With such a diverse variety of faces, it makes me wonder what their language is like to be (at least vaguely) speakable by different kinds of mouths.
Tyler Hall
I imagine there's a lot of poor enunciation in the speech of those with unusual mouth types.
Has there been a detail redraw of this guy yet?
Eli Perez
Narrowed it down to my choices.
Jonathan Flores
Contain different types of ammunition.
Jaxson Cox
...
Wyatt Taylor
...
Colton Rogers
...
Jacob White
Don't they just speak english?
Landon Miller
There is the common tongue, which is kind of simplistic and guttural in nature, and is spoken by most of the freak population. Of course, the tongue has a wide range of variation, and dialects, found in different parts of the city.
Then there are the tongues of the noble houses, that are more refined and elegant in nature (in general at least).
Both the noble tongue and the common tongue originate from the language of the People, but evolved into distinct tongues over time. The Noble tongue resembles the original language more than the common tongue does, and some freaks are completely incapable of speaking the noble tongue, due to mutation rendering their vocal parts incapable of producing certain sounds.
Some of the noble houses have their own specifically engineered variations of the noble tongue, that require specific modifications to their vocal cords in order to speak it, further isolating their language from the rest of the city's denizens..
Guilds often use both noble tongue and common tongue, and even mix them together into "guild speech" which has it's own idiosyncrasies. Like the Nobles, many guilds also have their own specific code tongues they use to communicate in secret.
Finally, there is the Ancient Speech, or the Tongue of the Primordials, which is the tongue of "magic" in the city. Words of this tongue have power to affect the city and even it's denizens, for this is the tongue the city's creators used and the city still responds to those ancient words of command. Most of this language is long forgotten, and what little knowledge of it remains, is fiercely guarded by the Nobles, for the power of this tongue is one of their tools of command. One of the reasons the nobles covet ancient relics, is because some of the oldest ones contain this language, and a chance to find new words of it, is one no noble is willing to pass away.
Aaron Flores
Also, speaking of "magic", the other major form of it besides the usage of the "Ancient Tongue" is the art of Flesh Warping.
This is a very dangerous art, where one ingests completely purified biogel, and trough their own will, warp their own flesh at rapid pace. Doing this requires high levels of willpower and concentration, for without these, the flesh changing effects of the pure biogel will cause catastrophic mutations and corruption of flesh in the user.
The few who have mastered this type of "magic" are quite powerful individuals indeed. The art of flesh warping allows them to change their bodies at will, as long as they have pure biogel to fuel the process.
Both of these arts of "magic" are mostly practiced by Nobles and their servants, for they jealously guard these secret arts, but over the ages, both have leaked into the freak population to some degree.
Lesser words of ancient power tend to circulate in the freak society in the form of prayers and other pleas, that can potentially hide one from an aggressive drone, or open otherwise sealed doorways. The art of flesh warping is not as common in the freak society, due to it requiring pure biogel (which is hard to come by for non nobles) to work, but there are certain circles that have the resources to support this practice.
Evan Rodriguez
What about space travel and astronomy?
Mathematics? The fine arts? I imagine nobles being vain would have sculptures of flesh and artisans in that work.
Luis Phillips
>What about space travel and astronomy? There is no space travel. Such technologies are lost to the ages. Astronomy does however, exist, and is heavily practiced by the House of Sloth. Some believe that they can chart the future trough the movement of stars.
>Mathematics? Yes, but not among the masses. Mathematics is somewhat esoteric skill mostly known within the circles of Guilds and Noble houses. Many guilds employ freaks who have dedicated their bodies to be living calculators, sorta like the mentats of Dune.
>The fine arts? Yes, among the nobles and the more wealthy guilds. The tastes of art vary widely, some enjoy sculptures of living flesh and bone, others finely crafted organic environment "rooms", others stuff like genetically engineered "paintings" made from sheets of skin with specific pigment patterns and so on.
Sebastian Martin
Does normal non-organic technology exist in this universe?
Chase Powell
Yes, it does, though it is somewhat rare, especially more advanced stuff like electronics or really, anything that involves metal.
You've said that biogel is often used as currency but is there any actual money in this setting? If so who mints it? Or does everyone mint their own coins?
Jose Turner
Raw biogel is often used for bargaining because it is universally useful.
Lienis has economic supremacy in the city, and they use "coinage" made out of chitinous rings called "Shards" that they back with their biogel reserves. Shards are the most common currency across the city, but some of the other Noble houses have their own currencies. Baryx for example, uses "cards" made out of polished bone as their currency.
Kevin Reyes
All this talk of nobles and the wealthy, what do the general masses even do? Are they even sapient?
Bentley Lee
Yes, they are sapient.
