07-17-2015, 09:30 PM
(05-23-2015, 01:27 PM)Ryuujin Wrote: I'll be using this thread to stick lore and art stuff that isn't present in the official wiki. It's also a place people can ask for clarification on lore elements too or raise points or discuss the existing lore.
Recent Art:
Negative space/experimental doodlage
The secret of tight-fitting cloaks
FF14/Avali crossover
100% cuter (or juvenile) avali proportions
Flying raptors
BL2/Avali crossover
Lore:
While I havn't gone so far as to actually create an entire language, there are some elements we can ascribe to the Avali language system, and some elements of interest.
The Avali language itself used symbols representing discreet phonetics; in this regard it is closer to IPA or Hiragana than it is English. While in principle new latin character represent phonetics, the actual pronunciation of a given combination of letters changes wildly, often without any good reason and words must be learned by rote. By contrast hiragana, IPA and Avali are explicit. A given character has a distinct sound and it's always pronounced that way with few exceptions.
Being sound orientated, the Avali have trouble reading written character. And so their "traditional" form of recorded language takes the form of strings of chimes which correspond to the phonetics of a word, and can be struck to make them resonate. By necessity most Avali words unsurprisingly are short and do not have huge numbers of syllables to make them easier to record. Avali can read back these "chime" recordings quite quickly and efficiently thanks to their ability to break down sounds into their individual sources.
The Avali also possess a written form of the language which shares some visual similarities to Tamriel Draconic, since it was traditionally written the same way, by etching into an ice tablet with a claw, with each character representing the same phonetics as the chimes. Due to their poor eyesight they find it difficult to read and write in the written form quickly, but it nonetheless provided a useful way of recording large volumes of information that was less fragile and mroe practical in some circumstances than the chime recording method.
Modern, digital data recording uses a combination of both models. With labels typically being written in high visibility characters, while OCR-type systems can convert written text into chime sequences, or text-to-speech conversion. Allowing data to be both recorded and replayed quickly and efficiently.The concept of an advanced, space-faring applying a nomadic, hunter-gatherer strategy seems difficult to resolve. Many people seem to envision them as basically tribals with glowing gadgets which bothers me.
What this actually means in practical terms is Avali tribal units with their specialised functions can roam from planet to planet tapping natural resources with maximum efficiency. When extracting resources on a permanent colony the easy to reach resources rapidly run out and more aggressive extraction processes are needed. While natural wealth can become quickly depleted and more structured farming methods become nessecary. Most of these issues can be avoided by a smaller, highly mobile nomadic group who can move on to greener pastures once they have taken the lowest hanging fruit.
A tribe may have a small fleet of civilian ships equipped with appropriate sensor and drone arrays to study worlds for optimum location.
For example a tribe that specialises in resource extraction maybe sweep worlds with drone swarms to identify terrain features and composition, or asteroid concentrations to locate large, easily extracted quantities of the resource they need. Where they will set up shop and begin the process of extraction, deploying temporary structures if appropriate and move on once extraction becomes less economical.
Hunter tribes use their drones to monitor the local wildlife populations and look for the growth/death cycles; in ecology populations go through periods of growth and then death - herbivores will breed and breed until there is no longer the food to sustain them, causing the population to die back. As herbivore populations grow, predator populations grow with them and they too will die back as their prey dies off.
The Avali in this monitor the cycles of the animals in their biome - predator, herbivore, pretty much everything edible. Once the population reaches the tipping point that mass die-off is inevitable, a hunt will be called with strict quotas in place, and the hunters will "cream off" the surplus population, converting the population surplus into food (and sport). Without the hunter's intervention the animals would've died anyway, and since the hunters are monitorring a very wide range of different species there is invariably at least one species that is available to hunt at any given time ensuring a constant supply of produce without the need for specialised farmland, and being entirely "green" in regards to ecological stability.
