Flight Rising Discussion

I'm pretty new to the lore of Sornieth, but all the reading I've been doing has got me wondering... we know the mythology, but what about the science? What does the fossil record of Sornieth look like? How does it compare to the evolutionary history of our world?

I'm kind of scatterbrained at the moment, but I wanted to list some thoughts I've had regarding this, as well as some questions I have. Also, I want to preface this by saying I'm a Filthy Casual™ when it comes to fossils and the like. I'm not a geologist or a paleontologist; I'm a high school drop out who loves watching documentaries. PBS Eons is my bible.

My main theory is that dragons evolved separately from just about every land-dwelling animal out there, and my reasons for this belief are simple: count the leggies. All terrestrial animals we have in real life today have four limbs because of our ancestor Tiktaalik, who had a body plan that included four limbs. Every animal on Earth follows this body plan. Bats, people, horses, lizards, you name it.

Every dragon species on Sornieth has six limbs; two wings and four legs. I posit that the last common ancestor of Dragons and earth-like animals had to be during the Cambrian. An animal similar to tiktaalik but posessing two extra limbs may have existed, and from there, a separate evolutionary path was taken. What niches did these six-limbed animals fill? Did magic play a role in their development?

Do we have any idea what the skeletal structure of each dragon breed looks like? I haven't seen anything about it, and most of my theorizing kind of hinges on knowing what's going on under there.

So what do you think? Do you have any theories?

- voidrabbit [they/them]

Sornieth's is canonically larger and less dense than Earth, so we're actually dealing with an entirely alien taxonomy system! Also, while a solid half of Sornieth creatures follow a six-limb body plan, the other half only have four limbs.

@TehuMertt has a write-up on Sornieth biology somewhere, with lots of taxonomic detail.

@voidrabbit The dragons of Sornieth were actually not its first inhabitants. According to the encyclopedia, there was an entire Age - the Second Age - where bipeds ruled the planet: [img]https://www.flightrising.com/images/wiki/secondage/image_2.jpg[/img] However, they wiped themselves out when they tried to create a gigantic magical fusion device - basically a nuclear reactor - and it blew up, killing all the bipeds and birthing the Arcanist, the draconic god of magic. It seems that according to the Second Age's encyclopedia entry, life on Sornieth evolved similarly to it did on Earth, from the sea, with the addendum of magical influence: [quote]Life exploded from each primordial puddle, evolving rapidly as it mingled with the remaining vestiges of magical essence. Creatures became more complex and diverse, leaving the familiarity of the oceans and streams to feel the sun and feed on the earth. [/quote] After the Second Age extinction, the Beastclans started to appear: [quote]As the Sisters warred and the Starseer isolated himself in the far reaches, new peoples rose from the devastated ruins of the Second Age.[/quote] I've heard some theorize that the Beastclans are directly descended from the Second Age denizens (which as of this point have not been named in canon), though every single Second Age denizen was wiped out in the magical extinction, so it's more likely that these Beastclans evolved from lesser animals that survived the initial blast, like with mammals in the wake of the dinosaurs.

[quote name="voidrabbit" date="2019-11-21 14:47:31" ] My main theory is that dragons evolved separately from just about every land-dwelling animal out there [/quote] Weren't dragons directly created by the deities? There's no full evolution (cell>skip>fish>amphibian) that ended up on the body plan for dragons then. Ancients (first ones)>evolution>modern dragons

Dragons aside, one possible explanation is that there are two separate branches of terrestrial vertebrates on Sornieth, descended from two separate fish ancestors. One with four limbs, one with six. A remarkable degree of convergent evolution is visible here; for instance, talonok are much more closely related to centaurs than to the apparently similar harpies. I'm not going to find images because I'm on mobile, but there are both six-limbed and four-limbed birdlike creatures on Sornieth.

The other explanation is 'because magic'. Specifically, magic has a tendency to cause animals to develop extra limbs and eyes. While specimens with dozens of extra mismatched limbs rarely survive, a single extra pair is often beneficial, or at least not harmful. This has led to many unrelated species with six limbs, despite their four-limbed ancestors.

Clearly the gods prefer hexapods though, given dragon anatomy.

