u/gallium-cube

(original post on tumblr)

Main: a tauert woman gathering reeds for construction and water snails for food. This person mostly descends from large-sized food breeds: her measures are about 2.2 meters and 250 kg. The reed tower in the distance is an old motif, tracing back to the disappearance of the bats. Top right: an example of tauert sign language, translating to “let us cuddle”. The flexion of the wrist suggests that the cuddling will last for a long time and probably involve sexual touch. Middle-top right: a wax-sealed flask of tauert urine, commonly traded as perfume, especially through lithopods. Middle-bottom right: ornamental genitals bred into company tauert by the bats near the end of their civilization. These shapes sometimes reappear among modern tauert. Bottom right: a variety of vegetables grown in tauert gardens.

(index)

Origins: A worldline that diverged from ours in the earliest Pliocene with the appearance of a species of sapient bats in a surviving Zealandia. Tauert descend from hominins that were domesticated in Eurasia by the bats. At first they were simply bred for food: blood, milk, and subcutaneous fat. Then specialized working breeds appeared, and finally companion breeds. The bat civilization collapsed due to a combination of ecological collapse and biological warfare before their worldline joined the Delta, but some tauert survived and eventually re-developed sapience.

Appearance: They are highly variable in size (height ranging from 80 to 220 cm, though the larger size is more common) and markings (chestnut-colored, brick-red, and piebald being the most common) with a distinctive flat nose, green eyes, and large protruding jaws. Tauert are stocky, with relatively short legs, thick subcutaneous fat, and additional fat pads on their belly, buttocks, and chest.

Head hair extend into a short mane that covers the upper back and shoulderblades. This helped protect the body from sun exposure during work or pasture. As in humans, tufts of hair are also found under armpits and between the legs, and the body is otherwise mostly bare.

Polyembryony is common, probably as a consequence of artificial selection for fertility: that is, zygotes frequently divide into homozygous twins, so that a majority of births involve 2 to 4 newborns. However, when population density is very high, most of these twins are likely to be miscarried. All the same, tauert are by far the most numerous hominin species in the Delta.

Lifeways: While they have since regained their intelligence after the bat's disappearance, tauert retain the extremely docile and gregarious temperament bred into them millions of years ago. Outside of subsistence work, they spend much time cuddling each other, in pairs or in small or large groups. They forego clothing precisely because it interferes with skin-to-skin contact, whereas bodypaint and distinctive hair ribbons are common; tauert usually protect themselves against the cold (though they are rarely found in cold climates) or insects with a layer of grease or clay.

Their vocalizations are limited, but they have a complex ideographic sign language that requires contact in many cases. Scent also has a role in communication; tauert cover themselves with the scent of their beloved. In particular, their sweat and urine contain a cocktail of terpenes, different for every individual, whose scent is said to resemble resin or incense.

On their own, they form communities of a few dozens to hundreds, often tending to vegetable gardens or raising small birds and mammals, with some supplement by small, easily caught invertebrates, moving when needed under the guidance of elder females. Young males frequently, though not always, move to nearby groups after puberty. Most groups build large communal huts, circular in shape, out of whichever material is available, made visible from distance by tall rigid banners.

They tend to avoid settlements other sophonts; there are many examples of outsiders taking advantage of tauert docility to abduct them for forced labor or worse purposes. Even where closer coexistence occurs, tauert are fiercely protective of their children, which group outsiders rarely see, and may even turn violent if forcibly separated by their families or kept too long away from the foraging group. They are said to be great poets, although few foreigners have paid the due attention to their language so far.

---

Tassaï congratulated herself as she slipped out of her robe, nude but for the empty vials hanging from a thread around her neck. Once again she’d found her way to a people’s sanctum – the cuddling-house of the tauert. The air was thick with pine resin and myrrh and camphor; in the dim light great fleshy limbs caressed and scratched each other.

She found a particularly large tauert woman who was lying down with her head propped against a wall. Tassaï climbed on top of her, kissing and caressing along the way, until she sat astride of the great mound of her belly, and relaxed her bladder, letting the pressure flow out of her. The tauert grumbled contentedly and made appreciative signs as her belly turned wet and lucent.

Replicating the signs as best as she could, Tassaï slid between the tauert’s legs and pressed herself into the great bush, tickling beautifully butterfly-shaped labia with one hand and readying a vial with the other. As expected, a great warm flow invested her, and an intense scent of olibanum filled the air. She just managed to fumble the vial open and filled before the tauert sat up sitting and pulled her new friend into the warm embrace of her breasts, nuzzling at Tassaï’s shoulders.

All this trouble for only one vial of product. Nevermind; it would commend an excellent price, if she could break the lithopod monopoly. She let herself enjoy the contact; business could wait a bit.

(CW: noncon, disease)

(original tumblr post)

Main: wald-creep forcing itself onto a host – and falling into a trap. Volunteers with gazeroot-poisoned orifices are an essential weapon against wald-creep infestations in forests. Left: sprouting gazeroot.

