So, hold up a second
>Massive numbers of megafauna all over the world, including numerous species of large predator that may have hunted humans as prey
>Multiple sentient species of hominids of different sizes, shapes, strengths and appearances all running around in the same time period, including Homo habilis (for a bit, anyway), Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis, the Neanderthals, Homo sapiens and maybe even the Denisovians, with lots of warring, and interbreeding going on
Jesus Christ, guys, did the fantasy setting full of multiple sentient species and giant monsters already happen?
>>44964554
Yes. How do you think the legends fantasy tries to emulate were born?
FUCK YEAH HUMANITY
HUMANS 1
MONSTERS 0
>>44964554
Yeah. It's just that we won.
>>44964554
Fantasy needs more prehistory-inspired settings.
>>44964621
I wonder, at the time, when all these hominid species were around, what did they think of each other? I mean, what were the stereotypes?
>Neanderthals are ugly, but are smart and tough as shit
>Erectus are idiotic savages and nobody likes them
>Floresiensis are borderline mythical, only living on their little islands; nobody but their neighbors believes the stories
>Habilis is the slowly fading little ape-people; the other races ignore them and fail to realize they have oral histories that describe fucking megaladons
>Nobody wants to fuck with Homo Sapiens, they're not as smart or as tough as the Neanderthals, but they will murder the shit out of you and swarm across your territory
>>44964669
We interbred with or outlasted all the elves and dwarves and we slew all the dragons.
>>44964773
I would totally play a game in this setting.
Like you wouldn't even need to reskin this as fantasy, it's good the way it is.
>>44964795
>outlasted the elves and the dwarves
Nah, the dwarves still exist in tunnels well beyond our current reach, and the elves were, are and will still be killing each other in the mountains and fthe orests for all eternity.
>>44964773
>Nobody wants to fuck with Homo Sapiens, they're not as smart or as tough as the Neanderthals, but they will murder the shit out of you and swarm across your territory
...were we the orcs? Did the orcs win?
>>44964663
It still had to be rough going early on. Imagine being the early human sitting around the fire with your family, when you look over Ug-Nug's shoulder and see the glowing eyes of a pack of giant cave hyenas behind him, just outside the firelight. Then the eerie, inhuman laughter starts...
>>44964856
Pretty much. Our ancestors were hyperaggressive and rather rapey.
>>44964978
Hey now, I bet there was some sweet, consensual human/Neanderthal loving.
>>44964773
Primal PNP is great PNP.
Adding just a little bit of mysticism makes it even better.
>>44965012
Guess what.
>>44964856
We were much worse than orcs. We were orcs with high charisma and sex drive.
There is an old saying about Sapiens
"If they fail to rape you by force, then they will make you belive that getting fucked by them was your idea..."
Fun fact: this sort of shit makes up the bulk of humanity's time on this planet. For most of human existence, it was a bloody free-for-all fuckfest with giant monsters and rival sentiments for domination of the planet. We just happened to be born in the sliver of time that is modern history, when all that shit had already happened.
>>44965077
>sentiments
Meant sentients. Goddamn autocorrect.
>the oldest language we know is over 200,000 years younger than humanity
Just imagine all the folklore we've forgotten.
Also, how would you stat out the prehistoric races?
>>44964975
Pleistocene Australia was basically Mordor
>Saltwater crocodiles still hanging around
>land crocodiles of similar size
>fucking Megalania, a 23 foot long monitor lizard and probably the closest thing to a dragon any living human probably saw
>meat-eating kangaroos
>actual goddamn drop bears
>wombats the size of hippos
>>44965413
>Just imagine all the folklore we've forgotten.
The Toba eruption, alone, man. Reduced the entire worldwide human population to, what, a thousand breeding pairs? All the surviving human oral traditions, all of our most ancient legends, all the monomyths that persist throughout Indo-European cultures, all from the few tribes that lived through the ashen hell Toba created. Imagine all the oral histories and stories, recollections of battles with sabertooth tigers and rival hominids, ancient creation myths, that died with the rest of the population, and no trace of which survives anywhere.
>>44965617
The recovery of those myths via stone carvings, cave paintings and archaeological digs may well be a good motivation for a modern Indiana Jones-esque PnP.
>>44964773
Don't forget Gigantopithecus, survived until 100k years ago in some parts of Asia, long enough to have interacted with Homo erectus.
Bigfoot was real, he's just dead.
Now this is making me want to theme wood elves after cave people with creepy shamans tamed ground sloths and warriors who can become wendengos
>>44965617
Straight outta wikipedia
>However, archeological finds in 2007 have suggested that a homo population, probably modern Homo Sapiens, survived in Jwalapuram, Southern India.[53] Moreover, it has also been suggested that nearby hominid populations, such as Homo floresiensis on Flores, survived because they lived upwind of Toba.
>http://toba.arch.ox.ac.uk/pub_files/Petraglia2007Science.pdf
Seems like the survivors were more spread out than previously thought but that means fuckall since 99%+ of ancient knowledge was still erased.
>>44965413
Well, Sapiens would just have human stats. Neanderthals would have all the sort of constitution benefits you' associate with dwarves, plus an intelligence boost and some cold resistance. Floresiensis would probably have stats akin to a Halfling, but maybe with an extra Ride (pygmy elephant) skill.
Erectus I can't figure out. Sort of a blend of Neanderthals and humans?
>>44965756
Gigantopithecus wasn't sentient, though. He was just a giant orangutan.
>>44964795
Not all dragons, we made miniature versions of the ones we liked. Unfortunately some of those fuckers were just too sneaky to completely whipe out. I'm looking at you tigers, were coming for you. Whales your also on our radar.
This reminds me of how in my settings I've always wanted to base dragons and other beasts of legend on real prehistoric animals with a fantastic edge, lots of dinosaur and Permian reptile influence in dragons wyverns, and maybe even griffons
>>44965890
That's scary enough
>>44965501
I actually read that Megalania went extinct entirely because humans had enough of their shit and set massive brush fires just to kill them. It's like the prehistoric equivalent to nuking the site from orbit, just to be sure.
