Kazanlak10
Dormant, not dead.
Ok so I’m going to cut right to the chase, Araea isn’t dead. Obviously I haven’t been very productive with this project for a while but of late I’ve been jotting down notes for a pretty serious overhaul. I can’t promise this is going to result in an increased output of artwork (in fact until I figure out what I’m going to do with the illustrated aspect of this project going forward, I can pretty much guarantee that new art is going to be limited to occasional pencil concept sketches for a while).
The overhaul I referenced above is because Ive always hated the basic premise of the project, which was always just a flimsy way of getting humans and dinosaurs in the same setting. It was just a take on the tired old “lost island” concept - humans encounter relic Mesozoic fauna that survived the K/Pg extinction. Then a disease wipes out almost all of humanity and the survivors are forced the seek refuge on the island and live alongside said relic faun. There’s all kinds of issues with this. Not the least of which that Araean dinosaurs don’t look all that different from their Cretaceous ancestors, despite having evolved in insular isolation for 66 million years.
So in trying to think through this problem, I arrived at a potential solution: What if they *hadn’t* evolved in isolation for 66 million years? What if it were a much shorter time period?
So here’s the gist of it. In the “Araea Universe” the Age of Dinosaurs, instead of spanning from 252 to 66 million years ago, spans from 198 to 66 million years ago. 66 million years ago, there was an extinction event, but it was more of a gradual decline in non-avian dinosaur diversity and global distribution. Although the Age of Dinosaurs, so to speak, was over, non-avian dinosaurs did not go extinct. However their total dominance in the terrestrial vertebrate niches was severely curtailed, and their geographic distribution was much more limited (primarily to the eastern hemisphere). This allowed the course of mammalian evolution, and eventually human evolution, to progress more or less unchanged to the real world.
So yes, we are still doing the “dinosaurs didn’t go extinct” thing. The difference is that on the mainland they are mostly a pretty insignificant part of the fauna and the extant non-avian dinosaur lineages mostly resemble their real-world early Cretaceous counterparts and are generally of fairly small body size. The island that would become known as Araea is the only landmass where they still dominate (similar to what real-world Australia is for marsupials....and we’ll talk a bit more about marsupials later..) and where the lineages present actually have evolved into forms resembling their real-world *late* Cretaceous counterparts.
Geography of this alternative earth is probably similar to the real world, but not identical, obviously. The presence of Araea, a pretty large landmass located in the Pacific Ocean is one major difference, and there are probably some others as well. A map of this “alternate Earth” would probably be useful and is something I should probably work on.
Mammal diversity in the world outside Araea is pretty much the same. You still have elephants, wolves, cats, antelope, primates....the whole shebang. However this being an alternative incarnation of earth not everything is an exact mirror image of the real world. While the fauna is similar the assortment of species might not be exactly the same (perhaps there are six extant species of hyena, not four, and maybe jaguars don’t exist but some other type of pantherine is present in the North America.) Creatures like ground sloths and mammoths and sabertooth cats are still around. Cursorial desert camelids gallop through the Mongolian desert. In the forests of western Eurasia the there are mustelids the size of tigers. A species of pongid ape, having convergently evolved bipedalism, has also spread into the northern latitudes and competes directly with the genus Homo. Think sapient chimps, including the immense strength and penchant for eating other primates.
In the Southern Hemisphere, marsupials have done better than they have in the real world. The retain much diversity in South America and in North America as well, particularly in the southwest, where their reproductive strategy is beneficial for living in the harsh, arid climate.
Human evolution and distribution has progressed more or less the same. Although human societies in general have achieved less technological advancement than in the real world. Global population is much lower as well.
Araea did have an indigenous human population (of mostly Malay genetic extraction) however Araea’s indigenous population were heavily persecuted by skrykes, who systematically exterminated them. Retreating to the marshlands in the northern and coastal regions was the only way the indigenous Araeans could reliably escape the depredations of their feathered tormentors, as skrykes tend to shun such watery habitats and are typically leery of deep water. Settlements outside of the marshlands tended not to last very long. So the indigenous Araeans were mostly a “marsh people” who survived by fishing and hunting waterbirds and giant amphibians and out of necessity became skilled boat handlers and built homes on stilts above the marshes. In the modern era, intermarriage with mainland settlers has led to very few “pure” marsh people remaining in existence.
As humanity developed the ability to engage in long-distance, ocean-spanning seafaring, Araea would be colonized by settlers from elsewhere in the world. Eventually it would become an economic and military powerhouse (relative to the human societies on the mainland), but also one that becomes somewhat exploitative of its mainland neighbors, becoming the target of envy and resentment in the process. The result is that modern Araea is a land wracked with internal strife as well as constantly on guard against external threats, both real and imagined.
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This canon change - that basically amounts to an overhaul of the history of life on earth -opens up the possibility for other settings in the Araea Universe as well. Remember the giant mustelids and sapient apes I mentioned? Well that figures into a different world-building project set in like an Iron Age Europe analogue that I had toyed with off and on over the years but never really developed or made public. Now it can be part of the same universe as Araea.
Another bit of world-building canon is that seeing as how the “Age of Dinosaurs” began 54 million years later than in the real world....what was going on before that? Well my working theory at the moment is that around 200 million years ago some sort of species of technologically advanced non-vertebrate sophont inadvertently triggered a global cataclysm that wiped out much of life on earth.
I’ll probably discuss these other settings in more depth at a later time.
