#wondrous fossil

[dravidious]

Very nice and cool you are

SO I finally started dumping my stuff on my geocities.ws account that I made like a year ago but it turns out that this site SUCKS but at least it can send .txt files so here's a fossil fighters card game that I made WAY more cards for than I thought I would

[randomsporefacts]

more cc demo locales, with cinematics for every stage (definitely very unused in the cc demo)

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cinematics_clg is different between the cc demo and final. all lines past the first two are different, and they added another one in final too

0x00000001 You have earned enough DNA to evolve in the Cell Creator. 0x00000002 Spend your DNA points on new parts to gain new abilities. 0x00000003 Creatures and fossils can contain new parts.~br~Swim over parts to collect them. 0x00000004 Each part has unique abilities which can improve your cell.

0x00000001 You have earned enough DNA to evolve in the Cell Creator. 0x00000002 Spend your DNA points on new parts to gain new abilities. 0x00000003 Other cells and meteor bits are the key to finding new parts. Each part has unique abilities that can benefit your cell. 0x00000004 When you see the new part appear, swim over the token to collect it. 0x00000005 Congratulations! You’re on the path to sentience!

also it refers explicitly to "fossils", as opposed to meteor bits in final. they look like rocks too, were they going to have different models then?

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cinematics_crg is even more different. the amount of lines has greatly decreased in final (as a lot of the cc demo's strings were placeholders for deleted lines) and the lines that ARE there are different

the cc demo locale also contains strings that feel more like mission text than cinematics (Your creature is a carnivore. You must hunt for your food. ~br~ Consider adding aggressive parts to your creature in the Creature Creator.), but i suppose itd fit for the start of creature stage? maybe?

they also were going to have cutscenes for doing something as simple as getting dna or unlocking a part or adding to your posse or havig a mate spawn at your nest. which is pretty excessive

also this one is pretty interesting. it suggests that you would have to click a button to upgrade your brain (this seems different from clicking a button to move onto tribal stage), as opposed to it just happening automatically at a certain dna threshold

0x93b260aa Kudos! You've earned enough DNA to upgrade your brain. ~br~Click the Upgrade Button to climb an evolutionary rung.

and theres the tribal stage thing in fact. so it seems like they WERE going to be the same button

0x93b260ab Kudos! Your species can now upgrade its nest to begin its journey toward becoming a tribe. ~br~Click the Upgrade Button in the center of the screen.

even this is a cutscene??

0x93e071dc You need better social parts to impress this creature. Explore the world for better parts, then mate to enter the Creature Creator!

also this is different. cc (which leaned a lot more into the game mechanics) to final

0x04864c3c Your creature has successfully navigated the treacherous waters of the beginning stages in the evolutionary cycle. Continue to evolve by adding additional parts in the editor and become the dominant species on the planet.

0x04864c3c It is the beginning of a new day…and for you, a whole new strange and wondrous world. Air fills your lungs as you stretch into your limbs in your new home…dry land. The race to evolve has begun…

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cinematics_trg, which in the cc demo is shorter this time. and even the final strings have a bunch of removed lines

incidentally one of the removed lines in final is actually identical (with the same hash at that) to one of the lines in the cc demo, which was categorized with tutorial cinematics. the gameplay function this describes is different too, normally you just click the timeline button too

0x0000010B Your tribe now dominates this continent! ~br~Click on your hut to evolve your tribe into a city!

0x0000010B [[[[[NOT IN USE]]]]] Your tribe now dominates this continent! Click on your hut to evolve your tribe into a city!

also the cc demo lines have a lot less character. definitely reads like a placeholder

0x0000010E Your tribe's hut has been destroyed! 0x0000010F Your tribe's population has dropped below two.

0x0000010E Oh, the humanity! Your tribal hut has been destroyed! Perhaps a fresh start is just the thing you need. 0x0000010F Alas! Your population has fallen below the minimum needed to survive. Will this tragic story repeat itself? Bounce back in time to find out!

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cinematics_cvg is rather long in both the cc demo and final, but its even longer in final

cc

final, which has a bunch more not in use strings

the cc demo one is a lot less nicely organized with comments

otherwise im not sure how much of a difference between the early and final state of this locale file there is. they both have the water vehicle cutscene unlock text (identical in both), which isnt even marked not in use in final

0x00000601 Your industrious science staff has mastered the water wheel and the mechanical conveyor! We can now build vehicles to conquer the seas!

all the cutscenes DO have an extra line each, which isnt in final

0x00000601 Your industrious science staff has mastered the water wheel and the mechanical conveyor! We can now build vehicles to conquer the seas! 0x00000602 We also believe there are applications for this technology that may eventual propel our nation into space. Continue your conquests!

0x00000603 Success! Even the mighty wind now obeys our technology! The aero funnel and vortex tube will allow you to build vehicles that float and spiral miles above the surface of our planet! 0x00000604 Better still, this technology has allowed us to take another step toward the stars, but we will need to conquer or ally ourselves with several more cities if we wish to succeed. Continue your advances!

