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[skyllareich]

The seas of Skyllariech have been the cooking pot of it’s life for millions of years. From massive pale crabs inhabiting the depths, the small parasitic descendants of sharks. But the seas have been far from the only bodies of water in the realm. Rivers and estuaries have lead life upwards from the sea for many millions of years, drawing it into the unknown and curiosity of the channel’s headwaters.

Even beyond that, lakes and ponds lie great distances from the coast. To far for most oceanic life to reach, as they are confined not only by there watery home and by their saline environment. But this has not stopped every attempt. First it was a few exceptions, algae and plankton accumulated by storms or twisters before being deposited into the inland ecosystem. Eventually  all sorts of worms, snails, and bivalves get picked up from streams and rivers by floods, ending up, one way or another, in standing lakes.

As time went by, life could move from rivers to the lakes they draw from. Snakes and Cnidarians were among those who moved it. Great groves of Sea Pen descendants sprung up along the gravel and mud of the lake bottom. The snakes took up a new roll and the apex predators of their new home. A new climax ecosystem would establish itself, everything from algal producers, gastropod foragers, arthropod and filter-feeding predators, and jewelworm decomposers.

Along a small gravel ledge, a snail patrols among the rocks, the life depicted is as follows: Azure Cornucopia Snail, A large Aquatic Snail,  the Azure Cornucopia Snail is a detritivore, eating algae and refuse from the lake floor. It is so named for it’s large, spiralling, blue-green shell, resembling a cornucopia. Heartshell Barnacle, Sporting a corrugated shell convergent to Limpets, Heartshell Barnacles are filter-feeders found attached to rocks, shells, and other hard surfaces of Skyllareich’s freshwater lakes. Nimrod’s Tower, Named for the Mythical giant of the Bible, Nimrod’s Tower is a descent of relative sea pens, growing a tough, trunk-like body beneath it’s nimble arms, they form small groves in cold-water environments. 

In the background, more life lies in the open water, muck, or among towers: Opulent Jewelworm, While there may not be true (clitellate) worms on Skyllareich, bristleworms are quite common. Jewel worms are an amphibious group of Polychaete worms named for there reflective, leather-like skin. Banded Hammersnake, The only vertebrates to have reached freshwater, Hammersnakes are evolved to crush hard-shelled mollusks and arthropods with a partially fused set of jaws, allowing much more force to be used. Swimming Coin Crab, Small arthropods, these small, free-swimming crustaceans are easily recognised by there flat and broad shape, causing  them to somewhat resemble sliver coins when taken out of water.

But these environments are not to last. While they may lie in a state of equilibrium currently, they are but millions of years away from collapse. This environment is missing a key inhabitant of there ocean alternatives, the Sharks. This will come to fail, as they have begun there journey inland. Each generation, a little further. A little better adapted. From sea, to shoreline, to floodplain, to swampland. There journey is unending. Be it a million years, or five. But they will arrive.

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We often think of carnivores as the kings of an ecosystem, lording over all,  taking anything they please for there next meal. In reality, this is often not the case, with the largest life being the herbivores, which, above a certain size, lack any natural predators. Even while they may lack any fear at there peak, the young, old, sick, and infirm are not immune to predations. A pack of hyenas may pursuit a massive herbivore in it’s slow meander towards the end of it’s life. 

On skyllareich, both the predators and the prey of the late Marecene are highly diverse, with many different orders and clades trying there hand at securing a niche by any means nessacary, mushrooming is size, devolving weapons, or falling through another tricks. And when it comes to size, none are larger than the Charybdids, a clade of massive sharks, oftentimes more than 15 metres long. Despite their large size, they are generally placid, subsisting off of various forms of plankton and Invertabrates. Easily recognisable from there sharp, broad fins, and brachycephilic heads, they move in small groups throughout planktonic booms, they are the whales of skyllareich’s sea.

Much smaller than the Charybdids, the silverheads are a primitive group of carnivores, most easily recognisable by a large head and ten cartalige-reinforced plates adorning there skull. Generalists, they will eat just about anything they can fit in there sizeable maw, one that stretches much farther than that on most similarly-sized sharks. Cannibalistic, the silverheads specialize in taking out other sharks, and this one has found the catch of a lifetime.

