Vine people are a fine idea as long as they don't look like green humans.

You severely underestimate how hard it would be to make those.

Also having a race being focused on using the antithesis of the race would be like having a human society that focused on eating cyanide.

>>17107546
>having a race being focused on using the antithesis of the race
Technology isn't the antithesis of "plant".

>>17107557
This
>>17107546
Besides, vines are essentially expansionist parasites. It's not against their nature at all.

>>17107546
At first a silly idea but woe be on the Cyanirans when come to invade 10,000 years later and there is nothing but FUCK YOU still in the gene pool.

>>But it got me thinking, why COULDN'T there be a plant race that favored technology and industry?

No reason. One of my favorite characters was a wilden artificer who was a total fag for technology. Consider that in only a few years, technology has done so much that nature never could.

DM never caught on, either, and kept throwing ferngully scenarios at me thinking I'd go all captain planet. It was like Avatar in reverse; I was ditching this wild woods shit for real progress.

>>17107557
I hope you're not serious.

>>17107493

Those green dudes are boring.

>But it got me thinking, why COULDN'T there be a plant race that favored technology and industry?
Why can't there be beardless non-drunk Dwarfs? Why can't there be industrialized Elves? Or intelligent Orcs? Any race can be anything you want, don't let a bunch of bullshit cliches and tropes run your shit.

>>17107557
I think he's referring to the contrast between the natural world and the artificiality of technology.

>>17107584
I accidently killed a Dwarf via hypothermia when I shaved him in his sleep.

>>17107584
>beardless non-drunk Dwarfs? Why can't there be industrialized Elves? Or intelligent Orcs?
Any time I've mentioned these three things on /tg/ (and I have) there has been a good chunk of rage unleashed upon said threads, usually in the form of "THEN DON'T CALL THEM ELVES YOU FAGGOT".

This.. is perfect.
I'm brainstorming nonstandard races for an RP i'll be gming, because they're way more interesting.

I suppose it'd begin with sticks and stones, since all they'd have is the nature around them. Then they find a sharp stick or a sharp stone, they could use it to craft themselves a better or faster body. They'd need to be able to communicate with one another, so perhaps they're psionic/telepathic. If we want the vines to be individuals, then perhaps there's a little potato which is the 'brain' of the species. Although it seems to make sense to assume a certain reverence to the first of their species.

I think they would build themselves bodies that suited whatever they were doing best. They would have humanoid bodies for diplomats who communicated with humanoids. They would have perhaps a bear like body for hard labour. They'd see it as we see clothes.

>>17107588
Humans were part of the "natural" world. What makes you think a sentient plant wouldn't fuck it up just the same?

>>17107588
That's a made-up dilemma since technology is just the use of natural forces to create reliable cause-and-effect. Chimps use tools, termites build mounds, etc. That's technology.

>>17107588

THE CONTRAST ISN'T AS SHARP AS YOU'D THINK.

AFTER ALL, WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE BETWEEN "NATURE BEING NATURE" AND "TECHNOLOGY"?

IS AN ORANGUTAN USING A STICK TO FISH FOR ANTS AND PICK HIS NOSE "TECHNOLOGY"? IS AN BIRD USING STONES TO SMASH OPEN TURTLES? HELL, WHAT ABOUT ANTS WHO DOMESTICATE AND HARVEST OTHER INSECTS?

>>17107598
Uh no.

Just as an example. TES has all of those. The possibly smartest person in Skyrim is in fact an orc. What you've seen is something completely different but on a slightly related subject. I know the threads you're talking about and you don't even know what you're talking about, instead you spread broad generalizations.

>>17107546 Also having a race being focused on using the antithesis of the race

...actually, how is technology more antithetical to plant-people than it is to animal-people? I can't really think of a reason for flora to be more "nature-y" than fauna beyond "well, we're animals and we're not real nature-y so".

I mean if anything's antithetical to plants, it's consciousness itself, and if we're talking about plant-people then we've already crossed that bridge.

>>17107598
I've noticed that too, believe me I have. It's sad that so many people refuse to think outside the box.

>>17107612
There is a sci fi horror story about the last anaerobic bacteria being poisoned and aliens from space looking on in horror as this new.. aerobic menace rises.

Its name.. plant life (algae blooms, rise of the Oxygen atmosphere on Earth)

>>17107515
This

If you are going to have a race based on something as totally alien as a plant, at least play on that alien. Plants eat sunlight and dirt and react to damage by pulling all the nutrients out of the damaged limb and letting it drop off. This is not the type of shit that leads to the normal mammalian mindset,

>>17107617

WHAT ABOUT FIRE.

FIRE IS BAD FOR PLANTS

AND WHY CAPS LOCK.

That would be kind of cool, but the biggest problem would be how they made that final leap from being sentient vines with no skeletal structure to being able to build their own skeletons. I can't see how that works in nature but since they're already going to be embracing the artificial, why not make them an artificial race? Like they were trapped as relatively intelligent vines, and were then uplifted into a truly sentient form.
That could also work with the mask thing, maybe they try to pay homage to their creators with masks or by mimicking their forms.

>>17107617
Probably around the part where you stop being part of the environment. Just to point out something incredibly obvious.

As others have mentioned, vines are parasitic expansionists. It's entirely fitting that they would pursue advancement, even at the detriment of their local environment and fellow plants.

>>17107644
Fire is bad for animals too.

Bah, nature-loving plants, almost as bad as the stereotypical nature-loving hippy-dippy native american analogues everyone likes to use for the 'enlightened savage'.

