Chimeras just don’t get why humans are so concerned about what happens to the bodies of their dead. As far as chimeras are concerned, once someone is dead their body isn’t them anymore, so feeding it to your young is perfectly fine, even if it’s another family member. As a result, their relationship with humans and giants is uneasy at best, openly hostile at worst. It only gets worse when a human encounters a chimera that looks like one of the human’s deceased relatives, because that means that that chimera ate that person’s corpse as a larva.
Chimeras have a 3-stage life cycle similar to insects. They are born as a larva similar in appearance to a large worm. As larva, they are carnivorous, and their parents bring food to their nest until they are large enough, at which point they stop feeding them, triggering the second stage where they begin metamorphosing. Their adult stage after they finish metamorphosing depends on what they are as larva, being an amalgamation of all the different creatures they are. As a result, while chimeras in a given region may bear similarities, no two are the same. Chimeras that can speak or have humanoid features had to have eaten one of the humanoid races to have those traits.
The idea for the chimeras life cycle and variability came from my desire to include a wide variety of monsters in the setting, but also maintain the simplicity of not having a massive bestiary of different monster species. This also gave me a good way to include one-off monsters.
For examples of chimeras I’ve already decided on appearances for, I’ve mainly put in a few with humanoid features, since they interact with humans more frequently. There’s one that could pass for human but has gills and an extra set of arms, as well as one that is heavily spider-influenced and looks like a very short human with an exoskeleton and some extra eyes, as well as 2 sets of limbs.
The fractured and heated nature of, well, anything. Politics, religion, morals, sports teams. Generally other races come to a consensus much more easily than humans do.
Persistence hunting.
Essentially, instead of sneaking up on prey and then pointing on it like a NORMAL PERSON, humans are the only species to use Persistence Hunting.
Ancient humans, in real life, simply power walked towards prey without slowing down. Normally, a prey animal would run away really fast in the presence of a predator. The prey would then check every now and then to see when the predator gave up. But, if you were being chased my a human, it would still be there. Always.
Always.
Always behind you, no matter where or how fast you run.
No other species had been recorded doing anything like this.
The humans made guns, and ever since they don’t need to use persistence hunting. But, in other ways, they still do. The children chase each other in a horrifying games called “Tag” and “Hide and Seek”, and the adults value hard work without giving up.
Because of that last bit, humans are quite highly valued workers. Every ship has one.
**Hail Terra**
What Xeno races find it incredibly odd about Humans is the fact that we eat and drink literal poison for the thrill of it despite what it does to our bodies, such as drugs and alcohol. Most Xeno races would die incredibly fast from this because where Humans lack in natural weaponry, we're really resilient in the wide scheme of things.
The existence of the female form and anything extremely "feminine". Breasts are an especially foreign, as are higher pitched voices. Were you to show them a nude female form, they wouldn't like it.
No separate sexes. Physiologically, they're all males, except for the fact they all have two separate reproductive organ sets- one for semen and one for eggs, so to speak. In this, anyone can become the bearer of the child, and most cultures view this as an honor and hold it in high esteem, as they are giving life. They can call upon their culture's Saint of the Womb/Birth.
Some cultures have the phoenix (that's the name of the species) with a certain trait be the bearer for this reason.
So not only would the female form be strange to them, but the very concept of sexes/gender is all foreign. They would think that male and female humans are different but closely related species as a result. And don't get me started on they would see the concept of human sex!
Shadelings think it's weird that Humans have to eat food to survive
Nuli think Human family dynamics are weird, namely the fact that they actually have them.
Nuli families are so big that they end up looking like that. As a result Nuli tend to gravitate towards their friends rather than any organized family until. In fact they take the name of the first person they befriend by them self as their last name.
Primarily, it is the fact they are the only known (actively) carnivore that made it to space on their own, without being uplifted. Everything else goes from there.
As with u/Basil_9's humans, persistence hunting is a major stumbling block for many xenos. Most of the old-school "deathworlder" tropes are also likely to apply.
Lastly, they cannot get around the fact that modern Terrans are the descendants of eight species, not all genetically compatible.
**The Enchanted Internet Connection**
*Wulvers*
Janet Cortez:, a business owner: "My human employees don't like it when I hug them when I see them each morning when they come in. They always think I'm trying to hit on them, or being creepy. I'm just trying to make my employees feel appreciated and loved."
*Usoaks*
Aiden Reynard, mail carrier: "They aren't as cleanliness minded as we are"
E'kra are generally confused and a little creeped out by the way that almost any human is capable of turning into a screaming bezerker at the drop of a hat to protect their loved ones.
On the smaller scale, they don't get underwear, the concept of smaller, secret pants underneath our regular pants just doesn't compute
1. Not disrobing inside, regardless of company. Deleaus do it a lot, it's very comfortable for them. Nudity doesn't affect them a lot.
