The Lost Land setting Update - From whence they came? The future...

 Hello again,

As you may know, I have been working on my prehistoric-media pastiche-style fictional setting recently, adding new creatures and whatnot. 

The list of constituent fauna-and-flora can be found here:
https://www.deviantart.com/boverisuchus/art/My-Prehistoric-Setting-884965025

And the more-speculative, fictional creatures inhabiting this setting, can be found in this previous post:
https://tdmimages.blogspot.com/2022/11/prehistoric-media-pastiche-contemporary.html

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And just now I came to a decision to add another dimension to it. Seeing as this is a pocket-universe-style earth-like planet, where time-rifts import various creatures and even aliens, that gave me an idea. What if far-future humans, and some of their associated fauna-and-livestock managed to colonize and visit an area of this world? So I decided to add a few creatures to the setting that bear this idea out.

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Some groups of technologically-and-intellectually advanced humans managed to carefully curate and modify their evolutionary development via eugenics and gene editing. During this time, these Homo novis are advanced enough to traverse the stars, and travel through time, before finding the Lost Land and setting up a research-colony there. These new-humans also are on agreeable standing with the alien race that also has a foothold in the lost land.

The portal that allowed the Homo novis into the lost land also admitted some kinds of contemporary fauna, such as this large, flightless parrot. They are about as smart as Homo sapiens, possessing culture, tools and linguistic skills that allow them to speak human languages. However, they do not form a true civilization like humans, and live a subsistence-based life.

The Homo novis had created a subservient race experimentally via GMO and transgenics. These folk were hybrids of human and pig DNA, and were commonly used as a workforce, and as organ farms for surgery. Upon finding the lost-land, vagrant slums of these folk have established a tribal existence here.

A voracious predator of the age of Homo novis is this panther-like predatory rat, capable of growing to over 100 kilograms. Having huge sharp killing incisors and keen senses, it soon establishes itself in certain parts of the lost land among other predators.

Another one based on Dixonian stereotypes for future fauna, a voracious nocturnal predator. This is a ground-walking bat that is flightless and lacks wing-membranes. It uses both sight and echolocation to navigate and find prey, it is similar in weight to a medium-sized dog.

 

The history leading up to the age of Homo novis was not all smooth sailing. While Homo novis endlessly bettered their intelligence, genes and technology, in the tropics of their world, humans living a subsistence existence without money or technology were a byproduct of emerging inequality.

By the time we see the contemporary Homo novis age, a vaguely ape-like, less-than-sapient species of mankind has arisen in the tropics of their continental Asia. This animalistic species is adapted much like a monkey or gibbon, with reduced thumbs and gripping fingers, which had fortuitously mutated into a split, opposable hand. They live much like gibbons or apes, consuming fruit, insects and other high-nutrient forage in the treetops.

When Homo novis colonized the Lost Land, they saw fit to bring their animalistic kin, in an attempt to stave off their extinction. After this, a fair-sized population exists in part of the lost land.

 

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This left me with one final question for this setting, what of Dixon-style far-future creatures? Perhaps a portal to such a distant far-flung future-time opened in one part of the Lost Land. I only found one or two tropes for this, both perpetuated by Dougal Dixon and others, and I mixed it in with some ideas based on natural-horror-film style hybrid monsters and beasts.

 

We can assume these creatures are from very far in the future of earth, multiple hundreds of millions of years, 550-million years? The earth is a rarefied place that hosts a fauna consisting of animals that stay close to the shrinking water-bodies and coasts, as more and more water is lost to space and to the now giant waning sun.

 

The apex predator of the ocean is this shark-descendant, loosely based on the Sharktopus and Squark. Reaching about 8 meters long, it feeds on large marine crustaceans and hardy armored bony-fish. Its forefin-rays have developed into gripping tentacles with which it forages for food, and seizes prey.

 

A common hawking flighted-predator of the coasts is this osteichthian, a kind of air-breathing fish with powered flight. It is based loosely on the Flish and the Pterocuda. With a wingspan reaching up to 3 meters, it is a powerful flier and will easily snatch prey from the water.

This is a giant eel-shaped osteicthian, dwelling in coastal estuaries and swamps, it is loosely based on the Pirranhaconda. Reaching up to 7 meters long with an exceedingly flexible body, and protrusile razor-toothed jaws, it is a formidable predator of amphibious and aquatic prey in its home timeline.

This is a giant, burrowing squamate which is one of the few large land predators at this time, reaching about 3.5 meters long at maximum. Made to resemble a Graboid, It lurks in dirt and loose sand, lying in wait to ambush terrestrial prey, such as vertebrates and crustaceans. Its primary sense is touch, the face is covered in mechanoreceptors which alert it to potential prey's movement. It is predominately cold-blooded, and can enter a state of reduced metabolic activity if prey is scarce.

This odd coastal creature is descended from cuttlefish, and is based on the trope of land-squid living in the future. Reliant on salty water in order to osmoregulate, it will coat its body in a waxy substance in order to prevent poisoning from sources of sweet-water such as rain or mist. A wandering social creature, commonly found on the vegetated shores of estuaries, as well as coastal areas, it approaches some primates in intelligence, and in its home timeline feeds mainly on terrestrial crustaceans. It has developed shelled eggs that nevertheless must be laid in water, but are resistant to the elevated salt-levels in the waters of its home timeline.

One thing to bear in mind about these creatures, is that their Lost Land populations are centered in one coastal region, centered around the intermittent portal that reaches their home timeline. Due to the rarefied nature of their habitat, and their specialized physiology, they do not always compete successfully with organisms that have inhabited the Lost Land historically.

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So that is my penultimate addition to my "Lost Land" prehistoric-pastiche setting, I hope you enjoy it.

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