All right. I'm on desktop and ready to really get into this. I think @Rivershard has it - extra limbs and other species getting mixed together as a result of weird magic stuff. But let's look into that. I propose that magic exposure has two primary effects: [list] [*]Increased intelligence; this is why Sornieth has many sentient species [*]Splicing extra bits on; this is why we see animals with six limbs, chimerical animals, and others that are part plant or part rock [/list] I further propose that these effects are more common in the current age than in the past. While the gods were in the pillar, Sornieth's magic was relatively stable and evolution proceeded normally. Magic flooded the world and altered many species following the reactor explosion, and even more once the gods woke up. [b]Increased intelligence[/b] The beast clans might all be related to the second age race, and therefore inherited their intelligence. But while that is certainly plausible for the more humanoid ones like centaurs and serthis, what about others like longnecks, talonok, and miths? There is in-game evidence for this property of magic: [columns][item=manaweed][nextcol][quote]While Manaweed supposedly gives Satin Mice their peculiar intellect, it doesn't make dragons any smarter.[/quote][/columns] [columns][item=satin mouse][nextcol][quote]Living in arcane-infused fields does strange things to Satin Mice. All that matters is they're magically delicious.[/quote][/columns] Satin mice are exposed to high levels of magic, and as a result are unusually intelligent. They may be a sort of 'missing link', an example of the road to sentience. Omen seekers provide another clue: [columns][item=omen seeker][nextcol][quote]Many seekers never grow a third eye. As a result, their size and intelligence is greatly diminished.[/quote][/columns] Extra eyes are a common magic-induced mutation. This suggests that the mutations are linked - magic exposure causes [i]both[/i] an extra eye and greater intelligence in seekers. The effects of this are wide-reaching: Sornieth seems to be a world that doesn't have a clear distinction between animals and people. Consider the Frigidfin familiars: [columns][item=chillriver bucktooth][nextcol][quote]Rather than building dams, these clever beavers construct an elaborate series of nets that span the width of their chosen river or stream.[/quote][/columns] [columns][item=fenfisher flattail][nextcol][quote]Unlike its icy cousin, this plucky mammal doesn't catch fish for its own sustenance, but rather to very primitively barter with shoreline Ridgeback families for nuts, grains, and grasses.[/quote][/columns] This is fairly advanced behavior from a species that seems more like an animal than a beast clan. But maybe animals gaining sentience is so common that there isn't really a hard distinction in this world. [b]Splicing and extra limbs[/b] A good place to start here is with the webwings. We have two related sets of familiars, one with four wings and one with six, both heavily mutated. [columns][item=emerald webwing][nextcol][quote]Warped by arcane energies, this twisted bird bears little resemblance to its parents. All its eyes are looking in different directions.[/quote][/columns] [columns][item=silky webwing][nextcol][quote]One of the many mutations that this webwing has undergone has left it with luxurious plumage.[/quote][/columns] Could this be an example of convergent evolution? Two species that look remarkably similar, but with different numbers of limbs? It's a bit of a stretch. More likely we're looking at different sorts of mutation. The emerald webwing got a lot of extra eyes, the silky webwing got an extra set of wings. The wings themselves are strange as well - as much bat as bird. But this is likely the result of a much earlier splicing. The bird-like beast clans are also an interesting example. Sornieth has quite a few bird species, and while the majority seem to have four limbs, six is not uncommon. [item=sweetpuff][item=storm seeker][item=tradewinds gull][item=armored greatowl][item=paradise zalis] [item=dire vulture][item=webwing alpha][item=yellow-throated sparrowmouse] Among the beast clans, the harpies and aviar have four limbs, but the talonok have six. [item=bluemoon aviar][item=stonewatch prince][item=blacktalon striker] Despite this, the talonok look much more like the aviar. They likely share a common ancestor, but diverged when the talonok line gained an extra pair of arms. The harpies diverged much earlier, and have far more humanoid characteristics than the other two - a result of splicing with the unknown race of the second age, perhaps? A lot of Sornieth creatures only make sense when you consider the possiblity that they might have been spliced with other species. [item=maren warrior][item=wintermane minstrel] These two beast clans don't make much sense biologically - why have scales/fur on one part of the body but not another? Not to mention that the closest relatives to centaurs seem to be regular four-limbed ungulates. Others combine radically different sorts of creatures: [item=glasswing flutter][item=murkbottom gull][item=ophiotaurus] Still others are fused with plants, minerals, or even elements: [item=apatite fisher][item=rockback charger][item=Charoite Burrower] [item=gale wolf][item=smoke gyre][item=flamerest fiendcat] [item=peacevine aardvark][item=lilium floron][item=bamboo phytocat] A bull-snake evolving by normal means is... possible, albeit unlikely. But any from the last group are clearly infused with magic. Whether that is elemental magic that caused them to take on its characteristics or simply raw magic that fused them with elements of their environment is unclear and requires further study. [b]In conclusion[/b] We know very little about the second age, but the fact that only one sentient species existed in Sornieth at that time suggests that magic levels may have been lower. Species likely evolved more slowly without this extra force driving mutation. However, mutations leading to new species - often with extra limbs or characteristics borrowed from other species - are quite common in the Sornieth of today. While there is an understandable temptation to categorize species by broad characteristics such as body plan, the tendency of magic exposure to radically alter these makes this unfeasible. Finally, if these conclusions are correct, the recent magic surges could lead to even more species developing intelligence and even sentience. [size=2]I don't know what all that was or where it came from but thanks for coming to my TED talk[/size]

@kavryn ILY OK, I'm actually having a meltdown, I honestly thought I was only annoying people with all that lore stuff and analyses, and then you came along and instantly made my day, I'm actually crying in the club rn ♥ thank you so much, I'm seriously flattered rn, I can't believe someone actually thought of my ramblings in a positive way [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/wIJec8Z.png[/img][/center] @voidrabbit But yeah!! OP, there's a whole bunch of stuff many creative and amazing people wrote! There's a small communal thing called the [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/frd/2762775]Sornieth's Geographers Guild[/url] which has a ton of good "scientific" lore material! And here's a [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/cc/2739663]direct link[/url] to my ramblings that try to explain nature of Sornieth "as logically as possible", in case you're interested in phyla and theoretical/established biology/zoology which is something I've been researching for more than 15 years. I really hope it helps! I rewrote it a short while ago to make it more enjoyable :^) Just scroll down until you reach the map image, that's where the juicy stuff starts!

WHOA you guys have this stuff on lockdown. thank you so much for giving me all this to read! i didn't realize the world of Flight Rising was so detailed!!!

i'm totally going to be doing all the reading. i joined FR three years ago but i never really got Into The Lore, yknow? but now i know more about biology, taxonomy, and just... writing in general. i'm already in the process of writing some lore for my clan.

-voidrabbit