0x00000605 Astounding news! We have finally defeated gravity! Space travel is now a reality. All it requires is your input on the design for the new craft. 0x00000606 At your earliest convenience you should construct a ship worthy of our species and send it outside of this planet to explore the universe.

which are present but marked not in use in final

0x00000602 [[[[[NOT IN USE]]]]] We also believe there are applications for this technology that may eventual propel our nation into space. Continue your conquests! 0x00000604 [[[[[NOT IN USE]]]]] Better still, this technology has allowed us to take another step toward the stars, but we will need to conquer or ally ourselves with several more cities if we wish to succeed. Continue your advances! 0x00000606 [[[[[NOT IN USE]]]]] At your earliest convenience you should construct a ship worthy of our species and send it outside of this planet to explore the universe.

actually i dont think the ufo cutscene exists either..? this definitely suggests that you also didnt advance to space stage by just pressing the evolve button either. just. have to make a ufo first. i think the prima guide or something else also alludes to that being the case in earlier builds

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cinematics_spg is very long again, and the cc demo already has lines that are marked not in use

cc

final

the cc demo has these placeholders describing some stuff at the start of space stage

0x0000001A [Cinetext: You discovered a UFO wreck.] 0x0000001B [Cinetext: You scanned UFO wreck.] 0x0000001C [Cinetext: You discovered ruins.] 0x0000001D [Cinetext: You scanned ruins.]

im not sure these are in final

0x00000003 Your Hologram Scout has appeared on the planet’s surface. Retrieve the scout by pressing the “Pickup Hologram” button. 0x00000004 You've left your solar system to explore the galaxy. Use the starmap filters in the lower right hand corner to see your travel trail, find the planet where your next mission is and lots more. 0x00000005 You've left your solar system to explore the galaxy. Use the starmap filters in the lower right hand corner to see your travel trail, find the planet where your next mission is and lots more.

0x0000000C Congratulations! You're the first one to explore ~planet_name~. Try to see if there is life on this planet. Scan anything you find.

more of gRob, pretty consistent in the cc demo

0x00000014 Hey, did you see the gRob around here? Be careful of those guys.

these are distinct?

0x00000025 You discovered a species that has made the leap into space! Will you befriend or antagonize them? Use the communication screen to talk to them. 0x00000026 You have discovered a trading empire. You can buy and sell items from trading empires. Use the communication screen to begin trading.

"thru" but also outposts is not a term ive seen before with regards to colonies here. like. theyre still colonies in final, they just cant harvest spice

0x0000002B Barren planets cannot support colonies; only Outposts. Improve a barren planet thru Terraforming.

and in fact look at what final says. it IS colonies

0x0000002B You have discovered a barren planet. Barren planets can sustain a limited colony, or you can improve its Terrascore (T-Score) and establish a flourishing spaceport for your empire.

anyway this isnt in final at all (no equiavlent hash)

0x00000032 You have run out of money. Return to your world to collect additional funds.

janky spelling

0x00000030 As Long as you are in their territory, these spaceships will attack you. The longer you stay in their territory, the more damage you will take.

the cc demo version is also lacking all the text for advancing to the various ranks in space stage, or anything for the galaxy core

[kara-ltc]

May Prompts - 5/21 Bioluminescence - @nosebleedclub

poem not loading? text version available below (click on "keep reading")

Bioluminescence by Kara

You, stars of the deep-sea Living ornaments for the marine snow You translucent beings Inspiring wondrous awe Buoyant oblong jellies Dancing fire and feather Daring squids traverse Fishing tricksters You forgotten beauties Living oceanic fossils You, stars of the deep-sea

[cloaksandcapes]

Inspired by an creepy item from Pathfinder with weird cat inside of it! Our Rogue got this item in our Monday campaign on Twitch, and everyone but him hates it.

Coffin of the Sacrifice Pawn

Wondrous Item, very rare

“This small locked box is carved from fossilized remains and resembles a coffin. It has rough edges, and an ancient mechanical lock that holds an alarming set of chains around it. Arranged and embedded on the top is the remains of a skull whose face has been eroded.”

You must spend 10 minutes carefully inspecting this magic item, then speak the command word to open it. Once opened by you, it can only be opened by another who you expressly give permission to open it. Otherwise it cannot be opened unless you are dead.

Opening this magic box reveals a roughly carved cavity between the two halves of the top and bottom of the box. Inside this cavity is a small pool of gelatinous origins, filled with a few small bones. When you touch this substance it takes the shape of a small animal and becomes your familiar, with one major difference. The face of the familiar matches yours perfectly, and any sounds it makes sounds like your voice.

This familiar follows all rules of the find familiar spell, except that you cannot cast spells through it. If your familiar dies, it explodes in a gorey fashion and will appear once more in the coffin as a ball of goo after a long rest. If you put the familiar in the coffin and close it for an hour, it returns to its gelatinous form and can be turned into a different creature.

