Turn 4To prevent nature from potentially taking its course and ruining your game, Leonardo, Knightwing, and most of all Powder Miner pony up the cash to Gorbulon to fire off the Death Ray. Gorbulon in turn spends some of the money bribing the captain, and some of the money buying fusion-eggs to power the weapon, and pockets the change. By fusing two tectonic plates together, some of the volcanic activity is halted and the planet's climate remains stable. One smaller content was turned into a cratered sea of boiling glass for a while, but that's not where your animals are, so it doesn't matter too much. We did it, Bay 12! We solved climate change!
Hot ZoneCreature Name:: Scarlets
Money:[/b] ♍︎1
Description: it looks like a segmented Mosquito without the wings, it has a proboscis
Population:2
Size: 1 (1kg)
Intellect: 2
Features:
Omnivore
Exoskeleton Shell
Limbs: Six Arthropod Legs. +1 calories
Air-Breathing Gills: Not very effective, but can breath air or water. Start with this trait.
Amphibious: Can spend a lot of time in water, but needs to keep wet. Start with this trait.
Proboscis: The Scarlet's proboscis allows it to suck blood from other creatures.
Swimming Legs: The Scarlet can swim at a quick pace, but for only short bursts before it rests on the sea floor.
Mandibles: The Scarlet can eat food which isn't convenient for its proboscis.
Wings: The Scarlet has developed flight! A set of fragile, papery wings move it through the air, it can hover and dart around quickly. +1 calories.
Climate: Hot
Calorie Requirement: 8
Remove Amphibious Trait
The Skorpi is no longer amphibious, it's now capable of staying indefinitely on land. This is of mixed value. On the one hand, it can now venture inland in the hot climate zone. Its gills are not very efficient and limit its endurance, and further from water, its omnivorous and bloodsucking traits have no value, since there is no other animal life here. Compared to the other regions, plant life is relatively sparse here, and the air-breathing gills cause the Skorpi to lose precious water to the atmosphere. However, with no competition, the Skorpi is free to eat any plants it can manage. In a lucky discovery, it finds itself already specialized to eat many varieties of thorned cactus-like plants. Its flight and small size lets it find a perch between thorns, and its proboscis pierces the thick skin of the cacti, allowing it to draw the moist nectar within. The Skorpi thrives, collecting 11 food.
Temperate ZoneModifications:
Amphibious: Removal of this feature becoming land animal.
Money: ♍︎2 ->1
Description: A small omnivorous organism covered in exoskeleton shell, that lives in temperate climate waters and features 2 pairs of rear legs and 2 pairs of front legs, it uses it's set of burrowing pinchers to dig and as weapon and it's feelers to communicate with each other.
Population: 3?
Size: 2
Intellect: 2
Features:
Omnivore
Exoskeleton Shell
Limb Variance: 4 rear legs(movement) & 4 front legs(manipulation). +1 Calories
Air-Breathing Gills
Amphibious
Burrowing Pincers
Communicative Pheremones
Climate: Temperate
Calorie Requirement: 9
The Anirum now can move inland! Its air-breathing gills are not so efficient, but it's free to explore the greater area of the continent. Moving further inland, it encounters the Stompulons and the Megadonts. The Megadonts are best avoided, they cannot be threatened and leave areas sparse of food in their wake, although they can provide food for days before rotting when they occasionally die of natural causes. Its primary competition then is the Stompulon, which has grown larger. The Anirum generally cannot fight these creatures, but runs quickly and its ability to build burrows can protect it. The Anirum collects 12 food.
Nembo
Money: ♍︎2-1 for feature
Description: A small slug like creature with 2 eyes and 4 tentacled
Population: 1
Size: 1
Intellect: 1
Features:
Herbivore
Skin
Limbs: 4 tentacles
Air-Breathing Gills: Not very effective, but can breath air or water. Start with this trait.
Amphibious: Can spend a lot of time in water, but newet. Start with this trait.
Acidic Ooze: The Nembo's tentacles can break dissolve large pieces of food, and provide some deterrent to predators. +1 Calorie Requirement.
Camouflage: The Nembo has rippled tan-and-grey pattern resembling stones on sand, and pink nodules resembling inedible coral.
Climate: Temperate
Caloric Requirement: 4
Add Shell Growing: Grows a hard shell to further deter predators and hopefully protect against dessicatiion ((that’s why land snails have shells, to protect against dessication and predation
((Caloric Intake is now current taking into account the added caloric intake due to new feature))
Shell: The Nembo grows a hard, thick shell. It can retract most of its body inside the shell if threatened. Carrying this shell slows it down somewhat.
