Omg that zonked yinglet XD

He knows what's good

i feel that fluffgrub entry deeply. i understand you, ran, as a fellow biologist

The entry for Fluffgrub oozes consternation at the taxonomical problems going on. Was Ran writing that one?

Absolutely

I think Ran wrote ALL of them.

Awwwwwwe fluffgrub cutie :D

Breed your own, today!

Ran should publish a Fluffgrub breeding guide!

It occurs to me that if one were to attempt to burn some of the toxic flora, I sense it would not end well for anyone that isn't a yinglet...and probably wouldn't be pleasant to a yinglet either, right?

Now I'm wondering, have the yinglets discovered any plants that have medicinal properties when burned, or incense, etc?

I would imagine they have found medicinal use for quite a few plants. The only problem is that their medicines are potentially lethal to any non-yinglets. Beware of well-meaning yinglets offering to help with your illness!

I love these pages, and I would be interested in seeing more of non yinglet based ecosystems. By this point the yinglet ecosystem is so meshed together to beenfit the yinglet that it not being engineered intentionally seems unlikely, so seeing if others have that same level of uncanny cohesion would be interesting to see, and would make some great lore implications either way.

Engineering can also be good old fashioned domestication/selection though, Yinglets probably clear away all the disadvantageous plants / pay more attention to not bringing them along, vs. things that are useful get the free ride to a new enclave. Imagine how an IRL garden plot might appear to an outside observer.

technically yes, however the adaptions shown in some of these are odd to the extreme when it comes to natural selection. Its hard to describe succinctly, but for one good example the grass shown in the last page. The fact it creates a biome specifically beneficial to yinglets, easily spreads and is incorporated into their fur, has no natural antagonists yet hasn't taken over connected landmasses indicates a recent exceptionally fast adaption beyond what even direct cultivation can manage. Its this combined with how seemingly everything else in their environment seeks to support yinglet dominance at little benefit to themselves that I call uncanny. I cant tell if this is a due to the authors understanding of biology, or intentionally forshadowing of yinglets and their biome being intentionally engineered, which is why I want to see how non yinglet biomes work, see if they have the same uncanny level of connections and support.

Since we're getting into technical/semantic distinctions, I should clarify that there are two common meanings to the word engineering and I don't know which you mean: there's design created by willful sapient choice, and there's the formal creative process in itself.

I think the yinglets are, knowingly or otherwise, taking stronger measures to prevent those antagonists from hitching rides on their caravans, perceiving them as potentially destructive vermin while allowing the 'benign' ones to be introduced. That's why the biome that results is specifically beneficial to them. Humans' choices have been reshaping their environment to the extreme this way for tens of thousands of years, without anyone having to formally learn how to do it.

An IRL example is cats. Those descended from the bronze-age colonizers who first spread the common housecat across the old world don't see it as something problematic; if anything they think cats just help control another introduced species. But anything capable of hunting and killing a cat would be unthinkable to just allow to roam a ship. Humans partition their ecosystem before carrying it to a new environment, based on which other species' make those humans feel safe or convenienced.

But housecats are extremely efficient at removing small herbivores while evading any predators of their own. They cut off entire food chains from the base and remove the indigenous obligate carnivores, including their undomesticated cousins, which is convenient to migrating humans who haven't yet learned to deal with local predators. Once the surrounding area has been altered in this way, housecats revert to scavengers and retreat back to humans rather than continuing to spread across the landmass.

Over the eons, as humans keep growing apart and then shuffling themselves back together in waves of migration, these kinds of choices lead to an exponential collapse of biodiversity compared to "untamed wilds" (places that haven't been migrated into several times over human history). -If- we consider the purpose of human life to be that which they're driven to do, then it's harder to perceive this destruction as engineering. Humans' drive to seek out such environments and perceive them as beautiful, makes the selection behaviors appear maladaptive.

But on the other hand, it would make perfect sense if the purpose of human life was to be a planetary terraforming engine for a much more sensitive species. Thinking about sapient ecology that way makes it easier to grasp the shades of gray between free will and formal process, and it does so whether or not we actually believe in the hand of an outside creator.