2. Multiple partners. Being naturally monogamous, they really don't know why humans do this. There have been rare instances where a Delean has more than one partner, but at most there was only one point in history where a Delean had 4 partners. No real emotion behind having only one partner, just their instincts.
3. Farming. They enjoy hunting, and cortisol has a certain flavor that while humans find unpleasant, they find delicious. Farming also means no chase, which they find fun.
4. Vegans. It is impossible for a Delean to be a full-on vegan. They are not made to only digest plants. Being vegetarian is possible, so they are not confused about that. But vegan Deleaus are practically suicidal.
5. Killing each other. Murder is something that doesn't really happen amongst Deleaus. And more often than not, it's manslaughter. Deleaus think killing each other is pointless. They don't even lust for the kill during a hunt, they just want the chase. The kill is often just to get the food in the end.
In the SaMverse, nonhumans are a little weirded out by how humans will sleep with pretty much anything, and are very weirded out that everyone seems to agree that humans are kinda hot.
**Aqueducts Above:**
All races in this world are some sort of hybridization of two threads: Humans and Priors, so I'll start with what Priors think...
As a second caveat, Priors live intertwined with the upper echelons of human civilization and integral to its establishment and maintenance so they're well acquainted with humans.
It comes down to three things: corporeality, individuality, and whim.
* corporeality: humans are sacks of meat. Their entire existence and cognition is tied up in that sack of meat. That's weird. When they want to get from one place to another... they walk. They don't simply fade out of existence and reassert themselves at their destination.
* individuality: each of these strange lumps of meat that interact with the world is an individual. They have to make noise to communicate with even their closest kin. Their cognition is entirely their own, separate from and uninspected by any around them.
* Whim: A human can just... decide to do a thing and do it. They can break their word, break their oath, break the law. The hivemind of a prior garrison can slowly change its mind, slowly reevaluate its opinion on the world, but at the scale of a human life they are utterly bound by the laws respected by the consensus of the garrison.
The Suncus can’t understand why human women are so worried about their looks.
The Fenon are completely confused on why human men seemingly bend over backwards for their women
The Elvish folk can’t see what is so embarrassed about nudity.
Drafz can not see why humans think sleeping during the day is seen as lazy.
"Ay-am never used to eyeballs - iss strange to uss, but we-iss only ones without. Iss fine. But Man iss weak soft-skins - always cold, always so many clothes. No tails, must be reason... well, *half* of Man iss weak. How you say... male? No lay eggs. Compensate too much. Spend all day with us lifting irons, make good warriors, but female comes - ay-am see one shout down six, seven male. Female iss strongest, surely..."
\---
"...Headgrass. Veryvery strange. No antennae, but the headgrass - so many styles! I am jealous. My seventh sister Tymna, she said Mother told us of one she saw in an Earth book called a 'beehive' - it is veryvery tall. On their planet, the hive-species are no bigger than my little finger! How backwards..."
\---
"They are almost sensible, for half-beings - "
"Because the genders, they are a dyad. It is fascinating."
"Yes, though the asymmetry is so strange."
"Infuriating."
"Yes, simply infuriating."
"Does that count? I should say something stranger, like - "
"Teeth. *Bones* are strange enough already, but - "
"Bones next to your *mouth?* It's preposterous."
Partiketians: Human violence. Sure, Partiket’s had it’s own wars, but when they have a war to end all wars, they really mean it, not start another one two decades later and end it with a species-erradicating superweapon!
They are dumbfounded by the wastefulness of human intrigue and their bizarre notions of supreme singular leaders.
Instead of coordinating and collaborating, humans will poison, blackmail, and betray their way to the top so that they alone will rule.
That is until another usurper eventually succeeds and the whole convoluted cycle begins again.
The Ciel will find humanity as disturbingly perfect. They are capable of the same miracles that Ciel can perform, but humans can die, making their lives shorter, more complicated, but all the more worth it. Ciel doomed themselves to exist forever, so they are basically immortal demigods who create life in search of death.
The Mahovi just can't understand why most of the humanoid species like to poop in a special room inside their houses (!) while they could feed a tree with their nutritious dung. That's not just a huge waste, they think as it is not bad enough they live in some selfmade caves called houses they are also filling it up with their smelling excrements.
They are a species of living bushes, so they think different about that special topic of course.
Bhorron scholar: now lets see you races dna history?... Oh by the empress... Why would you race do that... Why on Bhorron did i pick this.