>>44965950
Accurate, early Australian mam basically Terraformed Australia, it used to have much denser forests, and yeah Megalania is one our ancestors were systematically wiping out
>>44964669
>humanity has been desperately trying to relive its past glories for 10,000 years
That's sad.
>>44966082
>terraformed
Is that what you call it when it becomes basically un-arable?
>>44965949
>>44965890
>>44965756
That new live action Jungle Book movie is going to have King Louie be the last surviving Gigantopithecus worshiped by living apes. They did this since orangutans don't live in Indea but Gigantopithecus did.
>>44966136
Australia had room for either the forests or the humans, but not both
>>44964856
Humanity is like some weird amalgamation of Skynet and the Three Stooges. Like, we're smart enough to sail to Easter Island, but dumb enough to chop down literally every tree and utterly obliterate the local environment until we're in a Road-tier situation and eating babies.
Compared to other species on Earth we are an unstoppable godlike force that has achieved self awareness, and then used that power to shit in our bowl of cereal and then attempt to eat out of it if you will. Think of the elephants. We have obliterated their society of elderly matrons controlling tribes and replaced it with starving, traumatized remnants that raid human farms both for food and pleasure. That's fucking Skynet. The reason we're doing it? Fix our penises. Sounds like a comedy act.
My point is that sometimes I wonder if ANY animal could handle true human-style intelligence. Could crows do better? Crows are bros after all fuck ravens. Would they fuck up just as hard?
>>44966541
I like to think that, if it wasn't us who rose to the top via intellect, it'd be some kind of octopus.
They're freaky smart, doubly so if you consider how short their lifespans are.
Considering chimpanzees form mini-nations and make weapons and routinely go on murder/rape/cannibalism raids on other chimpanzee nations I think we should be grateful it was us, a relatively less brutal primate.in4 "I want /pol/ to leave"
>>44966541
Every other animal species and especially apes would be just as horrible as humans. If they were sapient, look at the chimps. They are more violent then humans, they are the violent short murder trolls of earth.
>>44965950
>niggers wiped out dragons
This is something to add on the list of "why /pol/ is right"
>>44966744
They're a contender for the next most intelligent species, but they're held back by lack of culture. Octopuses don't teach each other anything because the parents die so quickly after giving birth.
Though that makes their intelligence even more impressive because it means that every octopus is self-taught.
>>44966744
>it'd be some kind of octopus
Nah m8, you need more complex social structures, enough for a transmission of information from individual to individual, to have a growing civilization.
I say elephants would be better for this.
>>44966744
Octopus are smart but currently the smartest animals are believed to be chimps, dolphins and certain corvids
also to have a successful society one needs to look at a species' tool using potential. In this aspect the chimp wins outright, followed by the corvids. Dolphins, while smart, just don't have the build for tool usage and suffer heavily from being aquatic.
While an octopus would be decently equipped for tool usage sadly it being an aquatic species would again severely limit it in this aspect.
Might be a boring answer but if it wasn't us, it'd have likely been some form of chimp (though probably not the bonobo, sure they're clever as fuck but they're also caring, peaceful and not particularly expansionist)
>>44965915
>Whales your also on our radar.
I feel like Orca whales are the ones we really need to watch out for.
Most concerning thing: Orcas eat everything except humans.
Like, if there's a goddamn moose swimming around, an Orca will eat it. There is EXACTLY one exception to their omnivory.
But for some reason humans are off limits.
WHY? And it's not like sometimes an Orca will taste a human and decide it doesn't like the flavor either, they just leave us alone entirely, and this is a species that is known for its curiosity and innovation.
The ONLY explanation I can think of is that at some point they DECIDED not to eat us. The species got together and said "we need to leave these things alone or they could wipe us off the goddamn planet". They made a rational, logical decision based on reasonable projections into the future. That is fucking TERRIFYING in and of itself, but what's perhaps even more terrifying is the fact that ALL orcas appear to obey this species-wide law (not counting captives here) and the fact that the law is at least a millennia old and there has been no deviation from it. Humans fall prey to the trap of circular history: once the generations that witnessed a mistake die off, the subsequent generations INVARIABLY make the same mistake again no matter how well they are warned against it, but somehow Orcas do not seem to have this problem.
>>44965072
*without charisma
The suprising jump in society quality happened after neanderthals disappeared, and is most likely due to females preferring more...civilized mates that could cooperate better with other males than the "alpha males" that didn't get along well.
>>44966997
Dolphins have been recorded using tools, though. And they frequently use their environment as a sort of proto-tool. Dropping shellfish on rocks to break them open, corralling schools of fish by kicking up sand cyclones, etc.
>>44966136
Dude, you see what kind of shit lives on Australia NOW, imagine the fucked up horrors that must have been lurking in the jungles back where there were proper jungles to lurk in. Turning the thing into a damn desert was probably a good idea on balance.
>>44967016
I wonder what its like for an intelligent self-aware animal to share a planet with humans
Folks here have likely seen how those uncontacted tribes react to helicopters, and they're humans, imagine being an orca and meeting ship. You're just smart enough to understand just how big a fucking deal it is, but everything else is completely beyond your grasp
>>44967016
Orcas are your peaceful friends, fellow humans, continue to kill the sharks instead.
>>44966997
Dolphins Grow Thumbs; "Oh, Shit," Says Humanity
>>44967075
Fully aware, still they do not have accurate manipulators like chimps or corvids (no, that's not a joke, go look up what certain crows can do with their beaks and talons) and most importantly: they are completely and utterly incapable of ever getting the fire advantage over their environment
>>44967016
>TERRIFYING
I think it's kinda sweet
>>44966831
Counterargument- look at Bonobos, even bigger sluts than humans. Imagine the porn we'd have.
>>44967162
He's saying that they aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Rather, orcas are playing a long game to wait out the human presence and make sure to not needlessly antagonize them.
