#sprawlverse

Just various recent drawings i'm throwing here because I can

Procreate custom brushes are fun!

Ink also is fun!

The Aveterriat originated from hexapodal piscoids from the planet Sidilico. A high gravity desert world which used to be an oceanic world. That was, until their homeworld's sun started to become a subgiant star and their world started to get dried. Multiple mass extinction events later, the life on Sidilico became adapted to the salty flats and basins instead of the oceans. The world's almost smog-like cloud conditions in many regions also create a world that is visually daunting, the sun clears the smog mid-day, but the cloudiness usually will re-assert itself by the evening.

The Aveterriat in particular have retained a range of traits from the tail fin to the peculiar eyes they have. Both features, adapted for hollow caverns and the coastlines of salty beach. Their primary 'side eyes' are large and are able to absorb more light in wavelengths that help see through the smog. The secondary frontal eyes meanwhile are more focused and granular, useful for precise short sight. They basically have 2 kinds of specialized eye instead of a single general kind of eye. This is why frontal views appear to have forward facing eyes while side views appear to have larger eyes. Such eye system originally developed from aquatic ancestors, but have managed to shift in purpose to fit the drier, saltier world their kind gained intelligence in.

A full grown Aveterriat is not big, around a (0.7-1 meter in length).

Physiology

Their ancestor's limbs also were fins. The body of an Aveterriat is held together by a composite of skeletons, with hydrostatic cartilage between the "leathery" segments and an endoskeleton in their limbs, limbs that have dense muscles due to the gravitational forces of their world leading to wider, flatter limbs. The neck of the Aveterriat has the most hydrostatic segments while there are two segments each between each section of their segmented body of case-like segments. The Aveterriat have redundant, smaller hearts in each section for circulation and respiration to deal with the stresses of a higher gravity world. Their "nose" analogs are located on the sides of their segments, with similarly redundant lung analogs. The antennae help with sensing wind patterns, useful when dwelling in a hazy atmospheric media.

The tail fin is mildly atavistic, but it has uses due to its reflectivity in a hazy environment for coordinating (in nature) and mate attraction. The brain is cased in the front like with us, with a distinct sensory melon and "prod" on their front that isn't actually a nose but a density sensory system that helps scoop food out from the ground as they are from a genus that preys on various burrowing species. The earth analog would be something like the crayfish that burrow on the beach. Aestivating organisms are common on their world. Their digestive system consists of a crop, stomach and a spiral valve intestine, with purposes analogous to the earthly counterparts.

The Aveterriat retain quite a bit of fluid in their body due to the relative scarcity of fluids on their planet through a solution that makes their internal fluids more gel-like (think aloe vera). There are dedicated organ systems for salt filtration and holding water beneath the thick, leathery segments of their body. Their fore and mid arms have prehensile hands while their legs are somewhat prehensile but are more foot-like. Aveterriat reproduction favors multiple male mates per female Aveterriat, with their more collective cultures being in part from how mothers have a high death rate in child birth due to their spawn ripping themselves out of the body (the hydrostatic segments mainly) at birth. The risk increases with the more spawn they incubate. There isn't any real sexual dimorphism except the male aveterriat having a more pronounced tailfin and the female aveterriat's body often being slightly wider. The facial prod is sometimes wider, other times more needle-like. Their arms have an endoskeleton, but their body segments have loose ribs. Their tail segments can reform after a long time, but their limbs cannot.

Habitation / Phonetics

The primitive Aveterriat often inhabited caves or salty shorelines, with some cultures benefiting from the flash rainstorms in more polar regions or the various rift regions rich in phosphorus and hot springs. The sun in their world is a subgiant star, oppressively gazing down upon them. The Aveterriat have heliophobia and quite a bit of dread of the sun as the day heat is oppressive even for life used to the dying world they occupy. The night and twilight are when they prefer being out and about for these reasons, even if they aren't actually threatened by their sun directly (except when a flare event occurs). It simply is the association of blaring heat from a god that hates them and the open pale skies full of death that often ensue.

More advanced societal structures are not covered in this article, but the basic unit from pre-technological times was fairly communal in nature with large populations cloistered about in built out caverns. Their kind never developed eusociality like comparable sapients (i.e the Stevik) in part due to their reproduction system being unsuited for it and how often the mother dies in child birth. Their colonies usually can mass up to tens of thousands of Aveterriat and often consist of intricate mazes of underground architecture with such numbers even before having sophisticated industries. In epoch 0, the Aveterriat already had elaborate and bespoke networks of societies. Surface societies also existed, but the widespread heliophobia usually led to them retreating underground whenever the sun of out to the point their settlements have bunker infrastructure so elaborate you would think they had nuclear weapons already. (They didn't until about epoch 4109)

Here is a Whandl

They are like cube crab things

The saintly star fell upon the cluster of orbitals. The looming sun of the red giant Gamma Crusis. Imposing its light on the minuscule speck where over a billion beings have chosen to reside in the face of that vast, dying star. It was a typical time cycle for the local inhabitant known as Noa, who levitated towards the panels monitoring the current flare activity. “No disturbances detected” it read. A typical cycle indeed.

