'thul's story project...

[fool-ish]

well, the character hasn't been written in yet, but 'thul can see why you look oddly at it and misinterpreted it. The idea is that Deken used another taken in his experiments. Essentially forcing them to mate for the purposes of creating offspring. because of their cold-blooded reptilian nature post-change, they have gone from live birth to egg-layers like dragons. Not even in a story would 'thul condone bestiality like a decidedly non-human creature mating with a humanoid.

there's a nice tool called "google" for converting such numbers. just type in this:
Convert ___ cm to feet
Anyways, if you round to 30cm to a foot, you're fairly close. 1 inch = 2.54cm.

The faith is not celibate. 'thul feel that forced celibacy in the priesthood is the perfect way to breed faith out of a population. After all, those most devout will become priests. Thus, if the most devout are forbidden from breeding, then the genes of the most devout will not pass on. And over a few generations, devoutness will be noticeably reduced.

Since there, as of yet, are no gods or such, its not so much a religious priesthood in the common sense of it. It is closer to a group of people devoutly opposing dragonkind and working towards ending their interference with humanity.

The venom-scarred girl is of the Faith, yes. Not used beyond a couple of spots yet, but that might change.

The wolven are habitual quadrupeds. They normally move on two legs, but have a habit of running on all fours.
The Taken are somewhat opposite, moving mostly on all fours, but fully capable of moving on two legs if instructed to do so.
'thul added one more character to the list now, a single member of the Taken, the one that actually has been written in.

I am good at misinterpreting stuff, but I see where you're coming from now with the giving birth thing! To my relief, I might add! I suspect it takes a certain sort to write about that sort of thing and a certain sort to read it! The wrong sort at that! Don't worry, I didn't think for one minute you were of that sort at all! I sorted it out in my head with the turkey baster!

High time I went metric methinks seeing as you're not gonna do it for me

Re the 'faith.' Good news for the scarred girl..I hope!

Next...

['thul]

These beings have yet to figure out if the "Kel" Character concept will be used. There will be a Taken woman by that name, that much is sure, but it is not sure that the rest will stick for her.

Besides being utterly wrong to mix dragons and humans up in such ways, they are hardly genetically compatible. Not even after human has changed into Taken.

These beings have been thinking that they might need to add a few more sub-species to the human species. Right now, there's four sub-species. two species that are from all factions, one species that only come from Pack, and one that (probably) only comes from Settled. In a place with evolution in overdrive, that is too few.
Alternatives, quite possible ones at that, might be to have each group, especially Settled, have certain unique traits... That Settled from Travial don't look exactly like settled from Ingath Hold and so on.

['thul]

Having been planning out theories on another faction, 'thul have gone from writing a bit to planning the design on the Settled city of Travial.
Rather than simply making over-sized support structures, they decided to give the roofing proper framework, theoretically strong enough to support even a thick stone roof. Steel beams will keep the roofing up. 50m long, 5x5m steel beams.
Its nice to have the choice in what technologies are available. They obviously have forging/casting techniques far beyond that of typical semi-medieval cultures. No welding, though.

[fool-ish]

Wot, no welding? A soldering iron then?

[FoolishGirl]

Hi, 'thul. I am intrigued about the rapid evolution in your world...
Why is it occuring? Is there a biological cost to the high mutation rate?

['thul]

Not quite decided on a true "why" to explain it. The reason these beings brought it in is to explain why there's changes in the bodies between generations, yet the in-world source for this acceleration is still a good question.
There could be some cost, not decided fully on that yet.
Traits that are seen as "unwanted" in a group can happen to fade away, rather than persist. One disadvantage could be the occurrence of strange evolutions. The various sub-species all started out as such evolutionary changes, developing fully in the span of 6 generations or so.
One "Cost" on the cultural front is that humans are less trustful of those that are different. Where it is skin color on the world of Tellus, it is actual physical traits in the world designed here. Not decided yet what will happen if two people from separate human species decide to mate, what their children will be like. The biological cost could be there.

Welding is a fairly complex technique that would be far too hard to explain without numerous other technological advances that would not fit. By welding 'thul meant "arc welding", "thermite welding" and welding with various gases as is common today, not the ancient techniques of "forge welding". There won't be blowtorches available. Joining metal will be done in two ways only. either by Bolted seams or by processes done in a forge.

['thul]

anyways, here's a rough outline of what the city looks like so far.
Currently 'thul have yet to add the true shell to it, but the framework for most of the roof is done.
To give a rough scale you could use the pink cube, which is 250x250x250m. The distance from the tip of one arm to the tip of the opposite arm is 4.4km.
The distance up from ground level to the peak of the city is 900m
The distance down from ground level to the bottom of the city is 1200m







The white rectangular grids will hold 12 residential chambers each. (on last image)

EDIT:
These beings got around to constructing the roof plates to stick on top of those steel beams. Now the city of Travial is partially covered. Still missing central roofing and edge roofing. 'thul may decide to add in a tower somewhere on each arm, but that is yet to be decided. First step is most likely to add the final roofing, particularly on the edges.

[FoolishGirl]

Not quite decided on a true "why" to explain it. The reason these beings brought it in is to explain why there's changes in the bodies between generations, yet the in-world source for this acceleration is still a good question.
There could be some cost, not decided fully on that yet.
Traits that are seen as "unwanted" in a group can happen to fade away, rather than persist. One disadvantage could be the occurrence of strange evolutions. The various sub-species all started out as such evolutionary changes, developing fully in the span of 6 generations or so.
One "Cost" on the cultural front is that humans are less trustful of those that are different. Where it is skin color on the world of Tellus, it is actual physical traits in the world designed here. Not decided yet what will happen if two people from separate human species decide to mate, what their children will be like. The biological cost could be there.

It will be interesting to see if your world follows the earthly rules regarding evolution (only faster) or if some other rules entirely are in play! Perhaps there is some magical force (good or evil or indifferent) at work... I was thinking that if it's some kind of mutation-causing force (natural or magical), the people might show signs of illnesses like radiation sickness due to the constant DNA damage they undergo. Biology: fun!

['thul]

It wont be caused by a malicious mutagen or radiation, that much is certain. It is possible that even if two people a few (say four) generations apart could somehow reproduce, the child might be stillborn due to too-differing genes, but before such is decided, it'll have to be refined, since the differing human species can still procreate. perhaps something that enters the body on the genetic level, building up more and more with each generation. Evolution there will be constant. Not accelerating. Where it takes say, 30,000-100,000 years for a major evolutionary change on tellus, it'll take maybe a couple of thousand years in 'thul's world.
It will indeed be interesting to discover.

['thul]

After a good break, 'thul have begun rewriting the main story segment. The break was to let the story work itself out a bit in their minds, so that the flaws would be more apparent. Already the first chapter and a half has been rewritten and elaborated somewhat.

The pack character, Ulva, has now changed appearance somewhat, as will the various other members of the packs. It did not make sense for the genes triggering wolf-like traits to either be on or off. Now, while some rare children become full Wolven, most members of the packs have at least some wolf-like traits. (For example, Ulva has gray streaks in her hair, slightly pointy (and furred) ears and thin fuzz of fur on most of her body)

The rewrite will be even heavier in the later parts of this section, as 'thul can already remember not being quite pleased with some of the parts there back when they wrote it... currently its grown up to 69 pages (10 pages finished with current rewrite), so it will probably end up around 90-100 pages.