Some time back, I wrote
in this post:
Thinking about dystopian aspects gives me an idea for a new country in the Lehola Galaxy! This one is a country whose leaders reverse-engineered the technology of other species' speeders to create lifespeed technology for the sapient species native to their own planet. They then made lifespeeding mandatory for all newborns from now on, and filled the knowledge-base in their speeders with historical lessons riddled with fake news. Speedees will be speedborn believing it all, and their planet is left with their own Bolsonaro!
Well, I've been thinking more about that. Seeing as when I was 15 I drew the people of the planet Farume with fiery-orange skin and blonde hair, I decided to place that story in a country on Farume, since the Farumens reminded me of a certain head of state with orange skin and a blonde toupee. The sapients of Farume belong to the zesman species, and zesmans have hair made of a cellulose-heavy material similar to cotton, as do the other animals in their class. I decided the "dominating" race (like White people on Earth) would have fiery orange skin, there would be other zesmans who had yellow skin and other zesmans with beige/tan skin, and hair would come in many colors across the globe.
So yesterday I drew the plants and animals of Farume. Zesmans, I decided, would be a frugivorous and nucivorous species. They eat fruits and nuts, but no vegetables, meat, nor grains. As such, I drew the plants that are important to them. I started out with four fruits I had come up with long ago but never worked out what planet they were from: the green, apple-like nondu; the taaji, a round drupe whose outside is red with white specks; the vetimbu, a pear-shaped drupe whose outside is orange with white specks; and the waruvi, a round fruit whose outside is white and covered with tiny round indentations, with six carpels inside.
I then proceeded to create seventeen new fruits for the planet. Many of these are fruits with two big seeds: the purple, double-almond plimang; the pink, peanut-shaped tjapuugi; the babaava with a brown-speckled outside, the yellow-orange, double-almond belimis; the burgundy, ball + valve sopang; and the kasubai, a beige xylocarp. Then there are the fruits with three big seeds: the brown, clam-shaped avataan; and the purple, heart-like moyangdang. A few are fruits with a single lengthwise opening like dead man's fingers: the purple waatja with a brown cap; and the burgundy bibingi, just a long fruit. The koverni is a red, plum-like fruit that grows on a tree with catkins and has a small, single seed (not a stone like a real plum). The lalonga is a yellow, tusk-shaped berry. The makibii is a vine fruit, triangular and blue with white specks on the outside. The bebuu is a soft, wrinkly burgundy berry that grows on a vine. The zalantel is a yellow berry in the shape of a turnip. The yoteng is a red hesperidium. The isay-isay is green and diamond-shaped, similar to a cherimoya.
Then come the nuts. The pevador is red and teardrop-shaped; the vizi has a beige shell with a smaller brown nut inside. The faboza has a brown nut covered with rambutan-like hairs. Finally, the klaango (yes, Fluffy8x!) is a yellow, peach-shaped nut that looks something like a yellow macadamia.
Some other plants important to the Farumens are the diamond-leaved aquizit with its drug in the yellow part; the tjenzon, whose round white berry contains a drug; the tiqui, with resembles a barrel-shaped palm with spikes like those of a prickly pear and provides fiber; the etju, whose small round brown berries make a very sweet caffeinated beverage; the sotji, a grain-like plant eaten by grazing animals; the dijima, which has a multistoried bamboo-like stalk with brown nuts at the top; and the gordan, a hardwood tree with a thick trunk.
Now for the animals! The ornithologue class on Farume, the gigi class, has beaks like birds but has cottony fur instead of feathers. There are the yellow famani; the red, purple and green tropical puraip; the purple queguep with a red crest; the green-and-yellow parrot-like apong; the red-and-magenta tjitjiz, with its phoenix-like tail feathers; the tall, grey-and-white aagu, with its blue crest; the grey, seagull-like melvija; and the blue, aquiline dudong with its bald grey head.
There is no reptologue class on Farume. There are mingas (ophiologues) like the brown, cobra-like siimus and the green blita; the magenta, chameleon-like akan-akan; and the white crocodilian yavupi, but these have fur instead of scales. Other non-gigi furry creatures include the purple, bat-like dodogo with its butterfly-like antennae; the ifu, a long-eared dog-like pet, blue with orange stripes; the tiger-like yazita, which is white with green stripes; the fusmor, white with orange stripes, which resembles a rabbit with a long tail; the golden, rodent-like glem, with its bare white tail terminating in a golden cotton puff; the bratjii, a big, orange rodent-like creature; the tunga, which resembles a mammoth or Snuffleupagus but has two upward horns behind its trunk instead of two tusks; the tjembo, an orange beast of burden with a horse-like tail and donkey's ears; the spiky, light blue wabukhaz; the vormutj, a red, hoofed creature with a wolf-like face; the green, long-necked adagad, a hoofed creature with a blue shell, which can be ridden like the tjembo but is a better swimmer; the hoofed, purple stemfan, which has both droop ears and two horns; and the monkey-like zongkos, with white fur, long tail, and red face, from which the zesmans evolved.
Worms include the wingworm, a white worm that has no limbs but does have two wings; and the linkworm, a worm of many round links which follows its companions into making circles as they sink deeper and deeper into the sand, sort of like a processionary caterpillar and sort of like a caecilian. Arthrologues include the six-legged, beetle-like otjoto, with its purple elytra, antennae, and big red eyes; the amber, six-legged, eusocial aleng, also with antennae and made of three big balls, the biggest ball being its thorax; the pink, six-legged palpalo, with resembles a butterfly but has only two wings; the big-eyed, six-legged fly-like invo; the six-legged parasitic tjipas, with its white, conical thorax attached to a white head; and the one-segment, eight-legged, purple-grey khugi, a cave-dweller.
The ichthyologue class on Farume is known as the dwimang class. People often feed dwimangs to their pets or farm animals, even though zesmans never eat dwimangs themselves. There is the nanu, blue with aqua fins and resembling a blunt-nosed tuna, salmon or bass -- the classic fish look; the brown skejo, with three plates on its back, each overlooking the segment in front of it; the round waalu, yellow with small coral spots; the primitive, green majaabi with its long, carnivorous mouth and its brown lobe-fins; the tropical, river-dwelling kaviteno, red with black stripes; and the blue, striped, tetra-like tozipo. Other aquatic Fazumen fauna include the sajiji, a dolphin-like creature with white, cottony, fur; the blakhiskhis, a radiate with eight thin arms each terminating in a ball; the white, jelly-like glabuu with its thin tentacles; the green, six-tentacled tupo'o with its blue, two-oak-galls shell; the green, six-tentacled limlim with its white, two-lobed shell with a lengthwise opening in front like a cowrie's shell; the sessile, blue-grey golgon, with a toothed mouth segment that opens and closes, atop a ball-shaped segment attached to the ocean floor; the pink-shelled, antennate, three-segmented, six-legged shkef, and the three-segmented, four-legged ublugh, coral with eye stalks and a white shell.
That drawing session was worth it! Now I need to make a map of Farume so I know how much is ocean and what part is rain-forest. I'm not as interested in the other biomes, but I don't want the entire land area of Farume to be rain-forest. Any way to make a planet so there's no tundra? I figure there'll be desert, chaparral, savannah, and temperate regions too.
Also, if I have zesmans with fiery orange skin, zesmans with yellow skin, and zesmans with beige/tan skin, which biomes will each skin color be best adapted to?