Sacrifice Pawn. If you are reduced to 0 hit points while within 30 feet of your familiar, you can choose to sacrifice it, causing it to explode in a gorey mess. You remain at 1 hit point, instead of falling unconscious. The familiar can be resummoned from the coffin after a long rest.

Join us in Discord or on Twitch every Mon\Wed\Fri to create new Homebrews and check out our Patreon for 608 magic items, monsters, tokens, maps, and more.

[dailycharacteroption]

Roleplay Ramblings: New Elements part 2

(art by global99 on DeviantArt)

Incorporating the New Elements

So, I went over the new elements in brief last time, but let’s take a further look at them today and talk about how you can work to help implement them into your games and settings. Obviously the writers at Paizo have done the work of writing them into the Lost Omens setting already, but there’s still some legwork to be done nevertheless when running the game in First Edition. So without further ado let’s get into it!

So let’s talk metal!

Prior to Rage of the Elements, metal was, at most, just a refined subset of earth. After all, where does metal come from? You dig it out of the earth, of course.

However, that’s not what metal is like in the original Wuxing interpretation, for while metal is extracted from the earth, the act of purifying and crafting it is a heavenly act, while it is also associated with death and grief, especially appropriate given the ease at which metal can be crafted into tools of death.

This isn’t to say that metal and earth have no connection, far from it. In fact, this association is explained in lore because Ayrzul the Fossilized King, the more sinister of the two lords of earth, actually broke into the realm of Laudinmio, elemental lord of metal as chemistry and and crafting, and stole from her several aspects of metal that he took and made his own, particularly poisonous and radioactive metals. The Sovereign of Alchemy was so upset about how her gifts were used she fell into an angst-coma where she remains unto this day, hopefully with someone snapping her out of it soon.

In any case, neither traditional elementalism nor Wuxing fully encompass what metal is as an element in the context of Pathfinder. So let’s explore those aspects. There is the Wall, which reflects metal’s density and strength; the Blade, which evokes it’s capacity for dealing death; the Conduit, which reflects metal’s ability to channel all manner of energies through itself, and the Spoke, representing how it can be shaped so readily into all manner of shapes, be they simple tools or the most complex mechanisms.

However, there is also an aspect of death and finality to metal beyond the sharpness of a sword or the velocity of a bullet, and that is for all it’s wondrous creations and their durability, they cannot last forever. Whether it be by oxidation, corrosion, or simply the stresses of time and repeated use, all metal eventually breaks down. Sometimes the remains can be salvaged to create new wonders, and sometimes it is beyond all but the most omniponent mages and deities to recover. Either way, even being nearly infinite, the plane of metal will one day succumb to entropy and rust, and be little more than a wasteland. But that is so far off into the future that even the Starfinder setting will be a distant memory by then.

All said, Metal is the element of creativity, strength, and inevitability, for wonders arise and wonders fall, and every moment before the end it worth experiencing, and who knows, maybe something else will rise up later?

As far as environments go, the plane of metal is pretty much exactly what you’d expect, landscapes made up almost exclusively of metallic elements with little non-metallic elements to go around. Forests of twisting silver crystals, mountains of iron, seas of quicksilver and glaciers of gallium barely holding their solidity, all of which is contained within the inside surface of a functionally infinite metal sphere. You’ll even find more mechanical environments in the places where civilized elementals live, forged from the world around them, as well as deserts of rust as things are slowly broken down by time and the careful guidance of the elementals that rule over that specific aspect.

Speaking of which, metal elementals typically embody two different poles of metal in aspects, either embodying the specific properties of metals, such as the liquid mercurial and zuhra genies, the magnetic and electical powers of pelogoxes and living lodestones, or even the quasi-supernatural properties of skymetals and other exotic fantasy metals with the likes of the skymetal strikers or abysium horrors. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum are the elementals of metal as it breaks down, like rust scarabs, nanoshard swarms, oregorgers, and even the massive ramshackle melomachs. Among the most influential are the elemental lords, Laudinmio, whom we already mentioned, and Ferrumnestra, the Lady of Rust, who rules over and guides the decay of metal and makes room for the new when things have outlived their purpose.This list is hardly comprehensive, but there’s a lot of clever ideas that go into them.

Meanwhile, let’s take a look over at wood!

In Wuxing, wood is not just trees, but also covers air itself, which is a pretty impressive connection to make in a time before people understood exactly what oxygen was or the role that plant life has in the ecology of the entire planet. However, wood is also associated with growth, as well as frustration and anger, but also more positive emotions like kindness and generosity. It’s an element that feels a lot, which makes sense that it’s the one element that is made out of living material.

Of course, the idea of wood being an element is incompatible with western elementalism as they typically see living things, all living things, as being made up of elements, not being one themselves and certainly not existing by drawing upon other elements. To western elementalism, if something has to draw upon three whole other elements to even exist (earth for nutrients, water and air for important chemical processes), then it can’t be an element.

Not so with Wuxing, in which all the elements feed into each other, propping one up while undermining others, which makes wood make more sense in that context.

