Magical Suggestion Funland

[Kat]

Oh, well, if the continents besides Spiderland are unknown, then it is even more likely that there could be another population of humans who exist on the other continents. And if that is true, then there could be another group of riders. Perhaps, and this would be AWESOMELY badass, while there are simourvs on the other continents, and like our continent, ones who just started bonding to humans, the colors of the simourvs are different, as is the heirarchy. So instead of the grays being in charge, there could be a modification of the grays which are white (or something) and like yellows, purples, and...oranges. OR, the colors could just be different in like--definition, so blues are the same, but instead of being blue, white, and black, they are blue and brown. (like a kingfisher. ) It would make sense for populations and colorations of the same species to have evolved with slight variations on different landmasses seperated by oceans.

As for why I like the idea of dissenter, I just think we need some sort of tension between the riders and the other people. Because while the riders are protecting the population, I can't believe that everyone is just going to accept that the riders are just granted this power, especially since they are all so young. So I think there would be some people who did not like the riders.

And I also think we need more settlements, especially since there is a lot of unclaimed land...So I mixed the two ideas...

[Bre]

A simourv can quite easily cross the ocean. It would be a bit tiresome, but it wouldn't be a horrible journey for a simourv in good condition. Also, the Spiderland was selected as the most hospitable location to land and settle colonists, as most of the other continents have huge sections of desert, so why would people have randomly moved to the other continents without telling anyone? As you mention with your other idea, there's still plenty of free land.

If you want a dissenter, make a dissenter. Or do a thread about Ros'n getting hit with a rotten tomato. If there is no end course and Ro'za is still receiving some support to get food on the table, it is mainly going to be a player issue. Unless there's a suggestion for a specific conflict or something.

Also, there are other small settlements. The major ones just have thousands of people in them.

[Aikaph]

Is the founding of the Eyrie celebrated? If not, I think that that would be a major holiday in the Eyrie and surrounding area. *shrug*

[Kat]

Yes, but I am suggesting that there are a different population of simouvs who live on the other continents, who are really a subspecies of our simourvs, as in there was one population which was split apart onto the different continents, and who developed differently because of the different land types. So, the simourvs would have had to cross the ocean at a different point in time, I suppose, but if Pohono has geologic systems similar to our systems, then the land masses might have been closer together at one point. If there is a lot of desert areas, then maybe there are simourvs with bald heads. That would be awesome. Like a vulture simourv.
As for how humans got to those land masses, if one group of colonists came to Pohono because of some horrible war, I can see another group of colonists wishing to join them later on. I mean, once America was discovered, you had many, many, many different groups of settlements. The Puritans were in Mass., of course, but then you had some of the Southern states used for British prisoners, and Jamestown, which was a settlement looking for natural resources...So, another group of colonists decided to move to Pohono, but either they could not get in contact with our group, and so they settled the wrong continent, or even better, they had some sort of malfunction which made them crash, or whatever, into one of the other continents. If they were then confronted with Koxi, they would probably assume that the first settlement never made it or left when they realized the planet was covered in human devouring monsters, and set up their own settlements independently.

Or we can think of some reason for the original settlers to leave Spiderland for other continents. Maybe a cluster of explorers went to find new land out at sea, and never came back. And so everyone thought that they were dead, but in reality, they had just been stranded on the new continent and set up a very shaky town/city there.

As for a dissenter plot, I don't want like one person being against the riders, that is not much fun, especially since almost the entire roleplay is focused on the game play at the Eyrie. I could make a character that was preaching anti-rider stuff in Sayaie, but he wouldn't have much to do. I think it would be much more interesting to start a group of dissenters who are really doing something. I know we could use a bigger idea; that's why I'm suggesting it and hoping people have some other input.

But I'm not married to it, by any means. I want to do whatever anyone else wants to do, ultimately; I'm just making suggestions.