There are other renewable resources that can be tapped, in useful quantities while travelling, that would otherwise be useless if you were to try tapping them in-situ, for example anti matter trapped in the Van Allen belts of planets could be collected for fuel. These anti matter stocks replenish over decades, and exist in too small quantities to be useful to permanent colonists, but a nomad fleet could tap the anti matter from every system they pass through, yielding more useful quantities.Avali all have crest feathers on their head which can grow to considerable length (easily long enough to reach from head to base of their tail) crests can be far more varied in style and variety than human hair, this is thanks to both the relative rigidity of feathers, but also thanks to the multiple stages of growth which feathers exhibit. Understanding how different styles can be achieved means understanding how a feather develops. Some Avali may opt to keep their crest short or remove it entirely but, they're rather the minority, especialy among males who naturally have more striking plumage.
All feathers start out as "pin" feathers, aka blood feathers. These start out as small nubs that quickly grow out into long 'spines' almost like a hedgehor or porcupine; these spines have a good blood supply, and if the feather is snapped it'll bleed profusely (While inconvenient and messy this isn't life threatening. The offending pin can be pulled out at the root and it will cease bleeding shortly thereafter).
As the pin continues to develop the microscopic barbules that will later become the bulk of the feather begins to grow, however during this stage it is still tightly coiled around the pin, and held in place by a fine membrane. Eventually this membrane breaks down, allowing the barbs of the feather to unfurl into a full, classical feather shape; around this time the blood supply to the feather is cut off, and the feather becomes a "dead" structure not unlike human outer skin layer and hair.
The Avali have a number of tricks to exploit this growth process. Laquers can be applied to part or all of a pin feather, to prevent the barbules unfurling. Feathers treated in this way become permanent "spikes" (in appearance only, they're quite soft), only laquering part of the pin, for example leaving the tips to unfurl, creates spikes with fluffy tips.
Fully grown feathers can be cut with scissors to square off or shape the ends of "dry" feathers if desired, adjusting the total length of the feather, or squaring off the crest. Various anti-coagulant agents can be applied to pin feathers to prevent the blood flow being cut off sooner, enabling the pin to grow even longer and the resulting feather fuller than it might naturally do so.
Heat applied to the shaft of a feather cause it to contract and bend permanently, allowing feathers to be "permed" into shape, while bindings (frequently decorative) are often wrapped around the base of feathers to lift or direct them, or sometimes to affix additional feathers to their crest. It goes without saying that feathers can't be braided, but a sort've ponytail can be achieved by binding multiple feathers together at a mid-point so they fan out after the binding.
While it's technically possibly to modify wing feathers in the same way, this is rarely performed as it'd impede the individuals ability to fly.
Feathers are not permanent structures, and typically fall out after a few months and new feathers take a few weeks to mature. So even plucked clean, an Avali will eventually regain their plumage; though this will look quite hilarious due to them being covered in spikey pin feathers; and quite an unpleasantly itchy experience.Over the months I've noticed a few trends, quirks or misudnerstandings in the art, storytelling and stuff - which while not a big deal (People can RP or draw whatever they damn well please :p), might benefit from some clarification due to misunderstandings, crap source art on my part, or lack of solid explanation.
Feathery arms
This is partially my fault due to a lack of research/clear vision and poor art skills early on in the Avali creation process. The avali don't have "arms with feathers on", rather they have actual, functional wings with opposable digits at the "hand" joint. The feathers on the back of the arm go all the way up the length of the arm, and merge with the feathers at the shoulder blade, while the feathers at the hand can be fully extended, flexed, or even folded up.
Tails
Starbound uses square sprites, and given the limited space I had to raise the tail angle to get it to fit into the limited space. The effect is quite nice and I do quite like how they look raising the tail at a high counterbalance angle, as it enables them to stand more upright. That said, they can LOWER their tail, it's not stuck up there. The tail both a counterbalance to keep them from wobbling over, and also an emotive telltale.
There is also a strong degree of natural variation between tails, some only have a tiny plume, others the plume is large and starts low on the tail. Some plumes are broad, others quite narrow. Some may even be styled in various ways.
