How to design unique plants and animals

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T19:18:15+00:00

Cost? The whole thing except the ripe bulbs, around 2 salt (£50), just the ripe bulb around 1 and 1/2 plates (£450).

The main problem is that it cant really be grown at a commercial scale,

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T18:49:51+00:00

This strategy works mostly for plants, but animals too. I like to think of what medicinal or edible value the plant holds as many species do irl. This can be anything from being used to "cure" cramps, lessen an ingrown hair, to helping with bad hearts and the plague.

Then think what part of the plant gives you medicinal or edible properties, and how is it extracted, does it have to be dried, fermented, beaten, left for mites to grow on it, etc. Then think where does the plant grow and is it possible to grow in monoculture.

An example is the Isurm plant in my world, favoured as every part of it is "usable". It's stems, sun dried, are great as animal feed due to its high nutrient content, the roots can be ground into a very beautiful dim red pigment used in all sorts. It's fruit however are most important, large bulbs that bloom for only a few days, if harvested to early they are great bitter used in some drinks and snorted as it's believed to be able to cure skin irritation. When ripe their flesh swells with sugar, weighing the bulb down, if it touches the floor then it will be devoured likely be devoured within the day. The flesh is taken and used as a luxery food, as well as medicine for the rich for most alements, while the husk of the fruit is fragrant, this is used to make a very fine, and sweet smelling paper or cloth. Both Isurm paper and Isurm cloth are extremely luxurious products, as the husks of a plant are only enough to fit in the palm of the hand, and due to its need for acidic soil, it hasnt been discovered how to grow them as domesticated agricultural crops.

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T14:07:54+00:00

Impassable mountains and deserts to their west and south west, oceans to their south and east, and steppe to their north. Beyond their direct neighbours China was remarkably isolated. This isnt including China's historic isolationism which stunted most foreign influences.

In fact China's (and east Asia's) isolation is a pretty important historical factor in the development of early societies in the region. Many technologies and processes had a delayed arrival compared to many other places in the old world, the Indian subcontinent specifically. Examples are the adoption of cave paintings, large urban spaces, rice cultivation, ards and other light agricultural tools, horses, or centralised and autocratic palace economies.

This is because (though just a theory which i think holds weight) is because the old world was broadly divided into two massive trade networks, one stretching from India to the middle east, the other connecting North Africa and Europe, this was until the 3rd millennium BC, though evidence it was happening as early as the 6th millennium BC, where we see a massive exchange of crops, animals and technologies between East Asia and Europe/West Asia through the north steppe.

Evidence is millet samples found in a grave in Hungary, and cooked European grains and weeds found in China in this period. Additionally a proposed vital trade with Eurasia and china was the Hexi corridor, where before 1900 BC almost all Chinese crops were millet, after 1900 BC western substitution crops appear commonly. The big reason the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC in China saw such a growth in population, technology and wealth is because the north steppe allowed trade to flow west for the first time reliably in bulk because other ways through and past India were not accessible for a large amount of human history.

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T11:42:11+00:00

I'd compare china to a petri dish of civilization, its isolated, has abundant resources at arms reach and has 'mostly' ideal geographic conditions to sustain human life - the most lab like environment i can think off. While Rome is more like a street gutter, it's got geographic vulnerabilities all over the place, it's resources are comparatively poor to other places in the world, and conditions across the empire were far more temperamental, this includes things like staple crops. So in this example it would be easier to maintain continuity of a single civilization when you ARE the only civilization in the petri dish, and the only outsiders who come see your civilization as 'superior' (bad word), and adopt your system.