[Bre]

Simourvs can cross the ocean. Meaning that they can interbreed easily and have probably been doing so for a very long time. 'Oh, there's more sexy greens to the south? LET'S GO THERE'. They aren't stupid. Alright, fine, maybe some of them are stupid, but they're relatively intelligent. A vulture is a different species of bird, developed over at least thousands of years. If such creatures now exist on Pohono, they would not be simourvs. They would be . . . trekabloos or whatever someone decides to call them. Whatever adaptions they may have gotten may also have killed their able to bond or made them vicious from the harsh climate.

Also, Pohono is very, very, very far out in space from Earth and much smaller than Earth. Why would no one notice a giant ship crashing through the atmosphere? Or even landing normally, with shuttles constantly going back and forth? The coastal areas would be able to see the sky around the other continents and telescopes still exist. Our exploration plot will cover going to other continents and WHO KNOWS WHAT THE STAFF HAS PLANNED (we don't totally know yet), but Pohono isn't going to morph into a Pandoric realm.

Kat, poke people to make dissenters. If you want a group, you gotta make a group!

It has come to my attention that some people find me off putting, so I'd like to make it clear that I'm trying to look out for everyone. I like to give things to democracy, but I need multiple viewpoints for that. I need people to work together, and I always need to make sure ideas will work in a way that won't contradict other things.

[Kilnarak]

I like the idea of a subspecies of simourv with different variations based on their environment. That would be interesting, and more realistic.

Edit: Also, not saying they *can't* cross the ocean, but from what I understand they generally *don't*. The journey seems like it would be too much of a strain to be a very good option. Do something like Darwin's finches - they're all in the same general place, but they evolved differently to fit different niches in their environment.

... 'though I'm still wanting for other large animals, either fish or land-based. Because both simourv and koxi seem to be large predators, and predators usually cannot outgrow their prey. So there should be some sort of large herbivore that is their natural prey (if not simourvs, then koxi - of course, maybe on Spiderland the creatures are nearly extinct, since the settlers have never seen anything of that sort, but maybe on the other continents?)

[Bre]

There are species that thrive across the world in one form. Just throwing that out there. Also, I'm going to just go ahead and come out with the fact that multiple species will complicated things heinously. Unless you guys are fully prepared to go the Sekkai route, we can't do it.

And simourvs are going extinct on the Spiderlands too, as far as anyone knows, so it would sort of make sense, Killy? Also, a simourv can survive on nuts almost entirely. They're omnivores. Chydyn is a good environment for them.

[Kat]

Okay, fine, maybe not vulture simourvs, but really, I still think there could be color variations in different simourv populations in the different continents. I honestly think that that would be much more realistic than the populations being exactly the same across all three continents. More like the Darwin Finches, I suppose, with only minor variations across separated, but close, land masses. Even with mixing of the populations, there would be some kind of genetic difference in populations separated on different continents, I think. And I would assume, since the simourvs have been on Pohono for who knows how long, they have had thousands of years to evolve...If not different colors, then different variations on the colors, maybe like slightly different sizes or different sets of horns...

I think you think I'm suggesting something that I'm not when I say another group of colonist settled. I'm not suggesting any populations with any greater technology or any other connection to the world outside of Pohono, just another very similar population of people who have similar means and who settled in a similar way to our humans. People might think that a giant ship crashing into the land was a comet or meteorite. Once they could not find it, they would assume it had crashed into the ocean or something, and have maybe some record of such an event, without realizing what it was. It's quite possible, especially if the group followed our settlers very closely, which would explain why they picked the same planet.

Or maybe humans have been there all along, and our settlers are not the first. I mean, it is kind of odd that simourvs can bond to humans, and know how to do it. Maybe there is some reason for it, some humans who settled earlier, or something. I don't know.

As for dissenters, I don't currently have the time or ability to engage myself in that plot. I'm awfully involved as it is with my current characters, and I am already at least 10 posts behind, as it stands. I would just like to see it happen.

[Bre]

Maybe southern grays are more silvery to reflect more light? Blacks striped like zebras? But then we can't have any northern simourvs that are too like that.