>what do the general masses even do? Work for the guilds and the noble houses, form gangs to do their own thing, have their own independent lives and trying to survive, having families, and so on.
Depending on the region, their lot in life ranges from being slaves or peasants to living how they see fit and can afford. The noble house they live under, has quite heavy effect on their prospects.
Carson Collins
Just wanted to drop in and say that this setting is fucking awesome so far, keep up the good work
Ryder Ross
Thanks. I gotta get around reworking the doc, organizing it better and adding in the new lore. I also need to get back to drawing stuff for the setting.
Juan Peterson
Does anyone live outside the city? Have anyone from outside the city come to live in the city?
Lucas Robinson
To my understanding there's not really anything outside the city. On one side is a (toxic?) red sea, and on the other is a vast wasteland. Neither one seems like it'd support any sort of life very well, let alone settlers.
Nathan Sullivan
>Does anyone live outside the city? Outside of scavengers searching the wastes for artifacts, the odd hardy critter that has adapted to survive there, and the Rai-Khil raiders that hunt both the hardy critters living in the wastes, as well as the artifacts, nope, the wastes outside of the city are pretty much just a vast, barren wasteland.
>Have anyone from outside the city come to live in the city? Nope. As far as anyone knows, all life that lingers outside of the city, originates from the city and has simply, for reason or another, ventured to the wastes beyond the city's borders.
Jackson Rivera
Yeah but you could have caravans coming in by land and trade ships coming in by sea.
Blake Miller
Hey, are you by any chance the dude who made the Lufae for primordial evo quest? Because they reminded me of gigerverse, and were equally rad biopunk
William Rodriguez
Yep, I am. The one and the same, insufferable bastard.
Tyler Clark
You do good work, user. The Lufae were probably my favorite thing to come out of PrimEvo. You really should get some sort of deviantart or blog or some place to consolidate your stuff, because it's way too cool to be buried in the archives
Christian Torres
I tried yesterday, but Deviantart was being a bitch and didn't let me upload anything.
Ian Gomez
Well shit. If you do manage to get it/something else working, I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd be interested.
Dylan Baker
I'm gonna try making a gallery again later this week probably.
Nolan Gonzalez
Trade ships actually do travel in the the ships actually do travel both within the numerous waterways of the city as well as in the shallow sea between the City's coast and the sentinel islands (the chain of islands to the east of the city like this crappy doodle tries to portray).
Jack Ross
Does the city have a canon layout yet?
Juan Sanders
I've been thinking of it having some sort of collapsed, rift region within it.
Robert Rogers
I've read my way through the google doc and I have a few questions.
Is there any room for Guyver-esque Bioadaptations in the setting?
Custom grown creatures for use as biological lasers would be an awesome thing to see, the same with biological Long Range Missile systems. The same could also be said for bio based plasma cannon systems (hyper heated acid gasses and organs that function by generating and launching magnetic containment fields) and more outlandish weapons of biological war.
Kayden Stewart
Well there wasn't much competition for cool stuff in Primordial besides the Lem'uy, the Vyrii and the SquidMen
Hungarian Not!Orks and God Worms just aren't as cool the insane things that came out of the psychedelic caves
Robert Anderson
I am not familiar with Guyver, so I am not quite sure.
Some of the bioweapons in the setting are crazy, including biological lasers, microwave emitters, even plasma and homing "missiles" but such weaponry would pretty much be exclusively in the hands of the Noble houses.
Hunter Russell
Oh, also, the doc is outdated. I'm going to have to update it with the new lore and revise it in general.
Julian Flores
I'm more talking about if anyone's mapped out everything in the city yet
Samuel Carter
Oh, I missread that as canyon. No, I haven't fully mapped out the city, both because it would be a giant hurdle and I am lazy, and secondly (and more importantly) because I am not still quite set on certain background elements (such as the location, shapes and sizes of the domains of the various noble houses etc) that are quite significant to the overall shape and mapping of the city.
Joshua Hughes
bump
Aaron Butler
I swear I saw all this pop up on /co/ like six months ago.
Nathan Robinson
I've posted my stuff, including art posted to this thread on /co/'s work on your art and oc donut steel threads a couple of times.
Evan Morris
That was it! The donut steel threads.
Jack Morales
doing some sketches for the thread
Juan Scott
...
Michael Gonzalez
Looks good
Leo Lee
Does the house symbol actually mean anything or does it just look cool?
Dominic Ortiz
More monster concepts just because
Camden Howard
I dunno. I just like the look of it. Also not op, I just like biopunk and this caught my eye
Wyatt Carter
Side note, these 3 are my concepts not op, but feel free to use. I've got ecology and bg stuff for them if anyone cares
Levi Butler
Feel free to share if you wish
Wyatt Jenkins
Still wondering, what's the setting being built for?