(index)

Origins: Wald-creeps came from a worldline that diverged from ours in the Ordovician. Later in this worldline, fungi formed a lichen-like symbiotic relationship with a former carnivorous plant. The plant had hydraulic tendrils forming nooses which tightened around snake-like preys (related to our world’s acorn worms). The ancestors of wald-creeps repurposed that ability to move on leg-like appendages in search of richer soils, and later preys. They became scavengers, looking for carcasses to consume, and developed highly toxic spores as defense against herbivores.

Appearance: Wald-creeps combined feeding and reproduction by infesting motile hosts with spores that would consume the host body to feed a new individual. The modern forms resemble piles of rotting wood and clover-like plants, scarcely distinguishable from any other in mature forests; and there they may lay for years, quietly using photosynthesis to build up a stockpile of spores in their hidden fruiting organs, which resemble phalloid mushrooms.

Most of the body is a tangle of tendrils and filaments combining chitinous fungal hyphae and cellulose-protected plant vessels, making them extremely hard to tear or cut. The vessels transfer water, nutrients, and chemical signals, though most reactions are local, and are effected by moving water into and out of surface cells to swell, bend, and constrict.

Wald-creeps have quite sophisticate senses, despite their lack of a true nervous system. They can recognize vibrations in the ground as well as tension in their own tendrils, much like a spider could identify a caught prey by the tension in the web strings. Once in contact with a host, they can navigate its body by taste or by perceiving muscular tension.

Lifeways: If an unwary traveller or a wild animal should pass by, a wald-creep might ensnare a foot or an arm and wrestle them to the ground; the hydraulic action of its tendrils is slow but very strong. Then the creature reveals its fruiting organs and attempts to penetrate the victim in any available orifice. Vigorous friction sloughs off tissue from the organ, which carries liquid that contains the spores and seeds of its fungal and plant components, respectively. The victim is then allowed to escape, though botulin-like toxins in the wald-creep's "semen" will kill them within hours. The new wald-creep then sprouts, consuming the corpse as a reserve of food. Sophont communities burn affected bodies or bury them in stone arks, but enough wild animals are caught to keep the species going.

In present times, wald-creeps are much less of a danger for sophonts. Tauert horticultors first noticed that wald-creeps did not appear where gazeroots were grown, and later experiments by the multi-species Guild of Physiarchs managed to purify and concentrate the chitin-digesting compounds in the gazeroot that is fatal to wald-creeps. Drinking a tincture of these compounds or is sufficient to make someone nearly completely immune to wald-creep infestation even in the aftermath of an attack, and if the tincture is drunk or rubbed into one’s orifices beforehand, the host may even become poisonous to the attacker.

---

Nessa-Tarko strode through the woods with a smirk on vis lips, and vis heart hammering with arousal. The recent rain was still dripping from the canopy, and the shadowy underbrush had a powerful scent of damp and wood rot. Ve had made a point of wearing nothing but the sky-blue hood of the Physiarch Guild and a satchel with bare necessities; and once in a while a hand dropped to wipe the blue-stained dew from vis cunt as if a reminder that it would be satisfied soon.

There, between two trunks, the ankle-high tripwire that had murdered so many innocents, the tangled ropes in the litter subtly twisting into snares. Nessa could easily avoid them; instead, ve stepped right in the middle. The nooses constricted with a flytrap’s reflexes, pulling back Nessa’s feet and making ver fall with vis knees and hands in the mud, and vis bare ass high up for the taking. The monster moved, with a quiet rustle that was once terrifying. But the taste of the gazeroot tincture was still on Nessa’s lips.

Dragging itself forward, the wald-creep was over Nessa like an enormous spider, exposing the swollen oblong mushrooms on its underbelly. The physiarch turned vis head with some difficulty, spreading vis thighs as much as the bound ankles allowed. Groping with its chemical senses it found Nessa’s vulva and brutally thrust in, again and again, dissolving itself into vis juices. Really, *it* was getting fucked. Its spores would die, and quite possibly the wald-creep itself would die, too. Almost a pity; they could be fun, now.

With plant debris in vis hair and pubes, and vis tits smeared with mud, Nessa looked as much a part of the forest floor verself. One mushroom consumed itself inside ver and another swifly took its place. But Nessa laughed all the way through; the curiosity and cooperation of thinking beings had triumphed over an ugly old terror, and there was nothing left for it but be a toy for people who would no longer fear.

Main: a young human woman of the Khitari nation feeding a kermeshir, fully overtaken by its euphoria. Top right: proto-kermeshir feeding from a hybernating therapsid. Middle right: detail of a kermeshir head, showing mouth, palps, and stalked eyes. Bottom right: silver amulet against kermeshir infestations, from a charnel haunter grave mound.

(index)

Origins: A worldline in which the Late Paleozoic Ice Age escalated in a Snowball Earth glaciation in the Middle Permian, with all complex life surviving underground, only occasionally reaching the surface to graze on simple frost-resistant organisms. The ancestors of kermeshirs were large annelids that lived in the burrows of warm-blooded, milk-producing therapsids for heat, consuming their waste.