>maybe even the Denisovians
>maybe
it's not a maybe. i've taken tests showing i have denisovan dna.
i would be very into playing more prehistoric games though. it's a ripe setting.
>>44967170
counter-counter argument
Bonobo's would be wiped out by their equivalent of homo sapiens way before they could even make porn due to their slut nature
>>44967016
Maybe those who Orcas try to eat just don't escape?
>>44967170
>small, isolated populations
>extremely intelligent to comparable species
>much prefer peace to war, even to the point of inconvenience
>excessively lewd
G-guys...are bonobos elves?
![KamilleWHY[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/M8fCXWL.jpg "KamilleWHY[1].jpg")
>>44964856
w-we were the bad guys all along
>>44967209
>it's not a maybe. i've taken tests showing i have denisovan dna.
Not that I question the validity of such tests, but where, how and by what method were they compared?
>>44967136
>>44967016
THE HUMAN KNOWS
SHUT IT DOWN
>>44967208
I think it's sweet that they're wary of us. They also naturally do those neat organized jumps and flips without training.
>>44967241
look at the bright side
we were the bad guys all along AND WE WON
There probably was this desperate gathering of hominids all banding together for one last stand against the Sapiens horde, and they got slaughtered.
>>44967223
They wouldn't get wiped out, they'd probably end up as an entire sub-species of sex slaves.
I'm not sure which is worse, really.
>>44967277
I'd laugh if jumping orcas are their own species' equivalent of skateboarding teenagers. All the older orcas think the jumpers and flippers are useless drains on orca society and complain about them constantly in orca-speak.
>>44967241
As much as we like to convince ourselves otherwise, the bad guy usually win. Not just in human society, but in nature as a whole.
>>44967016
Okay, after checking wikipedia, that is damn creepy - plenty of attacks in captivity, including fatalities, but in the wild there's exactly one recorded bite, and he lived.
That's a little unnerving
>>44967303
nah, they'd get assimilated through forced breeding within the span of a few generations and as a result you'd get some chimps who are prettier and sluttier than usual who probably end up being the wives of the great chimp conquerors
>>44967323
>the orca's playing with baby seals are just their equivalent of edgy teenagers
>>44967228
Seems unlikely. Orcas are deadly and whatnot, but seals and shit escape from them on a regular basis. Hell, sometimes Orcas will catch a seal, fuck with it for a bit, then let it go for what seems like no reason.
>>44967208
It's terrifying because it shows long-term planning perhaps beyond even what humans are capable of, planning beyond the next few generations and an ability to abide by decisions made by generations you've never met in a way that humans cannot. They have to know that their food supply is dwindling, and they have to understand that humans are to blame. So do they have a plan?
>>44967161
>Whales have no manipulators, advanced culture
>>>44966955
>Octopi have excellent manipulators, no culture
>Both live in the same environment
>Both are extremely intelligent
You thinking what I'm thinking /tg/?
>>44967486
Symbiosis?
>>44967486
I wouldn't call it planning so much as it may be genetic memory. Many mammals - and most animals in general - instinctively shy away from humans.
>>44966839
Technically australian aborigenies are of asian decent
>>44967486
what about a more tragic scenario where they know their food supplies are dwindling, they know humans are to blame, they have spend centuries planning how to fix it but then just gave up because they also realized there was no way they could ever compete with our technology
now they're just trying to stay alive long enough for our species to go extinct through our own actions without taking them down with us
>>44967343
it's no wonder some cultures revered them as deities. imagine swimming or boating somewhere all by your lonesome, and you come across something that looks like a camouflaged shark on steroids, and it comes up to you... and then just swims away.
that's some vision-quest shit right there.
>>44967486
>You thinking what I'm thinking /tg/?
Pls, don't.
Maybe orcas don't attack people because they're sentient and they know that we're sentient too?
>>44967514
Fuck yes.
A population of orcas starts feeding octopi. At first this is just to lure them out from where they're hiding because octopi taste fucking awesome, but soon they begin to respect how clever the little shits are, and the octopi learn that the whales are a source of food if they do tricks for them.
Eventually the whales learn that the octopi hear in a very specific frequency, and that they learn very quickly: the orcas are able to give the octopi commands and train them to obey with positive reinforcement, just the way humans train dogs. As generations pass, the orcas would get better and better at training the octopi because they would pass down their techniques to their children. At some point they might even discover breeding, and start selecting for traits that make the octopi better service animals.
Think of it like how a quadriplegic human can train a monkey to do things like pick up a phone and shit.
>>44966997
> bonobo
> peaceful
That's an understatement. Common chimps patroll their territory in groups, and if they see a single male from another clan they kill it.
Bonobos don't patroll their territory at all, and if they spot bonobo of the other sex from another tribethey interact with them, often ending in sex.
Bonobos are the homo sapiens of the great apes, sexsexsexsexsex and fucking smart on top.
>>44967635
They reckon the oldest one is over 100 - there's photos of her from the 30's at least, and she's still seen fairly often today - hell, the oldest ones in captivity are in their 50's
Yeah, something that smart, that lives that long, that's probably worth a second look
>>44967571
Technically asians are of african descend.
>>44967745
Well, that's one way for orcas to solve the not having manipulators issue.
And actually a really brilliant one, at that.
>>44967288
At some point in pre-history we worked for Sauron. After we slaughtered the other hominids he was all "Hey, good job! I'm going to go taker over the neighboring solar system, you guys lock this shit down until I get back. Maybe work on fusion or something while I'm gone."
>>44967233
Yes. And neanderthals arenthe dwarfs.
>>44967745
Wouldn't having social octopi require less suspension of disbelief?
Like familiar groups breeding on corals and learning to interact and manipulate to better form defences in the form of rearrangement of the corals and coordination to flee from predators?
>>44967902
Neanderthals probably weren't that smart never mind crafty like dorfs though.
There is this craze about Neanderthals because we've found something that exists in Out-Of-Africa populations but not in Africans so we aren't just mutant niggas. But really it was probably a bad idea to breed with them and mostly gave deleterious genes that have been selected out, and selection + mutation, not Neanderthal admixture is the cause of any advantages Eurasians have over Africans.
