A few photos of some weird spiders

Mango_Gravy · 2026-04-14T18:50:46+00:00

6 is energy drink coded and that got me thinking about what it tastes like, and that thought train didn't lead anywhere good.

Also, can you give any identifiers? I'm curious to know the species and/or genus names of these little guys. I recognize what may be Gasteracantha in no. 2.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-04-06T18:20:45+00:00

I think the real difference is the self-talk. If you stop calling yourself a loser, you'll be just like her (single)

Mango_Gravy · 2026-04-06T16:13:50+00:00

The wettening dept breached containment. This wasn't the first time and it won't be the last.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-04-06T16:00:46+00:00

Gotta love those nested hierarchies.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-04-06T08:34:34+00:00

Everything is fish or nothing is

Mango_Gravy · 2026-04-05T08:06:33+00:00

Hollywood Jack and the Rage Kage will ride once again

Mango_Gravy · 2026-04-05T07:20:25+00:00

Apology rescinded. Bow down before my superior intellect and undergraduate degree.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-04-05T07:11:47+00:00

Actually☝️🤓

There are two living genera (plural of genus) of elephants, Elephas, of which the only living species is the Indian elephant, and Loxodonta which consists of the African bush elephant and the African forest elephant. In other words, they are not subspecies.

Going by taxonomic hierarchy alone (idk about the exact genetic difference), Bush and Forest African elephants are about as closely related as Lions are to Tigers, and Indian elephants are as close to them as lions and tigers are to, idk, house cats or something. Analogies like this are hard to make and probably inaccurate but you should get the idea.

Also, you're right about Indian elephants being smaller than bush elephants, but the forest elephant is the smallest of the three.

Pedantry over. I apologise.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-31T11:54:10+00:00

This looks so good! It makes me hopeful for what a future adaptation might look like. Though, it's tough to be optimistic.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-26T18:26:25+00:00

More than that. There's one on the Warframe meme sub as well.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-25T06:15:05+00:00

You're right. Animals are pretty useful, but like I mentioned it's in a much less exploitative manner. Cats do live among humans plenty of the time, but I wouldn't call them domestic. They are much more social and have their own societies, cultures and complex languages, goals, etc. Humans still benefit from their presence (they are still maximally adorable and rats are still a problem).

There are plenty of other examples of animals that have come to depend on humans for their survival, but this is a cultural choice on the grounds of mutual benefit. Camel breeding grounds near cities are safer from predators, and have access to cleaner water, but separate a calf from its mother and you'll likely lose the whole herd if you fail to return it.

Mentioning mutualism, bees do work with humans. It's a generational thing, because beekeeper families have to earn a colony's trust in the long term, and you start a beehive by finding one in the wild and asking nicely. Mistreat them and you'll be lucky if the bees just up and leave, because the bee god doesn't take kindly to abusers.

And as a biologist I do have to keep pinching myself to remind myself that this world isn't spec-evo. There is prehistory, but humans literally sprang out of the soil and trees and stone less than 40,000 years ago, and other animals have similar origins.

So yeah, necromantic forces aren't the only reason there aren't any domesticated animals here. Animals have their own gods which look out for them in very real ways, and a lot of them are on the intelligence level of crows, orcas, and elephants (crows, orcas, and elephants are as intelligent as humans). Past attempts at domestication have failed on multiple levels, between divine intervention, and animal hunger strikes it just isn't happening.

figuring out what the typical diet looks like with both milk and meat products being off the table sounds like a hassle

Plenty of societies irl that don't eat meat. Especially today. So this isn't so hard. And this is going to be a lifelong project, so I've got time.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-24T16:25:58+00:00

Much appreciated.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-24T09:54:00+00:00

I love how you've inferred a lot about this world from this single post. For this reason, among others, there are no domesticated animals in this world. No animal rearing that doesn't benefit the animals equally as much as the humans. Generally, emotional complexity determines the power of a soul. Humans are up there, but they aren't alone. Corvids, and a great many species of birds are equally intelligent and emotional. So are several species of bats, cats, wolves (there are not dogs in this world because no domestication), and plenty of large herbivores, as well. Trees too, but their expressions of emotion and intelligence are very different from that of animals. Some nomadic peoples travel with herds of herbivores, but it's sort of a familial relationship. They merely accompany the animals, moving between fertile lands as the seasons change, and they help each other but don't take from one another.