Eventually, as these therapsids produced ever more concentrated milk to bring surface nutrients to the offspring that remained in the burrows, the proto-kermeshir also began to feed on it; their saliva contains anaesthetic alkaloids that kept the host calm as the worms fed. In later times, the alkaloids took euphorizing effects that made nursing the worms positively pleasurable, and increased the metabolic rate of the host. Kermeshirs laid dormant eggs that remained in the soil until a therapsid digging a new burrow dragged in a few.

Appearance: The kermeshir looks much like the polychaete annelids – such as the ragworms and bristleworms – of our world, though it lives outside of water, as long as the surroundings are dark and cool. It can measure from 40 to 80 cm in length. The head bears a muscular sucker-like mouth, a pair of simple orientable eyes, and a number of sensory palps for touch and taste. Each body segment also has a pair of short parapodia that help it crawl when it is not being held. The cuticle is smooth, dry, and slightly rigid.

Kermeshir are completely non-sapient and respond to direct stimuli, though they have some elementary memory and wayfinding ability.

Lifeways: When they crossed over into the Delta, kermeshir eggs spread through agriculture into the households of many mammalian sophonts, including charnel haunters, tauert, and humans.

Kermeshir begin by crawling into beds and feeding from breasts during sleep; while they are especially attracted to young mothers, they secrete a hormon that binds to prolactin receptors in order to induce lactation anew, in some cases inducing it successfully even in males. As the parasite grows, it becomes emotionally very difficult for the host to discard it, due to the intense attachment and euphoria it induces while feeding.

An individual affected by a kermeshir might give up much of their life to feed the parasite, eating abundantly to keep the milk production active. It may take external help to prevent them from falling into destitution or sickness, and the host often actively protects the worm from destruction. When the worm dies, after a few months of feeding, the host can fall into depression for several days, although they usually recover afterward, if their living conditions remained stable. There are nevertheless reports of wealthy merchants and aristocrats purchasing mature kermeshirs from poorer hosts for their own pleasure. However, kermeshirs do not survive long when fed with anything other than milk.

---

Mitra had been sitting in the hall like a good young lady, obedient and loyal, until sunset had come and her family had withdrawn for the night. Then she stood up, silently ran through the moonlit courtyard, to the old columbarium where barely anybody entered, lifted up a tile, and freed her secret love.

He had come to her bedroom months before, giving her pleasure unimagined, first in her dreams, and then in waking life. Long hours she had spent under the covers embracing his ringed body as night by night he grew, feeding from her. Now she knew so well those palps raising in sudden joy, the round mouth gasping after a long hungry day.

She set with her back to the screen-door, so nobody could open it on her. Mitra’s chest, once modest even in adulthood, now spilled out of the wrap as soon as she loosened the pins. See how she bloomed for her love! Prickling anticipation welled up in her as the beloved drew nearer; she let his palps grope around for her nipple for a while before his mouth latched onto it.

The flow began, and the worm relaxed, uncoiling in her lap, the plump tail resting on her thighs. Mitra threw her head back and smiled, caressing the body as it pulsed gently; she let her knees drift apart, letting more of her liquors flow freely. All was well. All was perfect. They simply did not understand.

(original tumblr post)

Just a little sketch. He will fuck you, and you will become one with the fungus.

(original tumblr post)

Main: a fully-grown female wanderer, with a couple pets safely contained in her pouch; additional external human added for scale. Center: detail of prehensile tongue tip. Bottom left: wanderer in a sitting position, playing with her pets. Bottom right: human enjoying sexual play with his caretaker’s mate, from the latter’s point of view. This particular human is part of a line bred for striking color, stripes appearing along the Blaschko lines.

Origins: Another worldline’s version of South America that never met with the North and was covered in vast savannas. After an asteroid impact thinned placentate ranks, relatives of opossums had adapted into a great variety of forms, including enormous elephant-like tree browsers. Their tongues developed first into trunk-like appendages to strip boughs from bark and leaves, and then into fully prehensile structures.

Appearance: A fully-grown wanderer can reach eight meters of length and 12 tons of weight; strong pillar-like legs, each ending in two hooves, slowly carry that bulk across the plains. The long frontlimbs and the tilted neck keep the head at a high elevation. The nose and brow form a resonant sac that wanderers use to amplify their low-frequency calls, which can travel for many kilometers. A wanderer’s tongue is several meters long, muscular and motile, and ends in a flattened pad covered in ridges that help with grasping object. This tongue can uproot trees and strip them bare as well as handle smaller animals without harm.

As in other marsupials, female wanderers have two lateral vaginae. As in our world’s opossums, males have a bifid penis with two glandes, which can penetrate the two vaginae simultaneously, and the scrotum hanging anterior to the penis.

Lifeways: Wanderers live in strings of up to fifty individuals, travelling across the plains with minimal possessions (mostly water skins and fuel for campfires). The strings are built around related females and their children; adult males usually leave their string at puberty to join another or to live in small male groups. They compose and tell extremely vast and complex epic poems, exercising the prodigious memory they first developed to find watering holes.

After crossing over, they quickly became enamoured with humans, whose spindly limbs, rounded head, bare skin, and general size remind wanderers of precocious calves. Thus, many wanderers enjoy keeping humans as companions and even carrying them around (sometimes in breeding pairs combined by the wanderer itself) in their fur-lined pouches. Some do so voluntarily, being promised sustainance (in the form of milk, flour-trees, and savanna gamefowl), protection, and enduring love from a powerful caretaker; others may be taken by force – although they are rarely restrained, and usually able to escape. Wrapped in the tongue of a wanderer, or in the dark warmth of its pouch, a human guest is quite helpless.