Nudity
While it's true the Avali have no meaningful nudity taboo (especially between pack siblings), that doesn't mean they make a habit of walking about naked - if only for practical reasons, walking about naked if a good way to get your feathers messed up, damp if it rains, and you have nowhere to store stuff. Not to mention the age old self concioussness. They might not be embarrased by nudity, but not all Avali like their self image, and aim to augment it with decorative articles of clothing.Tribes could be best thought as mobile industrial units. Collections of specialist workers and the relevant support staff from specialists, techs and drone operators, down to simple cooks, entertainers and cleaners. (These roles are typically occupied by packs, with several members all having overlapping and related fields of experience. So a single pack might over-see the public cooking, entertaining and social needs for an entire tribe).
Each tribe usually has a specialization in various industries - mining, agriculture, manufacturing etc. and so tends to attract new packs with relevant specialties into the fold. Tribes are then assigned orders, to obtain quotas of specific materials by a certain date and advised where and how they might best fulfill that order, and allocated the resources they need to achieve that.
Tribes therefore typically have large, specialized ships and orbital platforms that can help carry out their work in-situ, or modular constructions that can be rapidly deployed at the new site.
Colonies typically form when two or more tribes find themselves working in the same region for extended periods, and it becomes practical to establish shared infrastructure. Some of these colonies may be temporary affairs, but others may be established long enough that it becomes convenient to station other tribes there too for extended periods; for example, a mining/refining group has a manufacturing group set up shop in the same system so resources can be moved easily to the manufactury. In turn an agricultural tribe sets up to produce the food needed by the other two tribes on their doorstep to minimise logistics.
This is especially true for minor tribes who lack large space-faring ships and are reliant on planetside modular facilities. Where having physical proximity to counterparts reduces the reliance on interstellar logistics slots.
Codex:
To me and my fellow astrobiologists. The most striking feature of all known intelligent alien races we have encountered, is how similar their biology is.
All are hydroxic-acid based, adapted for a nitrogen/oxygen atmospheres and can even digest the same foods. They are tolerant to a similar range of temperatures, and cursory analysis even suggests a shared DNA template.
This shared DNA occurs at a top-down level, with the sapient species sharing more in common with each other, than their lowest tiers of native fauna. Many of us feel this provides robust evidence of delibrate modification of native life by an unseen 'progenitor' race.
Analysis of samples left over from the conflict with the malefactors on Avalon hundreds of years ago shows DNA consistant with this humanoid template, in addition to matching the description of Humans perfectly.
However, some controversy remains, as their shared DNA template makes it nearly impossible to verify that the attackers were in fact humans, or simply a very similar humanoid from the same template.<This single-purpose holographic pamphlet appears to have been surreptiously slipped between a couple of data chits>
Ask yourself, what is a predator, and why are the most developed creatures invariably predators too?
A predator, my fellow hunters, understands that the most effective way to obtain the resources to thrive is to take it from the slow witted herbivores, consuming the flesh, full of nutrients that the herbivore has slaved away to create.
Aliens once came to our world, tried to make us their chattel, providing resources for them to consume at our expense. We tore their technology from their cold, dead hands and used it to become their greater in a fashion analogous to predation.
So why is it that now, faced by the galactic community, we have chosen to leash ourselves, to tow the line labouring away for the benefit of all, like a mindless herbivore?
Is it not our destiny to become the apex life form of the galaxy; the other races merely our prey, there to serve as sustenance, providing both technologically and materially to our advancement?
Embrace what it is that has made our species great, our position at the apex of all things.<This single-purpose holographic pamphlet appears to have been surreptiously slipped between a couple of data chits>
The development of intelligence and society requires plentiful resources. Without plenty society has little time to spare for the arts or philosophy. This simple equation is why it was almost inevitable that a predatory species would be the one to reach sapience.
However, we have grown beyond these simple needs, our technology can provide all the resources we need to thrive, without the need to kill and consume living animals.
Why then, do we persist in doing so?