An elderly Charybdid. Close to death, this individual has wandered beyond it’s usual grounds, leaving it open to attack. A pursuing silverhead has seen the dark outline of it’s prey sillouted against the late morning sun. Chasing it’s target, the hunter arises to reach it’s target. The silverhead would not normally pursue something this large, but when the opportunity arises, it will not be passed up. A hard clench locks upon a pectoral fin, securing the bounty. It is mearly a matter of time until the charybdid succumbs, either by it’s attacker’s jaws, or, more likely, of blood loss. 

[skyllareich]

Oftentimes when working on evolution, people will focus on the biggest, the strongest, or the fiercest. It is not common you’ll see a snapshot into the life of the average inhabitant. When discussing the animals  of Siberia, you here of Bears and Tigers, but rarely of the lowly vole or shrew. While skyllareichian May lack these things, it have another superlative to focus on. The most common.

Descendants of bristle worms, the false isopods (members of Psuedoisopoda) are a common sight in the warm seas of skyllareich, from the frigid poles to the tumultuous coast of Gorgon, simply digging your hand into the sediment is usdualy enough to bring up some form of this diverse order. Quickly diverging from there Polychaeta ansestors, the false isopod are the second largest order by total species number, after only Gastropoda, and as such have numerous formes, five of which are depicted here (loosely clockwise, not to scale):

Top left-centre: The dwarf gorget, less than a centimetre in length, the dwarf gorget is commonly found along the shores of the Hesperian Archapelago, the dwarf gorget lives amphibously, moving between the water with the flow of the tide, feeding on a mix of algae meiofauna and whatever cadavers are washed up by the waves. 

Top right: Known for it’s brilliant colouring, the fireback gorget is found nearly cosmopolitan, but is most common in subarctic waters. The comparatively biright colour warns would-be predators of high toxicity, like most other large gorgets, it is a sift-feeder, sorting small Invertabrates from the sand and muck. Compared to other gorgets, it is slow-moving, only moving too adjust it’s target food source.

Middle: The poleyns are a primitve group of false isopods, retaining many basil traits, many, such as the here shown giant poleyn, are quite large, reaching up to half a metre. Unlike the poison used by the above mentioned fireback gorget, they rely on there size to ensure it’s safety. Between a tough, leathery-like exterior and a domed shape, it is definitely got any predator currently found on skyllareich to get it’s mouth around it, let along take a bite.

Bottom right: Easily reconizible for the sizeable protuberance at the tip it’s head, the bull’s horn pauldron is most common in skyallreich’s tropics. The most common member of the pauldrons, the bull’s horn pauldron is best known for the slightly curved horn, used to ram rivals during competition for mates, a ritual known well among the pauldrons.

Bottom left: Known from the same pauldron order, the buckler pauldron is perhaps best known for it’s ability to curl up like an earthen woodlouse, allowing it endure a much more brutal beating that it’s relatives, a factor perhaps nessacary due to living in the volcanic crags of Gorgon’s coast, an area where death may be found around every corner.

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1816, Europe experiences a year so terrible it it referred to as the “Year Without a Summer”. Choking the old world under a layer Sulphr Dioxide and ash. Harvests failed, the sun failed to pierce the clouds for months at a time, snow came in August. This was all the result of Tambora, a massive volcano in Indonesia that would birth the largest volcanic explosion in recent history, sending 150 cubic kilometres of molten rock from earth’s mantle to the surface, along with a massive amount of rock and gases.

Skyllareich has been mostly geologically passive, generally going through a bit of a calm period. This would all change. The Hesperian archipelago is a large group of island that together make up more than half of skyllareich’s landmass. These islands are located in a band stretching from pole to pole, and located along the collision of numerous tectonic plates, each boundary forcing up rock to make individual islands. The most violent of these is the boundary between the Boreal and Hesperian plates. The heavier Boreal plate is slowly being forced under the lighter Hesperian plate. A process that churns up massive pools of magma.

Along the boundary lies Gorgon, the northmost major island in the Hesperian isles, dominated by a range of high mountions in the north, genially sloping down to the sea as you move to the south. Unlike the Himalayas or Andes, the North Gorgon range is still very much active, with small Hawaiian and Strombolian eruptions pock-marking the range. Every once and a while though, a large one occurs. But even these pale in comparison to what happen but a few days prior. Unleashing a massive flood of lava that covered nearly two-million square kilometres in fiery molten rock.