Under pressure of neighboring societies, capture of "wild" humans is now rare, but the descendants of captive populations, who often see wanderers as mother-goddess figures, are still raised and kept, and a few volunteers are taken. Some, grown from a young age in the care of a wanderer, may fixate sexually on their caretaker or the latter’s mate rather than on their fellow humans.

---

Seven-Agave sighed as he rested his face on the soft edge of Kuunda’s pouch. His wanderer had recently been loaned a new doe for breeding, Five-Anthill, and currently all the other does and bucks in the pouch were cheerfully fucking her. But Seven had no interest in that. Though his loins were painfully tense, the flesh of another human would have brought him little pleasure.

Kuunda had a mate, Tuaar. Sometimes Kuunda would shoo her pets out of her pouch, into the grass outside; and then the mountain-like bulk of Tuaar would mount her and make her bellow throughout the plains, and the ground would shake as with thunder. So many times Seven had dreamt of being part of that titanic pleasure, he that would not reach Kuunda’s knee. He did not quite dream of satisfying Kuunda – after all he did not have two members to fuck her on both sides – but he had caught glimpses of Tuaar’s erection, forked like a snake’s tongue, glistening with Kuunda’s juices.

One night he would sneak out of the shelter and climb on Tuaar’s sleeping bulk, seek by scent the member that still smelled of Kuunda’s pouch, wrap his body around it, and then he would BE as Kuunda–

A tug brought Seven out of his reverie. Five-Anthill had grabbed his balls, as if to invite him to empty them inside her, give Five’s wanderer some interestingly-colored fawns to fuss on. Well then. His true dreams would have to wait.

(original tumblr post)

• Around 2 million years ago, multiple pre-human species coexisted in Africa. These included Paranthropus boisei, a specialized herbivore with large jaws and gut, and the more versatile Homo habilis, our ancestor or close.
• Sexual dimorphism and genital size in apes are affected by the mating systems. In polygynous species like gorillas, males compete among each other for the control of multiple females. In multi-partner species like chimpanzees and bonobos, multiple males mate with each female and vice versa.
• Gorillas are very dimorphic, with males being much larger and more muscular than females to fight among each other. However, male gorillas also have extremely small genitals for their body size, which "can have no part to play in attracting the female, and have not been developed to any degree under the influence of sexual selection" (Short 1979, p. 137-8).
• In chimpanzees and bonobos, sexual dimorphism is much more reduced, but males have enormous testicles and very large penises as competition is based on who can produce the most sperm and deliver it closest to the target.
• Australopithecus ("gracile australopithecines") and early Homo species show low sexual dimorphism in skeletons, suggesting multi-partner mating (which they might have inherited from our common ancestor with chimps). Species of Paranthropus ("robust australopithecines") in contrast show high sexual dimorphism, suggesting polygynous mating with all its consequences (Gray 2013, p. 98-9).
• Paranthropus is now extinct, Homo is still around. We have no evidence that it happened all female Paranthropus decided to fuck male habilis instead of their own kind, but we also have no evidence that it didn't.

Sources:

• Dixson AF (2009), Sexual Selection and the Origin of Human Mating Systems, Oxford U.P.
• Gray P. B. (2013), Evolution and Human Sexuality (link)
• Short R. V. (1979), Sexual Selection and Its Component Parts, Somatic and Genital Selection, as Illustrated by Man and the Great Apes (link)

(original tumblr page)

Main: pregnant selkie woman showing the development of her floating breasts. Her jewels are cold-worked from copper bought from land-dwellers. Detail of selkie semi-prehensile penis on the right.Top right: selkie-carved whalebone dildo, with whale-hunting scene for decoration. The holes allow ropes through, for easier carrying or for strapping around a waist. Bottom left: size comparison between a fully grown selkie and a human. Mid right: the spaced, needle-like teeth and palatal ridges of selkies are specialized to feed on soft, slippery preys like fish and squids. Also note the closed nostrils. Bottom right: the large muscular tongue of selkies, on the other hand, is specialized to suck clams and other bivalves out of their shell.

Origins: A worldline in which the Mediterranean never dried up. Rather than adapting to the African grasslands and take up bipedal walking, the early hominids of this world moved to the waters through coastal mangrove forests. As the Quaternary Ice Age began, they adapted to the colder waters of the North Atlantic, spreading from the Canadian Archipelago to the Baltic Sea during the interglacial periods.

Appearance: Selkies are closest to seals or sea lions in their degree of adaptation to water, which is to say they spend much time on shore but not most. They also spend much time floating vertically, with their head just above the surface. Their body is spindle-shaped, a bit over two meters long, with feet flattened and elongated into flippers; the legs are short and stout, but still separate. The arms are also short and serve mainly to steer when swimming, though they retain their opposable thumb to grasp objects.