Did some work on plantids a while back myself when I still had the creativity and energy to keep up with a forum RP: http://stararmy.com/wiki/doku.php?id=species:llranni

compare and contrast, what I've so far is a moderately industrious biomechanically inclined military dictatorship

>>17107644
Bullshit. Fire causes rapid and intense growth in many plants. Many plants have even evolved to require forest fires as part of their life cycle.

>>17107644
It's MR. RAGE. It's kinda his schtick to type like that.
He's pretty reasonable otherwise.

sage for off topic

>>17107649

THAT ISN'T A USEFUL DELINEATION. YOU'RE ALWAYS PART OF THE ENVIRONMENT, BY DEFINITION.

>>17107644

ACTUALLY FIRE WOULD BE A FANTASTIC THING FOR VINES TO HARNESS. BURN DOWN THE SHRUBBERY AND UNDERGROWTH THAT COMPETE WITH THEM, WAIT FOR THE RUSH OF GROWTH FROM YOUR NEWLY-FERTILIZED SOIL.

>>17107638

I LIKE YOU.

The Chozo in Metroid Prime manages to live alongside nature with their technology.

All of their buildings were made to accompany trees and animals without being harmful.

So yea, go for it OP.

>>17107681
Humans aren't. We made our own environments of stone and metal.

>>17107649

Bollocks. The idea that technology is somehow not part of the environment is shit.

What about bio tech. Right now there are companies looking at ways to 'grow' plastics, bacteria to produce fuels, create organic computer components that function better than 'artificial'. Your distinction is as meaningless as it absurd.

>>17107676
bioweapons abound

I like these little guys.

>ctrl+f
>"ork"
>0 results

laffingrotz.jpg

>>17107598
>usually in the form of "THEN DON'T CALL THEM ELVES YOU FAGGOT"
This thread is about a new race, not a reinvented old one. Feel free to get the fuck out if you're afraid of actually being creative and just have to substitute one stereotype for another.

>>17107695

TERMITES MAKE THEIR ENVIRONMENTS OUT OF DIRT AND VOMIT.

MOREOVER, OUR STEEL AND WOOD DON'T EXIST IN BUBBLES, WE'RE STILL INFORMED AND SHAPED BY THE PLANTS AND ANIMALS AND TERRAIN AROUND US, JUST LIKE AN ANIMAL IS.

>>17107598
The point of common stereotypes in gaming races is to differentiate them. If you diverge too far you are either using the name for something completely different or are falling into the trap of "Our Dwarves Are Different, Love Us!".

As for Intelligent Orcs, they're all over fantasy, it is not a defining trope.

>>17107714
>inb4 fungus=/=plant

>>17107677
>Plants have evolved many adaptations to cope with fire. In chaparral communities in Southern California, for example, some plants have leaves coated in flammable oils that encourage an intense fire. This heat causes their fire-activated seeds to germinate and the young plants can then capitalize on the lack of competition in a burnt landscape

You know these plant people are starting to sound like utter dickbags.

>>17107714

I don't think fungi is a plant. Or maybe it is, I'm not that smart.

>>17107711

Fuck those flowers.

>>17107720
>WE'RE STILL INFORMED AND SHAPED BY THE PLANTS AND ANIMALS AND TERRAIN AROUND US, JUST LIKE AN ANIMAL IS.
So basically you live in a cave in the forest and have never seen as much as a small town?

Go out and think about it one day. And leave your opinions behind before you do so. You'll see I'm right.

>>17107730
oi, orkz iz green n plantz iz green, ya git

>>17107685
Well, being vines, they probably don't give a shit about the other plants. They were already parasitic to begin with.

>>17107676
lastly, props to DA artist Nyki (I think that's the moniker she goes by) for the awesome commision of... several years ago

>>17107695
Oh, I didn't know stone and other building materials weren't found in nature. My bad.

>>17107742

WHEN THERE'S A CATTLE FARM IN ANTARCTICA AND A GUY GROWING EVERGREENS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SAHARA I'LL BACK DOWN. UNTIL THEN, WE'RE AS MUCH A PART OF OUR ENVIRONMENT AS ANYTHING ELSE.

>>17107729
Yes. Yes they would be.
If plants became sentient and if they stick with the behaviours that they already have and work like plants, they.. would be territorial. They would quite easily sacrifice others of their species. They would be very aggresive. Why wouldn't they be?

>>17107742

There's still plants and stuff in cities. Also there's plants surrounding cities.

>>17107742
I'm beginning to see your point, but you're being such a snooty cunt about it that I'm still gonna go with MR.RAGE.

>>17107729
OH GOD OH GOD OHGODOHGODOHGOD

>>17107756

>Implying steel is found in nature.

>>17107742
>So basically you live in a cave in the forest and have never seen as much as a small town?
oh my god are you fucking kidding me

yeah a small town is literally the same as like an environmental bubble, there's nothing like water quality or air quality or natural resources that affects life in a town because it's so fucking unnatural

>>17107546
>Also having a race being focused on using the antithesis of the race would be like having a human society that focused on eating cyanide.
It would be more like a human society that focused on using an element very dangerous to them - called fire.

Why not go the fungus/shroom route? Invasive mushroom releases spores that, when inhaled, grow in the tissue of organs, and as they grow, they connect with the victim's nervous system, and eventually the fungus takes control of the host. Some shrooms do this IRL, IIRC.

