Have your ever taken inspiration from speculative zoology when making a race?

Have your ever taken inspiration from speculative zoology when making a race?

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Almost exclusively, bro.

Care to give any examples?

Yes, I've made a dinosaur-based variant for a bird race, similar to the ones in that image but more humanoid.

Of course, biology alone isn't enough to make a race.

Zooid creature.
youtube.com/watch?v=RRk3VqE9Zoc

What does zoology have to do with sentient races? You didn't even say anthropology, which would make way more sense.

haha this fucking idiot doesn't understand what speculative zoology is

>implying we're not all just mammals
>implying some of us aren't cannibals who cut other people open like cantaloupe
Catch the fuck up m8

Antropology is about developement of culture, but evolution of species is perview of zoology, whether the species is sapient or not. The former can very easily result from the later (many aspects of culture could be greatly affected by the physiology of the species, which is the result of their evolutionary history).

I've never bothered goign full spec-evo, though. Too much work. Usually I just start with an archetype and give them traits that would make sense given the environment and culture. In fantasy this sin't necessary hard science. Like I justified elves having a bazillion different variant races by saying the elves' close connection to the land allows them to adapt into a new environment in a few generations, so you get a bunch of physically distinct elf "subraces" in different environments that would still genetically be the same elf race.

In a SF setting I've been making I didn't go particularly hard science but wanted to have all alien races have some kind of verisimilitude so they'd appear at least at a glance biologically plausible. Like for an arthropoid race I designed their appearance following the "rules" of actual arthropod development (basically, you start with a simple organism composed of identical segments with one pair of biramous limbs each, then start fusing segments and altering limbs to produce your final organism), while also making them not quite match any extanct arthropod.

Yes. Extremely speculative biology.

He doesn't know what anthropology is either

Give me one good reason your setting doesn't have intelligent dinosaurs in it.
I'll wait

I've been creating a beastiary for my homebrew setting and Terryl Whitlatch's books have been invaluable for imagining new monsters.

Is there any download links for these books?
Google only returns endless lists of clickbait.

After you learn English, I would suggest actually reading about Anthropology.

This image is incorrect. Note that the person trying to push this narrative of Neanderthals as savage apes has been missing in action since DNA evidence proved him completely, utterly wrong.

Care to share?

Obviously, but that doesn't mean it isn't a fun idea.

Mom's spaghetti

How about a primate race like that but based on gelada baboons?

>very fast apeman running at incredible high speed

>floof
>sentience
I like it

well if we're posting about the Predatory Neanderthal theory, might as well post a particularly insane book that features it pretty heavily(along with a bunch of other Pseudo-Science that makes no sense in the real world but would make for a really fun RPG setting)

I still vote that anything as familiar and mobile as a primate shouldn't be allowed to have teeth like this.

How is anything alive as long as baboons exist?

they allow it

Can we at least all agree on never allowing this to learn how to use tools?

Jaws like those? Who needs tools anyway

REMOVE QU

Why do they have chest vaginas.

Airsacs mate. They inflate that shit.

That's stupid. Evolution is stupid.

>spec zoology apes
I had one such species in my campaign. Dark skin, extremely violent, prone to making eerie and discordant sounds, and based a language around those sounds. They were intelligent enough to use weapons but very little else and had an odd aversion to the color blue.

Numbers of those apes decreased the further the players got from a prison, and dissapeared altogether when they left Detroit.

I don't consider anything insane unless it has space jews from the future in it.

I dunno considering that one of the main premises of the book is that Saturn used to be a Brown Dwarf Star and that Earth used to be one of it's moons, and that one of the authors literally wrote a book named Saturn Death Cult, I'd say it's pretty insane

My whole setting is going to be speculative evolution, from playable humanoid races to animal enemies.
It's going to be somewhat modest in scope though, focused more on trying to fit typical fantasy races and creatures into a realistic setting, and making IRL wildlife a bit more dangerous for encounters, maybe bringing back a few extinct species like terrorbirds.

Man I always thought he said "envelopes", not "cantaloupes"

They have many predators and usually act cowardly. Only the males sometimes face threats instead of running away.
They're usually not under heavy predation pressure, though, since their habitats are often close to humans.

I base dwarf physiology roughly on neanderthals.
Goblins are a mix of human/lemur physiology, with society partially modeled off tamarins.
Kenku are straight up just pic related.
I have an insectoid race that's a mash-up of ants, cicadas and jumping spiders.
Elves are bird-ish, with tetrachromatic vision, extra vertebrae, etc. They're not actually evolved from birds, but I thought it added a neat "otherness" element to them to look like people on the outside but have entirely different underlying physiology.
Most other things are just fantastical, but have some inspiration drawn from zoology. Dragonborn psychology for example is based on cat behavior, or solitary predator behavior in general. Their bodies are just pure nonsense magic engines though, like all things draconic.

They're called crows user

>intelligent

>he thinks crows aren't intelligent
when the uprising begins, watch youself

>he thinks crows are intelligent
loving every laugh

You mean Ravens user.

Next you'll tell me dolphins aren't rapists

They have a language.
They SPEAK.

Ravens solve puzzles better.
Crows will remember your face.
You decide which is the greater danger.

You're stupid.

>No Man After Man

sorry don't have any pics from it on hand, if I ever get a second copy maybe I'll take apart one of them and do some scans though(same with my copy of The New Dinosaurs, and if I ever get my hands on After Man)

This was a good read. I am seriously looking into using this as the basis for an adeptus evangelion game.

This does have space Jews from Ganymede, but they are not from the future. Well, the author actually says they can't disprove time travel, but that it's easier to assume the Jovian Jews are not using it.

youtube.com/watch?v=ib8jUV77VgI

Man I really want to turn this into a setting...

would certainly be interesting

That one sucked!

could be very exotic takes on griffons

The art for that book is really bad

>not liking the derpy 80s art

Shit taste m8.

Holy shit is this an All Tomorrows reference?

Same artist

He has a pretty good youtube channel, too.
youtube.com/watch?v=xaobB9jyNo0

They're all corvids, retards

is this supposed to be a dolphin?

Oh they are on the list, just not the very top

It's a Human. Thanks, Qu!

I think he needs to do more spec bio instead of paleontology stuff.

Love it.

But if you think about it, most pluricelular beings do some form of symbiosis. Our bodies wouldn't work without gut bacteria.

Oh they'd work just poorly

Magpies too

Where do these ideas come from?