The ash choked the skies, coating costs a dull red, basalt covered the land, and acids poisoned the seas. Even the pockets of gas and magma left in shallow graves beneath the surface. Shown above, one such pocket blasts it’s top, as the vitriolic stained waves crash the corpse of a suffocated shark a giant the shore. The first era of skyllareich has drawn to a close, from the fuming remains of a supervolcano, the Aestuarian emerges.

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98 kilograms. That’s how much an average 70-kilo human would weigh on skyllareich. Having gravity  nearly 1.4 times that of earth, living on land would be difficult for anyone coming from an earth-sized world. If each step you took was one and a half times as hard, imagine how much harder it would be for one taking it’s first step. Even moreso, how difficult it would be to evolve to take that step in the firstplace. On skyllareich, said scenario is underway.

On the shores of skyllariech, the sharks that have dwelt in the waters for several million years had begun there long journey onto land some seven million years ago. Starting out with sharks mearly capable of hauling themselves onto land for brief times, usually to exscape predators or chase arthropod prey. Recently, sharks such as the Pinkfin Shark began longer excursions to reach stranded oxbow lakes or nearby rivers. But in the tail end of the Marecene, a new form arises. A nearly two-metre long monster that originates from estuarine envoirments, Eoproteus, the first of what will soon rise to be a commonplace group, that of the shark’s excursion on land.

The great innovation made by Eoproteus and it’s recent ansestors is a simple atmospheric oxygen extange. The system functions similarly to that of sharks in the water. With an open mouth, air flows in, passing by the gills. A number of short fibres surround the interior of the gills, capturing a coating of water upon it. The air passing by dissolves oxygen into the water, at which point it can be extracted by the gills. While it allows the capability of terrestrial mobility, the animal only gets a handful of hours until the coasting evaporates, leading to it suffocating like any other fish.

This imporoved oxygen extange allows it to be better adapted to an envoirment growing in commonality during it’s era, the saltmarsh. A top predator, there is nothing large enough to challenge any protean sharks. Using it’s terrestrial capabilities, sharks are now able to breach the virgin pools along the interior of skyllareich, previously inhabited exclusively by arthropods and mollusks capabile of making it overland.

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It took billions of years for life to colonise the sea, but only millions to then reach land. Skyllareich, however, had a headstart. The Ophidocarids would make the first step to land, fusing chitin into a cartilaginous skeleton, giving them increased durability, if at the cost of flexibilty. The next step would be made by an inhabitant of esturine envoirments along the edges of the sea. The Pinkfin shark, an metre-long fish so named for the colouration around the edges of it’s fins, has a key adaptation to amphibiousness.

As with any organism that dwells near it’s predators, some form of protection is needed to survive. Many creatures will take some form of speed, camouflage, or toxins. A much rarer solution, is to go where there predators cannot. Living much like a seal, the Pinkfin shark is a mesopredator of crustaceans and algae, itself preyed upon by larger sharks and snakes. The real connection to seals delves deeper. While predators are confined to the sea, the prey is not. While it has no fully-functioning way to breath, it can extend it’s time by diffusing oxygen from the surrounding air via it’s skin. An issue arises when the thin skin required for diffusion can be injured by the abrasion on the front of its pectoral fins. The solution, is to use a much less fragile medium: chitin.

Both the unrefined movement and high gravity makes the method for terrestrial locomotion unusual, functioning around “pulling” and “pushing” fins. The pectoral fins are the first two out of the water, and thus used to pull the rest of the body forwards. The rear two limbs and unusual tail, once on land, serve to form a small star of fins that act like a platform to push off from, after which the pectorals take control again. Another adaptation is a set of muscles behing the eye, allowing for the eyes to be drawn back into there sockets, gifting them the ability to keep there eyes moist without returning to the water. While it may not be perfectly adapted to life on land, it will serve as a key stepping stone for future adaptations. 