Noa continued to advance in their activities, the tight and highly vertical corridors of the monitoring array built with the eventual construction of a solar mirror in mind. The project has had considerable delays due to infighting with the local asteroid harvesting communes who have Continued questions about the mirror and its intention. Much of which is due to the faction of harvesters who believe solar lifting tech is just around the corner and questioning the usefulness of a massive telescope situated at Gamma Crusis of all stars.

The shaft had finally been navigated to the proper location which Noa had sought as the final location of interest. A view at the mirror itself in construction. Noa peered out of the window, out there all one sees is a vast plain of glass with the pitch black sky only punctured by the lights of ships working on the mirror. It is a very serene sight on the whole, the gaze of Gamma Crusis is not present due to it being the “night” side of the mirror.

It was at that point Noa had been contacted by a local integrity monitor. Noa’s relief was near instantaneously punctured by one simple line-

“Noa. We have a complication.”

The frustration grew as the nature of the complication was further expressed in the form of a drone malfunction. A minor error from the stack of protocols followed by the construction drone led to it crashing into one of the support beams.

“I’ll take care of it directly.” Noa replied, knowing the task that now will absorb the whole cycle. Sending another drone is simply too ill advised. A generalized agent like themself exists to handle the convoluted tedium after all. Noa set out immediately, pulling themselves towards the airlock and donning the technician’s apparatus.

In the void, the scale of the mirror became ever clearer. The horizon was a glass horizon. The support structure the drone hit was over 7 kilometers from their location. Which was not a terribly long distance to travel using the apparatus. The journey was only half an hour.

After drifting for that half hour on the matched velocity Noa didn’t even need their sensors to see the impact. It was worse than merely a support structure beam getting mangled. The drone smashed into the damn mirror. Noa set to work immediately trying to salvage the situation.

The drone could not be salvaged.

The mirror for the whole sector was cracked, the chips and pieces kept Noa on edge as they were sharp enough to even puncture the apparatus should they be careless. Noa dodged around the large shards, never changing velocity too much and making touch down even as a sharp jagged tooth of a glass piece floated above them.

Noa got to work on the support beam itself, mending it with the graphene strand gel in short order and enameling it further with an adhesive. It was not optimal, but the alternative of disassembling hundreds of meters of mirror was simply not viable. Noa just wanted out of here. The glass shards drifting above making it clear the incident was going to need more than one mechanic with adhesives and gels. Using gels on the glass would further complicate their trajectories and be too much a liability. Noa only wanted to get back to the vertical corridors of the center monitoring tower and call in the heavy duty assistance.

But first, Noah had to take the broken beyond repair drone with them. Dislodging it was simple and the lack of gravity made it less difficult to carry in tow with the cables then it could have been.

Ascending the broken glass was all they had to do now.

The drift of the glass and timing it, navigated away from a large piece of glass that appeared to be headed towards them. The drift was anxiety inducing all the same as it glanced ever so close, this sharp broken crystal which was meant to power civilizations. Now a hazard for their own survival. Noa felt the smaller bits of glass regardless, tearing a bit on the suit. Mercifully, they managed to get out of the worst of it… the plains of solar panel blending into an indistinct bluish hue as they drift ever further upwards with the drone. The light of the recover craft illuminating behind them.

“Finally here?” Noa asked it, “I have the drone.”

Noa’s apparatus linked with the vehicle, the drone clutched in their hands. Noa would watch as they were rapidly flown back to the main control center, the simmering glimmer of the panels ever so distant now. The heat of the thrusters could be felt, but Noa didn’t hear them beyond the loose hum and vibration of the craft they are latched upon. It was strangely serene, as they watched the central tower of the power station come into view, a tower amid the ocean of solar panel below.

They finally got back to the station, drone in tow.

“Any new information?” Noa inquired.

“Nothing outside the repair crew being officially dispatched. Pending drone analysis.” the monitor replied.

The whole situation reeked of an absence. The repairs according the look up system were estimated to take 77 hours. Yet that estimate seemed painfully optimistic. The damage witnessed, the large shards floating over the sea of solar panels and the dust itself all pointed to an operation far more intensive than a mere glue operation.

Something simply didn’t make any sense.

Noa took the drone to the mechanical bay and got to work analyzing it. The drone was dead, as expected, but other strange anomalies were present. The navigation system seemed off-kilter. Which shouldn’t be possible, as these were drones specifically designed to keep the radiating heat of Gamma Crusis and its solar winds from perturbing the navigation system. Even the primitive probes the first space faring humans constructed didn’t run into that problem. Something else is tampering with it.

But what?

January was spent without much work getting done outside finishing the first version of the personal website, some lore articles and a couple illustrations that were not rendered at all.

The lethargy hides the time spent getting more savings admittedly.

Still my calling must be followed and the lacking time spent on it causes too much "okay so why do I even care to exist?" thoughts. So I have to spend more time on it.