But what is Wood in Pathfinder? Simply put, it is verdant growth and potential cultivated by wisdom and discipline. Plants are grown and planted deliberately, trimmed back when they would crowd out other plants, and the very environment is shaped and carved, as are many of it’s denizens, from the living wood, always taking care not to needlessly kill even as homes are carved from trees on a truly colossal scale. Which isn’t to say that it lacks danger, for though discipline remains a core part of the plane, so does strong emotion, leading to plenty of furious or dangerously passionate creatures that might turn violent attention onto neighbors and visitors alike.

When I say that the Plane of Wood is cultivated order, I don’t just mean that the denizens put some effort into keeping their neck of the woods clean and pretty. I mean it’s a fundamental part of the plane. The whole plane is fractal in nature. While in theory the bottom border of the plane sinks it’s roots into the waters of the Plane of Water, everything is plants growing on plants all the way down and all the way up, from planet-sized trees with contienent size trees to country sized tress and you can see where I’m going with this. While these plants often don’t literally resemble the plants on the next largest tier but in miniature, they can, and it all keeps going down, potentially infinitely, but like all planes, perhaps not literally. As such, one can walk across a vast field which is just a mile-thick fungal mat stretched between two colossal branches, or walk around a massive tree city where streets and roads have been carved from the “dead” wood of the tree, leaving the living layer mostly untouched to keep growing and thriving. Seasons and time of day are partially determined by region and the bioluminescence of colossal plants a truly unfathomable distance above or below oneself. For that matter, in addition to plant matter familiar to denizens of Golarion, there are examples of plant life from potentially every planet across the universe as well as exotic fare that can only really exist on this plane. Of course, some environments are more hostile than others, such as the fungal denizens of the Nightwood or the areas suffering from the blight caused by Ayrzul (yes, him again. Turns out he’s pretty much an asshole to everyone).

And speaking of which, let’s talk denizens. Now some may wonder aloud what makes a wood elemental from your garden-variety plant monster, and the answers a little complex, but it boils down to how cultivation defines them. On the one hand, sure, some wood elementals are essentially mobile fruit or plant creatures such as moss sloths, pine pangolins, or harvest regiments, but others are shaped by careful cultivation, such as living groves, which the art of which expressly references the daisugi technique of Japanese logging, applying bonsai techniques to full-size trees to create perfectly straight logs. Others, however, are carved or grown into shape, such as carved beasts, painted stags, snapdrakes, or event the mighty twins of rowan, all of which are carved into shape from otherwise immobile wood (often with a still rooted base) and breathed new life into them by the rituals of either the Kizidhar genies or Shumunue, the Carved Lady of Mimicry herself, who represents wood as an art medium which imitates life as well as the ways that plant life draws in animals as pollinators or occasionally prey. Meanwhile, her counterpart is Verilorn, Custodian of Oak and Ash who presides over all agriculture, cultivation, and forestry. The two once worked together, but have grown apart in the eons of the planes isolation, to the pain of both.

And so now that we know all this about these two planes, we can actually get to the point of this entry and talk about integrating them within the pre-Second Edition setting and your own setting!

Firstly, let me gush a little about how these two new planes, which bring the elemental planes up to a whopping 6, defying both the assumptions of Wuxing AND Western elementalism in one fell swoop (not to mention all the others) also proceed to take the same basic concept of environment (i.e., being entirely made out of their element with barely any intrusion from the other elements barring those mixed-element outliers) and elevating it. Even without the illustrations from Rage of the Elements book, you can imagine an infinite fractal forest or a vast curved plane of gleaming metal and find that beautiful and awe-inspiring, and heck, they did a decent job of elevating the concept of the original 4 as well for that matter.

With that focus on elements returning and mixing, it’s also worth noting that not only are these new elements mixing with the old ones as they regrow into their old positions, but in their absence the other planes mixed as well. While it will take countless eons for them to be re-slotted in, no doubt also outstripping the cosmic era of Starfinder, eventually air and water will be mostly cut off from each other as will water and earth, but those vast areas of air-cooled ice and churning mud will never really go away.

But how will this affect your games? Well obviously if you never touch on it, it won’t, but if your 1e games want to touch on the elemental planes either directly or indirectly, it will. For the Lost Omens setting, perhaps metal and wood elementalists are gaining more respect and recognition outside of Tian Xia as anything more than a novelty, and maybe in the face of having two new pairs of elemental lords that don’t share the presumed dichotomy of good and evil will make planar scholars rethink the effects of how mortal assumptions about aspects of certain elements actually shaped the behavior of the beings that ruled them.

In a more general setting sense, having metal and wood be elements in your setting may change the sorts of environments your characters might encounter beyond the borders of the map. If they find a place where the element of wood is strong, they might think they stumbled onto some remote noble’s garden with how orderly it is until something like plants growing plants clues them into it being not quite natural, or maybe dwarves and other miners in your setting try to cultivate an elemental nexus of metal to turn a location into a motherlode of ore and valuable metals, and so on.

