#sinirin

While relaxing on the beach, Tappani is approached by a kid with an unusual request.

This is something I did back in 2022. I never entirely finished it because my art skills really weren’t up to it, and the joke felt weak. Someday I will learn how to actually plan a comic.

Context stuff:

Vepri is the head of the necromancy organization, which has every necromancer in the world as a member. Necromancy is HEAVILY regulated in Sinirin — you’re not even allowed to learn it, you can only practice it if you’ve spontaneously done it at some point in your life (which is incredibly rare). This is out of fear that excessive use might destabilize the boundaries between the mortal world and the afterlife. Tappani doesn’t believe this, but begrudgingly follows Vepri’s rules (most of the time).

Tappani is a nonbinary trans man / demiman, and uses he/him exclusively.

Nelly (outdated name, it’s Mercé now) is his girlfriend. They’re T4T.

Pasted image description under the cut:

Dragon heads.

Concept sketch (with a quick messy internal organ ref) for what unicorns are like in Sinirin. I monotone’d the picture up top because I realized I didn’t really like how I’d coloured it.

The unicorns of Sinirin are not animals - they are planimals, a separate (though at times very similar-looking) kingdom of life. As the name suggests, all planimals have a mix of plantlike and animal-like features: like plants, they photosynthesize, breathe CO2 and exhale oxygen, and make use of plastids, and like animals, they are mobile, have phospholipid cell membranes instead of cellulose walls (though some groups do make use of cellulose, it’s never the majority component in their body structure), and have animal-like tissues and organ systems. They rely heavily on the uptake of ambient magic to enhance their naturally inefficient biological processes, which has lead into many planimal species developing some form of active control over magic.

Unicorns belong to the phylum Xylochordata, chordate-analogues that have cellulose only as part of their skeletal structure and make use of a number of different photosynthetic compounds, occasionally multiple within the same species. The compounds are found in the “fur” and “petals” that grow on the backs / tops of their bodies, aka the areas most exposed to the sun, with the rest of the body being pigmented with mammal-like forms of melanin. Haven’t decided whether unicorns should use chlorophyll or carotenoids.

The horn of a unicorn is actually a highly elongated, hardened petal. They are naturally inclined towards light magic, and a rare few can perform healing magic as well.

Unicorns do not eat, so their mouths are only needed to drink water. As a result, the mouth cavity is quite small and lacks teeth, though they do have a long tongue that naturally forms a “cup” in the middle when extended.

A concept for the “pegasi” in my high-fantasy setting! The “tree” and the “winged horse” are the sporophyte(?) and gametophyte stages, respectively, of this species’ life-cycle. The gaps between the “tree”’s leaf-layers hold organs that periodically produce egg-like capsules, which hatch into the “pegasi”; these can fly as soon as they’re hatched, and after a brief but rapid growth period (spent gathering sunlight while soaring high in the sky), they are ready to reproduce. After the “pegasi” mate, one of them lays an egg-seed, which grows into a new “tree”.

Alternation of generations is not the standard for planimals - it only occurs in one phylum (yet to be named). I’m thinking of making unicorns belong to a subgroup of this phylum that developed a "truncated”, more animal-like life cycle through a form of chromosomal duplication, eventually losing the need for the sporophyte stage (not sure how much sense that makes, but... it’s fantasy anyway).

Domain: Eukaryota

(Unranked): Diaphoretickes

(Unranked): SAR supergroup

Kingdom: Zoophyta

Planimals (more properly referred to as zoophytes, but most people don’t call them that outside of scientific discussions) are a kingdom of organisms which have traits associated with both plants and animals (although they are more closely related to plants). Most of them are heavily dependent on magic to survive. The vast majority of terrestrial species inhabit the continent of Ael.

General Traits

Most planimals have cell membranes with cortical alveoli, although some groups have evolved cell walls. Similarly to their ancestors, they have two nuclei: the micronucleus (holds the DNA passed on to offspring) and macronucleus (actively regulates the cell and phenotype of the organism).

They have three types of plastids: chloroplasts, chromoplasts, and elaioplasts (clusters of which replace animal-like fat tissue). The latter two are convergently evolved with those of plants.

Autotrophic, mixotrophic, and heterotrophic planimals exist. The ones that photosynthesize use chlorophylls a and c.

All planimals are oogamous (produce gametes of different size / shape / motility). Some phyla have alternation of generations. Viviparity is rare. They do not produce flowers or fruit.

Evolution

Planimals branched off from ciliates about 400 million years ago. They were exclusively aquatic until 250 million years ago, when the first terrestrial planimals came ashore on what is now the continent of Ael.

Planimals gained the ability to detect and make use of magic early on in their evolution. At some point, they began to use magic to supplement their naturally less-efficient biological processes, like photosynthesis. This allowed them to become more and more complex without changing any of their biological processes, which in turn made them more and more dependent on magic. Most modern-day planimals will die rapidly if deprived of it.

Major Phyla

Tapetozoa (“carpet animals”): Among the most basal extant planimals. Resemble gigantic amoebas or placozoans with a covering of thin but tough green skin. Both aquatic and terrestrial species exist. Notably, all species can survive just fine in low- or no-magic spaces.

Archodendrons (“ruling trees”): A clade resembling trees. A number of species produce small motile “seed/egg-pods” which carry their contents to the nearest sperm-producing archodendron. (Their name comes from their seeming command over these pods.) Despite their appearance, they have animal-like flesh and blood (albeit in different colours - yellowish flesh and clear blood) underneath their “bark”.

Xylovertebrata (“wood-spines”): Vertebrate, including tetrapod, analogues. Their bones superficially resemble bamboo wood, hence the name. Alternation of generations is a common trait.

So this is awkward (after so much fiddling around with it), but I’ve decided to discard all the different solar system / shorter years / alternate calendar stuff for Telluria 😅 This is for two reasons:

The plot of A Summer with the Immortal (the book I recently finished writing) relies heavily on specific dates and days of the week. It would be cumbersome (to say the least) for readers to memorize an entire alternate calendar.

I’ve decided I want to keep the “fantasy focus” of this setting solely on the Tachytely, with Telluria as a pretty generic stand-in for Earth. I feel that having shorter years / a different calendar kind of distracts from that, and the solar system stuff is also unnecessary (since the other planets don’t factor into the story or worldbuilding in any way now that the day names have been discarded).

So Telluria now has 365-day years, uses the Gregorian calendar, and takes place in a solar system where the other planets are not described.