Skryke social dynamics - hunting parties
That actually isn't true. Skrykes are indeed sophisticated social hunters but huge group hunts are actually extremely rare. Instead skrykes tend to hunt in pairs or small groups. Group size is generally tailored to the type of prey being targeted. While skrykes will often take any target of opportunity they come across while hunting, they do frequently set out with the goal of hunting a specific prey species. Generally, at any given clan gathering site, small groups of hunters are leaving or returning from excursions throughout the daylight hours. Parties that leave late in the day will generally spend the night roosting away from the clan and will return in the morning. The timing of the departures and returns are usually staggered so that there are always individuals who can remain behind to "babysit". Mothers with chicks will generally leave their offspring in the care of their sisters or trusted associates for the duration of their time away, and will in turn tend to the chicks of these other females while they are on their own hunting trips.
The most interesting aspect of skryke hunting parties however, is that the participants are nearly always of more or less the same social standing in the clan. With the female hierarchy in particular being extremely rigid, it is almost unheard of for high-ranking individuals to hunt alongside low-ranking ones. Clan males rarely hunt at all, generally being coddled brats who are doted on by indulgent mothers well into adulthood, even frequently being fed via regurgitation in the manner of a young chick. Males who joined the clan as nomads, ( And therefore unrelated to the clan bloodlines ) are usually the only males to father their own chicks, thus they have extensive responsibilities as hunters, males most often hunt in their own gender and rank-segregated groups but on occasion will hunt with their female consorts.
The Vorga Overhaul
For one thing, right from the get go they were kind of Araea's hyena analogue - so they were cursorial pack hunters of relatively large prey. Honestly I was never comfortable with them in that role, but I wanted something filling that role.
At this point I don't feel quite so compelled to have a creature occupying that specific niche in the Araea universe. So Vorgas are going to retain their bone-cracking bites and psuedo-carnassial beak structures, but they are going to be a bit bigger, more heavily built, and probably slower-moving than the previous concepts.
In which Kaz rips off the movie Congo
Since I tend to agree with that assessment I basically made what amounts to an expy of his character for the Araea universe. That would be former Chancellery Guards officer turned mercenary turned bodyguard Elias Courtenay.
Ten minutes of Munro Kelly.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=-dQAwAFS…
Courtenay had a fairly distinguished career as an officer in the New Hope Chancellery Guards - essentially a special forces unit tasked with protecting the upper echelon personnel of the New Hope government. During the chaos of the Fall of New Hope however, Courtenay finally realized the corrupt politicians whom he had spent his adult life protecting were not worth killing for and definitely not worth dying for. So he, along with most of the surviving Guardsmen abandoned their posts and fled the city. Undefended, the government personnel taking refuge in the Chancellery were killed by the angry mobs, sadly many of them had brought their families to the supposed safety of the Chancellery, and they in many cases suffered the same fates.
This fact would haunt Courtenay.
After leaving New Hope, Courtenay made his living as a professional gun-for-hire, taking jobs of....err.. varying legality. After a while though, the up and coming private military contractor Arataan began getting most of the lucrative mercenary work in the north of Araea, squeezing out independent contractors like Courtenay. Broke and down on his luck, Courtenay would finally make the decision to head south to Shukla in Kundapur Province, where Arataan had little presence, in an attempt to find work.
Traveling south by rail, Courtenay's train would stop over in the northern Borchadt settlement of Lorelai. Courtenay made the decision during the stopover to leave the train and visit one of the local taverns....which would set off a chain of events that would begin with him drawing the hostile attentions of two militiamen in the service of District Administrator Linn Larssen, and badly injuring both of them in the resulting barroom brawl....and ending with him eventually becoming the commander of District Administrator Larssen's protective detail.
In this role Courtenay has a front row seat to Larssen's rise to the height of her power, and her eventual ignominious decline. As part of Linn Larssen's inner circle he bears witness to his liege's Machiavellian brilliance and leadership ability... as well her many personal flaws and failings which eventually lead to her downfall. The question is, when it all comes crashing down, will he be able to avoid being dragged into the abyss along with her?
Catfight!
One difference is that skrykes don't typically swipe or slash with their wing claws (Their large primary feathers and limited range of forelimb movement preclude this). The wing claws come into play mostly to grapple on to and "anchor" the Skryke to its opponent while it bites and rapidly rakes with its hind claws, although the wing claws can cause serious puncture or tearing wounds as well.
Although more minor confrontations between skrykes might be resolved with a flurry of leaping and kicking, real, serious skryke on skryke combat tends to quickly turn into a ground fight with the belligerents thrashing and rolling about as each seeks to gain an advantage or inflict a fight-stopping injury on the other.
We've all seen this video by now: m.youtube.com/watch?v=WANZBs8Z…
And while it is primarily noteworthy for the corvid behavior depicted I find it's also a good example of a particularly "fast and furious" cat fight.
A really serious skryke fight would have similar dynamics. But on a 100+ pound, maniraptoran scale.
These sorts of fights are not common in skryke society, but they do happen. Typically in inter-clan disputes, but also within clans as well.
Female fights, though more rare, due to the fairly harmonious nature of a clan's female hierarchy, do tend to be more serious than fights between males, which are more common, but also more ritualized and involving more displaying and posturing. Within a clan, male skrykes fight primarily in order to maintain or elevate their position or desirability to the females and in these cases, discretion is often the better part of valor. While breeding success and status is important, a male can always back down and try his luck with a different clan vs getting himself killed pointlessly (compared to females, for whom emigrating to another clan is much less common and is usually quite a risky proposition)
Serious, potentially deadly, disputes between females generally stem from major breaches of social etiquette or "failure to know one's place", threats to young, or sometimes even a coup against a sitting clan matriarch and her supporters.