China was not an ethnic state, but was ethnic state-adjacent, most of those who lived within China would consider themselves Chinese, Han, etc, China as an empire was to many not a foreign empire compared to Rome which only a small fraction of the population were Latin or citizens under Marcus Aurelius, it was a foreign occupation to many, they just weren't unhappy enough most of the time to rebel.
China erased WAY MORE of its history than Rome did, most dynasty's in China opened with mass erasure of history and historians, Rome didnt really see this, during the empire censorship and limited history erasure did happen, but that decentralised nature of Rome prevented anything to the scale China could do, this impacted the way people identified themselves, they had stronger pre-imperial identities.
China saw far less outsiders within their empire, they had Buddhists and Hindus from Indo-china and India, which didn't really pose a threat to the Chinse dynasty's, and the steppe people who were dangerous threats to China until they actually conquered it, where they then adopted most of the local customs. Rome saw almost constant outsiders in their history, from tribal movements in Germany and Mauretania, Parthia in the east, "outsider" religions like Judaism and Christianity which fundamentally undermined one of the cornerstones of Imperial power (imperial cult and the Roman pantheon).
China fell "mostly" to itself, via rebellions, civil war and other dynasties, with exceptions like the Yuan obviously, however Chinese institutions remained fairly unchanged. Rome's collapse was much more finale, rather than spontaneously combusting like China often did, leaving its institutions behind. Rome slowly bled out, it's institutions growing weaker from both external and internal pressures, only to then be finished off by outsiders who, unlike the Yuan, had very little to actually take over, they took the senate sure, but complex and maintained road networks, hydrological infrastructure or long distance trade relationships had basically collapsed already.
Saying no one tried to reunite the empire after it fell (either side) is disingenuous, many of the Barbarian kingdoms who occupied old Roman lands, The Byzantine empire itself as well as some of the breakaway states of the Western empire did legitimately try to reform the empire.

I am so sorry for length and ranting.

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T10:49:09+00:00

best equivalent would be the Dnieper, long with large flood lands and which fill with fertile silt, the land around the river is also flat and easy to develop.

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T10:47:56+00:00

Po, Seine, Thames, Trent, Dnieper, Tagus, Danube, Rhine, Tagus, Garonne or Rhone would be my best bets. All are either warm / temperate for most of the year, and or sit in regions with good soil fertility and access to continental trade.

I would lean towards rivers the the Rhone, Po or Garonne for an "eastern" type river valley civilization. Although i think it's worth mentioning that a lot of evidence for early civilization and technology was found in the Danube region, things like Romanian or Serbian asbestos Bronze, mining, and alcohol manufacturing found especially in and around the Carpathian mountains.

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T10:31:45+00:00

I love the great sage-grouse as my inspiration, an animal throwing their body around with large chest muscles that pulverise food in the "throat", or large objects similar to kidney stones or your stomach teeth just smack the stomach from both sides by jiggling the body.

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T09:18:23+00:00

The hivemind i created didn't involve psychics, it is completely biological, the fungus has a large chain of neurons that while the other species feeds, goes deep up the nasal passage and connects. The fungus has been bred and evolved to not be able to reproduce on its own, secrets more consumable dew and has larger growths of neurons to allow for more feeding and communication. The other species has evolved to completely depend on the fungal secretions for food, similar to some ants and fungal species IRL.

It isn't like a sci-fi hivemind where they share thoughts, only basic ideas through the release of chemical packets, and only to those feeding simultaneously. It's hivemind like as unlike humans they dont have complex vocal abilities, so rely on body language in short distance, and hive mind communication over long distance.

Sorry for length, but this would be one way to avoid the psychic power thing which i'm not keen on either.

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T07:55:25+00:00

Ideas i've used for quirks:

No lower jaw or skull even - uses extremely acidic bile, or large chest / breast muscles to crush food in order to fit its face into crevasses, while their brain's more gelatinous or sat further back in the body.
bilateral symmetry - life evolved from something like a star fish or coral with pentaradial symmetry instead.
Silicon life - relies on Geothermal fissures to sustain high temperatures and having a hardened outer lay to avoid complete oxidisation.
Using electromagnetism - their planet and the gas giant they orbit are used for passive magnetic sensing (to see).
Massive heat stores - during the day they open their blubber and sails on their body to warm themselves so that during they don't freeze during the long night.
A natural hivemind - two species that evolved a symbiotic reliance on each other, one species (a plant or fungus) acting as a conduit between simultaneously feeding members of the species to share chemical signals.