The ears are small, the nose very reduced, upturned to easily reach up, with slit-like nostrils that can be sealed when diving. The whole body is protected by a thick layer of vascularized blubber and by extremely dense silver fur, often with darker spots or streaks; longer head hair protects the head and face from glaring sunlight when lingering at the surface. Female selkies have large blubbery breasts that, by floating, make it easier to nurse children with their head out of the water before they have learned to control their nostrils.

Selkies are relatively unspecialized in diet: their teeth are sparse and hooked, the better to grasp slippery preys like fish and squids, but the tongue is large and muscular to feed on bivalves by sucking them out of the shell, like bearded seals do on our Earth. The lips, thin but strong, create a seal on the shell.

Sexual intercourse almost always takes place in water, as selkie bodies are too cumbersome on land. Males have a long, nearly prehensile penis to assist, though partners will also keep attached to each other with their arms.

Lifeways: Selkies generally live in familly groups in shallow rocky seas, taking refuge in coastal caves, especially those only accessible through water. They feed on seaweeds and shellfish, using stones and driftwood as tools, sometimes lighting cooking fires on the shore. If they live near land-dwelling peoples, they may trade carved seashell and scrimshaw for metal tools. They are generally monogamous and have few children.

In their original world, selkies were frequently predated by orcas and by polar-bear-like carnivorans. In the Delta of Worlds, this is no longer the case; regrettably, they might still be attacked by land-dwelling hunters, who think of them as just another kind of seal or whale, for their fur and fat.

While selkies are faithful to their partner among their kind, they have little compunction about having sex with land people, and sometimes they use it as defense, seducing hunters to drown them; but long-established selkie communities tend to have good relations with their land neighbors. Selkie prostitution is also known in fishing villages, and some will sell their milk, which is prized in Arctic regions for its exceptional fat content. Their clam-sucking proficiency is a constant temptation for the customers of sea brothels, though blowjobs by inexpert selkies are quite dangerous; female customers report somewhat higher satisfaction.

---

Halkja huddled against the body of the selkie who had rescued him from the sea, and who now shielded him from the cold in the cave. What a fool he'd been, overtaken by panic for a few stray waves, falling from the boat. Everyone in the village would despise him, drive him with sticks into the barren. Yet the selkie didn't seem to mind; with unexpectedly strong flippers she had pressed him to her breast.

His throat ice-dry, his stomach painfully empty, his lips had searched by instinct the selkie's nipples. They were large as the last segment of his thumb, and tasted of seawater, but her tits were full of milk, warm and richer than any he'd ever tasted. He sucked until the hunger and cold were gone, as she grumbled contentedly, softly stroking his salt-crusted hair.

Who had that milk been meant for? They were alone in the cave. The younger selkie must have died, killed, perhaps, by hunters, hunters like Halkja… He didn’t – he couldn’t possibly – deserve that kindness, yet he could not stop himself from taking it. Others would come, searching for him, and at once he wished the village had indeed disowned him, for they would come with icepicks and harpoons, and the kind selkie would pay the price.

Halkja had to leave, as soon as he’d regained his strength… as soon as possible… just… not now.

(original tumblr post)

Main: portrait of a mid-sized lithopod in company of a human desert-dweller. She is wearing polished stones pushed into her carapace, which is also covered in algae. A moisture-collecting tower and a womb-plant, which can be seeded with larvae, are visible behind. Bottom left: external anatomy of a lithopod seen from beneath; the abdomen and telson, folded under the cephalothorax most of the time, are open. Bottom right: lithopod mating, with detail of penetration of the male by the female ovipositor. The female extracts semen from the male’s seminal vesicle, and stores it in one of her spermathecae until she chooses to fertilize eggs. Mid bottom: ovipositor and abdominal chelae applied to human male genitalia, as sometimes happens in the wadis downstream of Sikara.

Origin: Lithopods are a rare case of asynchronous immigrants to the Delta of Worlds: they come from an alternate Permian, in a worldline in which vertebrates never left the waters, and the inner desert of Pangea was settled by a great diversity of arthropods loosely related to our world’s horseshoe crabs.

Appearance: They are roughly crab-like in shape, reaching up to 2 meters off the ground, walking on six semi-upright legs. The body is largely divided in two parts, a cephalothorax covered by a domed carapace and a flattened abdomen that is folded under the cephalothorax most of the time. The rock-like carapace is strong yet light thanks to its spongy structure, and covered in a film of algae or lichens that also serves as emergency food storage; condensation, trapped by minute grooves on the surface, keeps them watered. Soft bristles, similar in texture to horsehair, sprout between plates and on the abdomen, protecting soft parts from sand.

Besides the three pairs of legs, three more pairs of appendages are visible anteriorly: the anterior-most pair of legs, which is used to carry heavy loads, and the clawed pedipalps and chelicerae, which are used to chew food, for mutual body grooming, and for fine tool-handling. The abdomen has articulated appendages of its own that are mainly used to carry egg masses, as well as the sexual organs, which are a modified form of the previous.