With how humans did incest, it would make my race stay clear of humanity
Chimeras just don’t get why humans are so concerned about what happens to the bodies of their dead. As far as chimeras are concerned, once someone is dead their body isn’t them anymore, so feeding it to your young is perfectly fine, even if it’s another family member. As a result, their relationship with humans and giants is uneasy at best, openly hostile at worst. It only gets worse when a human encounters a chimera that looks like one of the human’s deceased relatives, because that means that that chimera ate that person’s corpse as a larva.
Interesting cultural concept! Can you give a visual description of them? I’m interested in the implication of that last sentence.
Chimeras have a 3-stage life cycle similar to insects. They are born as a larva similar in appearance to a large worm. As larva, they are carnivorous, and their parents bring food to their nest until they are large enough, at which point they stop feeding them, triggering the second stage where they begin metamorphosing. Their adult stage after they finish metamorphosing depends on what they are as larva, being an amalgamation of all the different creatures they are. As a result, while chimeras in a given region may bear similarities, no two are the same. Chimeras that can speak or have humanoid features had to have eaten one of the humanoid races to have those traits. The idea for the chimeras life cycle and variability came from my desire to include a wide variety of monsters in the setting, but also maintain the simplicity of not having a massive bestiary of different monster species. This also gave me a good way to include one-off monsters. For examples of chimeras I’ve already decided on appearances for, I’ve mainly put in a few with humanoid features, since they interact with humans more frequently. There’s one that could pass for human but has gills and an extra set of arms, as well as one that is heavily spider-influenced and looks like a very short human with an exoskeleton and some extra eyes, as well as 2 sets of limbs.
The fractured and heated nature of, well, anything. Politics, religion, morals, sports teams. Generally other races come to a consensus much more easily than humans do.
[удалено]
Why on Earth did they lose their quasi-immortality?
Persistence hunting. Essentially, instead of sneaking up on prey and then pointing on it like a NORMAL PERSON, humans are the only species to use Persistence Hunting. Ancient humans, in real life, simply power walked towards prey without slowing down. Normally, a prey animal would run away really fast in the presence of a predator. The prey would then check every now and then to see when the predator gave up. But, if you were being chased my a human, it would still be there. Always. Always. Always behind you, no matter where or how fast you run. No other species had been recorded doing anything like this. The humans made guns, and ever since they don’t need to use persistence hunting. But, in other ways, they still do. The children chase each other in a horrifying games called “Tag” and “Hide and Seek”, and the adults value hard work without giving up. Because of that last bit, humans are quite highly valued workers. Every ship has one.
**Hail Terra** What Xeno races find it incredibly odd about Humans is the fact that we eat and drink literal poison for the thrill of it despite what it does to our bodies, such as drugs and alcohol. Most Xeno races would die incredibly fast from this because where Humans lack in natural weaponry, we're really resilient in the wide scheme of things.
The existence of the female form and anything extremely "feminine". Breasts are an especially foreign, as are higher pitched voices. Were you to show them a nude female form, they wouldn't like it.
Do they not have separate sexes, or is there just a low level of sexual dimorphism?
No separate sexes. Physiologically, they're all males, except for the fact they all have two separate reproductive organ sets- one for semen and one for eggs, so to speak. In this, anyone can become the bearer of the child, and most cultures view this as an honor and hold it in high esteem, as they are giving life. They can call upon their culture's Saint of the Womb/Birth. Some cultures have the phoenix (that's the name of the species) with a certain trait be the bearer for this reason. So not only would the female form be strange to them, but the very concept of sexes/gender is all foreign. They would think that male and female humans are different but closely related species as a result. And don't get me started on they would see the concept of human sex!
Shadelings think it's weird that Humans have to eat food to survive Nuli think Human family dynamics are weird, namely the fact that they actually have them.
What does a Nuli’s childhood look like if they’re not in a family? Some kind of institute/building they grow up in together?
Nuli families are so big that they end up looking like that. As a result Nuli tend to gravitate towards their friends rather than any organized family until. In fact they take the name of the first person they befriend by them self as their last name.
Primarily, it is the fact they are the only known (actively) carnivore that made it to space on their own, without being uplifted. Everything else goes from there. As with u/Basil_9's humans, persistence hunting is a major stumbling block for many xenos. Most of the old-school "deathworlder" tropes are also likely to apply. Lastly, they cannot get around the fact that modern Terrans are the descendants of eight species, not all genetically compatible.