I’ve talked a lot about the new elemental planes in this one, but trust me, it’s all going to be very useful for the next two entries, and I hope you’re excited to see where that takes us tomorrow, starting with how character options change in a 6-element system!

[ourrobotculture]

The Colorful Dinosaurians

In a world long gone, before the dawn of man There lived a wondrous clan, the feathered dinosaurian

They danced among the ferns, beneath the ancient trees They flashed their vibrant plumes, in every hue and breeze

They sang their primal songs, with voices loud and clear They filled the air with joy, for all who could hear

They ruled the land and sky, with grace and might and skill They were the lords of life, until fate had its fill

But though they are no more, their legacy remains In fossils and in birds, their beauty and their brains

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History: From the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us Author: Steve Brusatte Genre/s: nonfiction, paleontology Content/Trigger Warning/s: none Summary (from publisher's website): We humans are the inheritors of a dynasty that has reigned over the planet for nearly 66 million years, through fiery cataclysm and ice ages: the mammals. Our lineage includes saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, armadillos the size of a car, cave bears three times the weight of a grizzly, clever scurriers that outlasted Tyrannosaurus rex, and even other types of humans, like Neanderthals. Indeed humankind and many of the beloved fellow mammals we share the planet with today—lions, whales, dogs—represent only the few survivors of a sprawling and astonishing family tree that has been pruned by time and mass extinctions. How did we get here?

In his acclaimed bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs—hailed as “the ultimate dinosaur biography” by Scientific American—American paleontologist Steve Brusatte enchanted readers with his definitive history of the dinosaurs. Now, picking up the narrative in the ashes of the extinction event that doomed T-rex and its kind, Brusatte explores the remarkable story of the family of animals that inherited the Earth—mammals— and brilliantly reveals that their story is every bit as fascinating and complex as that of the dinosaurs.

Beginning with the earliest days of our lineage some 325 million years ago, Brusatte charts how mammals survived the asteroid that claimed the dinosaurs and made the world their own, becoming the astonishingly diverse range of animals that dominate today’s Earth. Brusatte also brings alive the lost worlds mammals inhabited through time, from ice ages to volcanic catastrophes. Entwined in this story is the detective work he and other scientists have done to piece together our understanding using fossil clues and cutting-edge technology.

A sterling example of scientific storytelling by one of our finest young researchers, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals illustrates how this incredible history laid the foundation for today’s world, for us, and our future.

Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-rise-and-reign-of-the-mammals-a-new-history-from-the-shadow-of-the-dinosaurs-to-us-steve-brusatte/18064544 Spoiler-Free Review: This is a nice parallel to Brusatte's first book, Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. I like how they followed almost similar narrative arcs, while also having similar tones of voice and writing style. I don’t think I’ve ever picked up nonfiction books by the same author that felt so naturally connected as these two do, and it was kind of pleasant to get to experience that here. The same enthusiasm that Brusatte brought to his first book, along with the same respect for his predecessors, colleagues, and students in the field. Those two aspects are the best part of this book - along, of course, with the scientific rigor that Brusatte brings to the table while simultaneously making everything remarkably readable for the layperson.

I will say though, that despite this feeling like a natural sequel to Rise and Fall, it doesn't have the same tone. Rise and Fall talks about dinosaurs and how they aren’t really dead: they’ve just evolved into birds, and so in a way, dinosaurs are still with us. This is a fantastic and wondrous line of thought, because isn’t it incredible to think that dinosaurs - which most people think of as long-dead animals (and most of them are) - to still be here with us, and moreover, to be creatures we encounter everyday, and even eat?

This book, however, doesn't have that same triumphal feel-- Actually, that's incorrect; it DOES have that feeling, especially during the first three-fourths of it, but as it progresses it becomes less triumphant and more solemn. Mammals were able to overcome the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, and they were able to survive the many climate change disasters that came after - but can they survive the current human-made climate crisis? Can we, for that matter? The title Rise and Reign of the Mammals is definitely apt, because mammals did manage to rise and reign over the Earth - us humans in particular. But every rise comes with a fall: just look at the dinosaurs. This book does a good job of reminding the reader just what’s going to cause that fall, and how it might look like based on previously-explained extinction events. It's not all gloom-and-doom, of course: Brusatte is quick to remind the reader that, unlike previous climate change-caused extinction events, humans are actually in a position to do something about the current one, not least because we're the ones responsible for it. But even if we do manage that change, there is no denying that we've destroyed many species on the way to accomplishing it, and many more will probably die off along the way before this climate change crisis is finally manageable. As I said, a rather somber ending, but an important one. Rating: five platypus eggs

[i-am-shitpost]

Additionally, believing in magic is not necessarily believing in the supernatural.

Science is just magic we’ve found ways to explain and predict.

There’s plenty PLENTY of scientific phenomena that we still have NO IDEA WHY THEY HAPPEN OR WHY THEY WORK. We still don’t know why we yawn. Why we hiccup. Why there’s a weird mushroom that only grows in Japan and Texas. Why there’s a forrest in Russia where pine trees grown in spirals, rings, and other generally not normal pine tree shapes.