In the extreme resource scarcity of central Pangea, a peculiar reproduction system arose. Eggs are a considerable investment of resources by a female animal; therefore it had to be paid with a similar investment by the male. Female proto-lithopods mated with males that overproduced sperm so it could be used as a source of water and nutrients for egg production. They developed spermathecae to store the excess sperm of multiple males, and eventually penetrative organs that could hold on to the partner and actively suck sperm out. This phenomenon evolved in our own worldline in the cave insect Neotrogla.

Soft tissues around the ovipositor form a sucker that keeps the two bodies locked until the extraction is complete, for hours if needed. Each spermatheca can expand separately to draw in sperm, and contract to push it into the copulatory bursa when the female chooses to fertilize some of her eggs. Finally, the ovipositor injects the fertilized eggs into large succulent plants in which the larvae can safely feed and grow until they develop their legs and carapace.

Lifeways: Lithopods move and react slowly, saving as much energy as they can. Generally solitary, their culture is mostly based on dispassionate economic intercourse, in which they swiftly included other sophonts after their crossing. Material culture is centered around farming of succulent plants, construction of stone windbreaks and moisture traps, and weaving the silk of spider-like creatures. Weaving, for which lithopod chelicerae and pedipalps are extremely adept, is used to make carrying slings and parasols, and is also the basis of most decorative and narrative art, such as elaborate multilayer tapestries.

Clothing is however rare, since the lithopod integument is already strongly isolating from the environment, but many will decorate their bodies by carving notches into the outer layer of the carapace, and sometimes inserting colorful stones in the notches.

Lithopod groups have occupied the rocky outcrops of the Sikara region, which are rich in rock salt and semiprecious stones, but extremely arid and uninhabitable to almost any other sophont. Here they may demand from other species payment – including seminal gifts, as is their species’ habit – in exchange for transit and resources.

---

Ish-shawi steadied his breath, mustering all the strength he could to pay the toll. At least the lithopod had let him lay blankets on the ground so his back would not be pressed on the burning sand, and she had consented to wait until the sun was low on the horizon.

The tribe kept a few young men like him, chosen for their size, for this very purpose. They were given much water, fed oil and fresh fruit, let to rest in the shadow while others manned the shaduf and clipped goat hooves. Every day they were sweetly massaged to draw animal spirits into their loins, though never enough for release; all to prepare them for days like this, when the lithopods demanded payment for the opal and agate they brought from their secret mines.

The purple sky above Ish-shawi was filled bt the rocky dome of the lithopod, as she splayed her legs all about him like cedars, lowering her scorpion-like belly above him. Her abdomen unfolded like a book and the dagger, glistening with arousal, emerged from her folds. His own member also swelled hard under the hands of the hooded helpers, who swiftly retracted.

Ish-shawi’s flesh seemed weak and crude in comparison to the beautiful shelled giant, but she would take it. The walls of the sucker engulfed his tip like soft lips, and with a strange running sensation but no pain the dagger slid in. The harvest began.

(original tumblr post: https://www.tumblr.com/the-delta-of-worlds/821148370103074816/)

Main: a high-class nrag having his evening meal and blackberry wine, attended by two wives, of which one is a srit and one is an usk. The women caps might be modelled after the flowing hair of other humanoid species. Top left: detail of female buttock pads. Top center: diagram of the pelvic anatomy of a harem-dwelling srit. Top right: construction of rdik, a traditional domestic dress of married mrask women. Bottom left: detail of thumbless mrask hand. Bottom right: secret message, proposing an elopement, written among usk, disguised as a housekeeping note.

Origins: Mrask ancestors were tree-dwelling Platyrrhine monkeys that lived in South American forests. Their worldline experienced a sudden global cooling about 20 million years ago due to a second Azolla event in the Caspian Sea. The forests were replaced by steppes, and proto-mrask evolved along hominid lines in the open environment. They retained their prehensile tail as supplement to hands and as organ of communication.

Appearance: The general body frame of mrask is surprisingly human-like, lithe and slender, though Platyrrhine ancestry is visible in the lack of thumbs (as in our Earth’s spider monkeys), the side-opening nostrils, and the prehensile tail. The body is covered in a fine silver-bluish pelt, except for face, buttocks, hand and feet, and most of the tail for improved grip and sensitivity. To compensate for the lack of thumb, there is a gap between the second and third finger allowing some degree of prehensility.

A peculiarity of the mrask is their sexual development, which divides them into three main types. Adult usk, undergoing female puberty, have prominent hips and buttocks, as well as distinctive cheek ridges which are their main sexual signal (unmarried usk typically wear face veils outside home). Undergoing male puberty, mature nrag have more or less visible mustaches and beard. However, only about 10% of genetically male mrask (generally, winners of contests of strength and charisma, formal or informal) become nrag. As these mature, their pheromones suppress male puberty in all the others, which are known as srit.

As in other Platyrrhines, mrask only see in three colors if they are heterozygous for a particular gene found on the X chromosomes. Therefore, only a few usk (plus intersex individuals in some cases) can distinguish green from red.

Lifeways: Modern mrask largely live by farming of starchy tubers and aquaculture of turtle-like amphibians, building great cities with bricks of river-mud. High political, religious, or military offices are traditionally kept by the nrag 5% of the population.

