I'm working on a race of people with different senses from

>>54753821
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampullae_of_Lorenzini

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_sensing_in_snakes

Birds' internal compass
A shark's electrical sensors
Cuttlefish skin-color communication

Infrared? You could get around normally enough, but there would be challenges and certain advantages.

>>54754757
-Seeing a different part of the spectrum (infrared, ultraviolet, etc.)
-Detection of certain types of radiation could be useful for a subterranean species (tells you if you're near certain minerals, lets you know how deep you are).
-Echolocation that's treated properly (not just 'seeing in black and white'). Soft materials would mess it up, hard surfaces are very visible.
-Sensing humidity (could tell you where anyone who is breathing is)

Most of these are things that would be helpful in total darkness, because (short of psychic powers) humans already have most of the really useful senses covered.

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>>54753821
http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/13.0.htm
>"Those races that had the electric sense gave us some difficulty; for, in order to understand their thought, we had to learn a whole new gamut of sense qualities and a vast system of unfamiliar symbolism. The electric organs detected only very slight differences of electric charge in relation to the subject’s own body. Originally this sense had been used for revealing enemies equipped with electric organs of offense. But in man its significance was chiefly social. It gave information about the emotional state of one’s neighbors. Beyond this its function was meteorological...."
-- Olaf Stapledon, in Star Maker (1937)1946
until
http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/13.6.htm
>The ability to respond to radioactivity has been artificially bestowed on a small group of experimental animals. Several cats were outfitted with portable Geiger counters which telemetered impulses directly to the "fear centers" of the feline brains. When confronted with a pile of radioactive materials in one corner of their cages, each cat shied away.

Also pic related

Social sense (i.e. a lack of autism)

>>54753821
This might be too magic, lol for you, but what about a perfect sense of self? Being able to detect the chemicals in your brain, or the white blood cells inside you
Only problem is the amount of information overload would probably drive a human insane, like living with a chainsaw in your skull, 24/7

But let fantasy be fantasy I guess

>>54756377
he said no magic

>>54753821
Sense of self worth?

>>54756590
Wouldn't that just be ego? Humans have that.

>>54753821
Some people get small magnets surgically implanted in their fingertips so they can feel magnetic fields.

Covered in fine hairs that detect any atmospheric changes and movement in the vicinity.

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>>54755880
>>54753821
Complete conscious. Humans have at the very least a subconscious. According to Freud, an unconscious. And if we take Jung as granted, how about being aware of what's happening in the collective unconscious? Certain telepaths seem to achieve the latter.

>>54756492
I have seen two characters with something like this.

One was Iron Man in the 90s, he had very advanced sensors within his body during a paraplegic period. Although he still was limited to his conscious focus, so he couldn't be aware of all this at the same time.

The other was a chinese experiment to force a man into enlightment through self-realization of his own subatomical dynamics. Pic related.

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Heat sense. Predator style.

>>54753821
My dwarves have "stonesense" in varying degrees of skill.
They can sense minerals, most easily in their natural state.
Many just can sense enough to navigate unfamiliar caves and tunnels easily, even without sight.
A rare few can detect and identify concealed minerals at a distance.
It's biological, not magical.

>>54756716
Man, Supergod was a blast.

>>54753821

- Being able to sense vibrations along the ground

- Being able to sense things along the spectrum of time. Basically a constant state of Deja Vu for the upcoming 5 seconds is their main sense. This would work even if they are completely blind. For example, you can avoid walking into a wall, because you would see the wall in front of you with your eyes and know it was coming. This race, however, could avoid walking into a wall because they would "feel" themselves walking into a wall 5 seconds into the future and know that they should stop and go a different direction.

This may seem broken at first, however, just because they are able to "feel" something is about to happen it doesn't mean they will always be able to stop it from happening.They may "feel" themselves getting shredded by a Wand of Magic Missiles 5 seconds from now, but that doesn't mean they will be able to dodge it.Even worse, they always experience the pain of death twice, once in the future and once in the present.