It's usually only Europeans that obsess over Neanderthals anyway, East Asians have even more of the stuff and I haven't heard of them giving a shit.
>>44968035
They were smart but stubborn. Archaeological findings suggest that they had things such as jewelry and burial rituals before homo sapiens, but somewhere along the line they stopped progressing.
>>44968102
I don't know if it's fair to characterize their whole species based on that - plenty of human cultures have had periods of stagnation and decline, doesn't mean we don't generally trend towards progress.
Maybe Sapiens entered Europe during some sort of Neanderthal Dark Age equivalent, which sped along their decline and our ascent. Seems less farfetched than thinking the Neanderthals hit some sort of invisible ceiling on progression and development.
>>44964975
>>44967554
You ever wonder how many generations it took for that to kick in? Like, we have pretty solid evidence that Homo Habilis was part of the ordinary diet for the saber-toothed cat species that lived in Africa. They were not afraid of Habilis's stone tools and weapons one bit. We've also got pretty good evidence for a group of Homo Erectus being devoured by giant cave hyenas in China; the remains indicate they had a well practiced way of popping Erectus skulls off in order to eat the lipid-rich brains.
How long did it go on like this? At some point we killed enough of them that they learned to back off and give us our room, but before that they routinely came into our communities in the night and dragged us off into the dark, screaming all the way. It probably took a few centuries to teach them manners, and in the meantime we had to live in a hell of claws and fangs painted in our blood.
There is a REASON human beings still have a deep, visceral fear of being eaten alive.
>>44968163
It could also be that there were cultural reasons, like they knew that there were alternatives to their tools/customs/lifestyle but they rejected them because they saw them as unnecessary.
>>44968035
Neanderthals had demonstrably larger brains than Homo sapiens or Homo erectus.
>>44967381
Baby seals
Porpoises
Baby orcas
Yes, orcas deal with edgelords and spree shooters like humans do.
>>44967124
From Animorphs, but in the other direction:
>I had encountered intelligence in a morph before. But there was something new here. New for me, at least. The orca was aware. Of me. Of something, someone directing its behavior.
>It knew, in some incomplete, simplistic way, that it was being controlled.
><Let's go, big boy,> I said.
>No answer from the orca, of course. But that cool, appraising intelligence, though it was devoid of memory of learning, empty of all knowledge except the knowledge encoded as instinct, that intelligence watched me.
>using "sentient" when you really mean "sapient"
There's really no reason to confuse the two, especially when the only reason you'd mention either of them is to contrast with the other.
>>44966839
>no more megalania
>no more marsupial lion
>no more apex predators to keep australian shitposting population under control
>>44968035
>>44968102
I read somewhere that their smarts probably had more to do with things like art and culture and less with technological progress and invention.
So if they existed today they would probably be less technologically advanced but would have a much deeper culture.
So if bonobos are the animu meme-elves, then Neanderthals are the standard fantasy elves.
>>44968350
Bonobos = lewd meme elves
Neanderthals = actual elves
Homo Sapiens = orcs
What else have we got, /tg/?
>>44968340
Nature is /b/, but Australia is /b/ without mods
>>44968215
Actually in some parts of the world carnivores still enter smaller communities and drag of victims. Really the only reason why it doesn't happen much anymore is because we have created an environment that the dangerous predators don't like.
>>44966744
>communication by skin color change
>perfect tool manipulation using tentacles
too bad you can't light a fire underwater, and cephalopods aren't very social animals (and they die immediately after reproducing).
>>44965860
> However, this hypothesis is not widely accepted because similar effects on other animal species have not been observed, and paleoanthropology suggests no Population Bottleneck happening.
BTFO
>>44968409
There was an essay from a Zimbabwean guy when that one lion got killed. tl;dr "good, fuck lions, ate one of my friends once, can't do anything outside when lions are around"
>>44968409
Fire helps. Animals have a deeply ingrained instinct to flee from forest fires.
>>44968340
>keep australian shitposting population under control
Even megafauna has it's limits anon
>>44967245
dna analysis
"Surprisingly, the scientists found genetic overlap between the Denisovan genome and that of some present-day east Asians, and, in particular, a group of Pacific Islanders living in Papua New Guinea, known as the Melanesians. It appears the Denisovans contributed between 3 to 5 percent of their genetic material to the genomes of Melanesians. Scientists think that the most likely explanation is that Denisovans living in eastern Eurasia interbred with the modern human ancestors of Melanesians. When those humans crossed the ocean to reach Papua New Guinea around 45,000 years ago, they brought their Denisovan DNA over with them."
it's not 100% proof but it's most likely the case just like neanderthals. otherwise it's a wild coincedence that i share 5% of my dna with denisovans.
>>44968244
Or maybe their development was restricted by smaller social groups due to ecosystemic reasons? I dunno.
Going for the "noble savages" is a bit reductive in my opinion.
>>44964554
Sadly it happened before we realized what we were destroying.
>>44968400
Floresiensis is either a halfing or a the other kind of "Children of the Forest" style little person elf. Not sure about Erectus or Habilis; they're sort of their own thing. One's the not very smart but far more ancient lineage, while the other was taller than humans (Homo Sapiens was pretty short back in the day, but Erectus reached six feet with regularity) but was dumber and still kind of ape like.
>>44967323
>All the older orcas think the jumpers and flippers are useless drains on orca society and complain about them constantly in orca-speak.
>assinine "breaching is not a crime" stickers
>>44968491
Denisovans are really mysterious. We don't even know what they looked like; we just have some teeth and finger bones to go off of.
>>44968607
The finger bones suggest that they may have been even stockier than Neanderthals which is pretty crazy to imagine
>>44967381
CRAWLING IN MY FINS
>>44967250
On the internet, no one knows you're an Orca.
>>44968682
I think we've found our dwarves
>>44968688
There's a really good opportunity to end the next line with "seals"
But I can't think of what it would be
>>44968607
We know they were aryan though
![UrYod_the_Numerologist-big[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/vGbBXBI.jpg "UrYod_the_Numerologist-big[1].jpg")
>>44968350
I'm thinking less elves and more pic related.