The typical mrask family is polygynous: a nrag with several usk wives, pooling their labor to support themselves and their husband, whose main occupation is to attract, purchase, or capture more wives. Srit will typically live alone or in common srit households, doing most of non-domestic labor in mrask society. Except for the nrag, most sex in mrask society is homosexual, either in usk gynoecia or in srit households. Due to its sensitivity, play with the tail is an important part of sexual intimacy.

Sometimes the srit-puberty can be so advanced that testicles remain up in the abdomen, the small penis is almost completely hidden by the growing "labia" (actually an unfused scrotum), and feminine buttocks and cheek ridges develop. Such srit frequently become part of polygynous households and have sex with their nrag (nrag usually penetrate from behind, while usk and srit sex is usually face-to-face). However, many are still fertile, and may impregnate their sister-wives while the nrag is absent or distracted; most nrag do not pay close attention to their individual wives, apart from one or two favorites. There are, however, cases of nrag marrying srit willingly.

This arrangement is evolutionarily stable: nrag are much more fertile than srit (internal testicles produce less viable sperm), but if most males were nrag competition over women (whose number would be cut in half) would give a great advantage to srit who can avoid its costs and risks.

Iask and Rtag lay on the chief bed, embracing and kissing and entwining their tails, though by custom their attention should not have been on each other. Nkat, master of the house, stood over Iask, monotously thrusting into and out of her, resting his weight on her shoulderblades, pressing her deeper into Rtag. He rarely paid attention to either, but according to the house ceromant the day was auspicious, and obligation had sent him to impregnate them both. He would fail with Iask; he was fucking a blind alley. And with Rtag, he would be too late.

Iask felt an orgasm swell in her spine. With well-honed skill, she could time it to Nkat’s. Teasing Rtag’s legs apart, she pressed her vulva against the sister-wife’s. In the language of tail-tugs they had perfected during their secret loves, as the thrusts from behind became faster and deeper, they agreed: Iask’s seed before Nkat’s. Better to conceive by love than by ritual.

Just as Nkat spent his seed inside her, Iask precisely squirted her own into Rtag. Rtag smothered Iask’s moan with her own mouth, and angled up her pelvis so that the juice would not flow out. Well done. That part of the gynoecium would find favor in the coming years, and Iask and Rtag were finally one as they had dreamed ever since Iask had been bought from her first household.

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Main: haunter warrior. The prestigious bronze pickaxe, scarifications, bodypaint, bone insertions, and clitoral erection are all essential parts of her battle gear. Top left: cerimonial bone knife. Top right: two solutions to the gruesome issue of birth through pseudopenis: bone plugs to gradually broaden the urethra and subincision to go around it altogether. Right: leather condom used to collect the semen of subaltern males during mounting.

Origins: A worldline that diverged from ours around the Miocene, from a clade of roughly dog-like carnivorans that spread in the Eurasian steppe. Similarly to early hominids, charnel haunters specialized as kleptoparasites and power scavengers, forcing predators from the carcasses, and developing stone tools and fire to extract more nourishment; unlike hominids, they persisted on this path, as other predators displaced them further from hunting niches.

Appearance: Charnel haunters are bipedal carnivorans with a roughly humanoid shape. Their hands peculiarly have two thumbs: one with a massive claw, used by their ancestors for hunting, and one that evolved later for finer handling of objects. They are covered in a very short and dense pelt, usually of sandy yellow color, except for a sort of mane running down their nape and neck. Compared to humans, haunters of both sexes are large and powerfully built, with an average weight well above 150 kg.

The necessity to drive larger predators from their meal, and strong intraspecies competition resulted in a massive increase of the production of testosterone. Much like spotted hyenas on our Earth, the female clitoris developed into an impressive pseudopenis. Not only intercourse must occur through the pseudopenis, which has to be retracted into the abdomen, but so does childbirth, resulting in a harrowing and destructive experience to which most firstborn did not survive.

Lifeways: Charnel haunters are strictly carnivorous, and mostly live off domesticated flightless birds in nomadic groups. These are herded on the open steppe; cattle raids are common, and the main source of violence in haunter culture. Membership in a particular tribe, especially during battle, is marked by an extensive system of pelt dyeing, scarifications, and piercings. While haunters they can eat fresh meat thoroughly cooked with heat or acids, decomposing meat and bone marrow are preferred.

The issue of childbirth can be solved with a sort of caesarean cut at the base of the pseudopenis, though many haunter cultures preempt it by practicing subincision at puberty, or with the insertion of progressively wider bone plugs to gradually dilate the urethra. While wood and stone are widespread, and metal is used, bone remains the base of haunter toolwork.

Infants naturally need to be nursed for a long time while their immunitary system and gastric juices develop. Pair-bonds are strictly monogamous as this occurs, with the father servicing his mate and children until weaning, at which point the pair is dissolved. To reinforce the bond, paired haunter women regularly practice anal penetration of their mates. The semen ejaculated in these occasions is caught into a sort of leather condom; it may be used for ritual purposes, but also for impregnation, with full pseudopenile intercourse being a rare honor for the males that distinguish themselves most in battle.

While there is no physical dominance of one sex over the other, traditionally political and intellectual activity in haunter societies is up to pregnant and nursing women, as they are the only healthy adults who do not need to provide their own sustenance.

