Been Keeping This Away For Long Since Its A Very Out Of Context Specific Stuff.

Been keeping this away for long since its a very out of context specific stuff.

These are the Heads - the mostly spiritual leader of the central Foru micro-state collective. Their role is to be a guide for all the leaders (archs) in central Foru and speak for all of them on an international level. They also bless lands and people and generally are well-liked by them. They can make big decisions, but it's ultimately on the archs if they comply (but the pressure is strong).

Every head has a more specialized role, each representing a 'sense' of their one shared soul (hearing, seeing, touch, thought...) and people they are patrons to (the old, the "rich", the leaders, the priests...). Each central Foru micro-state usually has its favorite head that they want to see the most in their community when bringing them news or blessings.

here are closeups

The Heads are the center of a religion practiced in the region. In short - the Heads share one spirit that in ancient times belonged to a priest who misused their power to get to the spirit world and instead became forever stuck in the material world. After many reincarnations, the priest became a wise leader who learned to speak with the spirit world and make final peace between the worlds of spirits and the material.

I would need to go into more religion details to go over that but that can be a separate post. Let's talk about how they get their role.

A 'competition' is held to determine the best leader, most spiritually attuned, most well-thinking, and best-presenting individual. The Heads in position at the time with a few other high-ranking individuals will judge the participants and then make their pick at the choosing ceremony. Luckily there are not too many to choose from, there are many requirements to participate.

However, the one picked isn't one that will become a head, they would be far too old at the time. Instead, they will force their system to make a rare phenomenon happen. This means making more of themselves with cloning (having babies grow out of diploid cells with no need for another person). This is usually achieved when under high amounts of stress and loneliness.

The uniima egg naturally holds 4 larvae but usually only 1-2 develop fully while the rest becomes food for the surviving ones. This clone egg has 4 identical whites (pre-babies) in them that get special care to ensure at least 3 survive. There have been heads with one member before and with 2 and 3, but 4 is a miracle as the bottom corner larva almost never develops enough to hatch. This egg is very lucky.

The identical quadruplets are given to be raised in different environments. These environments will decide what they represent as adults. It will also give them better perspectives of the world, making it easier/more difficult to make big decisions when the time comes.

Additionally, because there are 4 heads this time, a new environment had to be introduced. This environment was that of small communities, minorities, and generally people living in poorer conditions (yes, for the past Heads, war was more important than their people suffering (it's a very central Foru thing)). Unfortunately for The Ear, they are not respected everywhere, and many people assume them to be a fake among their siblings.

You can also see the heads have each their own signature and each Head generation has their own symbol that is recognized outside their writing systems.

I've got a question about the Slomen. Why do they look so human when they come from a radically different biosphere? Unless I'm missing some context and they're actually bioengineered from human stock to survive in their homeworld's biosphere.

Slomen are designed to be your friendly neighborhood humans! With the same mammalian vibes and traits while doing some things a bit differently. Just silly little guys. You point at one and say "Oh my god is that Bob from accounting?"

There's a reason for the level of human resemblance but I wanted them to fill a human role on a planet with a bunch of aliens. The most relatable, most readable of the blorbs - since my main goal with the world is to have a story in it, one that is not too hard to follow.

It might seem like a creativity cut but this is how I like them. Trying less human things made them more rubber-head/grey bipedal and that's not what I want.

I want a person to be able to photoshop one into a human portrait and take a while before noticing one of the people has weird eyes and is covered in fuzz (among other things).

Can you spot the slom

the blorbos

This took a while because I wasn't sure about some visuals but I love my blorbos and how they ended up.

For anyone new to my characters, on the left is Neal, the professor of acoustics, sound manipulation, and other physical stuff that people of this time period can't differentiate very well. He lives a simple normal sloman life.

On the right is "bio man" (I still need to come up with names for 80% of my characters even though I have had them for ages). He teaches everything biology-related in a small school in a completely different country. But he would rather travel and discover the nature of the world (which he does with Neal in the story).

If it's not clear, they enjoy each others company (or at least will). This picture is for me to feel warm and to show the different ways they look at the world. It's abstractly set in the future where Neal gets to have a basic fasion sense and more open feelings.

The silhouette creature competition is over. The winners are here!

The winner is @beeb-oob and their neat slug thing! I just really loved the shapes and colors of this creature. Additionally to the creature, I will draw a character of choosing for beeb-oob.

The award for favorite silhouette use goes to Cool Bug Design by @thegreathailstorm. The jaws becoming the butt of the creature is very badass.

The award for the goofiest goober goes to The Sniffler by @selkra-souza. This goober is just extremely silly.

And the rest of the participants! (If I forgot anyone please inform me). The choices were difficult with so many awesome designs and awesome worldbuilding. If I had more time I would draw more of them.

To note, only the winner gets an extra art this time. I am one slow drawer.

I thank you all so much for participating. It was so much fun seeing what you came up with. I hope something similar can happen soon again, maybe with a different focus.

What does a sloman skull look like? I don't know! But you can take all versions as canon for now.

The version with the most detail assumes sloman eye stalks need more external muscles while both versions on the right assume the internal stalk muscles do the job for them. Versions on right would have fewer muscle facial expressions so some expressions would be assisted with feather movement but would still be human-like.

(4 "teeth","bone" brow and 5 neck vertebrae are decided canon)

ALSO HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Have the uniima or slomen made any mythical creatures? What are they like?

While there are definitely many different mythological beings in the cultures of both, I really felt like showing the sloman equivalent of a dragon.

These beasts go far in sloman history. They can be even found in their cave paintings, often as 'hunting' targets of prehistoric slomen.

Because of how many cultures have named their own beings and how different they are among these cultures, I will not name them here.

You can encounter them in hundreds of legends/folktales with some regional quarks to each. Sometimes they fly, sometimes they lift mountains and shape the world, sometimes they suck people inside their bodies, teleporting them to strange locations (...), and other times they are simple monsters fought by sloman heroes.

Other places these beings are common in are regional flags, blazons of houses or families, house decor, weaponry, some religious imagery, and naturalist books (many groups believe they are real, same with thousands of other mythical beasts), etc.

Their form is not consistent. The number of "limbs" and "fingers" is an exception. Few cultures even depict them with full vertebrate bodies with the whole 4-limb piece being the creature's head.