discussion Weird question - Biology headcanons

[Mermaid]

Lore mentions scale shedding? I forgot about that, is it in the lorebook (being at work and so unable to check myself..) ?

 

Not the lorebook that I can recall off the top of my head, but there's a river-dwelling Xaela tribe that uses their shed scales in shipbuilding. It's on the naming conventions thread.

 

For the sake of ease, here's the information in question:

 

Orben - A tribe that rides up and down the great inner river on boats woven from reeds and reinforced with scales from their own skin.

 

It doesn't directly say they shed their scales but it'd probably be pretty gruesome if they didn't. Then again the Xaela can be pretty brutal.

[hologramblue]

Huh. I misremembered!

 

I hope they shed. Removing enough scales to cover a boat can't be...pleasant. Or healthy. Even over a long period of time. 8(

[Yssen]

 

 

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Now then, on the speculation side that's not stricly covered in the lore...:

 

I'm also expecting a case to be made for Duskwights to have enhance vision in the dark due to many generations spent in Gelmorra, but I don't remember any mention of that in the lore, though it sounds very logical.

 

We also know that enhanced hearing isn't technically true for most races except lalafells. 

 

 

To clarify specifically on this note for Duskwights. They don't have better vision. What they do have is enhanced hearing/echo location. 

 

From the Lorebook, p. 83 -

 

"For the selfsame reason, they possess an evolved sense of hearing - their ability to ascertain the source of a sound with unerring accuracy, unaffected by echoes or reverberations, is often likened to that of the shadow-dwelling bat."

 

It should be noted that further up the page Wildwoods are noted to have better hearing that most of the races, due to the size and shape of their ears, just not the weird crazy bat sight of their cave dwelling cousins.

 

*insert quotes about people's companions breathing so loud they could have been shot in the dark here.*

[Valence]

So your case would be that like bats they didn't rely on vision but on sheer hearing (without the echo location part)? That's what makes the most sense I think yes. They wouldn't especially need vision with such ear training.

 

On the Orben, tribe, now that's interesting. The logical conclusion could be indeed that they shed, but they could also just use them from their dead, or the corpses of their enemies. Could fit some xaela tribes well too, and make those scaled covered boats quite priceless if so.