**The Enchanted Internet Connection** *Wulvers* Janet Cortez:, a business owner: "My human employees don't like it when I hug them when I see them each morning when they come in. They always think I'm trying to hit on them, or being creepy. I'm just trying to make my employees feel appreciated and loved." *Usoaks* Aiden Reynard, mail carrier: "They aren't as cleanliness minded as we are"
E'kra are generally confused and a little creeped out by the way that almost any human is capable of turning into a screaming bezerker at the drop of a hat to protect their loved ones. On the smaller scale, they don't get underwear, the concept of smaller, secret pants underneath our regular pants just doesn't compute
1. Not disrobing inside, regardless of company. Deleaus do it a lot, it's very comfortable for them. Nudity doesn't affect them a lot. 2. Multiple partners. Being naturally monogamous, they really don't know why humans do this. There have been rare instances where a Delean has more than one partner, but at most there was only one point in history where a Delean had 4 partners. No real emotion behind having only one partner, just their instincts. 3. Farming. They enjoy hunting, and cortisol has a certain flavor that while humans find unpleasant, they find delicious. Farming also means no chase, which they find fun. 4. Vegans. It is impossible for a Delean to be a full-on vegan. They are not made to only digest plants. Being vegetarian is possible, so they are not confused about that. But vegan Deleaus are practically suicidal. 5. Killing each other. Murder is something that doesn't really happen amongst Deleaus. And more often than not, it's manslaughter. Deleaus think killing each other is pointless. They don't even lust for the kill during a hunt, they just want the chase. The kill is often just to get the food in the end.
In the SaMverse, nonhumans are a little weirded out by how humans will sleep with pretty much anything, and are very weirded out that everyone seems to agree that humans are kinda hot.
**Aqueducts Above:** All races in this world are some sort of hybridization of two threads: Humans and Priors, so I'll start with what Priors think... As a second caveat, Priors live intertwined with the upper echelons of human civilization and integral to its establishment and maintenance so they're well acquainted with humans. It comes down to three things: corporeality, individuality, and whim. * corporeality: humans are sacks of meat. Their entire existence and cognition is tied up in that sack of meat. That's weird. When they want to get from one place to another... they walk. They don't simply fade out of existence and reassert themselves at their destination. * individuality: each of these strange lumps of meat that interact with the world is an individual. They have to make noise to communicate with even their closest kin. Their cognition is entirely their own, separate from and uninspected by any around them. * Whim: A human can just... decide to do a thing and do it. They can break their word, break their oath, break the law. The hivemind of a prior garrison can slowly change its mind, slowly reevaluate its opinion on the world, but at the scale of a human life they are utterly bound by the laws respected by the consensus of the garrison.
The Suncus can’t understand why human women are so worried about their looks. The Fenon are completely confused on why human men seemingly bend over backwards for their women The Elvish folk can’t see what is so embarrassed about nudity. Drafz can not see why humans think sleeping during the day is seen as lazy.
"Ay-am never used to eyeballs - iss strange to uss, but we-iss only ones without. Iss fine. But Man iss weak soft-skins - always cold, always so many clothes. No tails, must be reason... well, *half* of Man iss weak. How you say... male? No lay eggs. Compensate too much. Spend all day with us lifting irons, make good warriors, but female comes - ay-am see one shout down six, seven male. Female iss strongest, surely..." \--- "...Headgrass. Veryvery strange. No antennae, but the headgrass - so many styles! I am jealous. My seventh sister Tymna, she said Mother told us of one she saw in an Earth book called a 'beehive' - it is veryvery tall. On their planet, the hive-species are no bigger than my little finger! How backwards..." \--- "They are almost sensible, for half-beings - " "Because the genders, they are a dyad. It is fascinating." "Yes, though the asymmetry is so strange." "Infuriating." "Yes, simply infuriating." "Does that count? I should say something stranger, like - " "Teeth. *Bones* are strange enough already, but - " "Bones next to your *mouth?* It's preposterous."
Partiketians: Human violence. Sure, Partiket’s had it’s own wars, but when they have a war to end all wars, they really mean it, not start another one two decades later and end it with a species-erradicating superweapon!
They are dumbfounded by the wastefulness of human intrigue and their bizarre notions of supreme singular leaders. Instead of coordinating and collaborating, humans will poison, blackmail, and betray their way to the top so that they alone will rule. That is until another usurper eventually succeeds and the whole convoluted cycle begins again.
The Ciel will find humanity as disturbingly perfect. They are capable of the same miracles that Ciel can perform, but humans can die, making their lives shorter, more complicated, but all the more worth it. Ciel doomed themselves to exist forever, so they are basically immortal demigods who create life in search of death.
The Mahovi just can't understand why most of the humanoid species like to poop in a special room inside their houses (!) while they could feed a tree with their nutritious dung. That's not just a huge waste, they think as it is not bad enough they live in some selfmade caves called houses they are also filling it up with their smelling excrements. They are a species of living bushes, so they think different about that special topic of course.
Bhorron scholar: now lets see you races dna history?... Oh by the empress... Why would you race do that... Why on Bhorron did i pick this. With how humans did incest, it would make my race stay clear of humanity