Mundane Animals - for writers

This article is designed for internal writing use and not meant for eventual publication.

Overview

The mundane plants and animals category involves the day-to-day fauna and flora that we generally take for granted: grasses, trees, bushes, dogs, cats, horses, foxes, bears, rodents, birds, fish, etc. They fill largely the same form and role we know today.

But there’s a big “but.” These mundane plants and animals need a twist. Perhaps their appearance is different through different colors or the presence of spines or claws or teeth. Maybe cats have prehensile tails. Maybe horses enjoy meat and sport canine teeth. Maybe rats have chameleon-like eyes. Maybe certain types of grasses are purple or blue or white. Maybe certain trees fold their branches close to their trunks during storms. Maybe kelp will periodically detach from the ocean floor, swim into a bay, and take up residence in a harbor.

All these twists are for interesting flavor and a unique story. They should not drastically change what the plant/creature inherently is, and they should not skew a plant/creature into the Monsters category.

When writing about mundane plants and animals, articles/assignments will be more like lists of what we know today with brief descriptions of how they are different.

List

• Horse - Canine Teeth / Omnivorous - enjoy meat (as well as plants) and have canine teeth/fangs the protrude from lips
• Ox and Cow - Long Tongues - tongues up to 6’ that are used to wrap around shrubbery, etc
• Camel - no change - camels are weird enough as it is
• Cat - Prehensile Tails - still furry like a modern cat’s (not like a possum), like to hang upside down, equally as indifferent as modern cats
• Dog - Two tails - tails are just as expressive as modern dogs, but there’s two
• Mouse/rat - flying squirrel membrane for gliding
• Wolf - have antenna
• Wild Cats - Overlapping rough hide down their back, like a pink fairy armadillo
• Honey Badger - Iridescent fur
• Rabbits - have small horns
• Chickens - featherless, with scales (think more dinosaury)
• Pigs - no eyes, has extremely good sense of smell
• Deer - spiny ridge down the back
• Silverbird - like a cockatiel but with a white face - acts like a proximity detection system (functions like canaries sensing poisonous gasses in mines) [see article on The Blighted Lands]
• Biral - catlike creatures with floppy rabbit-like ears - live in the Library of Kaas [see article on the Library of Kaas]
• Peesh - sheep analog - They’re very similar to sheep, but rather than 80% sheep 20% wool, it’s a solid 50/50. Their wool is extremely soft and rather plush, used mostly for fabrics, but some farmers pad their pillows with extra wool and it makes for quite a luxurious sleep. [see article on Peesh]
• Fyrib - falcon-like creature - common pets in Vas’tek. They are fairly intelligent animals that you will often see perched upon shoulders. These creatures sport hawklike faces, mostly feathered bodies, and batlike wings. Their double-wings give the appearance of one larger primary set of wings with a smaller set below.