Oh, I'm sure I have. *Remembering* them, now...
hmm...
*discards species/cultures that were too close to preexisting types*
*discards things that weren't developed past the "intriguing hint" stage*
*discards creatures that were made just for the porn of it*
Huh. I've done a fair number of cultures, but very few original races - at least recently enough to recall. Well, except for games of Twilight. I suppose those count.
- The Firrathil. Basically anthropomorphic gerbils, particularly agile, dexterous, and highly intelligent. Not so much on the conformity or size, and a bit on the fragile side. They wound up with a culture based on a enormous gift economy, which was made large-scale functional by the (in this case easily demonstrable) approval of their God, who was largely a groupmind of ancestor-spirits. They raised their children in creches, pursued knowledge and technology obsessively, and dealt with outside threats through stealth, magical and technological supremacy, and burying everything ithey cared about far beneath the surface, accessible through tunnels that were too small for most folks to get through and (eventually) heavily trapped. They eventually had a high enough opinion of themselves that their belief in their own ability to do anything they set their minds to created its own demigod.
- The Colony. Essentially a sentient, psychic, group-mind infection. Single-celled. Individual cells were not capable of sentience, but they had a short-range telepathy, to the point that enough of them together could groupmind their way up to intelligence. Had a number of fairly generalist organelles, and a degree of biokinesis in sufficient numbers. Eventually intended to infect every living being on the planet, adjusting as necessary.
- The Symbiotes: There was this stuff called the gook. It was much like a more concentrated, sludgy form of the Colony. Enough of it together could think reasonably well (if inefficiently), it could absorb and consume just about anything organic to make more gook, and it could shape itself pretty much however it wanted to - including forming more-or-less organic things out of its substance (which would then no longer be gook, but could be consumed again later if necessary.)
Symbiotes were not totally gook. They were mostly gook. They were gook that had separated off, formed semifunctional limbs, developed something like a skin, and had gone off into the world in search of hosts. They would find a willing (or at least unresisting) critter, latch on, and tie into their organs with specialized tentacles. At that point, they would specialize further, to better suit their hosts, they would learn as much as they could about their hosts, and they would take over much of the biological processes of the host, as a sysadmin might take over a network. The game ended too early, but the plan would have wound up with them being able to do nearly ridiculous things from a medical standpoint. Things like replacing a pierced heart in combat time without prep work. Their intelligence was strongly proportional to their size, which was, in turn, based on how large their host was. They'd pretty much invariably die if seperated from their hosts, and they each loved their hosts a *whole* *lot*. The species as a whole maintained a lingering fondness for small rodents, as those were the only hosts available at the beginning - and a lingering hostility towards small birds, due to the normal fate of those symbiotes who did *not* get hosts. Symbiotes without hosts had excellent senses of taste, touch, and smell, and bare vibration sense and "it's brighter that way" for hearing and sight.
I mostly made these guys for the joy of having a race of honest-to-hentai tentacle monsters, complete with [adjectives deleted] organs of uncertain purpose, who really just wanted to be friends with everyone, and to do good things for people.
As a side note, gook was adequate-to-poor at thinking (except for thinking about biology, at which it excelled) and really bad at internal long-term memory, but the species as a whole was growing specific kinds of groupmind long-term memory in the divine realms. So, for example, until the Pool of World was poured out, they wouldn't really be able to even understand the idea of space or location all that well, and giving directions at anything beyond the "run that way" level would just be setting yourself up for unhappiness. After it was poured out, if one symbiote knew the layout of a room, every symbiote would know the layout of that room. This was also their only real means of communication. They coordinated plans through the Pool of Will.
hmm...
*discards species/cultures that were too close to preexisting types*
*discards things that weren't developed past the "intriguing hint" stage*
*discards creatures that were made just for the porn of it*
Huh. I've done a fair number of cultures, but very few original races - at least recently enough to recall. Well, except for games of Twilight. I suppose those count.
- The Firrathil. Basically anthropomorphic gerbils, particularly agile, dexterous, and highly intelligent. Not so much on the conformity or size, and a bit on the fragile side. They wound up with a culture based on a enormous gift economy, which was made large-scale functional by the (in this case easily demonstrable) approval of their God, who was largely a groupmind of ancestor-spirits. They raised their children in creches, pursued knowledge and technology obsessively, and dealt with outside threats through stealth, magical and technological supremacy, and burying everything ithey cared about far beneath the surface, accessible through tunnels that were too small for most folks to get through and (eventually) heavily trapped. They eventually had a high enough opinion of themselves that their belief in their own ability to do anything they set their minds to created its own demigod.
- The Colony. Essentially a sentient, psychic, group-mind infection. Single-celled. Individual cells were not capable of sentience, but they had a short-range telepathy, to the point that enough of them together could groupmind their way up to intelligence. Had a number of fairly generalist organelles, and a degree of biokinesis in sufficient numbers. Eventually intended to infect every living being on the planet, adjusting as necessary.
- The Symbiotes: There was this stuff called the gook. It was much like a more concentrated, sludgy form of the Colony. Enough of it together could think reasonably well (if inefficiently), it could absorb and consume just about anything organic to make more gook, and it could shape itself pretty much however it wanted to - including forming more-or-less organic things out of its substance (which would then no longer be gook, but could be consumed again later if necessary.)
Symbiotes were not totally gook. They were mostly gook. They were gook that had separated off, formed semifunctional limbs, developed something like a skin, and had gone off into the world in search of hosts. They would find a willing (or at least unresisting) critter, latch on, and tie into their organs with specialized tentacles. At that point, they would specialize further, to better suit their hosts, they would learn as much as they could about their hosts, and they would take over much of the biological processes of the host, as a sysadmin might take over a network. The game ended too early, but the plan would have wound up with them being able to do nearly ridiculous things from a medical standpoint. Things like replacing a pierced heart in combat time without prep work. Their intelligence was strongly proportional to their size, which was, in turn, based on how large their host was. They'd pretty much invariably die if seperated from their hosts, and they each loved their hosts a *whole* *lot*. The species as a whole maintained a lingering fondness for small rodents, as those were the only hosts available at the beginning - and a lingering hostility towards small birds, due to the normal fate of those symbiotes who did *not* get hosts. Symbiotes without hosts had excellent senses of taste, touch, and smell, and bare vibration sense and "it's brighter that way" for hearing and sight.
I mostly made these guys for the joy of having a race of honest-to-hentai tentacle monsters, complete with [adjectives deleted] organs of uncertain purpose, who really just wanted to be friends with everyone, and to do good things for people.
As a side note, gook was adequate-to-poor at thinking (except for thinking about biology, at which it excelled) and really bad at internal long-term memory, but the species as a whole was growing specific kinds of groupmind long-term memory in the divine realms. So, for example, until the Pool of World was poured out, they wouldn't really be able to even understand the idea of space or location all that well, and giving directions at anything beyond the "run that way" level would just be setting yourself up for unhappiness. After it was poured out, if one symbiote knew the layout of a room, every symbiote would know the layout of that room. This was also their only real means of communication. They coordinated plans through the Pool of Will.