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Generally, you can tell relatives from amongst a group of lifeforms, a lion resembles a housecat more than it does a whale, but sometimes, it is not so obvious. Moniter lizards are more akin to snakes than the lizards they outwardly resemble. Barnacles may seem like a hard-shelled mollusk, and are coated in armour similar to limpiits and snails, but are closer to crustaceans than anything else. Sometimes, these differing forms are the result of conflicting envoirments, to groups of the same organism each adapted uniquely to the habitat it calls home. The seas of skyllareichian are inhabited by several such examples, one of the most egregious being that of the Lesser Silvershirmp (Velocaris hydragyrum) and Chestnut Crab (Tricircum castaneis). 

Only a handful of million years ago, the barren oceans of skyllareich were scuttled across by a small number of crabs similar to those on earth, sporting a flattened carapace, eight legs, and two claws. But such forms are subject to change. As the open seas of skyllareichwere populated mainly by carnivorous sharks and aquatic snakes. One of the species to quickly take advantage of the holes present in the food chain, were the crabs. Most crabs sport a tail, while usually curled beneath the body, it has evolved to support a rhombus-shaped fluke and two flatted legs, the now elongated form armoured by a slender but elongate carapace. 

After millions of years, what was once a crab not dissimilar to the ones on earth, has lain the seeds for it’s descendants to take to the open seas, spreading there legs into flatten fins. Commonly referred to as silver shrimp, there are numerous varieties, but most are grouped into ‘lesser’ and ‘greater’ silvershrimp, the loose definition follows greater silvershrimp being wider and more thoroughly armoured, and lesser silvershrimp being thinner and slimmed down. Despite these differences, they mostly suit the niches filled by small fish if not for there absence.

Another group of crabs would lean heavier onto there armour, the carapace splitting into three parts, the first covering there head, the second rounding out the bulk of their body, and the final acting as a cap on there undersection. Their legs reduced, loosing all but their first segment, which mushroomed into heavy shingles adorning it’s weak undersection. From the gap between the legs and head emerge four nimble filiments, used to collect plankton for sustenance. Heavily armoured and lacking in mobility, the chestnut crabs would give up most movement for durability,  retaining only there lowermost legs as movement, allowing them to awardly roll in times of need.

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The intertidal zone is among the most overlooked, not as majestic as the ocean, not home like land. But the envoirment is indifferent, and makes marvels all its own. The Rockeel, not a eel (nor a rock) is a derived descendants of the sea snakes that started as the lone reptiles here. Uniquely adapted to land, it took a fraction the time many lifeforms would require for such a jump. But they followed a path unlike there relitives, favouring hard-shelled Crustaceans and Gastropods more than fish.

Rather squat as far as snakes go, the rockeel (Crustavore comprimens) has a thick, semi-circular body, and at only a half metre long, it is much shorter and more compact than most other snakes. The split lower jaw of Holocene snakes has ebbed, fusing into a new structure, giving it a shell-crushingly strong bite. Two flanges of skin below the bow of the snakes head normally cover the front end of the jaw, but can be pulled back (as shown) to partake in the most unusual behaviour known to there snakes, herbivory.

Setting them apart from there relitives, the rockeel has a particularly robust stomach, originally evolved for digestion of any runaway shell fragments, it has found new use in supplementing the rockeel’s deit. When food is scarce or unwilling to reveal itself, a diet can be made of some of the more nutrient dense of the skyllareich’s algae, such as the red patch algea shown here. This adaptation is unique, as even in the sea large herbivores remain uncommon, perhaps the allure of freash meat will bring larger beasts to shore.

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 All life must gain energy, be it through the photosynthesis of Cyanobacteria, or chemosynthesis of certain archea, the way that has, in many ways led to the greatest achievements life, is theft. Eating another organism is a common way of quarrelling energy, terrestrialy, producers grow large enough to directly feed some of the largest life known, massive dinosaurs more than 150 feet long likely lived on a diet of leaves and needles. But in the ocean, the most common produces, phytoplankton, usually makes may intermediate steps of predators of varying sizes before reaching the true giants. Life, however, has its ways around this.

Zooplankton, the next step above the phytoplankton on the food chain, outnumbers many of the larger predators  by orders of magnitude. But there are giants who can take advantage of it. On Earth, since the Cambrian explosion there has been plantovores, hurdiid anomalcairds, placoderms, ray-finned fish, and great whales. The depths of skyllareich are no different, while there were basal filter-feeders, there extinction was just as abrupt as the genesis. More specicilzed creatures would take time. 

