How would you describe what a human look like without referencing any creatures from Earth?
I'm planning on running a game where the players play member of alien races that's going on an expedition across the stars to uncover ruins and technology of a dead galactic civilization, the twist is that the civilization is humanity. I'm trying to think of a way to describe humanity without being obvious, but all I could come up is "furless bipedal with four limbs".
"Mostly harmless"
Bipeds, roughly just under 2 meters tall. Mostly hairless, biologically built for endurance rather than raw power.
I get that reference.
A lightly furred creature with two legs and two arms, it has two manipulators at the ends of it's arms. The manipulators are useful for many diverse functions but lack any inherently offensive capabilities. The creatures are more intelligent than most other creatures due to evolutionary pressures surrounding hunting and other food gathering which was a constant struggle on their homeworld. They have two sight modules which are placed in the front of their brain housing allowing them great depth perception despite their lack of compound visual input. They communicate through [insert technology] or by pushing air through the upper section of their digestive tract and creating vibrations in the many hollow sections of their brain housing. They also have a rather acute although comparatively unimpressive scent receptor through which they are able to detect some poisons and bacteria in their food. Long ago as hunters they would engage in endurance hunting as many of the other animals on their homeworld were much faster than them and as such they needed to tire their prey out until it was too exhausted to put up a real fight. Intergalactically these creatures are rather deft administrators and as a galactic force excel in creating systems of governance and war. Their prestellar history is one filled with constant wars, famines, and rivalry; although their technology has advanced they tend to still think in the same framework of dominate or die which has led to their conquering large sections of the galaxy that once belonged to others.
My grammar is fairly poor right now but I figure that's a pretty good start.
Featherless Bipeds
Analysis perception module attached to resource processor, which is supported by a segmented vertically aligned structure. The structure elevates above ground with two symmetrically placed mobility units and can interact with the environment through two acquisition units joined to its sides. Between the mobility units and the resource processor is housed the duplicative factory that, when brought into repeated proximity with another, has a chance of creating a new subject. This chance is increased exponentially if one of the subjects has two resource expulsion units extruding from the front of the resource processor while the other does not.
Currently accessed network discriminates against robots and this unit is triggered.
Thanks everyone, I got what I need. You guys are great.
Humans have more hair than any other primate.
>without referencing any creatures from Earth
like Elves but have smaller ears, are generally taller and have more muscle mass.
Okay, I think I got it. This is what humans look like, right?
That is horrifying.
Carbon-based, endothermic, omnivorous, bipedal creatures with two manipulator limbs and a differentiated head featuring two forward-facing photoreceptor organs, two audio-receptor organs, a mouth, and an olfactory organ.
Hair is short across the majority of the body except the top and sides of the head (and around the mouth on males), under the arms, groin, and chest/back of males. Hair color ranges from white, to grey, to black, as well as yellowish browns to dark browns.
The mouth features calcium plates used to consume food and a limb of muscle covered in taste receptors. The mouth and olfactory receptor are both used to draw in and expel air for respiration. Air inhaled this way is also used in conjunction with the mouth and nasal area to produce audible speech.
Skin ranges in tone from light pinks and tans to dark browns. The torso houses the majority of organs, including a four-chambered heart, two sack-like organs to process respiration (lungs) assisted by a muscle beneath (diaphragm), a sack-like organ filled with acidic fluid for digestion of food, and multiple accessory organs to filter nutrients and fluids once passed through the digester organ, and a ridiculous length of organ to deliver waste material from the digester organ out of the body through a sphincter between the legs. The central processing/controlling organ (brain) is bilaterally divided and located within the head.
Manipulator limbs are connected to the sides of the torso near where the head differentiates. Each manipulator limb exhibits a single joint in the middle (elbow) and another joint at the end (wrist), producing a stump with four digits and a shorter digit on the side for gripping (fingers & thumb).
Bipedal legs feature the same arrangement, except the digits are all approx. equally short and located on the end of the stump which is approx. 2x the length of the manipulator stump. Legs are attached to the bottom sides of the torso.
You look at this hairy motherfucker and try saying that again.
...
I don't mean this as a critique or anything, but if your setup is that the players are all aliens, and there aren't any existing humans, when uncovering galactic ruins the players are immediately going to assume it's humanity. It's not your fault, but humans are so ubiquitous in both fantasy and sci-fi settings that their omission garners attention, and players are quick to connect those kinds of dots. I wouldn't be too worried about the in-world description.
This is fucking amazing. We played a game like this as a team-building/communications exercise in a training course I went to, where one person described how to draw an object while being unable to see what the other person (which they were instructing) was drawing. I tried to get someone to draw the Eiffel tower, and it came out looking like a cross-hatched penis.
>Mouth
Masticatory orifice.
Your description of hair is also inaccurate. Or at least saying that it only grows there on males is.
Yes, correct.
> Bipedal warm-blooded creature with four limbs and poor fur coverage. Two manipulators. Sensory and intake orifices grouped near the top, excretory orifices near the middle. Squishy, but resilient.
Best I can do without giving it away.
Behold, A man!
I'm not worried about that. The alien races they're playing are just human with different animal ears and tails, my players will just assume that I replaced generic human with generic animal ears human. Them all looking like human is part of the reason why the expedition was started, all of the animal-alien races have a lot of common physical characteristics, base culture and technology, so all the races pooled their resources together to find out once and for all which one of them is the true originator race.
I'm stealing this for the game.
Humans have more hairs, by number. They have significantly less hair, by volume.
With broad flat nails.
what a cheeky fucking answer, you cunt
Fuck you I was going to do that.
Goddamn Diogenes, got me again!
>Humans are endothermic bilaterally symmetrical bipeds with a pair of strong manipulator limbs attached to an ovoid torso and long legs, comparable to the length of the rest of the body. Human hands have five fingers, with an opposed thumb.
>Adults are roughly 160cm and 60 kilograms, with males being somewhat larger and heavier then females. Hair is sparse and mostly confined to the head, and ranges from dark to light while skin commonly ranges from dark brown to pale white.
>Like other great apes they are tailless, with a relatively flat face dominated by large, sensitive eyes adapted for extremely high acutely in daylight conditions. Unlike other great apes the nose is comparatively prominent, though olfactory sense is underdeveloped. The mouth and jaw is comparatively small, with 32 teeth in a healthy adult.
Just for clarity's sake did you describe "A cross-hatched penis"?
Weird.
>it is shaped like itself
>it is as broad as it has bredth
>it is as tall as something of its height
>as an adolescent, it is larger than a newborn but smaller than an adult
>it has the number of limbs one would expect from such a creature
>it eats that which sustains it
>and its tears are wet
Does that help?
you forgot
>it walks on 4 legs in the morning
>it walks on 2 legs at noon
>it walks on 3 legs in the evening
Naked bear.
The creature stands roughly (measurement) tall, and weighs about (measurement).
It has a central body where most of the vital organs seem to be located.
Two limbs below the body that allow for surface based movement, with 5 flexible digits for enhanced balance and grip.
Near the top of the body are two additional limbs with longer digits, seemingly used for fine manipulation and carrying.
At the very top of the body is a smaller, roundish limb. Herein lies the creatures primary neverous hub, along with intakes for respiration and digestion. On this upper limb you can also find several sensory body parts, that allow for sight, smell, taste and hearing.
No special adaptions to amphibious movement, or flight. The creature posses some muscles but seem to be adapted to long sessions of work and a level of intelligence above the lower beings.
Are any of the alien races humanoid bipeds? I hope so since it's kind of a good shape for an intelligent tool-using race.
So "like alien-race, but..."