The Nembo, as a slow-moving herbivore, finds itself a constant target of predators. The carnivorous Stompulons, when grown to adult size, can easily stomp a Nembo's shell apart, although the shell provides some defense against Anirum and Verderame (and the camouflage provides some defense against Stompulons). Still, as a slow animal limited only to the crowded shores, the Nembo continues to collect 5 food.
Money: ♍︎2>0
Description:A burly iguana-like animal, moving on sturdy scaly tentacles
Population:3
Size: 2
Intellect: 1
Features:
Omnivore
Scales
Limbs: Tentacles.
Air-Breathing Gills: Not very effective, but can breath air or water. Start with this trait.
Amphibious: Can spend a lot of time in water, but needs to keep wet. Start with this trait.
Sense of Smell: The Verderame can smell potential food sources, and danger, from further away than most creatures.
Omnivore Scavenger: The Verderame has a highly active digestion system which kills foreign bacteria and parasites. It can eat rotting food and digest bone and cellulose which many animals cannot. +1 Calorie Requirement
Feeding pheromones:When near a big source of food, like a big carcass or the likes, the Verderame emits pheromones that attract others of its kind to the banquet.
Climate: Temperate
Calorie Requirement: 6
Change: Lungs.: The Verderame develop true lungs to replace its air-breathing gills. This allows them to be much more active and significantly increases their endurance on land.
I will pool 1 ♍︎ with whoever is available to prevent climate change. Anyone is with me?
Lungs: The Verderame breathes through its mouth, holding air for a minute or less at a time. This greatly limits its swimming ability, but is more defensible, and provides greater strength and endurance.
The Verderame is becoming stronger and faster on land, but it's still bound to water sources as it risks drying out if it spends too much time away from water. It can still spend longer on land than it could with gills, and is beginning to spread to rivers and inland ponds. Its food sources come to include berries and fruits in these regions. Its group feeding and ability to consume rotting flesh could allow the Verderame to make extremely good use of large corpses such as those of the Megadonts, but its amphibiousness means this doesn't happen often enough to have a real effect on the population. The Verderame collects 10 food.
Money: ♍︎1
Description: a slug the size of a whale
Population: 2
Size: 6
Intellect: 1
Features:
Herbivore
Skin
40 tentacles (+1 Calorie Requirement)
Air-Breathing Lungs
Cellulose Digestion
Teeth
Wrecking Tentacles (+1 Calorie Requirement)
Climate: Cold
Calorie Requirement: 11
Become warm blooded- Megadonts produce their own heat to stay at the optimal temperature during the harsh winter.
I'm actually a little unclear if you mean to change to Temperate and THEN add a feature which also lets you traverse cold areas, or if you want to prepare for SUPER cold climates (since you're set for cold weather already) or if you mean for this to be a feature that will let you traverse into the Temperate zone like you were talking about. Since you don't have the cash for the first option and the second option wouldn't benefit you right now, I'm assuming you meant the last one? At least, I already made mention of Megadonts wandering around the Temperate zone in other animals' descriptions and I don't want to change it now.
Cold Blood: The metabolism of the Megadont can slow down, while it focuses on breathing and moving blood through its extremities. This way the Megadont can avoid overheating in Temperate climates, though it moves slower while doing so.
The Megadont's life in the Cold zone remains basically unchanged, but a portion of the Megadont population also begins exploring the Temperate zone. There they find vast fields of grass, a far more suitable food source than the shrubs and ferns of the cold zone, and the trees here are more lush as well. The need to stop and cool off frequently slows the Megadont, but they are bringing in a lot of food here. The Megadont collects 14 food.
Money: ♍︎0
Description: Big (on the larger side of size 3, weird looking things that look like some sort of fucked-up shell-less crustaceans with four big, thick legs.
Population: 2 (Population 2 should have expanded my caloric requirement to 5, possibly with the high-power legs expanding that to 6.)
Size: 3
Intellect: 1
Features:
Carnivore
Skin
Limbs: 4 crustacean legs
Air-Breathing Gills
Hooves
High-Power Legs
Climate: Temperate
Calorie Requirement: 4
I will pool ♍︎3 to prevent climate change.
I will spend ♍︎1 to remove Amphibious.
I will spend ♍︎2 to acquire Size 3.
The Stompulons grow larger, and drier, now able to wander about on land, crushing their enemies. Inland, Stompulons follow the Anirum population, although they prove troublesome prey. The Stompulon is bigger than an Anirum and its specialized legs are stronger by far, but it requires some luck to actually catch them. The Anirum are smarter than the Stompulons, and more maneuverable, though the Stompulon is faster at a full run. When an Anirum goes into its burrow, the Stompulon stomps around the burrow until the smell of the Anirum dissipates- usually the Anirum has left through another entrance. Similarly, the Stompulon occasionally spots a Nembo moving and eating, and the Nembo makes easy prey. However, the Stompulon lacks to intellect to learn from this, and will not recognize their camouflaged shells if it sees a hiding Nembo later. The Stompulon is, however, powerful enough to threaten a group of Verderame. Despite no longer being amphibious, the Stompulon still must sometimes come back to the water for easy prey, as it has trouble consistently hunting the local animals. The Skorpi also make an easy target, but they are small and not many in population. The Stompulon collects 6 food.