>>44968409
It's not that frequent. Most big predators will not willingly prey on humans. The most famous man-eaters in history were often found to have some sort of injury like an infected tooth molar or a bum leg that made hunting and killing their regular prey too difficult, so they turned to humans. That, or they were presented with too many opportunities to eat human corpses, and realized we were an option.
Granted, that second one's a bit unnerving. It suggests the reason most of them don't eat us and shy away from us when we show up is simply because we're so uncommon in their environment that they don't know what to make of us, so they keep their distance. But when they realize we're easy to kill? Then they eat us.
Though not always. Some predators have been observed attacking and mortally injuring humans, but then they don't eat us, even when they could, and they don't form a habit of hunting us even when they know we're easy to kill. That suggests they have an instinct to stick to their regular prey and avoid us.
>>44968007
already happened
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larger_Pacific_striped_octopus
still a long jump to civilization but its a start. main obstacles are lack of fire and metal smelting.
>>44968712
Stocky, tough, mysterious, found in caves?
>Neanderthals
>reclusive, stubborn, stronk as fuck, deep voices because of different larynx
>not the classic mountain elf creatures from middle european folklore
>>44968782
It's not that difficult to understand them: I wouldn't start hunting and eating aliens unless I had some serious need or knowledge of what I'm getting into.
>>44967747
I'm afraid the rape-pillage-plunder chimps have more in common with Homosapiens.
>>44968417
That's why the proposed symbiosis with whales is fucking perfect. Orcas with well trained octopi could build structures, weave, tie knots. Perhaps more importantly for the context of this thread, it would give them a way to manipulate OUR technology: there's nothing a human hand can do that an octopus can't do better.
>A single, unexpected assault
>The whales use their trained octopi and take over several warships
>The crews taken hostage, floating around the ships in a protective circle; they know we don't like killing our own.
>For more than 48 hours the standoff continues.
>The navy has no fucking clue how to handle this.
>The Orcas use brute-force and sink several of the ships then release the hostages.
>We hear about the trained octopi at that point, but nobody really believes it.
>Meanwhile, the orcas are studying the ships they sank, practicing.
>Soon whenever a fishing boat goes anywhere near an Orca pod's territory they lose all rudder control: the octopi are sent into the mechanisms of the ships, forcing them to turn around and return to port.
>Octopus training spreads to every resident Orca pod on the planet: fishing becomes impossible on the scale required by humanity.
>Humans design octopus-proof ships, but the orcas eventually find the flaws: no moving parts in or even near the water are safe from octopus sabotage.
>Japan, with a culture that doesn't give a fuck about whales anyway and a massive reliance on seafood, takes the offensive.
>>44968833
If it looks like a duck....
>>44968877
all of homo sapiens, or...
>>44968902
>the nips were right all along
They know, anon. They see the coming conflict.
>>44968913
Holy shit, it's a dire duck! RUN!
>>44969053
That'd be terrifying if they weren't so easily pacified with bread.
>>44969077
>village regularly provides tribute of bread to dire duck
>>44969053
>dire duck
so, a platypus
>>44969053
Their corkscrew dicks can drill through solid concrete!
Why do we dream of Orcs, /tg/?
Whence the Woodwose and the Almas? Orang Pendak and Yeti? Why do the Aborigines tell of the Yowie and the Pakistanis of the Barmanou? The Native Americans of the Sasquatch and the Chinese of the Yeren?
Humanity knows the Forest Goblin and the People of the Mounds. Our stories and our fears tell us to watch for them and beware.
But they are long gone, present now only in half-remembered and buried bones.
>>44969053
>dire duck!
No, seriously, don't joke about any type of aquatic bird getting a dire version.
We don't need bigger agents of evil on this world.
>>44969150
Bears.
>>44969112
>rain ruins crop one year
>people begin vanishing in the dead of night
I smell a setting in the works
>>44969177
>in the bread of night
fix'd
>>44964554
Yes.
Take note that many monsters that suposedly exist and cryptids are or were based on those.
>mapinguari = megatherium
>cyclops = misinterpreting a mamoth skull
>dragon = motherfucking dinosaus
>unicorn = rhino
>wild men = apes
>kraken = colossal squid
>sea serpent = weird long fish don't remember the name
>yeti or big foot = gigantopithecus
>>44969337
>unicorn = rhino
yeah, no
>>44968995
By then it will be too late
>That's when we discover that the orcas had been breeding and training Blue-ringed octopi (pic related).
>One of the most poisonous creatures of the planet, the orcas had been training the octopi as weapons of war.
>Up to a dozen of the cephalopods could be ejected from an Orca's blowhole at once, like a shotgun blast, littering an enemy ship with lethal mollusks trained to kill.
>But the Japanese wouldn't stop, they couldn't, or they would starve.
>So the orcas would began to shoot their venomous octopi into the cities. Able to survive up to an hour on land, the octopi were trained to seek out humans and kill them.
>Eventually, Japan gave up. They stopped intruding upon the orcas' territory, and the orcas stopped making it rain poison octopi.
>>44969337
Oarfish my man
>>44965413
Two things come to mind:
>90%+ of all music was never recorded
>"fairy tales" as we know it are what was written. Before, they had no canon, and were mixed up in all kinds of ways.
When roleplayers mix Star Wars and dragons at a table, they're reliving the creation of fairy tales, except for the camp fire. Even changing the story based on the audience's reaction corresponds.
>>44969535
so basically, from the beginning of human creativity there was pandering and shitty OCs? sounds lame
>>44967075
And at least one of them trained a human.
>>44969150
Technically, we don't dream of orcs; they were a JRR Tolkien invention. Also, the Native Americans didn't tell stories about Sasquatch (it's not even a Native American word) and the Aboriginal Yowie was a giant lizard-frog,
How about a prehistoric setting with neanderthal necromancer rasising dinosaurs?