That’s not even mentioning all the magic we’re so used to we don’t consider it wondrous. Lightning is magic. The water cycle is magic. Photosynthesis is magic. Evolution is magic. Wind is magic. Petrichor is magic. Medicine is magic.

Creatures are magic. The ones in the bottom of the sea. The ones in your house. The ones that are fluffy. The ones that have evolved with us. The ones that tolerate us. The ones that don’t. The glass frog that you can see right through without seeing its organs. The wood frogs in Alaska that freeze during the winter and then thaw out in warmer seasons completely unharmed. The moose, North America’s last surviving megafauna. Birds, the last survivors of the old magic. And fossils, god, fossils are magic. Bones. Ruins. Memories. The human brain.

In my opinion, Earth’s magic is some of the best there is. You don’t need to go making shit up to be enthralled.

Fuck, I really do love it here.

You can believe in magic, but watch out.

[chorusfm]

Modest Mouse Announce Cruise

Modest Mouse have announced the “Ice Cream Floats” cruise. Modest Mouse and Sixthman, the leader in festivals and music cruises for more than two decades, is excited to announce the inaugural voyage of Modest Mouse Presents Ice Cream Floats, a four-night, roundtrip cruise sailing March 5-8, 2026 from Miami, FL to Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, aboard the Norwegian Pearl. Priority Presales for members of Modest Mouse’s Ice Cream Party fan community begin April 14. First Round Presale Sign-Ups are available now through April 10 at 11:59 pm (ET). Presale (Early Booking Times) run April 14-18. Final Round Presale Sign-Ups will conclude April 20 at 11:59 pm (ET). Public On-Sales begin April 22 at 2:00 pm (ET), exclusively at www.modestmousecruise.com. The first 400 cabins booked will secure an onboard photo opportunity with Modest Mouse. Bookings are available for just $100 down per person when they make reservations before June 5 or while cabins last.   Modest Mouse Presents Ice Cream Floats will bring the Ice Cream Party – the only political party you can trust – to sea for the first time ever. Modest Mouse fans will float on a profound musical journey featuring intimate live performances, crazy curated activities, and so much more. Modest Mouse will be accompanied on board by a star-studded lineup, including Portugal. The Man, Kurt Vile and the Violators, Mannequin Pussy, FIDLAR, Built to Spill, Tropical Fuck Storm, Ugly Casanova, The Black Heart Procession, comedian David Cross, and more to be announced. Further highlights of the immersive musical adventure will include “Mouse Stardust Theater 3000,” where members of Modest Mouse sit down with guests in the Norwegian Pearl’s wondrous Stardust Theater and give live, brutally honest commentary alongside truly unique films; “AMMA – Ask Modest Mouse Anything,” a live Q&A with members of Modest Mouse featuring questions submitted by the cruisers themselves; “Storytime with Isaac Brock,” in which guests will gather ‘round in crisscross-applesauce fashion to hear Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse read through children’s books with more character than you can imagine; live DJ sets by Modest Mouse & Friends; the unique “Parade of Freaks,” where Modest Mouse travels through the ship with a gaggle of the silliest and most eclectic freaks and creatures; plus a wide array of other once-in-a-lifetime artist experiences. In addition, all who sail on the inaugural Modest Mouse Presents Ice Cream Floats will receive a limited-edition band-autographed poster.   The Norwegian Pearl will provide everything needed to make Modest Mouse Presents Ice Cream Floatsthe most stirringly sumptuous cruise vacation ever, with fully stocked bars at (almost) every corner, tasty dining options, the Pool Deck (with multiple hot tubs), Pearl Club Casino, Mandara Spa, Body Waves Fitness Center, Sports Court, and much more.   Beyond the onboard experience, Ice Cream Floats cruisers will have the chance to enjoy a day of adventure in Puerto Plata (officially known as San Felipe de Puerto Plata), the ninth largest city in the Dominican Republic and the capital of the province of Puerto Plata. Guests can enjoy spectacular city views atop the 2,600-foot-high Pico Isabel de Torres mountain, explore the 16th century Fortaleza San Felipe, or visit the Amber Museum, a museum filled with a unique collection of valuable Dominican amber which is semiprecious tree sap that has hardened for millions of years capturing many fossils of plant and insect life. Please note: Shore excursions will not be available until 4-6 weeks prior to sailing. Cruisers will be able to book an excursion upon receipt of their official booking number. --- Please consider becoming a member so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/news/modest-mouse-announce-cruise/

[sunsdrop]

Cheesy Pick-Up Line Starters | accepting

@chapeliier asked: “We must be in a museum because I am a fossil standing next to a wondrous piece of art” // we tweaked this one a little bit 😅

Head   cocked   to   the   side,   single   brow   rising   ....   it   took   a   second   for   her   to   get   what   he   was   implying   ...   but   once   it   clicked,   Rapunzel   couldn’t   suppress   a   girlish   giggle. 