Some cite tradition, others that is it the natural order of things. But is it not the nature of life to move forward, if life was meant to do things the same way, forever life would never have moved beyond amoeba.
While if we held true to tradition, we would still be walking the deserts, trading baubles and huddled in furs on the edge of the tundras.
Embrace what it is that has made our species great, our ability to change and improve ourselves.Eiki thrust out her wings, feeling the air take form beneath them, the spiralled filaments of snow grasses disintegrating beneath her footfalls. Closing her eyes it almost felt like she she were flying, walking on clouds.
"If you keep this up you're going to need a nap before we get there.", Eiki flared out her wings a little, braking her sprint until she was level with her packmate. "What's the point in being out here if you arn't going to experience it Rhani. Try it, it's what it's like to feel alive!".
"How can running through a field feel alive, compared to fighting a sky behemoth in a lightning storm?", she drops behind Rhaani and playfully raises his arms. "Easy, you've never done that outside of a Nexus sim, but you can do this right here and now". She pushes him forward with her.
In their wake a figure watches the display as the pair pull away, leaving them standing in the powder, hands on hips in disapproval.
...
"Really now, in the snow?". An ear pops up from the pile of feathers and cloth, scanning around for the source of the voice. "You could at least found the time to put down a blanket", Eiki clambers over the prone form of Rhani and blinks at the cloaked figure.
"I was tired~" she protests weakly, "And who's fault is that?", she looks around for a moment. "Rhani's?", an ear and a clawed finger pop up in protest, "Not guilty". Eiki swats the traitorous ear back down and gives her best nasal whine. "Awww, why have you always got to be such a pick in the ice Khimara".
Her protests are answered with a rollmat on the nose. "Just get some proper rest, I'll keep watch... as usual.", a muffled "Fmanks khimurh" emerges from the rollmat, now worn by Eiki like a hat.
Khimara shakes her head at the scene, pulling her cloak tight over her amused grin. "Dummy..."The Avalon Medical Safety Advisory would like to remind visitors that while the use of medical nanotechnology is not recommended, exposure to nanites will not result in spontaneous "Avalification" as recently reported in a number of off-world tabloid magazines.
Investigation of reported incidents found the 'converted' individuals to be nothing more than juvenile pranksters seeking to confuse or alarm visitors.
Medical nanite manufacturers would like to remind visiting aliens that improper use of nanotechnology will lead to death or serious injury. Aliens visiting Avali facilities for the purpose of seeking 'transformative' treatment are advised to seek professional psychological help immediatly.By Khala, of the tribe brewmasters.
As far back as recorded history goes, our ancestors as well as contemporaries like myself, have sought new and interesting ways to get inebriated, from simple and pleasant fermented spiced piru, to psychoactive agents that are today outlawed due to their destructive effect on the brain.
It's been known to scholars for a long time however that it doesn't end there. Other, non-avaloid species on our homeworld also engage in such behaviour, eating rotten, fermenting fruiting bodies, or chewing psychoactive plants.
What has come as a surprise however is that as we have explored new worlds and encountered new life, invariably, without fail those forms of life have analogous behaviours. For example the humans become inebriated after ingesting ethanol amongst many other compounds.
And, like humans, many other lifeforms on their homeworld also engaged in consumption of rotten plant-matter seeking the same compounds. As we explore deeper we even find completely untouched and alien biologies where, lo and behold, the local wildlife is inebriated on the local fauna!
It would almost appear that the biological imperative of all life, is not in fact reproduction as usually surmised; but simply to the drive to get wasted.
Non-canon or RP notes:
This system is not intended for the Avali setting but rather is an idea for a magic-like system, that is fundamentally compatible with harder sci-fi settings, by a) violating as few laws of physics as possible, and b) relying on actual physical properties, rather than amorphous "magical elements"
The single "violation of physics" that this commit to make it work, is to have a way of "suspending" entropy. In physics when energy is used, it is always converted down into a form that is less accessible than before, and this process happens immediatly. Furthermore, conservation of energy says you cannot destroy or create energy, only change it's form.