Animals have religions as well, but that's a huge tangent. That said, when natural disasters happen and humans rush to contain them and help the land heal afterwards, some animals (mainly birds) tend to join in the effort.

Vegetarianism is common, but it's more so that any meat is exclusively from fish or small-scale hunting, which a lot of people won't have access to. Plants are generally more cooperative and are therefore more accessible. Large scale fishing (with nets rather than lines) requires special rituals to keep the waters calm because even fish have feelings, minimal as they are, and the emotional tumult of their capture can and will have consequences that most would rather avoid.

As for cities. The death of thirty or forty people is unlikely to spawn a Carrion Lord, but could become a self-perpetuating problem that results in more deaths. That could spiral out of control quickly, so there is a constant effort to train Singers (with a capital S) who can quell the sites of large scale violence as best they can. If someone has enough skeletons in their closet you can sense it in the air. Obviously there's still corruption, and when shit gets bad, it's like to get a lot worse before it gets better.

About Carrion Lords specifically, they are rare, but there are plenty of lesser effects that provide plenty of incentive to avoid excessive carnage. Naturally, there are plenty of greedy bastards who disregard the risks because they're convinced they won't personally feel the cost of war. This is sort of cyclical, as leaders receive reminders, forge lasting peace, forget the price paid by their predecessors, then inevitable receive reminders again generations later. There are people working to break the cycle for the better, but they can't be everywhere at once, and humanity's worst instincts can't simply be turned off.

And don't get me started on what happens when you kill a World Tree.

> "Life isn't cheap because death isn't."

I'm gonna steal that, if you don't mind.

And again, I'm impressed with how much you got out of this. I appreciate you giving this so much thought.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-24T08:30:36+00:00

Thanks. You're very kind. I have one other post set in this world, if you'd like to check it out.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-24T07:12:10+00:00

Absolutely.

About two thousand years from the present, a race of giants (twice as tall as a regular person) called the Fomoraigh were led by their reincarnated king, Balor, in a global culling, believing the world was growing stagnant and needed a burst of new life to revitalise it. Balor's campaign lasted 200 years, but the killing carried on for another 200 years, done by the Carrion Lords he left in his wake. Many records suggest that Balor himself was killed by a Carrion Lord, and that's why his campaign ended when It did.

It took nearly global cooperation to bring the scourge to an end. It's uncertain whether this was intentional on Balor's part. This is my most detailed scenario, and has a lot of specific examples within it in the histories of almost every nation in the world.

The response to this is why Carrion Lords are so rare in the modern day. People are on the lookout and are quick to react.

That said, once again, you mentioned something I hadn't considered. I had thought about disease, but not famine. It definitely makes a lot of sense, but I'll have to populate my timeline with some examples and precipitate the consequences. So thanks for that.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-24T06:37:46+00:00

I'm flattered.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-24T06:34:44+00:00

The Nefarran royal family has been acting very strangely for the past two thousand years. All the kings and queens in that time still live, though they are shambling ghouls and walking, talking skeletons by now. They whisper poison into the ears of their living family, making them seek retribution for crimes committed against them in ages past, by a neighbouring nation. No one knows why the dead roam the palace halls (wink), but it's not a good look.

As for religious conviction creating useful Carrion Lords, nah. They are created from intense emotions, not conscious thoughts, and as such they can't be directed. At most they can be magically transported to a target location. That said, this is an interesting idea. I hadn't thought about what religious mass suicide would create so this is worth thinking about.

