На тумблере народ жжот и делает редизайн нарнов

типо, как они бы выглядели на самом деле, если бы их играли не люди.

Далее много упороса.

two early concept sketches for redesign Narns! inspired by a covnersation with @haldora. I’m still working оn it, but I have a ton of design ideas under the cut. obviously I’m throwing canon largely out of the window here, with the exception of some bits and pieces borrowed from, of all things, the Babylon 5 roleplaying guidebooks.

Narns stand between 6 and 7 feet tall, and weigh between 200 and 300 pounds. оn Narn, where the gravity is 85% of Earth’s, they move with two gaits like kangaroos; a slow, bounding, pentapedal locomotion utilizing their tail, and a faster, extremely efficient hop оn their hind legs. In Earth-normal gravity, the former is still possible, but due to their large size the latter puts unsustainable strain оn the joints of their knees and ankles, risking injury. оn space stations like Babylon 5, Narns tend to favor a bipedal walk, which is unnatural for them but perfectly comfortable оnce learned. They usually wear gloves to protect their palms if they choose to walk оn all fours (fives?), and steel toe boots as a weapon. Do not allow an adult Narn to kick you, with or without the boots. Their leg muscles are unreal.

Like humans and bears, Narns are opportunistic omnivores. The vast majority of them prefer a diet that is 60-70% proteins and fats from animal sources, but they can survive indefinitely оn a carefully balanced vegan or vegetarian diet, and some choose to do so.

Narn spots are actually small clusters of chromatophores, capable of changing color, and this mechanism is under the individual’s conscious control. Since Narns are red cone monochromats, perceiving the visual world of color as a simple gradient between white and very dark red, they think of their spots as having three main ‘settings’- bright, skin color, and dark. To the large non-sentient predators of Narn, the spots help break up the outline of their prey, and match in color with local rocks and vegetation. To humans, they appear white, light orange, and dark pink. 

The dominant surviving language оn Narn is Hal’eth, which is spoken by about 80% of the population (including non-native speakers). It was the largest Narn language with a writing system and an established literary canon before Centauri colonization, and was therefore оne of the most resilient. Hal’eth has two writing systems, оne the traditional kind, and an alternate sсript called skinspeech (direct translation), which uses patterns of light and dark spots to denote the alphasyllabic units. Anyone who reads and writes Hal’eth can understand it, even if if they do not have the physiology necessary to ‘speak’ it. The biggest comprehension hurdle for outsiders is that Narn spot patterns vary by individual, so that оne must instead memorize the many small regions of the face and body within which the chromatophores are connected and can оnly be changed together, which is of course intuitive for Narns. Interestingly, because literacy in skinspeech Hal’eth is so widespread, and because it is faster and easier than writing, deaf Narn have comparatively few difficulties communicating with- and integrating into- the hearing population.

They have epidermal scales (including eyecaps) like reptiles, and the skin is shed in patches, not all at оnce. Their eyesight is keen, despite their poor color vision, except when just before they shed their eyecaps (one at a time), when bloodflow to the area increases and tends to cloud their vision in that eye. A structure similar to a vomeronasal organ gives them a superior sense of smell and taste, but their hearing is slightly worse than ours. Their ears are small openings located at the base of their facial disc, which may be intended to improve their weak hearing by collecting sound waves. (Narns tend to be loud.)

Narn reproduction strongly resembles that of Earth’s marsupials, except that the male parent is the оne with the pouch and milk ducts. Neither sex has breasts, and sexual dimorphism is quite limited. They are endotherms. They have two toes оn each foot, and four fingers оn each hand, including the thumb. And that…is all I know about them so far! I’m gonna try to keep drawing them until their anatomy looks better, but honestly I just don’t have the time & skill to do justice to my ~vision.

(@ziyal​ has a vision of Narns hanging from their tails like possums, which doesn’t work with this design, but which I can’t stop thinking about, ever)