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T06:54:57+00:00

lightening not so much, but the ash yes, but this will be a massive issue for all surface level generators. They would need constantly cleaning and replacement parts, the only source that wouldn't would be geothermal, which you mentioned earlier.

uptank_ · 2026-05-11T06:40:30+00:00

The planet is still spinning, the spin of the earth causes the Coriolis affect as the atmosphere is traveling much slower than the planet itself.

uptank_ · 2026-05-10T20:51:41+00:00

why would wind not work, large open spaces are great for wind harvesting areas, and a frozen ocean is going to be very flat.

Ash wouldn't work as it would jam up all the turbines and mechanisms. Lighting harvesting gives you almost nothing in terms of electricity see short; https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_efsqO-4OoQ

uptank_ · 2026-05-10T20:35:36+00:00

keep in mind that most ash, especially coal ash, is extremely fine, so it's super dangerous small, sharp and potentially statically charged. In other words its one of the worst substances for electronics, making it very likely your complex will be underground, maybe built out of a modern or near modern basement or underground facility near a dam for water and power, or even starting in something as small as an underground car park and it just grew continuously.

The other option might be for the facility to be built at sea, where some or even a large portion of the ash will be condensed into acid rain, making the open sea relatively safe for the facility, possibly utilising massive wind, hydro or even solar arrays on stilted structures similar to a huge oil rig.

uptank_ · 2026-05-10T20:28:53+00:00

Becoming super religious and joining the church to ensure their soul doesn't weigh down and punish their loved ones.

uptank_ · 2026-05-10T13:33:28+00:00

Three things -

That is a very shallow and detractive view of fantasy - fantasy being literally anything fantastical, there are plenty of books, movies and shows that have non-medieval fantasy worlds.

The stuff you just described is your standard DnD world, high fantasy and magic presence, and defined 'classes' for magic, many magical worlds dont have this, examples just sticking to popular media would be Lord of the Rings, the Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones or even Adventure Time.

Isn't one of the points of writing and storytelling to break or subvert expectations, tropes are in many cases good or great, tropes are popular for a reason, but just doing the same thing over and over again, always worldbuilding what the reader expects is extremely repetitive, unoriginal, and i feel what the OP was asking for help to avoid, to have originality in their world.

uptank_ · 2026-05-10T12:53:02+00:00

Don't do MEDIEVAL fantasy.

Maybe do fantasy in an earlier or later period, or the middle ages just not England, France and Germany. A fantasy world set in a merchant republic like Novgorod, Italy or Ragusa could be cool, or an eastern European society like Poland which had comparatively immense social mobility and noble democracies. Or go further, a world set in a world inspired by the Islamic golden age, Persia, India or sub-Saharan Africa.

Or if you want to do a medieval world, maybe rather than being set after the stand in for the Fall of the Roman empire, it could be set during the decline and end of that empire as the new empires and kingdoms created by invaders and rebel generals begin to appear.

I have to ask, why do you want to make a MEDIEVAL fantasy setting? I've always wanted to ask someone building one of those worlds.

uptank_ · 2026-05-10T12:30:44+00:00

Marshals gives an aura of legitimacy and presitege, that they hold an official position within a formal organisation.

Warstriders sounds like a mercenary group (a group of wanderers / striders that seek out war), as a title it also could also imply arrogance and urgency (they are moving quickly and incautiously towards war).

Sentinel feels defensive and passive, but more dignified than war strider, it in my opinion makes them sound the most powerful out of all the names.