More than 20 million years after introduction, the brachycephalic Charybdids would rise as the principle plantovores of the Marecene. Sporting a series of unique adaptations, the charybdids, such as the Eocharybdis equatorialis shown here, sport disproportionally large fins, allowing low energy cost for long distance travel, helping to falllow vast swarms of plankton. All this aside, the most unique feature of Charybdids is the toilet-like mouth they sport. The near-vertical mouth allows them to open a larger area for digestion, fitting a larger swarm within there maw. These strange, pug-faced giants of the skyllareichian sea are just having there beginning, but will rule the seas for many millions of years to come.

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 The icecaps of skyllareich are quite small, warm seas spread far and wide beyond the equator. Despite this, the highly oxygenated water bring life. Snails and zooplankton are the step above the plants, in turn, they feed larger crustaceans and sea stars. At the zenith of the web lies the Bug-eyed shark.

The bug-eyed shark, or Magnaluscus australus, so named for it’s eyes, quite large in proportion to it’s body. While only 2 metres long, M. australus is still much larger than most of the other inhabinat of the sea ice envoirment. The pectoral fins are large and muscular, alllowing it to move while expending very little energy, it’s dorsal and rear fin are similarly key, being used used to stabilise without energy expenditure.

Compared to similarly sized sharks, M. australus sports a square jaw, this is used for it’s deit of hard-bodied Invertabrates like snails and crabs. The massive eyes play a role as well, as a sight predator the massive eyes let are built to let in as much light as possible, it’s eyesight is assisted by a series of sensitive pores on it’s upper jaw, allowing it to fell the movement of prey even in pitch black.

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Of all the ocean’s threats, both on skyllareich and Earth, many come from above. The defences against this are numerous: from counter-shading to dorsal armor, but one of the most common is spines. 

The churchback is a unique species of sharks, a derived member of the spineback family, it’s dorsal array the group’s namesake. The the group’s diversity ranges through a number of forms, there main key being there sharp armor, of which the churchback has some of the most extravagant. The four back towers and the smaller one in front of it’s pectoral fins contain venom, adding further to it’s defence.

While both genders sport the grand arangment, they are much larger in males, often making up half there total height. The brownish red colour in along the edges of the sail grow stronger during mating season as a sign of health. Churchbacks’ deit mostly consist of the bristle worms common to the volcanic sands in which it lives, but they are not opposed to eating anything else it can fit in it’s mouth.

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 On Earth, tentacles have evolved many times. From the arms of a cephalopod, to the nose of a tube-nosed snake. Along the southern end of Crein-Croin, volcanic activity and ereosian has created a strange envoirment. Full of tall spires and deep valleys, a place terrible to traverse by foot.

The abundant growth of algae in the sun bathed rocky reef has attracted many predators, namely amongst them, sea snails. However, the problem still arises, the vast distances between spires and trenches. The “stomach foot” all gastropods have was the board of the invention. Over 9 million years of evolution, the foot  split and extended, becoming two thin plank-like tentacles, a new method of propulsion, one suited for the rock reef.

Moving by spinning its two tentacles in a counter-rotary pattern, the two tentacles have almost became massive flagella. At almost 5 centimetres (~2.5 inches)  long, it is quite dimunitive compared to the sharks and snakes of the rock reef. And are quite common, being almost equivalent to the small fish of the coral reefs on earth.

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Due to there generalist lifestyle and adaptability, in the early days of skyllareich both number and mass, the most common multicellular species were britsleworms. Since there introduction,  many predators have evolved to capitalise on the new food source, while epaulettes, snakes, and arthropods were the most obvious, the sea stars adapted as well.

One of the most alien species on skyllareich is the sandstar, a descant of the Asterozoaids in the 5 million years they have had to evolve. Notable apart from it’s kin, the sand star sports a durable casing around it’s central body, from which it’s arms originate.

The most notable difference from it’s ansestors is the single enlarged limb of the sandstar, this serves two main functions, the first being a natural counterbalance, allowing for it to “flap” its four arms, allowing for open ocean propulsion, the other ability is as a anchor for it’s other army’s muscles, to allow more efficient burrowing. 

