Pinnacle, a Work in Progress

[Weave]

If you've ever spent too much time around ferrets, you know exactly how ugly those adorable things can get if left to their own devises. :P

I really like the Skavers, especially the description of the predation habits, felt very realistic. However, right now what I'm basically picturing is a large golden-eagle - anything else set them apart from the "bird of prey" norm? Also, I keep picturing a breed of Skaver's with particularly long legs a-la the secretary bird - is that a thing? Also, are Skavers ever a problem for airships in any way?

I love this; keep it coming!

Sorry for missing this;

I'm glad you enjoy the Skavers. I kinda intended to make them fit the "bird of prey" norm, but just a lot bigger and more vulture-like than bald eagle (long, unfeathered necks and ugly, sparsly feathered heads). I actually think long legs would suit them in an evolutionary sense, and I rather like that imagery. With airships, I think skavers would be more a spectacle to observe than a thing to fear, unless the ship was very small. I do have plans to detail very, very large birds (ones that more or less fall from great heights rather than fly) that would contest airships for breeding grounds as if they were rival beasts.

Thanks for the kind words!

EDIT: Aw man, this went to a new page. For those who missed it, I just made a setting-pertinent post on the previous page.

[sparkletwist]

I really like the idea that you're working from the assumption that it's a human-only setting (or, at least, the characters in question are all human) but the people in the setting don't necessarily consciously realize that-- it really helps to drive home some of the prejudices that might exist if they think of themselves a "superior race." It kind of goes along with the dark steampunk feel, too, I think, because this was about the time when things like eugenics were coming to the forefront, along with a whole lot of racist (and usually flat out wrong) theories about human development. It'll also be interesting to me to see how racism and racial views shape up in this culture when the different "sub-races" of human seem to be more distinct from each other than they are in our real history.

The Yoi has this exotic, "Asian" feel to them, as I'm sure you intended-- almost a bit too stereotypical for my liking, but if we're assuming that most of the documentation about the Yoi was written by people from Eadgard, then it's quite likely that this is biased from their perspective. I'd encourage this! No point all the sources have to be reliable, and it's a great way to resolve the contradictions that seem to be almost inevitable when writing a lot of setting material.

With the mushrooms and the bioluminescence they kind of remind me of the Glow from Underdeep. :grin:

[Ghostman]

I'm intrigued by the society of the Yoi. It seems that aside from the immigrants in Eadgard, they've been entirely confined to that one particular valley and it's jungle floor. Just how large of an area do they range there, are they all bunched into a single settlement or are they spread out across multiple cities? What sort of goverment(s) do they have? What about technology, especially tech not related/dependent on fungi cultivation?

Why are there such apparently large numbers of Yoi now living in Eadgard?

[Weave]

I'm intrigued by the society of the Yoi. It seems that aside from the immigrants in Eadgard, they've been entirely confined to that one particular valley and it's jungle floor. Just how large of an area do they range there, are they all bunched into a single settlement or are they spread out across multiple cities?

The Yoi have adapted to a life in semi-darkness (luminous fungi) and mostly devoid of sunlight, making their skin pale white and their eyes larger, so they aren't well-adapted to life outside of their niche environment. As such, they have a distinct solidarity to them and collectively formed a single, large city of sorts amidst the main chasm and the shunting smaller ones (I sort of envisioned ants or another colony-based creature as the inspiration for the lifestyle of the Yoi, which also plays well into a communistic theme that I'm going for).

The range of their colony is sort of undetermined from my perspective. I imagine it's not very large, but I also imagine that they have much more space down there than it appears from above. The molten formation of their chasms made a sort of pear-shaped tunnel, with the top being narrow and thin and bottom opening out quite a bit. The naturally nutrient rich ash and and constant deadfall from the jungle above allowed for lots of fungi formation on the bottom of the chasms.

What sort of goverment(s) do they have? What about technology, especially tech not related/dependent on fungi cultivation?

Good question. I haven't really delved into the real details of the Yoi yet, so I appreciate the food for thought. Right now I'm thinking they have a very community based type of leadership or at least a council of representatives. I'm not sure they'd be so keen on elevating one person to leader - that's a lot of responsibility resting on the judgment of a single person for them.

Technology would be fairly simple, and things like fire wouldn't be used all that often (the jungle is always warm, and the risk of burning down the mycelium carpet would be too great). As such, Yoi use raw ore and woven bark as armor or weapons, and rely primarily on hunting parties and subsistence agriculture to sustain them. They also utilize a lot of vines and stone hooks to slide baskets and objects down to other locations across the chasm. Wooden water wheels would help keep small elevators going to raise and lower items consistently, and stone or jade tools would be used to help carve narrow steps into cliff walls.

Why are there such apparently large numbers of Yoi now living in Eadgard?

Another good question. Partially because I wanted Bray to have a foreign "chinatown" district to it and partially because they've taken a strange obsession to Eadgard. The Yoi are a kind but secretive people, and their may be some degree of spying the Yoi are conducting on these new, advanced Eadgardians, masked by a veneer of genuine innocence and benevolence. This is all done despite the fact that the Yoi are so ill-adapted to life outside their colony that they need to constantly shelter themselves from the sun and protect their eyes all for the furthering of their people. In any case, the presence of Eadgard upon the Yoi hasn't so much driven their society into a drastic a cultural upheaval as it has done to others; rather, the Yoi have grown deeper-seated into their beliefs and may yet perceive them as a gift from their strange gods as something to be learned from. Eadgardian technology has greatly impacted the Yoi city and revolutionized their daily lives, but their conviction remains.

Thanks for the questions, Ghostman. I enjoy the challenges you present.