Why would a second set of settlers be sent to the same small world on the edge of the known universe? Maybe if they forgot about them over the next generation, but that would still mean they would be arriving about now on Pohono.

. . . anyone want to make dissenters to make Kat happy? I could probably do Malak as one, but he's so apathetic. *pokes him with a stick*

[Aikaph]

Hmm.... How about the southern simourvs have more pointed or longer beaks? I don't know, just throwing that idea out there. Why they would have sharper/longer beaks can be up to anyone.

[zeis]

For the variation on simourvs idea, they are pretty variable now. Perhaps we could make a species thats sort of analogous to Pern's Whers sometime in the future? I'm not sure what the different would be, possibly waterfowl ones? Built more for swimming than flight? I'd say terrestrial flightless ones but I think the Koxi would positively destroy them.

[Kilnarak]

I do not know what Sekkai means. And I'm not sure I understand why it would be a problem to include larger prey animals. So uh. Explain for me why none of the prey can grow larger than small deer, please?

But you understand why I think there should be larger prey animals, right? Because if the animals are primarily predators, they'd need large prey or they'd starve. And I kind of don't get why Eyrie simourv seem to eat primarily meat if the species is supposed to naturally subsist mainly on nuts, then?

[winged]

lolduck - Laraph is the progenitor of the duck branch of the simourv family. xD

[Kat]

I like the waterfowl idea. We already have a few simourvs based off of waterfowl, but since no one knows really what influenced them, it shouldn't be an issue. They would have the water resistant feathers, but they would be slower with less stamina in the air. Of course, if we did that, then I think the colors would end up being a lot more muted for the water fowl simourvs, since waterfowl tend to be less brightly colored than our greens/blues/reds.

And I suggested one color variant, the blue and brown combination instead of the blue and black combination. Reds could have some gold included into their redness, so that we would have reds that would be red, black, and gold/orange. (Maybe something like a Chinese Pheasant)

Grays could have a lot of white in them. Blacks could have some sort of color on them. (Maybe it could be any color, so that black and not just black/white/gray, but any simourv with a majority of black on them, with accents of other colors. (something like this. So that most of the black is black, but it can have like other random colors.)

Or maybe there is just a less clear distinction between greens and blues. So that there is a blue/green color, where females tend to be mostly green with blue accents, and blues tend to be mostly blue with green accents. But they were not as clearly defined.

Those are just some color ideas.

[zeis]

Well, by waterfowl I didn't necessarily mean just colors. I meant as like.. that there could be a closely related species of simourv that diverged recently or possibly that simourv diverged from originally. Coexisting at the same time but for who knows how much longer. This species would have dealt with Koxi by basically taking advantage of an environment and a resources that is seperate from them. They swim, Koxi probably dont, they can eat the fish. I haven't really developed this beyond just a random notion, but yeah.

On the prey animal thing that Killy mentioned, what I think she meant is that there seems to be no plausible explanation for what the Koxi are eating to keep up their size and numbers at this point. You can say that simourv are that large because they eat huge nuts, huge koxi, and whatever other game they can catch. Though I think in captivity they eat just whichever they prefer, Killy. In the wild, its probably whatever they can get.

As for Koxi, they can eat humans, which just got here not that long ago, so its a relatively new resource and we know they aren't eating humans ever day. Other small animals which are apparently no bigger than small deer, which means they'd have to eat a lot of them. Simourv or simourv eggs, which I'm sure they would love to eat, and very may well be eating seeing as they are all disappearing. Or that Koxi reproduce like rabbits on meth and are eating eachother. But yeah, there's that small disconnect in the ecosystem that doesn't make sense. I think that's the point shes trying to make.

We could solve in by adding in a very unlucky creature that gets eaten by simourv and koxi maybe? Thats big enough to logically sustain them. You could even argue that the reason simourv are dying out is because on Spiderland these creatures have basically been eaten to extinction, but its possible that they are plentiful elsewhere. As a result on Spiderland, the numbers of Koxi who hunt in packs are overwhelming the numbers of simourv.