>>17107774

Isn't it found underground? People dig out the ore and then do stuff to make it useful.

>>17107774
It's just iron ore that's been subjected to specific processes. You might as well argue that water-powered mills are unnatural because NOTHING IN NATURE WOULD SPECIFICALLY CONNECT TWO GEARS TOGETHER

I'm so using this idea. Bump for continued conversation.

What if the plant people evolved from an opiate. The sort of plant that releases shit to knock out animals that pass it by so as they can feed on the corpse.

>>17107774
Oh right, I forgot the part where we get steel out of our asses.

>>17107748
Most vines are not parasites. They are epiphytes, which grow in another plant but don't damage it.
You are probably thinking of mistletoe, which IS a parasite that lays roots in the xylem and phloem of an existing plant, stealing its water and nutrients.

>>17107789
Because Fungus has been done. See: Myconids, and orks for a very different take on it.

Vines never got any love.

>>17107812
That's a good point.
I mean, even if they became only sapient, they need to have a self defense mechanism. How did they not get attacked and eaten? Although I suppose most predatory animals aren't equipped to eat plants and sticks.

Would these guys even tame predatory animals, so that they can use them against herbivores that would eat them?

>>17107770
>>17107729
>>17107766
Plants: Kind of assholes.

This thread tought me a lot about nature. Is there anything man created that didn't originate from nature?

>>17107789
There are some parasitic fungi that infect insects with some low-grade mind control so that they climb up high. After they're up high, the fungus grows and bursts out of the host's exoskeleton (usually its head) so that its spores carry further. Yes it is fucking horrifying.

How is their government going to work? Call me a liar but no one system can run only on conquest right?

>>17107789
>>17107812
>>17107729

May we never ever ever have the misfortune to meet plant peoples.

not entirely sure if this is related but the wraith from stargate atlantis grew all of their technology, and they had fucking spaceships

>>17107854

Mostly artificial chemical substances.

>>17107857
They'd probably be really aggressive communists (probably a lot like the soviets but actually closer to the actual ideals. Same sort of agressive expansionism though).

>>17107847
Since each individual is a series of vines, the self defense mechanism is being very fucking hard to kill completely, since all the vital "organs" are so spread out and have so many back ups.

>>17107854
>Is there anything man created that didn't originate from nature?
"Nature" is just a word for things that exist. So your question is, "is there anything that exists that doesn't exist"? It's like asking if mankind has made a new color not found in nature. We're fundamentally bound by the rules of reality, and "nature" is a term that inevitably represents those rules.

>>17107857
In theory it can, so long as there is more land to conquer. In reality such an empire will eventually reach its natural boundaries due to other competition and natural barriers, at which point it will begin to collapse under its own weight (e.g. Rome).

>>17107789
>Some shrooms do this IRL, IIRC.
You're mostly right. Cordyceps are fungi that infect the brain of their host, forcing it to make choices detrimental to the host but beneficial to the cordyceps. They don't grow mushrooms, though.
Now here's the fun part: each species of codyceps is evolved to infect a specific species of host. They're like evil Orchids.

> But it got me thinking, why COULDN'T there be a plant race that favored technology and industry?

There has been, OP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DIo2wGcFyE

It was fucking amazing.

>>17107895
>It's like asking if mankind has made a new color not found in nature.
The color used for Green Screens has never been found to occur naturally, that's why the movie industry uses it.

>>17107907
Still, it's a good base for a plant-like species. Different subspecies depending on what they infect etc would make it a very unique race. Whilst it's true that shrooms have been done before, the whole invasive dealio hasn't.

For a potential explanation for the vines developing a need for building bodies:

This plant species evolved in an environment/world of constant change. Like earthquakes, rockslides, thunderstorms, etc. on a weekly/monthly basis. To thrive, plants had three options: become incredibly strong so as to withstand those forces, spawn incredible amounts of seeds/saplings and have rather short lives (very short lives), or become mobile/adaptive.

The plants became mobile as a response to signs of incoming destructive weather. Kind of like how sunflowers will follow the sun. Except in reverse. As generations passed, the vines somehow grew a limited sentience so that they could respond faster and in more creative manners, and from there, tool use and true sentience.

From this, one could conclude that they have developed rather keen senses (pertaining to weather and the ability to locate nutrients), and probably have a history of being hunter-gatherers/nomads.

>>17107854
no

I'd much rather have a race of sentiant plant zombies.

What if the plants don't make the leap to artificial endoskeletons for a while?

(4chan is not letting me post the whole message for some reason, tbc)

>>17107644
You're new here, aren't you?

Also, a sapient race with the ability to develop technology will develop technology. I don't care what they're made of or what they eat. This just makes sense. Especially for vines.

>>17107948
For a few millenia they are stuck in some vast forest, but one edge of the civilization finds evidence of another forest. The problem is that the new forest is too far to reach by conventional means. This creates a reason to research mobility.

>>17107908

I like this guy. He has a pretty voice.

>>17107897
True but have you seen what happens to a garden when it gets left for a few years. It doesn't just stop, if it can't go outwards it goes inwards, grows into an impenetrable density, and at the same time, relentlessly attempting to blanket the other gardens around it.

Plants don't understand the idea of "stop" they feed off of sunlight and rain water and as long as those two things are around they have all the resource they could possibly ask for.

>>17107928
That's a very specific hue, that's not the same as like Octarine or whatever.

>>17107958
That is certainly reasonable and a good motivation. After all, nothing said they had to think up the idea immediately or in a vacuum.