Also on a totally separate note, there definitely is an issue of author bias. Valsalia does a really good job of writing the field guides the way they historically get written, complete with all kinds of bias on Ran's part. Most field guides (with the exception of scientific or 'collector' type catalogues) are meant to help gatherers identify the plants that are either edible or produce unusual alkaloid compounds (which means they're both a poison and, when used in the right context, a medicine). Occasionally you might find a guide that tells you the physical properties of a tree's wood, but even those only really circulate within professional circles; you'll be hard pressed to find one published for the general public. Without knowing the purpose of the guide, you'd get the impression that the entire ecosystem had been genetically engineered for pharmaceutical purposes. In some places, wilderness survival classes are even taught by religious organizations that use such guides to reinforce creationist doctrines.

Spelling errors on paragraphs 7 and 8: "a eating few leaves" and "encave"

TIL that yinglets can get high off poison. Cool.

To be fair, humans get high off poisons too, or use them as seasoning.

Really? Could you elaborate?

Alcohol. Spicy food. Marijuana. Heck, psylocibin(i think i butchered that) are all toxins we use to.... improve various facets of our lives.

Good old caffeine in coffee and tea plants kills bugs that take a bite. In coffee's case it poisons the ground stopping other plants from growing.

Some humans have been known to explore a yinglet's "encave" ... ^_~

What wonderful and fun world-building! I so admire your firm grip on unreality!

A whole pack of frightening invasive species.

I want to pet fluffgrubs ;;

Val keeps making creatures in this universe I want as pets/to pet. Even the dangerous ones. (Sometimes especially the dangerous ones.)

Well what else would you call them? Fluffimagos?

YAY, more lore and worldbuilding! I love it.
Wonderful to hear about the benefits to humans of having yinglets living nearby.
My biological training kicked in when I saw this page... monarch butterflies with their alkaloids, and pitcher plants. Nice.

fluffy bugs. yay!!!!!

Silly Poison boi.

I love these world building posts! <3

The "fluffgrub" looks like a yarn ball. Keep it away from the grannies.

alternatively, become an old fluffgrub lady!

I wonder how long it will be before a fan sews a fluffgrub plushie, they look extremely plushifiable

Hornet would have a field day with Fluffgrub, even knowing that ut's toxic.
Maybe wearing some poison resistance amulet will help?

They need to do a better job emphasizing not to touch that yinglet

If not grub, then why grub-shaped?

Oh, cool, yinglets have discovered chemical weapons.

Man there's a lot of toxicity in (and around) that city.

That's a big Floofy bug. <^\/^>

Omigah the poison boy

Nice. Biopunk.

One fluffgrub kebab please sss

A fanfic featured the toxic corpse’s ear fungus that yinglets use to poison their spears.

I find it very funny Ran insisted on inserting a small passive aggressive rant into the field guide

If they have an abundant enough supply of whiteblood stalk for someone to continually gorge themselves on it… why would they not just use the sap itself to poison spears

Sapticks, tied to a rock to be thrown. Leave it to Yinglets to invent grenades.

Fluffipedes (because they AREN'T grubs) look absolutely adorable and I could see having one as a pet.

love the frustration with the name fluffgrub

Fluffgrub is best companion

Oh, I see

oh man i wish poisonboy was a job I could have. fuuuck. being zooted 24/7????? I can see no downside to this. health concerns??? what are you, a cop??? outta my way i got toxins to lick

Toxic Yinglet my beloved <3

This is amazing.

I love the little mini rant about the Fluffgrub.

Handle the yinglet :>

I see the "monarch caterpillar" strategy is popular in that biome.

Since my comments aren't showing up on the website:

Seems like I'll have plenty (based on these last 3 field guide pages) more to add to YingFortress, once the Layered Graphics are setup.

Can't honestly update the mod without the new sprites working.

Egads, if that is just the tiniest of examples of the toxic fauna from the swampy homeland of the Yinglets, it makes one wonder what kind of a green, poisonous hell the rest of it is like. It seems like one wouldn't dare do any real exploration of the area without wearing an armored space suit or somesuch. Yikes!