Jonathan Bailey
It's being revived not built.
Jeremiah Hall
-Vort- A native planet inhabitant the Vort are a race of semi intelligent slug creatures. The name Vort means "Slithering" and the race has sub species that vary. These sub species have differing abilities depending on the environment or genetic engineering involved.
Vort-Ma The original strain of the species. The Vort-Ma are toxic slugs that have properties of mushrooms. The top of the Vort resembles a mushroom with fether-like hairs that contain neurotoxins much like the Australian Pain Tree. The boils on the stomach can contract to squirt a less painful version of the toxin to detour predators.
Grayson Reyes
Vort-kir The vort-kir is a sub species that takes on more slug-like properties. It has grown 4 claw appendages and rather than neurotoxins it secretes a gas hallucinogen. The gas causes hallucinations to the victim as well as numbs any pain. The Vort-kir uses this time to rend and tear the victim apart although it is a slow process. Those industrious enough have manages to capture and harvest the hallucinogens for drugs. To do this parasitic creatures that latch on to and draw out the gasses for later harvest.
Levi Wilson
-Jika- The gasses from the Vort-kir have nutritional value to some creatures that have made a symbiotic bond. The Jika for example feed solely on these gasses and defend Vort at all cost. The Jika are flying bug creatures that use Vort-kir gas for food as well as energy. They have evolved to be able to fire bio beams rather than stingers. They are generally passive creatures and "befriend" those who feed it, but can become furiously aggressive when defending its food source.
Jeremiah Cook
-Ecology- While they can be loners the Vort prefer to live in clusters and nest together in generally caves or enclosed spaces. They will pack themselves tightly on the walls or floor to ambush unwary travelers.
The vort-ma for example will form a floor so anything will brush the fether-like appendages. Whereas vort-kir will hide on the walls and fill the cave with gas.
An odd note though. When in captive the Vort tend to be docile. When kept well fed and "proper" conditions are met they are almost friendly.... almost.
Thats all I got on the Vort for now. Any thoughts mates?
Zachary Price
Any particular sketch requests? I'm feelin board and buzzed
Isaiah Adams
Can you sketch a skyline view of the city?
Nicholas Green
A biopunk factory with a middle-aged freak manager looking at whatever constitutes an assembly line for acid guns
Austin Perry
That would be only slightly impossible
Ayden Harris
doing a shore pic
Kevin Collins
The shore
Dylan Murphy
That looks pretty cool.
Michael Fisher
Sooo, I'm really intrigued and my biopunk itch is going nuts. Op, if you want a hand mate I'd be willing to help in the labor of love for some freaky nightmare fuel collab
Nathan Williams
I'm not the one who runs the doc. That would be the guy who drew the OP image. You'd have to get into contact with him first. Unfortunately he's probably asleep right now.
Robert Clark
>middle-aged freak Would Freaks even have ages as we understand them? I mean, they can keep going indefinitely as long as they get replacement parts and nothing kills them?
Jaxon Allen
Freaks seem to be biologically immortal from what I've heard.
Owen Perry
Bump
Owen Diaz
Both the nobles and the freaks do age, but there are technologies within the city that help to keep you going for a very long time.
Gabriel Wright
Entire bottom line ´cept far left are the best.
Adam Ross
Bumb
Nicholas Gonzalez
Bio-bump
Gavin Powell
...
Gavin Stewart
Go watch Guyver. It's fantastic.
The creator of Guyver basically wanted an adult variation on KamenRider (a bug-themed Japanese superhero), so he created a seriously fucked up dark tale that avoids being edgy.
Starts out as the standard boy-finds-alien-super-power with a distinct gritty cyberpunk style, dips into bodyhorror as the alien "superpower" fuses with his body. It then plateaus on a typical superhero self-fulfilment fantasy for a few issues/episodes while the hero learns about his new biomechanical powers.
And then the villains find out he's a highschool student and they use their cyberpunk control over Japanese society to cut the highschool off from emergency services while they send a squad of mutants to just kill off the entire highschool. Because really? A fucking highschool student vs. a shady Ancient Aliens megacorp and you expect the villains to be nice polite villains like in retarded American capeshit? Nope. Nope.
And that's just the start of it. It only gets worse and worse and worse and fucked up and morally grey from there. It even has time for some existential terror.
Nope. I was asleep when he was posting to this thread.
Jackson Roberts
Damn
Robert Ross
Any further ideas for the houses of sloth and envy? I know you were tossing some around last thread. Also, how about Zhdun for Sloth? It's Russian for "one who waits", which sounds like glorified sloth
Aiden Cruz
Still here. I'm just getting ready for work. I probably won't be able to post much but I'll keep lurking at least.