>>17107928

No, like the eight color. One which isn't red, yellow, orange, green, blue, violet, black, brown or white, or some mixture/shade. An entirely new color, like octarine..

>>17107960

>he

>>17107765
Ever heard of greenhouses? Both of those are possible (and in cases even used sparingly). But its impractical and costs a lot. So besides the few cases where we do shape environments that drastically its not very impressive.

People simply deem it more cost effective to do otherwise.

>>17107979
>>17107968
>octarinemind

>>17107928
thats just a different tone of green. green is a very natural colour. and the pigments used to make a green screen are found in nature.

>>17107855
Cordyceps!
I thought up an AFMBE campaign based around Cordyceps zombies, never got around to statting it up though.

>>17107930
The Flood

>>17107928
no, the green or blue screen is used because its very different from human skin tones.

>>17108010
The Flood isn't a plant, though. And... do they have a will? I thought they were just a mindless horde of hivemind alien things.

>>17107970
Finding reasons for tech will affect functionality of the tech and the way it looks.

It's likely that the gantrys/endos for this race are very light since they are made for travelling great distances. The earliest ones may be designed for a one way trip.

This may also be the start of trade for the race, as the endo-endowed explore and find new ways to grow (or enhance growing).

This may also lead to a philosophical divide between stationary plants and their endo counterparts.

Here's one plant fact I don't think anyone mentioned. Certain plant species can release compounds known as allelochemicals, which inhibit the germination and growth of other plants.
In other words, plants use a scorched-earth policy against each other.

>>17108021
>mindless
>hivemind

go think about what you just said

Hm. Would they have genders? How do they procreate?

>>17108047
Most plants have both "male" and "female" gametes, and a good number can self-fertilize, though this of course does nothing to improve the gene pool.

>>17108047
Some have genders. Others have both. Depends on the plant.

>>17108028
OOH!

The endo-endowed may not tell other races that their brethren are immobile. The reason for this is security, or it may just not occur to them.

Other races may become paranoid that any vine/plant may be sentient and spying on them.

>>17108047
depends, some plant species have individual genders, others are hermaphrodites and some are genderless.

>>17108047

You could take something out of M:tG's treefolk / D&D warforged and say that they don't naturally have gender as most humanoids understand it.

I mean, a naturally occuring count-as warforged would be an interesting design.

>>17108047
I think this is as good a time as any to post this.

>>17108062

>>17108042
Hyperbole. Still, the question remains: The Flood are fauna, right?

>>17107967
Yes, but it will reach a barrier of some sort. Freezing mountains, oceans, a river made of fire if we're in fantasytown. They would be able to overwhelm any other sapient competition though, unless there is magic, in which case rivers of fire, rivers of fire everywhere.

>>17108106

do they move around and not use light as a primary power source?

An expansionist race of pod people. Their idea of co-operation with other races is to grow into their brains and use them as fuel or locomotion. The only resource they need to relentlessly batter the defenses of the peoples around them is sunlight, rain and dirt. If you burn down their jungles/forest/biomass or cut them down they simply come back quicker and in higher numbers thanks to the fact that you just added a shit load of nutrient to their soil... oh yeah... and the only driving force behind their species is that they are seeking to blanketing the entire world under a sea of greenery... because fuck you guys.... we want sunlight.... ALL OF IT

My god. They are the harbingers of the fucking green apocalypse

>>17107765
Actually Hydroponics may have solved that one.

I was going to use dragons and reptilian races as my in-the-shadows inhuman 'bad' guys, but I think I'm going to swap to plants now.

Give my players one hell of a freakout when they figure that torching the place helps the plants grow even more.

>>17108106
I think they are fungi. They use spores so they're definitely not fauna.

>>17108135
>>17108135
Doesn't necessarily have to be this way.
If we are going for a race of sentient vines, we could have each "individual" be a legion of vines, who are bred from a single sentient vine that acts as the being's core or brain. The non-sentient vines an no longer breed themselves; they have been designed (tech/science) to simply act as a part of the core. The core could simply bud more of these vines if needed, though it will take time. The non-sentient vines, in this way, would be expendable; only the core would need to live.
As a drawback, these creatures must have a specialized form of sustenance (obviously created by their society) that will allow them to generate dying vines, maintain high-speed coherency in their "body", etc.. Without it, their actions would slow to that of a normal plant.

This would help balance it for a setting, and is in fact what I'm doing with my plant species in my homebrew.

Why do the vine people have to have artificial skeletons? Why can't they grow pieces of themselves in different densities to mimic muscle and tendons and take over skeletons of corpses that hey come across or ensnare?

>>17108240
Doesn't bone become brittle or something over time? In any case, an artificial metal skeleton might support all that weight without breaking so easily.

>>17108240

because OP cannot into plant zombies.

While still at a primitive level of tech, would they use actual skeletons?
Now I'm thinking some kind of reverse Grim Fandango.

>>17108114
> in which case rivers of fire, rivers of fire everywhere.

>>17108260
Seems like a good idea to me.
And it is another good drawback from an RPG standpoint; they can be damaged by damaging the skeleton itself, and if a plant PC has its skeleton snapped but manages to live through the encounter, they can take the bones of a fallen enemy.

>>17108251
Wouldn't the need for a replacement skeleton every few years be great motivation to have these vines constantly wandering and expanding and whatnot? Plus it allows for more aggressive or desperate vines that don't want to or simply cannot wait for a new corpse to become available and as such turn to killing fauna for their bones.