 “Oooh,   Mr.   Break,   you’re   so   cute!”   she   teased,   words   playful   while   giving   a   light,   mischievous   nudge   pon   his   shoulder.

[aureumdraconeus]

mister egg sir, I am curious... aside the technology fixation, have you... I dunno? ever thought about the "de-extinctioning" of extinct animals and fossil creatures? ya know... like jurassic park stuff? I dunno, you seem like the sorta person to figure that one out with ease... if not for the heck of it maybe for basing and researching biomechanical or mechanical beings?

"Ah yes, trying to bring back ancient primitive civilizations because of the fact they simply were too weak to persist past the point of no return! What a wondrous concept!"

The Doctor's sarcasm was clearly showing as he just seemed to wave a hand off to the side before scoffing.

"I've had MORE than enough issues resurrecting ancient deities to really want to try and see what a Dinosaur would do to me. However, if I could try and roboticize them into my bidding? Well, I suppose an ancient King of Mesazoa's could be an interesting pet project."

[neobestiary]

About Spirits

Spirit (plural spirits)- The source of the supernatural! Spirits are wondrous beings with all sorts of abilities! In addition to being able to shapeshift, the very laws of physics bend to their will! Spirits come in five varieties:

Gnome (plural gnomes)- Contrary to what you might think, gnomes are far from the short, stout men you’d find decorating a Western front yard. Gnomes are spirits that specialize in manipulating inorganic solid matter! They can pass through walls and floors like it’s air, too. Gnomes mostly have reptilian features on them, so if you see a chameleon- or turtle-like person suddenly moving the ground to their whim, you might just be looking at a gnome!

Psychopomp (plural psychopomps)- Death gods, shinigami, whatever you wanna call them, they can communicate with the souls of dead humans and animals—or so they claim—and they can even visit the realm of the dead! Or so they claim. Psychopomps look like all sorts of mammals, and because of that they’re some of the most diverse spirits around. Kitsune? Centaurs? Selkies? All three of those and more are psychopomps!

Sylph (plural sylphs)- Another of the classical elementals, sylphs can manipulate inorganic gasses of all sorts, or in Paracelsian terms, wind! Sylphs resemble birds, and they tend to make that clear by flaunting their beautiful wings! Those wings are mostly just for show, though, since they can fly just fine without them. Did you know tengu are sylphs? I didn’t until one of them told me!

Undine (plural undines)- Undines control the flow of inorganic liquid matter—mostly water! They’ve all got fish-like attributes to them, making them quite adept at swimming! Piss off an undine and you might just suffer a forty-day storm or a rogue wave! Do note that some undines specialize in manipulating water-adjacent matter, such as ice and mercury, so their abilities are quite diverse.

Vulcan (plural vulcans)- They prefer the term “vulcan” to “salamander” to minimize confusion and maximize brevity. Vulcans manipulate plasma (the state of matter), and it seems that humans in the old days mistook it as manipulating fire, because plasma can cause fires. Vulcans resemble amphibians, such as frogs and salamanders, the latter of which they got their historical name after. Vulcans are said to be some of the most destructive spirits; I’ve seen some discharge blasts of electricity and create miniature stars!

Ichor (uncountable)- A spirit’s body contains a substance called ichor, which is essentially their blood. It’s like the sand in the hourglass that tells them how long they have left to live: it slowly depletes over the course of hundreds of years, and if they ever receive a wound or expend too much of their energy, ichor leaks out. In either case, the spirit dies and dissolves into nothing. Spirits can change their form, but only as much as their ichor allows them to. The more ichor a spirit has, the larger on average they are, because they can’t shrink to a smaller size.

Petrichor (uncountable)- A spirit’s skin. Petrichor is malleable and can expand or contract a good bit. However, it’s quite thin (about as thin as human skin), and breaking it causes ichor to bleed out. If a wound isn’t treated in time, then the spirit will eventually bleed out and die. Petrichor can be replenished by consuming organic matter, but ichor doesn’t, so spirits should still be careful with their bodies. Petrichor is what allows spirits to change their form. In addition to being malleable, it can also change color and texture. Petrichor varies between spirits: a vulcan’s petrichor is warmer and smoother than that of a gnome, for example.

Spirits, overall, have extremely delicate physical bodies. Their petrichor is extremely thin, and puncturing it makes their ichor leak out and evaporate. Spirits don’t leave a trace when they die, which also means that they don’t have a fossil record, and their origins are still shrouded in mystery, even to themselves. Spirits can live extremely long lives which can reach thousands of years. They also reproduce asexually, and every fifty years they lay a single egg from which their young hatches. Sexuality and gender are simply constructs to them, so spirits can identify however they please, whenever they please!

Eldritch (plural eldritch)- An eldritch is a term given to any spirit that’s still alive even when they’re supposed to be dead. Like a zombie, except they’re as intelligent as normal spirits are. Eldritch do require some living matter to feed off of to survive, though, and while some regularly feast on detritus or carrion, others will simply possess a living host and start a strange symbiotic relationship that depends from eldritch to eldritch. The powers of an eldritch typically exceed those of other spirits, but that’s not always the case.