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Kenna growled as she came inside her mate, her member pulsing powerfully as if it were trying, by some deep genetic memory, to eject seed it didn’t have. Tammu grunted and trembled as well, raking the hard soil with his claws. Was it enough?

Tammu loosened the pouch around his penis and slid out with a shudder, while Kenna untied the strap that held it around his waist. A good volume of liquid sloshed inside. He turned around, and Kenna nuzzled him and ran her claws through his mane. He’d been doing well; if his harvest bought them the favor of the rain gods, perhaps Kenna would allow him to fuck her directly.

The semen was poured in the cattle-bird’s skull: life-water from below in exchange for life-water from above. Thunder did roll over the savanna and the bone circle, and sunlight did dim for a while. The lakes would refill, the hillsides return green, and for one more year the cattle-birds would grow fat and bright-feathered. But the sun’s glare returned quickly, and the towering clouds seemed to be rushing away already. The gods had bounty to give, but demanded more.

A sigh. Tammu turned to see Kenna smearing fresh grease over her dick. Not yet enough.

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Top: sarcodine in a compact walking form, carrying a friend, using pseudopodia for faster locomotion. Middle left: demonstrating the flexibility of sarcodine tissues; even if the strands break, cells will be able to recognize each others and meld back. Middle right: sarcodine generating a variety of sensory and sexual organs. Bottom: sarcodine and solid sophonts enjoying an exchange of flavorful chemicals. Smaller insets: detail of sarcodine cells forming temporary “nerves” for faster transmission of information and migrating along matrix fibers.

Origins: A distant worldline in which multicellularity on Earth developed along different lines. Animals and plants do not exist there, though fungi do, forming dense brushlands. There, motile life appeared among various lineages of slime molds.

Appearance: The body of a sarcodine, roughly human-sized, is composed of freely moving amoeboid cells embedded in a translucent fibrous gel. By transferring water between the gel and the cells, by hooking and unhooking cell membranes, and by secreting and degrading fibers, a sarcodine may change the consistency of their bodyparts from a highly viscous liquid to a firm rubber-like solid, extending pseudopodia for various purposes. Cells recognize each other by complex membrane protein tags, so that they can reunite if divided.

Any organic matter absorbed by the sarcodine colony is digested by individual cells. Scattered unicellular algae help keep the volume oxygenated: thus sarcodines are usually green, and said to smell of cut grass.

Being obviously light-sensitive, the algae can be concentrated to form eyespots; since these are visibly darker, they can also be used as visual signals. A central cluster serves as "brain-liver", sending and receiving information in the form of complex peptides; since this is relatively slow, a sarcodine will form secondary "brains" in the body part engaged in some activity. Cells can also link up to form pseudo-nerves that exchange electrical signals, but in general every part of a sarcodine body will be focused on its own activity, and it may take several minutes for the whole colony to unify into a new purpose.

Mating takes place as two or more sarcodines fuse their bodies, relaxing fully their gel matrix, allowing their respective cells to come into contact. Some of these fuse to form polyploid spores which will then divide and disperse in the environment.

Lifeways: Able to feed on anything organic but vulnerable to enemies with faster movement and reaction time, the sarcodines of the Delta often form associations with humans and other solid sophonts. While menial work and waste disposal have their place, the most striking contributions by sarcodines to art and industry rely on their chemical skills.

Despite their limited eyesight, the most important senses of sarcodines are contact-based, i.e. touch and taste. It is therefore natural that sarcodines especially like to interact with solid beings by sex. Since a major part of their communication is chemical, they relish in tasting the sweat, saliva, semen, or vaginal lube of other sophonts, sometimes storing them and sharing them among each other. Sarcodines might repay the favor by mixing proteins of their own secretion to offer otherwise impossible perfumes and flavors to their fellow sophonts.

The sarcodine body, of course, can form lubricated orifices and hydraulically stiffened appendages of arbitrary number and shape, as well as ad hoc sensory organs. The flow of liquids in the matrix can produce slow but powerful sucking and thrusting, and while hard erections are difficult (but not impossible, with sufficiently tight fibers and high pressure) a variety of teasing, licking, and fondling movements are possible. The ability of a sarcodine to generate complex structures and moving parts will increase with practice and motivation.

***

River, as its four-limbed friends had named it, was very happy with its project. First, applying suction with a careful use of pressure waves, River had managed to make Tall Salty-Skin squirt a good warm alkaline load deep in its matrix. Then, petting the right spot in her folds with a collection of small pseudopodia, it had gotten Short Sour-Skin to leak deliciously acidic fluid onto its membranes. At the same time, it had harvested a good collection of mineral salts from both of their skins. Now, a good chunk of River’s brain-liver was at work taking apart the collected liquids and mixing their components in new patterns, creating a fantastically complex flavor profile. Alas, neither Tall Salty-Skin not Short Sour-Skin would appreciate the result; although they both enjoyed licking the sugary sap that River could make from plants – directly from its ‘podium or from each others’ bodies – they lacked the equipment for its more complex creations. Other sarcodines would, though; River could make a good name for itself in the chemical art fairs.