So apparently there was once a species of kangaroo during the ice age called the Procoptodon that walked upright instead of hopping and had long human like arms and a flat vaguely anthropomorphic face and one toed hooves on each foot and for some reason it made me think of satyrs, or at least something close to the traditional depiction of one. How would you go about a satyr/faun Procoptodon, maybe in a setting where ice age creatures were uplifted to intelligence and became civilized races too?
And going by that idea maybe ground sloth "cave trolls" and giant lemur "wood elves" could also be a pretty cool idea...
I had to go delve into my files and old friend chats to dig up some old art, because I actually did this at one point lol. My bestie had the exact same thought about marsupial satyrs. We decided it worked best if you go off of the original depictions of satyrs as humanoid men with horse tails and legs, rather than the more modern goat dude satyrs. if you stretch your thinking a bit, you can see how maybe people that have never seen a kangaroo before might see a kangaroo-like person for a brief glimpse in poor visual conditions and come back with the idea of a satyr. kind of. a little bit.
I ended up making two species of marsupial people from this concept, with one group remaining in fantasy Australia and the other group traveling away and settling in a Mediterranean environment. they're no longer in my stories, as I had to cut a lot of potential people species to make my life easier lol. anything that wasn't narratively important had to go. but here's some very old art (you can tell I was still struggling with my worldbuilding here, copying some vague aesthetic of native australians for the kangaroo people)
(image description: vibrant digital paintings of marsupial people in two different settings. on the right, a kangaroo-like pair in an open grassland. One is hopping around with a basket of plants and a baby in their pouch, while another person stands in the background with a spear. on the left, two other people with shorter tails are carrying backpacks while they climb a small cliff. end description.)
and here's an updated version cuz i still like the concept of marsupial people, even if they have no place in my current WIP. (but if anyone else wants to steal the concept, go ahead, we gotta have more weird fantasy people and move away from the standard of humans-with-bonus-features)
(image description: simple digital art of another kangaroo person with more muted coloration, standing still with a baby peeking out of their pouch. end description)
and a sketch comparison of the more expected satyr designs alongside a kangaroo-ish satyr.
(image description: three satyr designs. on the left, a modern satyr which is just a humanoid figure with goat features. in the middle, the older depiction of a satyr as a man with animalistic ears, horse legs, and a giant censored phallus. on the right, a marsupial satyr with kangaroo features and a baby in their pouch. end description.)
if you squint real hard, the shape and size of the 'roo tail is more similar in silhouette to a horse tail than a goat tail, and they do have a single large toe that sorta resembles a hoof. and then of course you have the joke that the pouch baby might sometimes resemble a giant phallus, if you maybe saw them in poor lighting at a distance. so it does work, as a satyr design. or close enough anyway lol.
here's some bonus doodles, giant sloth cave troll and giant lemur elf (giant lemurs were apparently tailless, unlike modern lemurs. fascinating)
(image description: sketches of a cave troll and an elf, resembling the aforementioned giant sloth and giant lemur. end description.)