Or homo erectus fighting lizard-men in the center of the Earth?
Also fighting ancient aliens with stick and stones.
>>44968262
And elephants have even bigger brains then that, I guess they must be even smarter then the neanderthals then.
>>44969372
No, he's right. The earliest accounts of the unicorn come from Persia, where it's closer to the Karkadann, a misinterpretation of the rhino (it's really obvious when you look at old Persian karkadann descriptions) and from Persia the legend spread to Greece and then Rome, gradually being altered into a more equine creature; the classic white unicorn with cloven hooves, a goatee, and a lion's tail didn't emerge until the Medieval period, based on Greco-Roman versions.
>>44969732
Well, elephants are still alive, and neanderthals aren't. Checkmate, anthropologists
>>44969732
Brain case size in primates generally points towards a greater capacity for intellect and reasoning. Don't be obtuse.
>>44969337
>not unicorn = elasmotherium
>>44966541
The ecological collapse theory of Easter Island has actually been fairly credibly debunked now, actually.
Turns out it was just a plague introduced by European contact.
>>44968817
>main obstacles are lack of fire and metal smelting.
Thermal vents mother fucker!
>>44969150
>>44969648
While the second guy is right, it is worth noting that almost every mythology on Earth, including many African traditions, Native American traditions, and of course Indo-European traditions, includes stories of both A) diminutive nature spirits and B) large and aggressive ogre-men.
Although it's weird; in the Plains tribes like the Arapaho and the Apache, there's a recurrent belief that in pre-history there was a race of supernatural cannibalistic dwarves that lived in the Rocky Mountains, and who went to war with the humans on the plains, raiding and devouring entire villages. This supposedly wasn't stopped until all the plains tribes united against the cannibal dwarves and eradicated them.
>>44969574
Depends on the table you play with.
>>44969372
Yeah, yes. Do a little research before being a lazy disbeliever.
>>44969765
http://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/HippoiMonokerata.html
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/translat/15r.hti
http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast140.htm
http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast165.htm
>>44968556
Fuck off. These giant animals were a pain in the ass to get rid off, the yate all the flora, preyed upon all the fauna, and were in a direct fight for survival AGAINST us.
Fuck em, and fuck you, you non-human sympathizer. Go hug a lion and get mauled.
>>44969870
Still don't melt anything without frying whatever attempts to climb into the stream.
There is a reason why there mayb be life close to vulcanos, but not INSIDE the vulcano.
>>44964773
>>44964856
Homo Sapiens is the elf race.
>Tallest
>Fairest
>Best with ranged weaponry
>Highest range of vocalizations
Whenever I conceive of my fantasy stone age setting I always make humans the best at magic too, because why not.
>>44969337
>>44969403
I've heard sea searpents might have been based on a certain deep sea shark whose name i forget.
Although, there are actual sea snakes in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
>>44970089
Then who are the humans?
>>44965890
...those are sentient.
>>44969732
What >>44968262 should have said is that Neanderthals had a demonstrably better Brain:Body size ratio than Homo sapiens.
>>44970058
If dorfs can utilize lava, octopi can too. Also, no Elephants in the ocean.
>>44969380
> they only stopped to reactivate Fukishima's pumps, filling the waters of the pacific with radiation so strong and undetectable by the whales that they all become infertile.before even noticing
> nippon starves, but saves humanity with a last banzai
Would watch that movie.
>>44968400
Floresiensis hobbits, and Gigantopithecus which was basically Bigfoot. Ogres, I guess?
>>44970058
>but not INSIDE the vulcano.
<iframe src="//assets.nationalgeographic.com/modules-video/assets/ngsEmbeddedVideo.html?guid=0000014e-6f8c-dd38-ab4e-ff8dfb4d0001" width="640" height="365" frameborder="0" seamless="seamless" scrolling="no" allowFullScreen></iframe>
>>44970210
Dorfs aren't underwater. Water has greater thermal conductivity than air by leaps and bounds.
>>44969814
I wouldn't say that it has been debunked.
How you guys would think of this?
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/the-brain-2/28-what-happened-to-hominids-who-were-smarter-than-us
>IQ 150, smarter than even current men
Should they be treated like elves?
>>44970089
Homo erectus was taller. You have to keep in mind pre-historic Homo sapiens were generally shorter than they are now, closer to five feet on average, while Erectus was usually between five and six.
>>44970243
Gigantopethicus were giants. The largest primates of all time, the biggest human-esque thing any living human would ever see.
Using 5e races because fuck you.
>Homo Sapiens
Humans. Variant humans, and keep the feats to skills and survival based, please; No magic or power weapon/ armor feats.
>Neanderthal
Dwarves. Fuck you, they have the stats of dwarves. Swap out armor prof of mountain dwarves with Cold resistance. Hill Dwarves are fine as is.
>Florensis
Forest Gnome OR Ghostwise Halfling. Because yeah.
>Habilis
Normal Halflings. Bards are common among this race.
>Erectus
Half Orcs. Because fuck Erectus.
>OTHER RACES
>Ancient Aliens
>Greys
Greys are High Elves. Totally.
>Lizard people
Dragonborn. Different castes based on skin. Actual Lizardfolk are Saurians.
>Warp Demons
Motha fuckin Tieflings.
>Variant Beast races based on DM's mood.
>>44970383
Pretty sure boskops were shown to be a tribe of homo sapiens and not a different species but we need a caster race, so we'll let it slide
>>44964975
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQaSRKP8Dho
>>44970363
Yeah, all the recent archaeology has shown pretty well that if anything agricultural productivity was on an increase, not a decrease, when the population all died off.
Source: http://www.bishopmuseum.org/media/2013/pr13029.html#.VqQqmOuRra4
The evidence of cannibalism was based purely on early 20th century researchers seeing cutmarks on human bones and assuming that was the only possible explanation, while actually talking to people there and doing more excavations in recent years has shown that repurposing the bones of those who died naturally into tools was common practice. And the whole "retreated into caves" part of the traditional story was based on storm shelters that were actually occupied at the same time as the aboveground houses.
