[Reshared since I added a few things and now this is entirely complete] ❝ᴏᴜʀ sᴏᴜʟs ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴛᴏʀɴ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴏᴜʀ ʙᴏᴅɪᴇs ғᴏʀsᴀᴋᴇɴ... ʙᴇᴀʀɪɴɢ sɪɴs ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴀsᴛ, ғᴏʀ ᴏᴜʀ ғᴜᴛᴜʀᴇ ɪs ᴛᴀᴋᴇɴ...❞ ─────────────── Civilization: Hidden within the taiga is a civilization of stone, built into their home. Still-standing buildings are surrounded by eroded ruins, buried beneath snow each year. The trees are connected to these buildings, used as supports, decorations, and more. Stairs are typically made using these trees, either from stone slabs driven into the tree's trunk or just utilizing the branches themselves. The elkali do not move the trees of Seraken, and just build around them, due to the sacred nature of this flora to them, which also leads to a lack of cut wood being used in their structures. Many homes, and other locations, have multiple floors to reach higher up on these trees. Oh, and don't ask about the ruins… They don't like to talk about them very much. ─────────────── [The Elkali are a ground-dwelling species, but don't want to cut down the trees and stuff so they literally just slap their buildings on top of them. You'll find holes in the middle of buildings for trees to go through, or in the walls. And since they don't cut down trees, they don't readily use wood in building, and just use the whole tree as building supports and such instead. Their buildings are also often multi-story to make as much use of the trees as those resources as possible. They don't actually have any desire nor the capabilities to live in the trees.] ─────────────── Species: The Elkal [Plural: Elkali, Young: Elkalings or hatchlings] Elkali are a large, omnivorous species residing in the taiga. Their bodies are long and serpentine in nature, carried upon strong legs. Their snake-like head bears two sets of eyes, giving them greater eyesight than other species. Trailing from the edges are their mouth are long tendrils, almost acting as a third pair of limbs, with a sharp stinger located at the end. These stingers contain a paralyzing toxin, and although the length of its effects can vary due to the dosage, this poison is luckily non-lethal and causes no other effects besides the paralysis. The elakli feature a somewhat strange jaw structure, where their lower jaw is split into two parts and is connected by elasticated skin and a stretchy ligament at the chin. An altered version of a regular snake's jaw, in a way. An elkal can move these two parts of their lower jaw independently, connecting and separating them, almost like an insect's mandibles, while also being capable of moving it like a regular lower jaw. This can be used for many purposes including allowing the Elkal to eat larger pieces of food/hold more in their mouth, intimidation, or expression of emotion. The Ekali are split into three different subspecies, consisting of the Clawed Elkal, Halved Elkal, and Hooved Elkal. The clawed and hooved elkal are pretty self-explanatory, while the halved elkal feature clawed front legs and hooved back legs. Although the elkali are a mostly quadrupedal species, the clawed and halved elkali are capable of becoming bipedal, utilizing their front paws as hands. While the hooved elkali are unfortunately unable to do this, they have instead adapted to use their stinger-like tendrils in place of hands, as well as using their modified lower jaws to more easily hold things in their mouths. An elkal can reach a height of around 8-10 feet when standing on their back legs, although most of this height only comes from the length of their bodies, as they are only a bit below half of this height when on all fours. Elkali are mostly scaled, although they do have fur along the top of their head + back, around their chest, on their heels, and the tip of their tail to help with warmth. Despite their reptilian aspects, elkali are warm-blooded. Their antlers can be compared to deer antlers, used for similar reasons, and are shed each year like them as well. Antlers are found upon all elkali, though, instead of like how it is for deer. Elkali also have pit organs like snakes. They are a somewhat long-lived species, which ages quickly at first and reaches maturity at a typically young age, before their aging drastically slows down. Lastly, an Elkal can lay a clutch of 1-3 eggs, which take a few months to hatch. These eggs are usually colored in ways that allow them to blend into their environment. More than one elkal in each egg is extremely rare… yet not impossible.