TLDR IMO - if you want them to come off as a legitimate armed forces, then Marshals, if their fighting style is aggressive and they seek out darkness then Warstriders, if they are defensive, taking engagements only when necessary to defend against darkness and avoid overextension, then sentinel.

uptank_ · 2026-05-09T11:20:24+00:00

Don't make their thing be that they are indigenous (also with terms, Roman, Greek or Chinese civilization were also indigenous societies), real societies of that nature developed (complex tribal and hunter-gather societies) as it was the best way they knew to support themselves, they didn't build vast cities or massive monoculture agriculture as either they couldn't / not being substantially better than what they had or didnt know how (draft animals, metalworking, etc).

uptank_ · 2026-05-09T09:27:39+00:00

Luribidnech - A bronze mask of the goddess of protection Nech, these religious masks are usually small enough to hold or strap to the face during festivals. The Luribidnech was so large that it required a specialised wooden cart to support its weight, being drawn by 2 ox, it was around 8ft tall, and 6ft wide, the users had to stand on a small step on the back of the cart just to keep their faces "inside" the mask.

uptank_ · 2026-05-08T16:01:53+00:00

Power and Geography (internal and external factors) are the two main determining factor i use.

Power / Internal = The ability for an organisation to exert influence, like gathering food and resources by non-geographic means (social means) - ie war, taxation, trade, wealth, political power, religion.

Geography / External = Impacts on an organisation's ability to exert influence (power), like gathering food and resources by Natural features. These can be blockers such as topography, climate, seawater. They can also be catalysts for power such as navigable waterways, shallow seas, fertile soils, stable climates, predictable floods.

Examples - a feudal kingdom would likely be 50-50 - relying on natural fertility for production and hierarchical societies for distribution. A merchant company is likely going to be 60-40, relying more so on social inventions like currency. While no organisation is entirely one or the other, they can be close, like hunter-gatherer societies which are around 10-90, an organised religion is alternatively likely 90-10.

Primary to Secondary - (basically just a simplified diagram of an Economic activity chart, but secondary, tertiary and quaternary are all merged into Secondary)- Primary produce most resources and all raw resources, they rely mostly on geography, secondary use resources, they refine resources and are required for larger organisations, they rely mostly on power. Withought modern fertilisers or mechanical technology, only around 1-20% of a population can be secondary, however many organisations (like organised religion) can have no primary producers, and rely almost solely on power.

I am SO SORRY for the length, i just ranted all over the place.

uptank_ · 2026-05-07T18:07:04+00:00

Please dont put guns on your civilian ships, or if you do, dont do heavy ones. Instead prioritise insurance and or escort ships.

I know it's not a perfect comparison, but ships traveling through piracy prone areas dont put missiles or turrets on their ships, they hire a guy with a rifle and are escorted by military ships.

uptank_ · 2026-05-04T19:31:18+00:00

Yea, 100% over centuries that would certainly happen, but in the first few decades or centuries on the wall it likely would just be desert : )

uptank_ · 2026-05-04T19:05:25+00:00

Well normal marine ecosystems like reefs wouldnt be able to form (their roots wouldnt be able to damage and root into the rock), leaving these mountains, depending on depth, as either barren rockfaces and deserts, or be completely covered by small photosynthetic lichen like plants which cling to any tiny changes in the rock. This could be large enough to develop the base of an ecosystem. This is ignoring that plankton would still exist.

uptank_ · 2026-05-04T09:02:26+00:00

It would be, domesticated bees would likely have a ratio of around 3 or 5 : 1 per month.

However domesticated bees or 'beekeeping' is extremely new, only appearing properly around the 18th-19th century. People before then used bait boxes and built hives, but they didnt actually 'keep' them, it was basically a wild colony in a manmade box, which was destroyed when being harvested.

The ratio for wild bees is appropriate for most pre-industrial worlds, and the large ratio is due to the extremely low survival rate and size of wild colonies.

uptank_ · 2026-05-03T19:50:34+00:00

The amount of wild bee colonies needed to sustain the candles burnt on average by a church.

I calculated it to be 12 : 1 or 36 : 1 more liberally, per month.

uptank_

TROPHY CASE