u/gallium-cube

(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.

(original Tumblr post)

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.

---

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.