In this model, we're going to have a "space magic device" that can buffer energy transfers for a finite duration and allows the user to decide where and when that energy is released.
THis means that our space-wizard could create a ball of fire and hurl it at someone, but now his "energy buffer" has a net negative thermal gradient (it's cold). he now has to make up that energy deficit before the buffer collapses, and the way to do that, is to draw thermal energy out of the environment, into the buffer. He could do this harmlessly by siphoning a couple degrees out of the entire room. But if he's smart, he'll now turn this into an ice spell and draw the thermal energy out of say, his enemy, snap freezing them, or perhaps the floor to create a pool of ice. The same works inr eserve, casting ice magic, just as long as he balances the books by casting a fire spell soon after.
The same principle could be applied to electrical charges, moving ionisation and charges from one palce to another to cause lightning to arc off the target (lightning magic).
You might even consider transferring kinetic energy from one target to another; which can get particularly fun; for example jumping off a cliff, and converting the energy of your fall into a shockwave. Or grabbing the kinetic energy from an incoming bullet, and transferring it into your enemy so the bullet stops, and he gets knocked off his feet. You might even consider taking your gravitational potential and applying it back to yourself in the opposite direction (levitation).
Now I mentioned buffer collapse; to keep things challenging, and to stop people doing cheesy stuff like taking the thermal potential of a star and dumping it into someone's face, to have the buffer degrade faster, the bigger the energy gradient in it. And if you don't balance the books before that collapses, the buffer breaks and the books are balanced out of YOU (snap freezing the user, or catapulting him into low orbit, or exploding an impressive shower of lightning bolts)
The upshot of this casting system is the ONLY violation of physics is the ability to buffer energy types, and move the energy from one object to another. Which means that it interacts normally with hard science (an extremely heavy object won't get moved with a little kinetic energy, armour blocks fireballs just like it would actual flames etc.).
A word of caution, this does not allow you to convert energy types; ie. kinetic energy can't be turned into a fireball. cold can't be turned into lightning etc.
Some examples of spells include:
- Fireballs/Ice blasts
- Heating or cooling objects
- Explosions
- Snap-freezing objects to jam them.
- Lightning magic
- Overloading/charging electrical devices
- EMP
- Kinetic shielding
- Fall protection
- Simulated zero-G
- Accelerated movement
- Boost projectile/melee weapon impact strength.When creating racial rulesets in RP settings for Avali the biggest thing to emphasise is their teamwork and pack-centric nature and their racial rules should reflect this. They're not exceptionally strong, fast, intelligent, wise, charismatic etc. their strength is their ability to co-operate with their pack to be greater than the sum of the parts. Likewise they should have penalties to reflect that too.
For example, in a D20 system, I might suggest something along these lines as a core racial ability:
Avali base stats:
8 STR 10 DEX 10 CON 8 INT 8 WIS 8 CHA
Quote:Synchronicity:For a typical pack (5 members), having all of them present, in the flesh grants each of them 12 base INT, WIS, CHA as the pack members engage in information co-processing. But a lone Avali by themself has only 8 INT, WIS, CHA, unless they are in contact with their pack remotely in which case it creeps up to 10 INT, WIS, CHA (Same as a human).
For each pack member in line of sight (including video conferencing), character gains +1 INT, WIS, CHA
For each pack member in hearing range (including audio-only comms), character gains +0.5 INT, WIS, CHA rounded down.
It's also important to remember Avali see in a fundamentally different fashion to humans; they are completely hearring-centric. D20 actually has a rule for this kind've sense type called Blindsight but similar rules could be implemented in other RP models. The key feature is that that optical camoflage like cloaking or hiding behind cover is of limited use, and conditions like blindness do not impede their ability to land hits. But conversely abilities like deafness render them helpless
Before i start my character comparison to the lore just to see if i understand fully... i wanna say.... HOW THE HELL DID I MISS THIS POSTED!!! i really feel horrible i was not able to read this because holy crap its interesting to me.... now...onto what i see and i hope i am understanding at the moment... this is just the original post for now... so much lore to read!~
Oh my god... that actually makes it seem so much easier to learn or create of a language over what i expected. sure human ears would have a harder time picking up on it but it would not be impossible! part of me wants to come up with a chime codex for something like this but... i feel you would be much better at it simply because of the fact that well i am not exactly you XD still it sounds awesome! it must be beautiful to be able to listen to a pack of avali talking... so interesting to imagine!