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The deep ocean is a extremely alien place, from anglerfish to siphonophores longer than the greatest of whales, isolated environment are almost always the most unusual. In the warm seas of skyllareich, there are similarly unusual beasts stalking the depths. Over two metres long, the green sea devil, also known as the pug-faced devil, is a deep sea-relative of the shallow water capufelines, the sea devil has several unique adaptations for living in deep water.

One of the most notíciale traits about the green sea devil is it’s jaw, bent forward, this placement allowed for suction from the opening of the jaw, sucking nearby fish in, allowing the creature to expend much less energy. This, combined with the larger bodymass, leads to a quite good metabolism, letting it subside off of much less food than expected.

A series of bioluminescent blotches line the green sea devil’s body, this is used to mimic a number of smaller fish, and helping the creture hunt. This seems like a reminder of the dragonfish, a form of unrelated convergent evolution, as both fish occupy similar niches in similar environments, both are adapted simmlairly.

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While the sharks are, in many ways, the most prominent lifeform, already occupying almost every major aquatic envoirment, yet they are not the only vertebrate here, and they have not been loosing the evolutionary game, by any means. The snakes have become quite diverse, ranging from small terrestrial snakes that subside off of the crabs and prawns already up there, to Bethenic ones, rooting around in the silt.

On skyllareich, the eppualtes are much more populous, but the snakes have fit in easily as successful predators, one of the largest is the Crested Redback, (Cristatuserpens magna), which utilises it’s split jaw to swallow sharks even larger in diameter then it.

The crested Redback occupies a very interesting niche, being on the edge of evolution, inhabiting the coast and shoreline, having a diet comprised monstly of smaller sharks, it is suplamented the the snails and crabs that scuttle along the shoreline. Perhaps in as little as two million years, life will move further inland, and, always on the edge of evolution, so will the snakes.

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The Marecene is in many ways like the Ordovician of Earth, it’s land barren and dry, and it’s air unbreathable. The dense atmosphere suffocating the world has lead to.many things, storms, clouds, and rain are more common than earth, but most notable, it has lead to a tempature much more tropical than most worlds orbiting that far out from there stars, a tempature of 19°C leading the planet to being in a forever summer, with no permanent ice caps and snow only being common above the 50th parallel.

The land during the marecene is few and far between, three island large enough to be called continents blanket the world, with Turistas and Makara in the Southern Hemisphere, and Charybdis in the north. A huge number of islands also adorn the world, with Currid and Taniwha not joining Charybdis in the massive crataeis isles, named for the mother of monsters in Greek myth. The Marecene is so named due to it’s Latin origin, meaning “Age of Waves”, this is due to the era almost exclusively sporting aquatic life, and the increase in storms.

 Marecene:

Early Diversification

First Cannibal

Not Star nor Sand

The Churchback

Dawn of the Snakesharks

Apex of the Shoreline

Swimming Snail

Devil of the Depths

Cancrine Cousins

Eyes of the Cold

Serpentine Grazer

Colossus of the Open Ocean

Sea to Shoreline

False Isopods

Skyllareichian Sunrise

Enviorment Spotlight: Inland Lakes

Vitrolic Voyage Beyond

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Dawn of the Snakesharks

On Earth, all sharks, along with there ray and ratfish relitives, have a skeleton of cartilage, and as such are much manoeuvrable than there bone-clad relitives. However, in the coasts of skyllareich, a certain shark would evolve a spine with a different arrangement of cartilage, gathered around various areas instead of a straight column. This would allow for greater mobility, at the cost of durability, a problem that would be aliveated with one advent.

The particular species of shark to evolve a reorganised spine would subsiste mostly on arthropods, and as such they expelled large amounts of chitin in there waste. As evolution had its way, the incorporation of chitin into the shark’s spinal matrix would begin, a trait that allowed for the sharks to, in a way, lose there cartilaginous fish label.

The family of sharks to evolve a cartalaginous skeleton would be the Ophidocarids, or snakesharks, a loose collection of the sharks that had a a chitinous skeleton, one that, while having it’s downsides, would come with many new niches and roles. The species shown here (Eophidocarus aestuarium) is a basal member of the group, still only having it’s spine chitinized. Snakesharks would give rise to many new possibilities, incuding that which once though unreachable, land.