>>54756736
I thought this was Costanza from the thumbnail.

Being able to detect magnetic fields similar to a birds ability to navigate.
Navigation would be top notch and would give them the ability to sense anything else that has a magnetic/electrical field (other living things, most objects, etc)

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>>54754757

One might consider taking one of the senses besides sight and ramping it up to such a level that it fills the same purpose.

I once homebrewed a race of alien shape shifters that identified eachother by smell, they just changed shape to get around, and don't usually even think of it as an effective means to deceive someone, because they still smell like themselves no matter what they look like. Of course, they also had trouble distinguishing individuals of other species because they all smell (relatively)similar.

>>54756833
>- Being able to sense vibrations along the ground
Yep that's one, let's hope he lists mor..!
>- Being able to sense things along the spectrum of time.
Nevermind, this poster is a middle schooler.

Bene Gesserit level control of body structuree. Individual manipulation of every cell and tissue, membranes, chemical transfer. Poisons would need to incapacitate them or they would just be able to remove it, they'd probably be mildly amused by other races use of drugs since they can release neurotransmitters on command. If you want to lewd they could orgasm at will and so would have different ideas of courtship and dating. Aging, cancer, autimmune disorders wouldn't occur. They'd feel horrified at the prospect of being "trapped" in their own body the way other races are. Personality lends themselves to being control freaks

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If you can see them, they can see you.

Senses are basically sensors. If you want non-asspull senses you need to think about environment someone lives in.

What can we measure in our world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_property
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_materials_properties

Some of those can be inferred from other senses (like we can infer velocity from it's changing position)

It doesn't make sense to have a sense of smell if the being lives inside of the sun. Detecting directions doesn't work for beings that operate in cosmos (what is "north" in cosmos). Sight is useless in the dark etc

Senses should give evolutionary advantage
Senses are a burden (need more processing power in the brain, usually sensors are sensitive).

If your world has magic it does make sense to have a sense of this magic either when it can be consumed or is harmful. This isn't perfect (we don't feel all poisonous gases but the ones that would be the most common).

If telekinsesis is a thing in a setting it would make sense to have beings that can sense the presence of other organism (because otherwise TK-ers get an evolutionary advantage).

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Seismoception (pic related)
Polarized Light detection (used by bees to orient themselves)
Hydroreception (detecting changes in moisture in the air)

If you really want to fuck with people, try creating a species that senses and communicates using Chronoception

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>>54753821
My elves are dumb (they're humanoid relatively intelligent mammals) but have very strong instincts, though they developped a ridiculous control over their body which gives them better senses and physical abilities. They know what is best for them to eat and detect poisons as well as dangerous substances very easily. They can even produce pheromones to interact with any form of life that surrounds them, given that they've adapted to that environment, just like humans with tools. To give you an example, humans know through knowledge if a plant or an animal is being agressive, is ill, happy, in heat, etc; elves just sense it by smelling and "reading" their pheromones and anything that emanates from their body. They basically have a built-in druid sense. Their pheromones are more effective than that of ants when it comes to communication, but this means they pee and spit quite often.
Dwarves on the other hand don't see well since millenia spent underground shaped them to that environment. So they've come to rely less and less on their others senses, but their hearing developped to no longer be limited to their ears. Their entire bone structure evolved to be more sensitive to noises and sound waves, like a cetacean. The fat in their body forms structures similar to a melon, and when they grunt and contract their muscles to greet their bones and "vibrate" they emit sounds to map their surroundings like a bat or DareDevil. A dwarf in a cave almost always knows how many other creatures are with them, and how far. They also can determine the material of a wall by feeling or "listening" to the sound waves that travel through it. That's why they grunt and "rumble" often, and like to use metallic canes and instrument (it conveys sound very well)

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>>54766293
>similar to a melon
that's what I meant

You can also add the sense of time; the ability to measure very precisely how muhc time has passed between an instant and another. I'm not sure what this sense could be used for apart from not overcooking one's eggs or oversleeping.

