Of course one of the most dangerous things is the most exquisite.
It’s cool to think Asha hunted this, and since I think it’s a rare thing for anyone to have eaten
Burrowers – “Shai Hulud…”
It definitely looks as gross as it tastes, freaky if those things were a hiding threat you have to watch out for around your town. The Silence is threatening in ways more than the snow.
If I had to guess i’d also think this was the yuckiest animal/slug thing, or plant if that head is like a venus flytrap. Asha discovered it for science
Terguins – HAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAA, these are my favourite ones.
Elder Thing Penguins. With sideways mouths and tectacles and eyes and crowns. I assume their name is like a portmanteau of ‘Terror Penguin’?
I’m headcanonning that they really are guarding the entrance to the ruins of an ancient civilisation, inhabited by an unspeakable evil.
But to Asha they’re unkillable scary geese that chased her for miles as a kid trying to bite her face off. You can feel the childhood trauma dripping off her words
lmfao im glad the terguin childhood trauma was clear
Kegaterio – is that a Giant Ground Sloth?
Atta is right then, that thing has been mankind’s enemy since the first Ice Age. They say they actually died because cavemen hunted them to extinction, but a few of them must’ve layed low long enough for the Daera to hit. They have the advantage now it seems. “Never tried one” sounds like it’s not unheard of to hunt them, but noone in their town did
Aberrations – Meteor Zombies. They must be, from the looks of this one it must be humans or other things warped beyond recognition by being inside the Daera’s impact zone.
Some more cool lore and legends. The Knights of Damantos is a badass name, and the story from Atta sounds like a horror film.
“The one she saw”, Atta saw one? Wow that’s cool and creepy, you wouldn’t think there’d be that many of them far from the Abyss
Asha doesn’t describe exactly what they do that makes them so dangerous, this one in the sketch seems to be engulfed in flames or heat, but it’s better left to imagination I think. But I’m sure first off they’re definitely hard to kill, because judging by the look of that sketch whoever that used to be should’ve been dead a long time ago, but is still sticking around (whether it likes it or not)
The funny tongue-in-cheek comment from Asha, implying the Knights might eat them after slaying one or are rumored to. To gain their knowledge of course
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Lol i’m glad and surprised my question about the wildlife/creatures got an answer, that’s always the coolest part about alternate settings imo
I’m super intrigued and impressed Asha actually knows the taste of most these animals, she was perfect person to ask for a guide.
Wikuni – so that’s the llama thing we saw in the Nutaryu flashbacks. Seems like a dependable resource animal, this version seems a little mixed with Sheep by how much wool it has.
I’m sure it just bites their hair trying to groom it, that’s how they be nice to eachother. Also we finally have an answer to what Asha’s clothes-fur is from, I remember wondering about that before. If it can protect them from a snowstorm it can protect humans.
Wormhogs – they seem an obvious choice for keeping livestock too, though just for food. But they taste better than Wikuni by the rating, or Asha enjoys the taste more. Pigs already are kinda like that, evolved to breed lots, start out small then pack on size until they’re huge, like Sunfish and other animals with the same trait. I guess the Daera kind of exacerbated that evolution so now they breed more and grow even more meat
Catoblepas – are those multiple legs under its hide? What a nightmarish combination. Though they do seem to be a perfect choice for food, in taste and size (even the bad quality stuff), if people did use farms to avoid the venom
Capydogs – of course Capybaras would be the next domesticated animal from dogs, I couldn’t pick something better. These seem like dogs but bigger and furrier and rat-ier like Capies, and a more consistent phenotype than dogs have, or at least the breed of dog that Nutaryu uses. They seem to have kept their dog-like smarts though.
Birds – I didn’t think twice about the flying, world-migrating, low-energy-intensive animal family being the least affected by the Daera, but maybe they were protected by fae in some way, or at least Scott’s hometown seems to have some mystical fascination with them.
LoL Asha’s intrusive thoughts, that’s what she thinks of Scott’s birds? No wonder Scott doesn’t trust her.
Snowcat – I look at this and see both a mountain lion and those smaller black bears. They look too small and chunky to be threatening compared to tigers or grizzlies but when they’re actually out to kill they’re terrifying.
