Exchange of Realities

Once you’ve got a list of differences between your Others and humans, the next step is figuring out where they came from; sometimes the origins can tell you as much about the society as the differences themselves. For now, I’ll further explore yesterday’s examples.

Lifespan. This one’s actually a challenge; how do you figure out where longevity comes from? One possibility is the “speed of life” concept I mentioned yesterday, with living slowly leading to longer lifespans. It could also be a result of divine interference, perhaps a punishment or a blessing (for added amusement value, it’s quite possible that the short lifespan is the blessing); if that’s the case, there are probably at least a few customs and traditions that fit with the story behind it.

Perception is a fun one. A creature’s dominant sense is affected by environment, diet, habits, and period of activity. Nocturnal or subterranean creatures, for instance, have fewer uses for vision due to the darkness in which they operate. Their eyes will almost certainly be better adapted to detecting intensity of light than seeing color. Moreover, their other senses will have greater importance, and most likely greater acuity. Hearing can help with navigation, if you go that route; in a cave, it will also be important to be able to tell a real sound from an echo. Touch will be better for cave-dwellers than nocturnal surface dwellers; the nocturnal surface dwellers will benefit more from scent. A flying creature might be hyperaware of its own positioning in space and movements in the air around it, since that helps it navigate. Fruit-eaters need color vision and good senses of smell. Seeing where this is going?

And think about claws. While we mostly think of them as weapons, they’re not always for sinking into your prey. They might be climbing tools (lot of critters there), or used to rake through rotting wood like meerkats do. Or maybe they’re more like moles’ digging claws. You’ll want to know their primary purpose, and perhaps their secondary—that’ll give you a better idea what the owner of the claws is good at doing.

And what about the mental differences? Imagine our creatures with understandings of their own ends. Where might this have come from? It’s hard to say. There’s probably a metaphysical answer to it—a divine gift, perhaps, or an attunement with the world’s energy. Perhaps their understanding goes further, making them consummate necromancers (in either the “current” sense of the word, or the old, divination sense). Or maybe it’s something else entirely. Whatever it is, there’s bound to be a story behind it, most likely something that can have quite an impact on how the culture works. (That is, beyond the impact of the unknown no longer being a reason for them to fear death; that’s going to have some impressive results on its own.)

Or with the culture in which everyone knows exactly how everyone was thinking. Perhaps this was the result of a mediator/mage of the time, who had found a way to read people’s feelings and felt that everyone should do the same. But really, would you want to know that the person you’re trying to teach is more interested in you than in your lesson? Or what if you know perfectly well that someone’s convinced you’re something you’re not and is holding it against you at every conceivable opportunity? And what happens if people’s anger with things leaks through, and you find yourself resonating with it—next thing you know, there’s a whole marketplace ready to hit things. And if you think thin walls are bad when all you’re doing is hearing the couple next door…. Now imagine a society trying to figure out how to handle all of this. Exciting, isn’t it?

At this point, it’s an exercise in asking why. With every question you ask, two more are probably cropping up; that’s how it’s supposed to work. Trace the features forward and trace them back. If they look like they’re going to conflict, see if you can find an alternate interpretation of each. Then watch them dovetail together and work off each other; that’s the best part. Good luck!

Missed the earlier parts of the series?  You can find them here .