>>17108300

why not use rock, roots, and twigs?

>>17108302
That would obviously be a start. But why assemble a makeshift skeleton from flimsy materials every time when you could find a dead bear and become a powerful monstrosity?

>>17108302
Less ghoulish, no defined structure, doesn't provide any social inertia as they advance in tech and gain acceptance with other races.

>>17108302
Why not both?
Steal the skeletal structure of a wolf, and grab thin pieces of slate to give a protective covering. Having the ability to simply drop whatever body you're using and make a new one is incredibly useful.

>>17108308

because bones and other biologicial stuff has a short dead half-life?

I mean, carcasses get eated up quick.

For me (and my semi-OCD need to categorize things "properly", which really just means the way I like to) the question is motility. Don't get me wrong, Brian Aldiss' Hothouse is an awesome book -- if you are enjoying this thread and haven't read it, READ IT RIGHT FUCKING NOW -- but what aspects of vegetation would a sapient species need to keep to still fit within the Plant Kingdom, in a scifi or fantasy context at least?

>>17108302
Could be seen as semi-incestuous, and shunned in their culture.

>>17108345
Hahaha that's so silly it's awesome.

>>17108327
But it provides you with nutrients. A structure means you're hardier. You emulate what already exists to quickly (because the ability to adapt quicker will make them survive better) gain some of their traits. You could grow into it or just grow better defined muscles yourself, but it takes way too long.

>>17108327
Bones are the last thing to go, and that is what you need.
The other bits are simply food.

Though yes, picking random shit up is not the best option. Which is why they built their skeletons.

>>17108364

At the same time, though, if a clever mind were building an organic housing to trundle it's central tissues around, an endoskeletal biped hanging all of its bits off a single, anterior spine is just fuckin' stoopid design.

>>17108424
Which is why it's just a temporary measure.
Culturally, they build themselves a new skeleton out of rocks and/or metals.

I can see one of these getting into plate armor and scooping soil into the boots.

>>17108476
Which is why they are exceptionally dangerous. Platemail can be built into a skeleton. And that is fucking scary.

>>17108476
They wouldn't really need to scoop soil into the boots. I mean, they could wrap their roots around the boots, so that when they step on a puddle, they get some water.

This may lead to the plate armor dipping its feet in lakes, laying back and letting the leaves absorb the sunlight.

>>17107839
>Vines never got any love.

you should swing by /d/ and i think you'll find otherwise

I wish I had a tablet so I could try doing up some concept artwork.

I also want to try playing this race as well. One question which should be addressed is how do they communicate?

>>17108403

They're plants, they'd probably develop a chemical protection against that sort of insect and bacteria as an adaptation of their former defenses. In fact, your age in a given form would be due to how well you use this chemical. Given the plants would be technically immortal, I'd say that your age in your current body is what determines your respect, and that each time you are decorporated and forced to find another, you effectively start over. Unincorporated plants are effectively the children of the race, and protected while they search for an appropriate thing to build them on. It takes years to fully develop your use of a new incoporated form, and the test for when you finally reach adulthood is participating in some kind of ritual combat, proving that you have the mastery of your form to be self-sufficient.

Social status would probably revolve around a combination of age and your structural components. Age determines your rank within a caste, but what you are made of puts you there. Sticks and such would be social outcasts, seen as an untouchable caste that does only the worst jobs. You just aren't allowed to use wood, and those who do have no respect, regardless of their ability. Then you'd have the Stones, who build themselves on rock. Because of its fragility, you can't build full-length structures, and have to make do with very complex floppy structures built around pebbles and rocks. The Stones have little strength, because there's not much to bring leverage against. They are also prone to limb loss and decorporation. They are the peasantry of the society, with neither the long life to master the physical skills of a professions nor the physical strength to take on soldiery or hunting.

The Beasts have strength and toughness, suitable for good physical labour, but without complex hand structures have trouble with fine tasks. They are the working class, and perform physical labour and serve as the men of the military. Special status is afforded to those who find particularly effective skeletons, getting higher order positions. Those with the extreme good fortune to find dragon bones become the Dragon Guard, who protect the nobility of the species, due to being phenomenally strong and almost impossible to decorporate. The Men are determined by those who had the good fortune to incorporate a skeleton with at least one hand. Being plants, all these animals tend to look a little alike, so as far as they are concerned, having useful hands as in opposable thumbs makes you a man. These are the middle class professionals and upper class, for their ability to do fine labour and wield weapons at a higher order. The more man-like you are, the higher a rank you hold, because of your ability to use and adapt their technology to suit your purposes. Mixing skeletons is considered a grave offense. You find one and you use it, and you don't fuck about assembling it or it's the moral equivalent of necromancy. There's also ones who make themselves of metal, using 'bones' forged by men. They are considered to be extremely dangerous, because of their resilience, and completely unnatural, because theiur crime is well beyond making your own skeleton, but making your own bones. That their bones bend and stay bent is the sign of their evil, and that they rust and seep out the essence of their corporation is the sign of their corruption. They are treated not unlike vampires.

>>17108647
Entirely depends on whether you want the alien nature to be prominent or you want something relatable.
If you want something that allows them to talk to humans. telepathy. If not, scent and pheromones.

>>17108647
Sign languages, flowers, rustling, shaking seed pods like a rattle snake ... telepathy?

Another line of questioning - are they evergreen? Do they have leaves? Can they be suffocated or tortured by prolonged lack of sunlight?