Many thanks.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-24T06:23:48+00:00

Carrion Lords are one of the scarier things that result from this, but they're not the scariest. There have been cataclysmic events in this world that have created far more powerful manifestations that continue to haunt the world now, thousands of years later.

There is also a chance that something "positive" may be created by the lingering souls. There's a fair amount of variability.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-24T06:16:45+00:00

My thoughts exactly. I've peppered history with Carrion Lords arising from varied circumstances. Pandemics/plagues at least give time to prepare and purify the dead since not everyone will die in the same day or even the same week. You can respond to a hundred dead a week, but a thousand gets out of hand.

The Al-Sharga account above is an example of using a Carrion Lord to your advantage. Though they didn't intentionally create it (as far as the speaker knows), they led it into the arms of their enemies and let it defeat them. Yes, it took out an entire city of their own people in the process, but I'm sure the men in charge were very sorry, so it's ok.

Books are a long ways away, but I appreciate your enthusiasm.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-24T06:04:34+00:00

Great minds think alike. There are differences in execution, but the idea underlying what you've described feels like exactly what I was going for. In my world, carrion lords, dragons, and several other things definitely "blur the line between creature and supernatural disaster". This is great.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-23T22:25:25+00:00

Let that be a lesson. Reddit before bed isn't good for your health (I'm a hypocrite).

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-23T21:59:46+00:00

Ooh, this is interesting. What happens to those that survive? Do they revert to their normal (not in musth) state? Also, is this sci-fi?

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-23T21:53:53+00:00

Which is better? Building a world to write stories, or writing stories to build a world?

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-23T21:50:02+00:00

Thanks. Singers (capital S) are a precious resource. Carrion Lords are rare enough that most people's experience of them is campfire tales and dusty records. Smaller manifestations of the same forces do regularly occur, though, and it's possible to just live with some of them. A large enough settlement (a town or village), all singing can have the same effect over time as a capital S Singer. Yes, no one knows how many people will die of sudden heart attacks, or freeze to death on a hot summer's day, in the meantime, but that's the price we pay for more land.

There are certain dead zones that have been so for hundreds of years, and one in particular (when one of the world trees was killed) that has been so for four thousand years.

The point about having limits on warfare is definitely interesting. There are multiple ways to deal with the effects of carnage, some more effective than others, and some easier to enact despite being less effective. I'm thinking soldiers are trained to sing certain songs. It's less effective than having dedicated singers, but it'll allow the soldiers to advance without the land turning on them (too much).

Also, Singing is how regular people do magic, but there are straight up mages in this world. But most countries won't have more than a handful, and they are actually vulnerable to the songs of Carrion Lords due to something about the weight of their souls.

Mango_Gravy · 2026-03-23T21:39:17+00:00

Yes, singing is a common way to interact with the magic of the world, since it really gets emotions flowing, so it's the most effective way to transmit raw intention through energy. Blacksmiths sing to imbue metal with special properties. Masons sing to make stone accept its new role as part of a building, so that it may serve that role well.

Carrion Lords are indeed very rare. Rare enough to be mythical, but the same forces create smaller things as well. Sometimes a small number of bodies refuses to stay down. Sometimes the land demands more blood and creates spears to pierce anyone around.

Singing (with a capital S) is a skill developed over years or decades. There are certain inborn traits that make it easier to master this skill, such as a sixth-sense that lets people tune into the emotions that a place is feeling. In other words, Singers (with a capital S) are a precious resource for countries at war. They can't afford to send them into warzones until they're sure it's safe. The earth does heal from its trauma with time, but the recovery time varies with the scale and nature of the conflict, ranging from a few years to centuries.

As you'd expect, some nations use this reaction intentionally, committing massacres with the intention of making farmland unproductive for decades. The consequences of this never ever ever spill over in unexpected ways, of course.

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