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Post by frankthetriviaman on Feb 12, 2017 1:58:02 GMT -5
ORCS:
A humanoid race, they are for all intents and purposes, barbarians. They have very prominent fangs, and have been described as a cross between "a human, an ape and a pig". They are aggressive scavengers and opportunistic carnivores, are not very cunning and only possess a crude culture.
They tend to be easily manipulated by others; history often tells of rival kingdoms waging war against each other by enlisting entire tribes of orcs to fight in their wars. Because they were naturally war-like, it was easy to convince them to attack others when promised a great reward; usually a feast or some sort of valuables.
Orcs have anatomy similar to and breed similarly to humans; and come in various skin colors. Most notably green, gray, brown or red.
Because they had no redeeming qualities, they were described as "natural enemies to the human race" by scholars of the time and between Colormen intervention, and various warring magic factions during the Colormen first era; all eight tribes of orcs that lived on Sodor were completely wiped out; pleas from the continent also resulted in Colormen working with local factions to eliminate other Orc tribes; it was completely impossible to find "good" orcs anywhere.
If any made it to Elbaf, it is unknown.
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Feb 22, 2017 1:33:19 GMT -5
BROWNIE:
A household spirit native to England and Scotland, the Brownie is one of the more docile creatures. At night, they tend to help out with work around the house, in exchange for small gifts of food; they are especially fond of porridge and honey. However, if they are abused, misused, or what you give them is called a "payment" they will abandon the house in search of another. Initially, they limited their interactions with humans, but Colormen Intervention allowed them to become more open and comfortable with interacting with humans.
Since they were quite harmless, brownies were of no real threat to humans. Unfortunately, they were swept up in the "creature purges" and they became targets of certain groups. Families encouraged their brownies to flee to the Colormen for help; they sailed with the Hobgoblins and other similar creatures to Elbaf.
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Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Feb 22, 2017 1:55:15 GMT -5
Kraken
There is a Kraken living in the waters around Elbaf. Generally, the creature is not seen, so not much is known about him. Purportedly looking like a giant octopus (some say it has ten heads, but this is unclear) it is said that it has human-like intelligence, and can even understand the human language and can communicate with people.
It is unknown if the Kraken is evil or not, and only time will tell on this subject. However, with the power to sink whole ships, it is certainly a creature to be feared and not one you'd want to end up on the wrong side of.
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Apr 6, 2017 1:34:37 GMT -5
INTELLIGENCE AND MORALITY AMONG MONSTERS: A CORRELATION?
Throughout the Monster kingdom, a surprising correlation has been found- generally, monsters that were Good had a human-level intelligence and monsters with a beast-like intelligence were evil.
Analysis of carefully preserved specimens from our ancestors reveals some insight into why this trend was true.
Among species that were generally good, such as mermaids, dwarfs, hobgoblins and even certain subspecies of dragons, their brains were incredibly consistent with that of humans in terms of development and structure.
As for species considered evil, such as ogres, orcs and rocs, review of their brain structures shows the part of the brain that would be considered the frontal lobe to either be extremely underdeveloped or nonexistent all together.
Given this part of the brain being responsible for logical thought, rational reasoning and problem solving, i.e. "higher" brain functions, this offers much insight as to why said species were such "savages" in the words of contemporaries; put simply, they failed to develop a level of intelligence comparable to humans because in a physiological manner, their minds were not capable of developing such complex levels of thought.
While this does explain many phenomenon- such as why monsters that go on rampages and destroy towns or cities almost always have beast-level intelligence, it must also be clarified that this does not refer to all species.
There are species that would be considered beast-like, but are rather docile and do not attack humans or other species, and there are species that do have human level or near human level intelligence and are evil (barbaric giants and cyclops).
So is it true to say that intelligence and morality among the monsters are correlated? Probably not, but in the cases where this appears to be true the explanations, again, seem to be more physiological, with regards to brain structure, if anything.
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Post by Toz76 on Apr 6, 2017 1:58:58 GMT -5
I'm going to have to argue with this. Intelligence by itself does not determine morality. Just going off your "humans are smart and therefore good, beasts are dumb and therefore bad" thing, animals like dogs and even lions are not evil, but they do what they must to not die. On the flipside, humans aren't all or even mostly good, we have murderers, thieves, arsonists, Westboro Baptists, rapists, tax evaders, liars, terrorists, Kardashians, etc. We couldn't have those evil things without higher functions to be capable of such concepts. You'll note these so called "beasts" hardly ever kill members of their own species, yet our supposedly enlightened one does with relish.
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Apr 6, 2017 2:10:01 GMT -5
that's an incomplete entry; I haven't finished it yet. I'd write more but its getting late.
Actually- the beast-like species do kill each other; orcs fight orcs, ogres fight ogres, rocs fight rocs, etc.
And the good do NOT "relish" in killing the evil species; they see it as a necessary task of survival. Ogres eat young children, for example. If that is not heartless evil, I do not know what is
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Post by Toz76 on Apr 6, 2017 17:13:01 GMT -5
You still seem to be implying that each species is all one thing. I think that's dangerous territory to get into in fiction because it can mirror real life issues in a negative way. Not all humans are good, not all orcs are evil, etc.
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Apr 6, 2017 17:17:45 GMT -5
Thing is though- something like that is a topic for another entry
But something like this does help explain certain aspects of monster behavior from a physiological perspective.
Perhaps the title of the entry needs rewording, but for something like this, it is in no way meant to reflect real life issues
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Mar 25, 2018 22:38:36 GMT -5
HOMUNCULUS:
Described as artificially created humans, the Homunculus are relatively recent compared to the existence of other species; having first been created during alchemy experiments of the sixteenth century.
The process to create one is very specific, and has been described as such: (Real quote from the works of Paracelsus)
"That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse’s womb, or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse’s womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller."
Indeed, the average height of hommunculi is often no bigger than 12 to 18 inches, and their life spans are not long compared to a normal human; about 10 to 15 years if taken care of, but will usually live no longer than five ears. Their intelligence is comparable to a small child.
Because they are artificially created beings, in accordance with the fifth law of magic, Homumculi do not possess souls, and therefore are not considered "life" by magic users. Those who create Homunculi often treat them as "possessions" or "things" because of this.
Because of their small size and childlike intelligence, little use was found for them beyond being "pets" to magicians who specialized in alchemy. After the decline of alchemy, Homunculi ceased to exist around the early 1700s. But they are still known today thanks to their popularity in 19th century fiction.
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