>>17108709
It's not suffocated, more starved.

>>17108709
>>17108647
Thin vines could be used as vocal cords, alternatively, telepathy, sign language, etc..

Above I mentioned they slowed without the proper sustenance. This could be the catch-all penalty for lack of sunlight, water, etc. Then death of course.

>>17108667

Sounds like that's going away from the original idea proposed by OP. Using something like armor would be glorious progress. As would any sort of constructed skeleton.

>>17108739
You know what I mean ... and the rest of it was more interesting to answer, imo.

Bump

There's a part in some Brandon Sandersons Mistborn books where it goes over the idea of making and having an endoskeleton

Instead of plants, the race are like blobs, that work as spies, assassins, etc and they usually take the bones of someone that has been killed, eat the flesh and such, for nutrients and shape themselves out of the bones.
In the society, the old members of the race would take bones, shaped jewels and be leaders, guards would take stone and metal and try to be shaped as human as possible. The younger generations would use wood, animals parts and really anything and would add extra arms and other parts.

>>17108745
They need a way to push air past their vocal cords, in that case.
Gene Wolfe had a race of tongueless telepathic humanoids, iirc - they used background noise, twisting other's perception of it into understandable speech. Their cities were mostly filled with streams, or by the sea. Few quiet areas, and almost no silent places.

>>17108830
Pushing air past them is easy.
Simply make a an airtight sac of tightly pressed vines.

The plant person revolution began with the invention of the sunlamp. Soon, no place was beyond their reach!

>>17108830
for vineborns or vineforgeds, could they generate sound by twanging certain parts of their skeletons? So perhaps those with metal in their bodies would twang them like finger pianos or something.

I also think that a caste system based on materials used in their skeletons to be somewhat inhibiting progress. Sure you could have such a caste system, but they'd be a piece of the race's history, if we're talking about spacefaring-level tech.
Now that I think of it, their ships would probably be their bodies, some kind of living bivouac of sorts that also carry their own ecosystem.

>>17108925
Oh man, I wasn't even thinking of a Sci-Fi setting.

>>17108925
>>17108949

We must make variants for different settings!

Let's finish up fantasy here first.

>>17109109
Well, for fantasy, they could make for an insular society, because they're hard to understand by the other races.
I'd say that the vinefolk don't yet know how to forge metals, since the high temperatures of a forge would scare them. So the metals they have would have been traded or scavenged from other races.

>>17109147

Plant-kin have no more reason to be afraid of fire than humans. Living plant is actually kind of hard to catch fire. Dry, dead plant matter burns well, but living plant is full of water. Humans burn too, you know.

>>17109165
hmm, then vinefolk blacksmiths are possible, then. The blacksmiths would probably look a bit cactus-like, with thick water-filled vines and water-proof skin, constantly swapping manipulator vines if one gets too hot. There's a big chance that a bucket of water is nearby, for the blacksmith to dip their overheated vines and recuperate.

So, I want to mention grafting plants together. I say this because of >>17107812 and because of hibiscus (wherein grafting flowers about willy-nilly is how you make a pretty bouquet on one plant). So, why wouldn't they, as soon as these vine-people picked up a sharp obsidian flint, start grafting on whatever would do what they want? Why would they view their skeleton as any different from that?

>>17109206

Not really, that would mean they are a different species then the rest of the vinefolk.

>>17109224
Not if we go with the core idea I keep talking about. Then the type of "Body" Vines are variable and fair game.

Anyone remember the "vegepygmies" from D&D? They were alien plant-thingies that infected other life-forms and converted them to more vegepygmies. Olive Slime was a planty ooze that changed fauna (including humanoids) into slimy plant-zombies. The yellow musk creeper was a vine that made over humanoids into vegetal zombies. Then there's the Aartuk, warmongering star-shaped plant-aliens in Spelljammer who infect creatures with a virus in order to reproduce.

>>17109256

...forgot pic...

Vegepygmies...

The Vinlander is a strange sight. Upon first contact one assumes they have entered a busy industrial town with hundreds of people busy in their daily tasks. But closer inspection shows the Vinlander to be comprised of tightly coiled cellulose fiber mesh about any number of harder materials such as bone, wood, stone, or, in more mineral rich areas, metals. But even more unusual is that several of these figures are often bound together by thick chords. In fact, the vinlander often is composed of several "mannequins" which each function as an individual. The main intelligence of the being is often housed within one of it's shells or possibly some distance away where it can feed and adsorb nutrients quietly while it's attention is focused elsewhere.

As these mannequins grow and develop they eventually gain more and more mass until they develop their own "heartwood cores". These cores, small woody growths of concentric rings, are inscribed with the memory of the Vinlander in a manner only it can understand. When the memory of a single mannequin becomes long enough, it may bud off and become an individual of its own.

A Mannequin may be released for one of many reasons. The first is active procreation. Mannequins are sent to spread their seeds far and wide so new communities might spring up. Free mobility aids this greatly. The second reason is to harvest resources or to carry commerce to other Vinlander city centers for trade and production since the original host plant is rooted in place and all of the mannequins must remain within it's manifold until old enough to germinate. Finally, they may also be sent to to raid, make war upon, or establish relations with, or gain knowledge from other sentient races.

Although a Vinlander Mannequin originally contains all the memories of it's parent plant, from the moment it becomes separated it records only its own experiences.