The Skorpi is making little progress on land, and has great difficulty competing with the other animals, which are almost all either smarter or stronger. The Skorpi population collects 4 food.
Cold Zone
I will also pool 1 ♍︎.
Modifications:
I increase the Xelqu’s size by 1.
Money: ♍︎1
Description: A floating squid with sharp teeth and compact eyes.
Population: 3
Size: 2
Intellect: 1
Features:
Carnivore
Skin
Limbs: Tentacles with suckers on them.
Air-Breathing Gills
Amphibious
Climate: Cold
Calorie Requirement: 6
The Xelqu becomes larger!
Now that the Xelqu is larger, it's by far the most intimidating creature in the area (besides the Megadont, but fortunately, they're herbivores). As for intimidating the Plorks? Well, they're too stupid to feel fear, and becoming larger only makes it more difficult to reach into their burrows. But, what of the fresh meat- the Button Bloodcrabs? Well, they're very small and there's not much meat on them, but they're easy eating. The Bloodcrabs sort of crawl on up like walking snacks. Bloodcrabs will try to suck the blood of Xelqus, but the Xelqu's maneuverable tentacles let it easily remove the offending crab and eat it. The Xelqu collects 9 food.
Is it too late to join?
Money: ♍︎0
Description: a flat button shaped crustacean with 8 limbs and a bottom facing mouth.
Population: 1
Size: 1
Intellect: 1
Features:
Carnivore
Shell
8 crustacean limbs (+1 Calories)
Air-Breathing Gills
Amphibious
Climate: Cold
Calorie Requirement: 4 TBD
Develop a proboscis which can be extruded from the mouth to reach blood vessels of an host
Develop specialized blood metabolism. Make the bloodcrab more efficient at extracting nutrients from blood, exploiting the fact that they are basically pre-digested.
Proboscis: The Bloodcrab's proboscis is specialized for blood-sucking, it can pierce skin and scales to help it suck blood.
Blood Metabolism: The Bloodcrab is specialized towards consuming the blood of living creatures. This makes it a poor scavenger and it tends to require larger prey. -1 Calorie Requirement.
The Button Bloodcrab crawls onto land! It might be effective at preying on the massive Megadonts, but this is out of the question for the amphibious creature. So, it finds itself with two potential species to prey on, besides sea creatures: The Xelqu, and the Plork. Bloodcrabs which come in reach of a Xelqu get eaten. The Plorks are an okay food source- they're slow and spend some time sitting still in burrows, where they're vulnerable. However, the Plork isn't much larger than a bloodcrab, so there's only so much blood to be taken from one. The Bloodcrab collects 4 food, some of which comes from sea creatures, and predation from the Xelqu is at dangerous levels.
Oops. Both for posting and population count. And forgetting mud burrow construction.
Mud secretion glands: Allows building more elaborate mud burrows by accumulating treated construction mud.
Creature Name: Plorks
Money: ♍︎2
Description: Fat beige slugs.
Population: 3
Size: 1
Intellect: 1
Features:
Herbivore
Skin
Limbs: 2 Fins (-1 Calories)
Air-Breathing Gills: Not very effective, but can breath air or water. Start with this trait.
Amphibious: Can spend a lot of time in water, but needs to keep wet. Start with this trait.
Behavior: Mud Burrow Construction
Stretchy Stomachs: The Plork can consume an amount of food larger than itself.
Powerful Tongues: The Plork has a long tongue which helps it suck in large food items to be slowly digested.
Climate: Cold
Calorie Requirement: 4
Mud Glands: The Plork can build larger, more complex burrows, and can potentially build them above ground or in poor soil as well.
The Plork's mud glands give it the mechanical ability to build much larger or more complicated burrows, as well as burrows away from the sandy beaches, but being amphibious and with no intellect or group behavior to speak of, this doesn't actually get put to use much. The Plorks are also starting to suffer predation from Button Bloodcrabs- these tiny creatures are a little smaller than a Plork, and can crawl into their burrows and suck them dry of blood, while the Plork has no means of removing them. The Plork gathers 7 food, but its population is reduced by 1 from predation.
Aboard the ShipSensors have detected that biomass within the oceans is reducing considerably. If you're relying heavily on seaborne plants and animals as a food source, you might want to do something about that. In unrelated news, fusion waste disposal has been completed way under budget- good job, hazardous materials crew!