>>54766594
Being an awesome musician.
Finding patterns in nature

>>54766293
Kudos on making your elves and dwarves more foreign whole playing to their cliches instead of against them.
I tried to do something similar, but did not go quite as far with it.

>>54766594
>I'm not sure what this sense could be used for apart from not overcooking one's eggs or oversleeping.
You'd be surprised, pic related.

Not OP, but I wanted to say they were good ideas, both of you.
Not sure my post is worth necromancing the thread, though.

Oh, one last idea there:
>Lifesense or soulsense
Being able to feel living tissue around you, like the lifeforce.
Makes sense for Wraith-like predators.
As a replacement for sight, it would require living within living structures to navigate well.
So, stumbling blind in barren caves or buildings.

>>54768794
>Kudos on making your elves and dwarves more foreign
Is this good or bad ?
I mean I looked at it from a biological perspective, asking myself what role any element has in my setting. I already have humans, so no need to do the same with some quirks in different environments (mountains and forest), instead I asked myself what kind of species could conquer these environments, and why would they prefer them over any other ? I wanted something more organic. Not sure if I'm being clear.

>no pic
pls post it

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>>54768970
>>no pic
>pls post it
Derp

>>54760799
If the world is not deterministic and all states of time exist simultaneously, time is a "spectrum".
Seeing an entire "line" of possible states would be broken as fuck, so his idea of consciousness simultaneously existing in a possible future is valid.

Also, sod off.

>>54768970
>Is this good or bad ?
The kudos was not sarcastic.
It's good for non-human races to be foreign, or non-human.
Otherwise, you get humans wearing elf-hats or dwarf-hats, or to put it another way, "the same with some quirks in different environments".

>I mean I looked at it from a biological perspective, asking myself what role any element has in my setting.
>I asked myself what kind of species could conquer these environments, and why would they prefer them over any other ? I wanted something more organic.
Doing it right.
I did the same with my world, only with a greater focus on ending up with something close to classic fantasy races.
Drow, halflings, and d&d gnomes did not make the cut.

>>54769226
This is why I love how the elf was portrayed in the TESO trailers; she doesn't look completely alien but still, there's that obvious non-human vibe about her. It's like something is wrong with a woman's face, except she isn't one to begin with. I didn't like how elves looked in Skyrim because that was just shit, and LOTR elves are just LARPing humans; this on the other hand was perfect. Just the right amount of difference in the proportions not to look human but still close enough.
I'm just talking about her looks here, because as I said my elves are too dumb to use magic (at least until they reach 400-600 years old then they'll be developped enough, though not all make it this far)

>>54756716
That is the single most retarded comic page I've ever seen in my entire life

>>54760799

>DC 15 Int check: Make an impressive contribution to the thread
>DC 10 Int check: Make a contribution to the thread
>DC 5 Int check: Insult those able to make the DC 10 Int check

>>54773123
>Nat 20
Don't play DnD

>>54773431

Ah, I see you only got a 5, even with all of your modifiers. Don't worry, you can try again in an hour anon.

I love eldritch things, and gave a group of creatures an interesting sense. It was a little thing, about the size of a small cat, four sharp, spider-like legs, and a spiked tail. No other real features. Except that, whenever you were around one of them, you'd feel this strange pressure behind your eyes, and they would go fucking crazy trying to find you and gouge out your eyes with their tail.

They have the ability to see out of your eyes, and they HATE seeing. It's horribly painful for them, they can't stand it, and so they try to get rid of the source.

>>54770481
We have such wonders to show you, newchild.

Well, not me, personally.
I don't save that shit.
But someone here can educate you, I'm sure.

>>54773729
>They have the ability to see out of your eyes, and they HATE seeing. It's horribly painful for them, they can't stand it, and so they try to get rid of the source.
This was a new idea for me.
Seen things afflicted by the presence of others, humsns, before, but being afflicted by another's senses is novel to me.
Still not OP, btw.

>>54773875
Truth be told I've seen more retarded things, it was just hyperbole, forgive me Anon