>>17109224
Why not go with:
>>17109221
So, instead of different breeds, they cultivate convenient graft-lines of planty manipulators. So, they could graft on dexterous and nimble vines to sew leather armor, then graft on stocky cactus-like limbs to work in the forges, then assemble their new iron-shot leather armor.

>>17109354
I picture these guys as something like The-Worm-That-Walks colorshifted to green.

>>17109354
Fascinating. That would also give them a racial memory of sorts. A given line of them could remember shit that happened thousands of years ago.

>>17109497
That's pretty neat. I wonder if each Child of the Vine has a memory stretching back to the first Vine crawling from the Womb of the World. Maybe they don't know where this ancient paradise even is anymore. Maybe it's as much legend as memory now. But each remembers the sacred ground. No matter how industrialized their world becomes, they always keep at least one single garden as tribute to their origin. Akin to a statue immortalizing an ancestor, they grow a lush garden and tend to it rigorously even as the city grows and engulfs it completely. It is the heart of the city. The font of life. The cornerstone where the first seed of progress sprung up from the earth.

Of course plants would embrace technology.

Imagine a group of plant light junkies, going to shady bars and shit where they pay high dollar to sit under huge fucking sun lamps at midnight.

OH YEAH GURL
FEELS SO GOOD AROUND MY CHLOROPHYLL GIRRLL

>>17109760
Speaking about drugs... what about those Vinefolks which grafts ganja as a manipulator arm? Would they be irritated at the druggies constantly trying to rip leaves off them?

>>17109760

I think that'd be more like fertilizers. Sunlamps are for those who have to work in places with little light.

>>17109635
I applaud this idea. It provides them with an interesting cultural practice with a firm grounding for why it occurs.

Someone needs to archive this.

>>17109814
Similarly, Flowers (and Leaves) would be seen as precious as jewels, particularly ones from different distant regions and climates or that bloom during other seasons than the current one.

Society for them perhaps arose from the need for those bearing offspring to LITERALLY take root. Perhaps their ancient society was nomadic with an biennial seasonal tribal village period. Eventually enough gathered together into one tribe that they could sustain themselves indefinitely and civilization bloomed.

>>17107897
I'm thinking maybe something like how the Inka work
The Inka has a habit of conquering by giving people gifts. An Inka force would arrived in your valley, you'd gear up to fight them, and the Inka leader would go "No no, we dont want to fight you. Here, have these riches as a tribute, and we have some suggestions for improving your farming output, and here are some new weaving techniques, we'll show you how they work. Oh and we just want to build an embassy here on this marginal bit of land."
Before too long, the Inka embassy is running the show. and by that point the Inka have the good feelings of the populace and have moved in more forces piecemeal, so if the old rulers want to fight then the Inka just go "That's fine - see our army is here now and your populace would rebel. We could do that. However, we have an alternate proposal! Become nobles in our empire, do whetever the fuck we tell you to, and we wont kill you and all your children."

Vines ARE self aware.

A man planted a vine in a field 30 ft away from a wooden post. As soon as it bloomed it headed for the post. Every few days the man would move the post until the vine had zigzagged across the field.

>>17109962
If you think that implies self-awareness, then I've grave concerns about your self-awareness.

Many plants are capable move movement and have some sensory capability, it just works quite differently (and generally much more slowly) than in animals. Many flowers will rotate to continually face the sun, for example.

>>17109962
thats not self awareness. thats no more intelligent that those light following robots you can build for like $20

we need to archive this thread.

One issue I'm noticing might be diet. For one thing, plants photosynthesize. There isn't a huge incentive to develop motility.

That being said if you do have motile plants, they'll need to intake nitrogen and mineral elements in some way, as well as water, since traditional root structures won't work so well.

>>17110029
>>17110019
that is FUCKING AMAZING, and those robots are FUCKING AMAZING, and you people are too hard to impress

>>17110053
It is amazing! It just has jack shit to do with self-awareness.

>>17110029
>>17110019
>>17109962
Plants make use of certain senses more heavily than we do since they lack our most potent one (sight). However, pressure differentials (their form of 'touch') and sunlight exposure (very rudimentary 'sight') tell the plant a LOT about it's surroundings and allow it to adjust accordingly to maximize its survival.

>>17110039
>>17109856
Do it yourself. Go to sup/tg/.

>>17110041
they gather clumps of earth in a special 'gourd' which is the replacement root analogue.
essentially it's their stomach, and if it's destroyed, the vinefolk must take root for a while until their resource gourd is re-grown.
Thus, the phrase 'you're just a big resource gourd' can be equated to calling someone a couch potato AND a vegetable.

>>17110072

Couldn't think of a worthy title.

>>17110134
Just title it 'Something I heard on the Vine'.

>>17110104

I think it should be something carried rather than grown. Originally could have been a large harvested gourd filled with soil (or similar) and rooted in.
See what I said about soil in boots earlier.
>>17108476

Don't you just hate when race = culture?

>>17110196
Yes... but if you choose to have multiple races in a setting, you're usually forced to either have race equal culture, or have the various cultures be multi-racial. Since coming up with many cultures for each of many races is a lot of work.

>>17110196
>>17110214
the easiest way to do it is just stick the plantmen/orks/elves wherever you want them indiscriminately, as culture will allow for it.

>>17110196
but this thread has worked on developing culture that, ha, stems from the traits of the race. It's not just coming up with a race and calling that the culture.

