CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Gentas of Newhome

CURRENT STATUS: CLOSED

The time has come once again for community participation in the year-long process of building the world of Newhome. Our last Call for Submissions was a total success, populating the Starfallen roster with three new official additions and several unofficial ones still in the making. We intend to release a series on them soon, but first...

Ever wanted to create a wonderful new fantasy species all your own?

Newhome is native territory for several races of Gentas (sentient, language-using beings). The Tapa, the Kaga, and the Luxa have already been revealed, each with their own distinct morphology and culture, and the Coba, the ORO, the Hoda, and more are waiting to make their debut.

But the world of Hierophant is very vast indeed, and there is plenty of room for more! For the next month, we will be accepting ideas for a last few Genta races to fill out the roster. Submissions may be posted on the official Discord or e-mailed directly to bludwig@dreamingdoor.net.

Submissions must include the following:

NAME: The name of the Genta species, as they are called by global culture and as they call themselves (the two may be the same, but not necessarily).

MORPHOLOGY: A physical description of their bodies. Sketches are welcome as an alternative or supplement to this, but are not required.

CULTURE: A summary of their worldview, guided by their minds and bodies over time. Besides survival, what does this species value? How has this shaped their history and consciousness? Perhaps your species is intensely social and perhaps largely solitary, but as language-users, they will share a certain view of the universe and their place in it whether they build mighty cities or live in nature far apart from each other. Both humans and Draak-Kin are Gentas, and your species can fall anywhere in that broad social spectrum.

Submissions should run about half a page to two pages in total.

Reading the Newhome worldbuilding documents, including Gentas of Newhome, may be helpful before designing your own species. A few things to keep in mind:

The fractured archipelago of islands trapped within the Melt has allowed extremely different species to rise to dominance on the various islands and cylands. Your species probably has had little to no contact with the other Gentas of Newhome until quite recently, if at all. Giving some thought to their home island, its geography and climate, and their grand evolutionary journey will help bring you the perspective you will need to craft their bodies and cultures. While six-limbed beings are common on Newhome, four-, eight-, and ten-limbed body types are also known, and your species can have absolutely any configuration you can imagine.

While a Draak-Kin may have recently encountered your species and possibly taken cultural control over them as a Hierophant, this would be very recent, and your focus should be not on the Draak-Kin and how they might bolster or change your species' society, but on their form and culture at around the time of the Starfall, before the Kin started to softly conquer the planet.

In the end, though, we advise you not to think too hard about the world of Newhome specifically, and instead ask yourself this question: if there were a world of infinite possibilities far, far away, what is one interesting shape Life might take on that world? Use what you find beautiful or fascinating about nature and the universe to craft your own idea for a Genta to be featured in the game.

The number of "winners"... those whose ideas will be featured in the game... will depend on the number and quality of submissions, but the process will be similar to the Starfallen submissions.

The following is a sample submission based on one of the minor Genta species of Hierophant:

NAME: Hoda (meaning 'upfoot' in their language; the Luxa call them Antipodians and the Tapa call them Flippers)

MORPHOLOGY: Hoda are smaller creatures, about one fifth the height and one hundredth the mass of a Tapa. They have thin bodies akin to a six-limbed monkey and short-muzzled faces with huge, staring eyes. Their tails are very long and completely prehensile, and their bodies are covered in naturally shaggy fur, which they shave in various ways to display social identity. All of their six primary limbs end in functional hands.

CULTURE: Hoda are natives of the highly volcanic island of Crystalcore. For millennia, they scrabbled among the rocky outcroppings and hot springs of the island's surface, incapable of language and scavenging whatever they could. Roughly 200,000 years before the Starfall, they discovered the crystal caverns below the island, vast chambers with huge crystals growing hundreds of meters long in all directions. The caverns lacked food, but were safe, and a primitive society began to develop; the Hoda would scavenge above ground and return underground to safely rest, climbing along the crystals, building spherical nests which hung from them, and forming more advanced social habits.

This new climbing- and hanging-based lifestyle led to a fascinating discovery: when hanging upside down for at least several minutes, their cognitive abilities increased more than tenfold. While slightly physically uncomfortable, the slow rush of blood to the brain supercharged their neurons in a unique way, and the "hanging prophets", the first to use this intelligence boost, invented language and began to tell amazing stories about their people, their island, and the wonders that might exist beyond. Soon, upside-down forms of locomotion, dance, and tail-based signing language developed. Most Hoda could only remain upside-down for about an hour at a time before the pain became unbearable and they had to return to a less conscious, right-side-up position, and their existence is a dual one: when walking on their hind feet, they behave much like Earth lemurs and cannot use complex language, but when balancing on their top hands (which they are very good at) or hanging by their rear feet or tails, they behave like monks or sages, eloquent and spiritual. Shifting between these two states of consciousness occurs multiple times per day, and the Rise (the increase in intelligence and self-awareness brought about when they are upside down) and the Fall (the opposite thereof) are considered to be both a blessing and a curse, each in their way.

Animalistic scavengers in the sunlit above and gentle philosophers in the crystal darkness below, the Hoda's bizarre culture embraces their double existence. The caverns are now separated into moieties which follow certain ideas and "prophets", each with their own styles of dance and language. Many who encounter them as skittish beasts in the surface world have no idea that they live secret lives as powerful thinkers. Their upside-down dances are a beautiful and complex art, as are their daily debates and stories shared among family, friends, and sometimes whole moieties.

...

We look forward to your ideas, and hope that every one of our Patrons will consider seizing this chance to give creative birth to an amazing people and see them come to life in Hierophant.

Happy dreaming!