About the only part of the collapse narrative that still has evidence supporting it is that their religious system did completely collapse in a shockingly short period of time, coinciding with the death of most of their population. But coincidentally, that happens during the couple of decades between their first European contact (which, according to the diaries, involved a lot of sex with STD-riddled Dutch sailors) and their second European contact.
>>44968417
They could light a fire on dry land.
>>44970170
When everyone is a human, no one is.
>>44970162
sevengill shark? or cookiecutter shark?
![i-102dd3ea6bb4eefd937570231e9fca08-homo-erectus-pachycroctua-skull[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/76a1lL1.jpg "i-102dd3ea6bb4eefd937570231e9fca08-homo-erectus-pachycroctua-skull[1].jpg")
>>44970667
Hyenas are creepy as shit.
http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2009/06/15/the-skull-crushing-hyenas-of-d/
>>44964554
>tfw Monster Hunter is and will remain to be the best early humanity simulator
>>44970530
How about classes/jobs?
>>44968417
>and they die immediately after reproducing
YOU DIE IMMEDIATELY AFTER REPRODUCING!!!
>>44970780
get out of here you TFIWfag landsquid will die under own weight (and also is unoriginal)
http://thefutureiswild.wikia.com/wiki/Squibbon
>>44971020
>Hunter
>Gatherer
>>44971184
Only two? Kinda boring, how about soldiers, bards and shamans?
>>44971184
>tfw want to be strong hunter
>can't get Unga to like Thrak
>berrypicker as fuck
>>44971299
Classes branch off of Hunter and Gatherer
>>44971299
Bard/singer/storyteller would have a lot of overlap with shaman in those sort of societies.
>>44967136
>>44967250
Hide Orca threads, do not reply to Orca posters.
>>44969380
>>44970237
Sounds like a prequel to Splatoon
>>44971380
But these are real shamans, with magic and shit. Throwing fireballs and freezing mammoths.
What kind of gods do prehistoric homos worship?
>>44971020
I go for a very old school approach to classes, banning them for certain races/ cultures.
>Barbarian
Anyone who can swing a stone axe can become a barbarian. Common among homonids rather than fighter.
>Bard
Homonid only, primarily common among Habilis, with sapiens and Neanderthals catching on quickly.
>Cleric
Life, Light, Nature, and Tempest rules the day of Homonids. War is catching on with Erectus. Greys worship no gods, but have access to Knowledge domain. Lizards are godless atheists. warp demons access cleric as their demonic heritage demands.
>Druid
Homonid only class. Circle of Moon only available to Florensis only.
>Fighter
Same with Barbarian, though this is more common among the alien races due to technology.
>Paladin
Lizards and warp demons only. Typically evil.
>Ranger
Beast master available only to homonid. Other subclass available to all.
>Rogue
Available to all.
>Sorcerer
Dragon available to Lizards. Wild Magic available to homonids and warp demons and Greys. Storm Magic available to homonids and warp demons only.
>Warlock
All paths available to Warp Demons. Speak with story teller otherwise.
>Wizard
Neanderthal, Grey, and Lizard class only.
>>44971029
Is that a problem for fa/tg/uys?
>>44971538
The sun. The winds. The ocean. Etc. Animals. Spirits of the dead.
>>44971299
Those weren't me. See >>44971545
>>44971359
>>44971380
>>44971184
rude.
>>44971488
Honestly, I'd prefer to play a pre-historic setting set in the real world, playing as actual hominids from the time dealing with each other and the local fauna. Only magic I'd want would be weird trippy "the shaman just gave me peyote" visions or very subtle stuff where you're not sure if it's just weird natural coincidences or not.
Pretty impressive that the natives managed to kill every single one.
>>44971184
max keks
>>44971686
So Og?
>>44971698
A few slipped away. I mean, technically grizzly bears, elephants, Siberian tigers, etc, they're not dissimilar from stuff that would have been running around in the Pleistocene. They're genuine megafauna that survived.
>>44971184
>Hunter
>Gatherer
Fighter
Thief
>>44971740
...yes
>>44971067
>Squibbon give Birth to their Babies.
>Megasquid are the only Predator might eat Squibbon. Squibbon use the Rock to Throw Megasquid head.
>male and female Squibbon using their arm to wrap round incharge to mate with.
The fuck happened here?
>>44969762
>Brain case size in primates generally points towards a greater capacity for intellect and reasoning. Don't be obtuse.
The shape of the skull indicates that it wasn't necessarily larger frontal lobes though, which is the real indicator. Neanderthal brain cases were larger, but the biggest increase in size was in the occipital lobe. We also think they had better somatic control.
>>44971884
So they were spirithobos who were good at yoga?
>>44971538
Phallic symbols
>>44967016
This penguin escapes from a pod of orcas by jumping on a boat. The orcas just kinda look at him and do nothing. Creepy as fuck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZQGAAsT3fY
>>44972043
More like they specialized more for hunting than AMH did, but sure.
>>44968417
>(and they die immediately after reproducing).
The species they found which is social, doesn't. Implications...unpleasant.
>>44972247
Is there any research on their endurance? I'm thinking that H. Sapiens won out by endurance hunting them to death just like megafauna
>>44972578
It's been a while since I read about it in any detail, but I think that was actually a big part of it. Neanderthals were better hunters strictly speaking, but they a) needed more energy and had to hunt more and b) got hurt way more often because the shit they were hunting was goddamn dangerous. HS didn't get up close and personal as often
>>44966541
yeah sometimes i think that, as the only species with civilisation, we should try our best to share it with other beings
like we should try as hard as possible to make the planet a safe haven for human like intelligence among many species
but sometimes i think that's stupid
>>44972376
What implication? That societies can only hold together when non-fatal sex is an option?
>>44972980
Which species would you awaken first? Easiest would be dogs I guess
>>44966162
>Live action Jungle Book
There is no way this WON'T be horrifying.
