#I could totally go on about the ma't'am biology forEVER i really like what i came up with for them

[girlscience]

I am intrigued by the wip titled “zaz” if you would like to share some about it fjdjdjdk

Ohhh yes I will absolutely share about Zaz!!! It is more or less a huge ass on-going worldbuilding document. There has been a vague idea of an alien world floating around in my head since about 2018 I think? And I finally started writing it all down and putting some actual detail into it. This document includes such things as angle and axis of rotation of the planet, placement of tectonic plates, ocean and wind currents, tides, a bit of flora and fauna, alien biology and culture, the very rough beginnings of an alien language, and some other related bits.

The aliens that live on this planet are the ones I have mentioned before that have horns like pachycephalosaurus and practice a sort of headbutt wrestling. The alien race is called Ma't'am. Zaz specifically is the name of one of the ma't'am, I am going to use them in a space dnd game, but they are also my sort of "way in" for understanding the culture and life in a more specific way than broad cultures (this whole world exists far beyond the scope of dnd but it has kind of given me an excuse to go wild over it lol). Zaz is a diminutive form of zazaz, which is a sort of bamboo like mangrove tree that their people use to do everything from building ships to weaving baskets to making clothing. And it connotes something like solid/sturdy/useful/multipurpose. The planet is mostly covered by ocean (fun fact the 'sand' on the planet is actually lots of small sea glass so the whole ocean is sort of like stained glass) and the majority of the landmass is islands. There are groves of zazaz trees around many of the islands, and because the ma't'am are entirely ship-living nomads the zazaz trees and a few other mangrove like plants are the only land based organism/object that they interact with.

This is my very loose map of the planet (excluding the wind and ocean currents, they are on another layer and make it hard to read). It's not super great, I have definitely made better maps before, but I think it gives a pretty clear picture of the shape of the world! The world is about the size of Mars, so it is quite a bit smaller than earth. I made some very loose calculations about human populations from a few different areas and time periods and concluded that there would be around 100 million ma't'am living on the planet.

I have about a bajillion other thoughts on this world and it's people, but that's the pretty basic overview I think? Someday I hope to draw Zaz and some of the other Ma't'am and their world.... but who knows if that will ever happen. I will absolutely share more information about all this if anyone wants it! I think about it all the time and love theorizing and worldbuilding with other people :)