I kinda didn't think of them as tribal in the sense... i thought of them as more of a pack mentality.. based on what i read before so i didn't really see a primitive stance to them with glowy things... i more saw a race that was closely nit with each other but also advanced and know their tech pretty well.
as for the gathering it makes alot of sense when thought about it. go for the easy resources and move on. wait till food is overpopulated and keep them stable... in a way they are being very ecological by doing so.. very smart way of maintaining resources especially for being nomadic! i love that idea alot!
as for the gathering it makes alot of sense when thought about it. go for the easy resources and move on. wait till food is overpopulated and keep them stable... in a way they are being very ecological by doing so.. very smart way of maintaining resources especially for being nomadic! i love that idea alot!
again beautiful thoughts... its bugged me alot that the avali form i came up with for my character does not have a crest plumage... i really wanted to come up with something that fits lore (as i find that if i RP as a character i should be as close to lore as physically possible) but... its kinda hard in my opinion when the character has to deal with both male and female patterns... i know its not lore friendly... but its the fact that the plumage is something i find so amazing and want to have a nice look to it... i think i most likely go for a more female design of crest though i am not exactly sure on where to start with it.. as there is so many ideas i could go with... trying to find the right style is the hardest part for me.
Wow... this is actually bothering me more than i thought it would..
Wow... this is actually bothering me more than i thought it would..
arm/wings:I ....can't draw arms anyway... though i do know you wanted wings originally... just had a feeling for it... most of my drawing i usually look at your references first...though... the hand bit always confuses me so much XD
Tails: i always thought of them as semi-prehensile moving based on their emotions and how they feel at the time... i am kinda happy i was right about it ^W^
Nudity: urmmm... well i am kinda at fault here... as i don't really have much idea with what my character would wear... a dislike of feathers getting caught on things does not help. mainly why i stick with the survival harness... though that kinda helps that the avali are not afraid of overexposure. more afraid of lack of style.
Tails: i always thought of them as semi-prehensile moving based on their emotions and how they feel at the time... i am kinda happy i was right about it ^W^
Nudity: urmmm... well i am kinda at fault here... as i don't really have much idea with what my character would wear... a dislike of feathers getting caught on things does not help. mainly why i stick with the survival harness... though that kinda helps that the avali are not afraid of overexposure. more afraid of lack of style.
so... in a way a tribe is just a bunch of like minded avali packs that work together to improve effeciency....that is not too hard to understand... kinda follow that happily!~
LORE!!! I LOVE LORE!!! so interesting thank you ryuu!!!
1st codex - ohh the idea that many races share similarities so close makes for interesting conundrum... humans could have been the beginning....or their sister race could be.... conspiracies!
2nd codex - XD sounds like a religion like pamphlet trying to get a change in the culture!
3rd Codex - Oh god these two codex make me see the mess the culture could fall into... easily producing a civil war if the community splits... i love these codexs!
4th Codex - XD that is so cute! and sounds like a pack thing that would happen!
5th Codex - Pffff... that ... that there just made my day.... so much!
6th Codex - XD everyone just wants to be drunk once in a while but that begs the question that makes me kinda courious... i thought avali and water based lifeforms could not share food types....am i wrong?
1st - mmm tasty scientific magic spells!~
2nd - Wow..... that... works well actually..... Gonzoooooooo!~
I HAVE FINALLY UPDATED THIS SIG!!!
Coro ish now learning to actually drawr alot Click the Corovali to get to her FA page!~
~~SEER OF BLOOD~~