Thread replies: 11
Thread images: 3
Thread images: 3
Anonymous
How alien is too alien? 2017-06-19 07:29:51 Post No. 53883357
[Report] Image search: [Google]
How alien is too alien? 2017-06-19 07:29:51 Post No. 53883357
[Report] Image search: [Google]
I made a setting where I took early animal life down an entirely different evolutionary path than earth's. This ended with a variety of life, the one that produced 2 of the three intelligence species, had the following characteristics:
>had a structure similar to a notocord, but which radiated from a central point in either four or six pointed bisection, this variety were all four pointed
>do not have the same sexes and instead have 'donor' and 'carrier', a carrier needed two sets of DNA equivalent from two different donors to have a child
>donors not produce separate sperm/eggs and instead their gonads are hollow tubes like a mosquito that they inject blood with, on a prehensile appendage, carriers when they get foreign blood from their own species will naturally deconstruct it and store it in their body for a time isolated
>communicate not through sound, but mainly through light due to the wave lengths of light their sun gives out
>do not have a discernible head, instead their sensory organs are on a prehensile appendage like their gonads and mouth
>physically amphibioid-like and requiring a constant supply of water to wallow in for some amount of the day to keep their prehensile limbs moist and supple
I had a fantasy setting featuring two species of koguroids (the class of animal these creatures were), one where the only the carriers were intelligent and basically had non-sapient animalistic donors are a slave race (and their prehensile limbs were such that they could be away from water for a longer period of time) and the other where they lived in a variety of societies but all water dependent due to their needs to stay constantly moist.
>>
>>53883357
>How alien is too alien
Can I have sex with it?
>>
>>53883357
no such thing as too alien op. the problem most people have is not making it alien anough
>>
Sounds cool op
>>
read Speaker for the Dead.
>>
Alien physiology is all well and good, but it's all set dressing unless you can make them act alien too, and that is really the issue, because you're only human
>>
>>53883357
Sounds real nice, you'll know it's too alien if you begin vomiting out of fear/pity. Until then, don't let anyone stop you.
>>
>>53884069
They don't have sex as we would, and injecting them with your blood wouldn't do anything.
>>53886902
Read it in the past, it's pretty good.
>>53887118
The main differences in their socially is a complete lack of sound in their culture as they have no ears.
>>
File: 1353102892054.jpg (21KB, 297x297px) Image search:
[Google]
21KB, 297x297px
>>53883357
Too alien
>When 60% the alien's actions and capabilities are handwaved as "it's too alien for you to understand"
>When the alien's way of being is so detached from the norm that it can't act or be acted on in a meaningful way.
>When describing the alien and the way it interacts overshadows the actions of the game
>When the important traits of the alien become so detailed they can't actually be remembered.
You get much more leeway in the level of detail if the group is signing up for monster biology and ecology adventure. Even still the specifics are for flair or last minute exploits, good creatures should be described in a single sentence. Even Lovecraft sticks too fairly simple creature descriptions and puts domains and limitations on what most beings can do.
>>
File: Aliens for RPG use.png (34KB, 908x256px) Image search:
[Google]
34KB, 908x256px
>>53883357
>>
Anything that remains in the 3rd dimension is sufficiently alien. Once it moves to the point where it's difficult to actually comprehend the existence of the alien, then it's gone too far (even then, it works if it's supposed to be some god-like being).
Thread posts: 11
Thread images: 3
Thread images: 3