Asha’s gotta comb her hair one year, Scott is slandering her
Winxuka – seems like a combination of a leech and a black widow, but in appearance it’s like a beetle. The creepy crawly entry in the bestiary, I suppose the Daera compelled it to use a more risky hunting method by killing animals with a bite then feeding on their blood afterwards, leeches often irl target wounded and dying animals by the waters edge so this just cut out the middle man and poisons them itself. Animals bites with disease can be a lot deadlier in some cases than animals with venom, rabies for example.
It’s also really cool that there’s an attached legend in their history involving it! Where in our legends we usually use snakes or spiders
Tatu – an armadillo anteater. I actually remember there was an animal in the ice-age that looked like this, minus the snout.
This is the first one i’m surprised and amused Asha has cooked and eaten before
Wild Wormhog – really cool concept! A Warthog equivalent to the Wormhogs, plus that thing is huge compared to the humans around it. Maybe the livestock wormhogs would grow to comparable sizes if they were kept forever. It reminds me of Grizzlies or Moose, or a Wooly Mammoth more like.
Asha narration is intriguing, now I imagine she must have hunted one with her village as a kid. So that’s how she knows firsthand it can feed a village for a month, and how hard they are to kill. And its taste too she knows firsthand.
Damn if the story weren’t set in the present on adult Asha’s revenge quest, that’s an adventure i’d wanna see Kiddy Asha doing. Imagining it is epic
Great White – Whatever animals live in the sea full-time at this point in time must be horrifying. Even the sharks turned Amphibious to stand a better chance at living. Kind of interesting there’s frozen-over areas of water around Nutaryu, they would definitely be wary of that with this thing stalking it like an upside-down polar bear
You picked some cool qualities for it that make sense for me, like every arctic predator evolves to be bleached-white so they can blend in, and I would definitely think Sharks would be great at tracking by nature. Also Fish apparently have a reputation for growing legs when they have to.
The eyes are less scary than a regular shark’s, but being bloodshot is a different kind of creepy.
Hmm, I guess Atta knew some history of the before-Daera times! Though animal “history” is a lot easier to keep track of than human history
Wow, this is the Taste 10? Of course one of the most dangerous things is the most exquisite.
It’s cool to think Asha hunted this, and since I think it’s a rare thing for anyone to have eaten
Burrowers – “Shai Hulud…”
It definitely looks as gross as it tastes, freaky if those things were a hiding threat you have to watch out for around your town. The Silence is threatening in ways more than the snow.
If I had to guess i’d also think this was the yuckiest animal/slug thing, or plant if that head is like a venus flytrap. Asha discovered it for science
Terguins – HAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAA, these are my favourite ones.
Elder Thing Penguins. With sideways mouths and tectacles and eyes and crowns. I assume their name is like a portmanteau of ‘Terror Penguin’?
I’m headcanonning that they really are guarding the entrance to the ruins of an ancient civilisation, inhabited by an unspeakable evil.
But to Asha they’re unkillable scary geese that chased her for miles as a kid trying to bite her face off. You can feel the childhood trauma dripping off her words
lmfao im glad the terguin childhood trauma was clear
Kegaterio – is that a Giant Ground Sloth?
Atta is right then, that thing has been mankind’s enemy since the first Ice Age. They say they actually died because cavemen hunted them to extinction, but a few of them must’ve layed low long enough for the Daera to hit. They have the advantage now it seems. “Never tried one” sounds like it’s not unheard of to hunt them, but noone in their town did
Aberrations – Meteor Zombies. They must be, from the looks of this one it must be humans or other things warped beyond recognition by being inside the Daera’s impact zone.
Some more cool lore and legends. The Knights of Damantos is a badass name, and the story from Atta sounds like a horror film.
“The one she saw”, Atta saw one? Wow that’s cool and creepy, you wouldn’t think there’d be that many of them far from the Abyss
Asha doesn’t describe exactly what they do that makes them so dangerous, this one in the sketch seems to be engulfed in flames or heat, but it’s better left to imagination I think. But I’m sure first off they’re definitely hard to kill, because judging by the look of that sketch whoever that used to be should’ve been dead a long time ago, but is still sticking around (whether it likes it or not)
The funny tongue-in-cheek comment from Asha, implying the Knights might eat them after slaying one or are rumored to. To gain their knowledge of course