>>17110214
>>17110196
Hmmmm.... but I could see some different cultures for the vinefolk. There's the possibility that some embraced the fire as a way of life; being an expansionist and oppressive culture, maybe with some sort of caste system. Then there could be the ones that have embraced their roots more, and sought to cultivate and farm animals and plants, and being more pacifistic; and then there's the 'why not take both' culture, industrialists yet ecologically aware.

>>17110220
Alternately, choose the races' geographical locations, then come up with the dominant hegemonies for each race or region, and said hegemonies' culture, then at the borders of these hegemonies, make cultures that are a mix of both, then at the borders of the subcultures make more mixes, until you have a lot of gradated cultures. Then just add a few tweaks and quirks here and there based on the constructed history.

A lot of them in any given region will be very similar, yes, but that's pretty realistic.

>>17110232
honestly, cultures in my game tend to boil down to:

Expansionist empires

stagnant empires with some incredible defensive advantage, usually ancestral

Tribes that haven't been contacted by civilization yet

and the holdings of the oldest wizards, which can get quite expansive.

>>17110196
It's important to understand how their culture probably started out. Of course, it would be influenced by interactions with other races and so forth as well. This is basically the baseline if they developed in a vacuum.

>This thread

>>17110240
Needs more naval powers (or aerial, if your setting has commercial airship tech) that survive around through trade and wealth. Also needs more smaller kingdoms, often warring and shifting alliances. Will add more interest to the world.

>>17110240
Hmm, come to think of it, how many culture archetypes are there?
-expansionist
-pacifist
-traders
-tribal
-industrialist
-magic-oriented
-nomadic

bump bump must bump nao

>>17110240

They were determined to be expansionist early on in the thread, like the 5th post or so.

aaaand archived. Forgive the cheesy title. Upvote if you like it.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/17107493

Technology vs Nature is a bunch of romanticist twaddle for people too stupid to understand technical and scientific arguments made by ecologists. Plant people would be pissed off at miners not because industry bad, but because they get nitrogen and trace elements from the soil and soil bacteria, and miners often leave tailings heaps which don't easily support life and pools laced with cyanide or heavy metals, similarly bad for living things (especially eukaryotes which includes all multicellular life). Factories are bad only if they cause acid rain which would cause soil acidity, and those which follow proper environmental regulations wouldn't fase plant folk. Hell, I bet they'd be overjoyed that we can now produce synthetic fertilizers.

This entire thread has been about vine people and NO ONE remembers about the Hat'Kal?

This is with armor...

>>17111713
...this is without armor.

bump

Why am i thinking of these sacrificing their seeds to the Gods for boons of high nitrogen fertilizers

From earlier in the thread, I'd picture them practicing clear cutting or slash and burn, eliminating other foliage, and then setting up communities. Rinse, repeat. Now I see frequent wars with elves.

>>17112940
And humans. We kind of like having farmland and fields for our livestock.

>>17112940
How would elves handle such a confliction?
>The Gods entrusted us with the preservation of this wood. Must protect nature...
>But they are nature. Do we protect nature from itself? Isn't that just the nature of the wild?
>But they seek to alter nature to suit their whims. Does this make them less in-touch with nature?
>But what if it doesn't? Does this mean there is no difference between nature and the man?

>>17112959
I don't think elves really apply. The whole "elves looking after nature" thing is not meant to be taken literally. It's symbolic. Elves are supposed to be a noble and intelligent race. This portrayal is manifested in the specific example of caring for something that cannot care for itself.

In other words, Elves protect nature not because nature is nature, but because nature cannot care for/protect itself.
Once nature becomes sentient, and aggressive about expanding, it no longer fulfills the role that the Elves exist to protect.

Or, to put it simply, they wouldn't give a fuck about sentient plants because in gaining sentience, the plants sacrifice the innocence that the Elves exist to protect. So if this plant race comes in and starts slashan and burnan the forest, the elves would fight them like they would fight anything that tries to destroy that which cannot defend itself.

TL:DR elves are a metaphor for protecting the innocent. Sentience is the loss of innocence, therefore elven principle no longer applies.

>>17112959
These Wood Elves should ride Philosoraptors.

>>17110184
>'Something I heard on the Vine'.

>HEY GUYS, WHAT IF PLANT-PEOPLE LOVED TECHNOLOGY INSTEAD OF NATURE?

212 posts, 31 images omitted.

I freaking love /tg/

Been thinking of a -little- crunch to compliment this fluff in a DnD rule-set. I'd think that a small frame would be stronger due to more packed vines than a large with spaced out vines (Flip for dex), and medium in between. Also bonuses to grappling and can counter-grapple. Imagine getting someone pinned, only to have vines burst out of their helmet and end up tangling you up instead.

>>17115252
As deadly as an assassin vine and probably related.

>>17113647
Its a bit late to uproot the title now, isn't it?

Yaz

All I know is that for Guild Wars 2 all of my characters last names are going to be the textbook definition of various plant based drugs

Thank you /tg/, I was wondering what to do with a large unexplored area of this continent I have, and now I know what to do with it. Not saying much because my players are also on /tg/ (though I doubt they'll ever go there), but vine people with varying levels of intelligence/strength depending on the form they took are certainly going to be added.

Also, bump

>make a plant race
>make them biologically asexual
>still make them be able to be romantically involved
why would they do that
no, i mean, yeah, they made that race so they can cater to all the horny teenagers who want to play lesbians but to avoid causing a moral panic by having the video game promote homosexuality (its basically gw2's version of asari), but the entire concept is freaking absurd

>>17123733
Where is this?

Still here?