>>44972733
I read once that, based on many Neanderthal skeletons having healed fractures consistent with injuries sustained by rodeo riders, it was theorized that they liked to jump on their prey and start stabbing it, or even wrestle it to the ground. The were probably stronger than humans (especially in the arms and hands) and there's little evidence of projectile weapons in their grave goods, both of which back this theory up.
Think about this, /tg/. This means, back in the day, our ancestors could have been treated to the ridiculously kickass scene of a bunch of Neanderthals, armed only with stone knives if that, all dogpiling some unsuspecting megafauna and wrestling it to the ground before bashing its skull in with a rock..
I would go so far to say, in fact, that give the hundreds of thousands of years that passed when life was like this for hominids, that there is a very real possibility somebody once tried it on a saber toothed tiger. There's just so much time there, odds are good that if it could have happened, it did.
I want you to think about that. At some point some Neanderthal (or really impressed Homo Sapiens/Erectus trying to imitate him) may have had himself a Smilodon Rodeo.
>>44973164
Ravens/crows.
Dogs would be harder than shitposting birds, m8.
But yeah household pets are on the list.
>>44966802
>relatively less brutal
After like, fucking millions of years occupying our evolutionary niche, yeah. When humans (or humanity's ancestors) were at societal levels that basic (or, I guess, nonexistant) I guarantee you we were just as fucked up.
>>44968989
All
>>44968868
Im sorry anon. The current leading theory is that they were essentially operating as a species with Asperger syndrome, and voices like, well, this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o589CAu73UM
>>44967303
I don't think a sub-species used solely for sex would stay a sub-species for long.
>>44964554
>Paraceratherium
>North American
>Pleistocene
>>44969372
Have you not heard of Elasmotherium?
>>44969983
Do you not have a sense of wonder at the animals we share our world with, and a regret we exterminated so many without truly knowing what we were doing? There are no passenger Pigeons, Great Auks, Thylacines or Dodos anymore, because we wiped them out. If you can't feel anything for that, then you must be one of those Extinctionists.
>>44969159
A Canada Goose...
...The size of a Quetzalcoatlus...
Motherofgod.jpg
>>44973461
So they'd have lower CHA. Not a huge problem
>>44971538
Given the preponderance of Venus figures discovered, some sort of mother goddess seems likely.
>>44973734
And lower WIS. And basically be annoying aspies x 100.
>>44973711
>passenger pigeons
I'm all for bringing back extinct animals, but as someone who lives in what was pigeon central I don't look forward to shitrain and needing a bird feeder that can handle a couple million animals.
>>44973843
I'm very much in favour of De-Extinction, but I doubt we'd see it during our lifetimes. And even if we do pull it off, most of the environments these animals inhabited are long gone now, and given the way we're wrecking the climate, there won't be much room for any of them even if we do bring them back.
>>44967092
>imagine the fucked up horrors
we don't really have to imagine the horrors since we have the fossil record to show us that it used to be home to venomous lizards the size of crocodiles, lion sized carnivorous Diprotodontia, and 8ft tall carnivorous ducks.
>>44973941
was there really any enviroment proper for the dodo in the first place?
>>44973970
Megalania was a Komodo Dragon the size of a small dinosaur. More then Croc sized. It was also the biggest venomous animal to ever live.
>>44974068
Mauritius was fine, it was the introduction of pigs and moneys that ate their eggs and disrupted their breeding that drove them to extinction. Contrary to belief, the Dodo was not good eating, it was too fatty.
>>44973809
They'd be That Race. People would pick them just for the strength bonuses and try to avoid the autism or do a terrible job at acting autistic
>>44974130
Okay but contrast that to what we have today- a will to protect such a species, conscious reforestation, etc. and you can at least return shit like the dodo, right?
>>44974195
The Dodo is probably one of those we could return safely because it went extinct in comparatively recent times. Compare that to the Woolly Mammoth. There is almost nowhere left that resembles the Pleistocene Mammoth Steppe they inhabited.
>>44973291
Ravens are at least a good candidate because they're already part way there, they're about as smart as a 7 year old.
>>44974257
Honestly there is an argument to be made that we can't bring the mammoth back as they should be allowed to die out "gracefully" rather than subjected to our race trying to feel good about themselves
>>44974257
Yeah, bringing back the mammoth might theoretically be possible, but it would be cruel and pointless to do it.
>>44974347
The same argument could be said about the polar bear. Their environment is going to disappear regardless of our contributions to global warming
>>44964856
Look at niggers, they're the closest to pure homo sapiens, and still the orcs of the human race.
The rest are saved by minimum traces of neanderthal in their blood.
>>44974347
i don't see any grace in extinction? not trying to say that de-extinction is a super ethical thing on par with like reforestation and shit, but yknow.
>>44974346
imagine the possibilities, though- a sentient race of birds for humans to live and work with as a force for greater good or something
>>44974490
The point is that if a human died then there re those who argue that they should not be brought back if it is possible, this is the same idea just on the scale of a entire species
>>44974377
Tasty too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbmywzGAVs
>>44965501
Maybe that's why abbos are so primal. They were never given a chance to develop, by the time they had finally evolved to fight back the fauna, there came a bunch of irish criminals from the ocean to fuck with them.
>>44974542
okay, i think i'll concede your point there.
>>44965861
Neanderthal also needs a notorious throwing penalty.
That and their higher empathy are the reason we won.
>>44966744
Crows are the only animal in the top 5 intellect who aren't serial rapist murderers.
>>44974650
According to some mythology the aborigines could send messages between groups telepathically over great distances, and that's why they didn't advance in a few areas like writing and transportation. They just didn't need it.
Here have some /tg/ homebrew relevant to the discussion.
It only has Neanderthals and a short monster list, but it's OSR, so you can easily bolt in whatever Megafauna ideas you want and Homo species.
>>44965501
>actual goddamn drop bears
What species was that?
>>44974932
>literally WE
>>44964554
>Jesus Christ, guys, did the fantasy setting full of multiple sentient species and giant monsters already happen?
We were the elves of the setting, in fact.
