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Description
2.1-2.3M|100-140KG|O2->CO2|300-310K|0.4G|200-400ESY|ARBOREAL

Elvish anatomy is laid out according to dominant-branch axial symmetry, a body plan which no Earth creatures share. In this symmetry, a creature consists of a number of sections branching out radially from a central point, with one branch being distinct from the others, and the digestive system running from the organism’s center to the terminus of the distinct branch. By this symmetry, the elves are composed of 4 to 7 arms, with the distinct member being the head. In turn, the head branches into 3 to 8 brain/eye/ear/lung lobes, with a distinct mouth branch. The mouth branches into 2-9 chewing jaws and a distinct tongue, and the arms branch into 3-8 fingers, with a distinct thumb. Race, family, and birth defects all effect the number of branches at each point, and every non-dominant branch can regrow from injury.

They are remarkably humanoid in their reproductive methods, being sexually diamorphic, giving live birth, and nursing their young. Only difference being that their milk glands are located inside their wombs, which expand after birth to form a pouch. Children are born with a set of armored petals, to protect them from long falls before they’re strong enough to climb trees on their own.

The elvish languages are almost completely visual, as their book lungs don’t push air through their throats to make noise. They instead communicate via a complex system of colors and shapes, relayed through chromatophores in their faces (and arms, in some dialects). The only audible component of their language is clapping and teeth-clicking, which is socially equivalent to yelling or screaming, and is used exclusively for getting attention. The multiple openings in their eyes allow them to more easily focus on details in their periphery, which was primarily useful in foraging for food and keep an eye out for predators, but also helps in holding conversations.

In a long-ago forgotten age, the elves dwelt exclusively in the trees of their homeworld’s tropical regions, subsisting on a diet of berries, fruit, and other high-sugar items. The warm, low-gravity, high-oxygen environment allowed for a great number of large, airborne predators, which used to prey upon them. However, the elves’ stealth, mobility, and intelligence benefited them greatly in these trials, so that they drove the majority of such predators to extinction, and were able to live in peace. In the days before this peace, before they had conquered scarcity and age and all toil and allowed themselves to homogenize and languish, they were said to have been a proud race, and capable warriors.

Now, tens of thousands of years later, their homeworld and their origins are far behind them, they have evloved almost as far as their wondrous and strange technology, and have become something very different. Humans have only ever known them in their modern form, and that only by their furthest explorers, for their home is very distant. The pictures and biological notes here attempt to show them as they once were. We called them ‘Elves’ because their real name has no pronunciation, and 'The Greys’ is a touch xenophobic.

Description
2.1-2.3M|100-140KG|O2->CO2|300-310K|0.4G|200-400ESY|ARBOREAL

Elvish anatomy is laid out according to dominant-branch axial symmetry, a body plan which no Earth creatures share. In this symmetry, a creature consists of a number of sections branching out radially from a central point, with one branch being distinct from the others, and the digestive system running from the organism’s center to the terminus of the distinct branch. By this symmetry, the elves are composed of 4 to 7 arms, with the distinct member being the head. In turn, the head branches into 3 to 8 brain/eye/ear/lung lobes, with a distinct mouth branch. The mouth branches into 2-9 chewing jaws and a distinct tongue, and the arms branch into 3-8 fingers, with a distinct thumb. Race, family, and birth defects all effect the number of branches at each point, and every non-dominant branch can regrow from injury.

They are remarkably humanoid in their reproductive methods, being sexually diamorphic, giving live birth, and nursing their young. Only difference being that their milk glands are located inside their wombs, which expand after birth to form a pouch. Children are born with a set of armored petals, to protect them from long falls before they’re strong enough to climb trees on their own.

The elvish languages are almost completely visual, as their book lungs don’t push air through their throats to make noise. They instead communicate via a complex system of colors and shapes, relayed through chromatophores in their faces (and arms, in some dialects). The only audible component of their language is clapping and teeth-clicking, which is socially equivalent to yelling or screaming, and is used exclusively for getting attention. The multiple openings in their eyes allow them to more easily focus on details in their periphery, which was primarily useful in foraging for food and keep an eye out for predators, but also helps in holding conversations.

In a long-ago forgotten age, the elves dwelt exclusively in the trees of their homeworld’s tropical regions, subsisting on a diet of berries, fruit, and other high-sugar items. The warm, low-gravity, high-oxygen environment allowed for a great number of large, airborne predators, which used to prey upon them. However, the elves’ stealth, mobility, and intelligence benefited them greatly in these trials, so that they drove the majority of such predators to extinction, and were able to live in peace. In the days before this peace, before they had conquered scarcity and age and all toil and allowed themselves to homogenize and languish, they were said to have been a proud race, and capable warriors.

Now, tens of thousands of years later, their homeworld and their origins are far behind them, they have evloved almost as far as their wondrous and strange technology, and have become something very different. Humans have only ever known them in their modern form, and that only by their furthest explorers, for their home is very distant. The pictures and biological notes here attempt to show them as they once were. We called them ‘Elves’ because their real name has no pronunciation, and 'The Greys’ is a touch xenophobic.