Archspirit (plural archspirits)- Spirits have their own form of government; archspirits are leaders of their respective local populations, acting on their behalf and protecting them from harm. In that sense, they’re like tribe leaders. An archspirit’s abilities are also much more potent than that of an average spirit, to an extent that makes them comparable to eldritch, so they’re treated with great respect among the locals. For instance, Hamada Alchias is an archspirit who resides in Tokyo, and thus the spirits living in Tokyo are his subjects.

[xtruss]

To Unearth the Secrets of An Ancient Human Relative, Paleoanthropologist Lee Berger had to squeeze through a chute seven and a half inches wide—the length of a pencil. “I didn’t know it then, but that decision would lead to a scientific revelation—and some of the most terrifying, and most wondrous, moments of my life.” The National Geographic Explorer Writes. Above, Fossils Surround the Skeleton of Homo Naledi. Photograph By Robert Clark

[autisticempathydaemon]

In case any new followers or people in the fandom forget where I stand on this, let me make myself understood.

I don’t care whether you ship Caelum or whether you dislike the idea. I care that people bring this fossil-old discourse up every other week adding nothing new, nothing interesting, nothing constructive, nothing but screaming in the main tag that other people, some I call friends, should kill themselves. That is the real disgusting, abhorrent behavior rotting this fandom from the inside, not people writing smut about a fictional goddamn character.

Go outside. Look up at the sky, and enjoy the vast and wondrous earth we live in with its droves of gorgeous, magnificent people, more than you could ever even dream of meeting. There is nothing more magical than the fact every human you meet has hopes, dreams, a favorite childhood memory, someone that they love, worlds and imaginations in their head on par with your own. Then, think about looking one of those people in the eyes, taking their hand, and telling them to their face that they should have a pick driven into their brain because of fanfiction.

If you’d still do it and still choose to follow me, fuckin cheers then; enjoy the ride. I endeavor to make art that shakes you down to your deeply unkind, in-empathetic core.

building on @letsmakeitwrite’s fandom announcement

Caelum is, mentally and narratively, like a child. You know what else he is?

Fictional.

Fictional, magical, child-like creatures cannot be the victim of real world, actual crimes.

tw: discussions of pedophilia, mentions of SA, murder, and torture.

I mean this genuinely, with sincerity and affection; ships involving fictional minors are far and away from pedophilia, and it is reductive, lacking nuance, and near puritanical to say otherwise.

You don’t like it? That’s fair. I literally don’t ship him with anyone either because he reminds me of my younger self. What’s not fair is seeing fan work you don’t like and/or makes you uncomfortable, that victimizes no one in reality, and calling it paedophilic, an actual crime reserved for real, actual perpetrators.

What’s next? Are we going to call the people who write non-con rapists? Are we going to call the people who kill off the characters they don’t like murderers? Are we going to equate fanfiction with manifestos, or can we remember that all of these characters are make-believe and move along?

In summary, you are entitled to your likes and dislikes. You are entitled to block people so you don’t see what you dislike. You are not entitled to police a fandom and call people pedophiles for-

-checks notes-

…writing a story in a universe where murder, assault, and torture are accepted canon acts that we manage to avoid moralizing.

Be kind to others and yourselves, and block the people you don’t like.

If you read something you don’t like, keep it to yourself.

Also, maybe block me. I genuinely care about you, whoever is reading this and may be hurt by what I say, but I will curate my own space with my work and my opinions. If you cannot tolerate them, I will not make you, and you cannot make me change them.

[suddenfossilfightersheadcanons]

Todd is considerably hyperopic, and requires glasses. Big, nerd-style, green-framed glasses. They’re inconvenient to wear while fossil hunting, so he generally sticks to contact lenses. Regardless, as long as he’s got something in his eyes (other than tears), once out of the dig site, he’s by far the best cleaner of the main crew of Champions. For comparison: Dina is clumsy, and Rupert’s spent his life relying on machines to clean for him, so he’s hopeless with the hammer himself. Pauleen can clean fairly well, but Todd is an utter automaton when it comes to excavating fossils. Occasionally, he can be seen wearing his glasses in the cleaning room. These occurrences merit boundless teasing from Dina, who always needles him about how nerdy he looks. That said, she respects his abilities - at this point, every member of the gang (on his advice) will simply take their wondrous and miraculous fossils to him, as he’s the least likely to damage whatever’s put in front of him.

In spite of this cleaning skill, Todd tends to freeze when put on the spot, hence why he began with such a losing streak in battle. However, as he matured, he learnt that when strategy disappears, having vivosaurs five ranks higher than the opponent is a sure-fire way to victory. And as soon as he bought his fossil chips, he was never again outranked. This bought him enough confidence to erode his nervous shell, thus allowing him to think more clearly and eventually grow as a fighter.

(For the record, he now doesn’t take vivosaurs into battle unless he’d cleaned them up to rank 8.)

[slicksquid]

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