Teppalan wildlife

Humans share planet Teppala with many other sapient species. In fact, humans have settled only about 15% of the landmass of their planet; other areas are dominated by some other species. Humans often do not go into these territories because they could easily be eaten even though these animal nations generally consider themselves friendly to the human nations and will work in harmony with them at a distance.

Penguins

Penguins range in size from 0.2 humans to 13 humans, with the largest ones in control. Planet Teppala is currently in a long term warming phase, and the penguins are intelligent enough to realize this. They know that their territory has been steadily shrinking with each coming century. Although shrinking ice sheets actually bring penguins' societies closer together, the penguins are worried about problems with food supply as well as the eventual possibility of all coastal ice disappearing entirely.

Penguins generally do not participate in wars, either against other species or against penguins. They have many nations, some better off than others, but the penguins in the poor nations have never risen as one and invaded a richer nation.

Penguin-human relations

The aboriginal Repilian people had shared their homelands with penguins for their entire 54000 year history. However, the warming climate that appeared around the year 10000 BC quickly pushed penguins to only the northern fringe of Repilian territory, where Repilians themselves rarely attempted to go.

In the early 2400s, humans of mostly Pabap ancestry began to move into several penguin nations along the southern edge of the polar icecap. THe humans chose these lands because even though they knew their life would be painful and poor due to the total lack of vegetation, they too knew that the climate was warming, and wanted their distant descendants to have first pick on what they felt would become the world's choicest farmland in the far future. And even now, the ocean provided them plenty of fish and a few occasional birds to live on.

The penguin nations of Sysep and Wabubbu (Pabap names, not from the native penguin languages), along with several others, chose to allow human settlement in their nations since the humans promised them help with medical care and waste disposal services that were difficult for penguins to do on their own. In return, the penguins brought them fish to eat. Thus humans in Sysep and Wabubbu no longer needed to spend ten hours a day searching the ocean for fish to eat; it would be entirely brought to them. Luckily this part of the ocean was protected for the time being by sections of the icecap that connected with other land masses, effectively turning it into almost a freshwater lake, and preventing any large ocean predators that could potentially kill both humans and penguins from spoiling their new paradise.

Penguins and humans in theese nations (called "Sysepia" or Wawiabi) lived and mingled with each other, since neither species had much to fear from the other even though penguins could pierce human bodies with their beaks and humans could step on some of the smaller species with their feet. Humans were not allowed to carry weapons, however, since they had only ever needed weapons to kill fish at sea and this was no longer a problem for them.

Humans in Sysepia cooked their meat, just like humans in the rest of the world. The penguins soon learned that they appreciated cooked meat as well, and this led to a decreased appetite amongst penguins, as they drew more nutrition from the prepared foods humans had taught them how to make, but this in turn meant that penguins were now dependent on humans for their food, even though humans were dependent on penguins to bring it to them.

A war in the Soap Bubble Societies caused the fledgling interspecies society to break down, as the humans on the penguinized side of the ice had lost contact with the humans on the human side, and thus could no longer hold up their half of the agreement by delivering ships filled with human products. The humans chose to remain, promising that they would fend for themselves and not depend on food aid from penguins. Their only problem was that there were no trees on the ice for them to build fishing boats from.

Later history

Today, penguins live only in nations where humans live. Though humans do not wish to upset the penguins' cities and government, and there is plenty of food for both species to live on, penguins are worried about what the far future will bring if they find themselves restricted to a thin strip of land on the coast of Xema surrounded by humans on all sides. Many penguin cities already have large human populations, and the human populations of those usually grow faster. Nevertheless, at least in Xema penguins still have a wide majority over humans, and those humans that live in Xema are mostly cut off from each other and unable to form a team even if they should suddenly one day decide that the penguins of Xema were a threat.

Dolphins

Dolphins discovered humans swimming off the coast of Tapakunya more than 100000 years ago, and have a longer history of pairing with humans even than monkeys. The barriers to communication are much greater, however, between dolphins and humans because dolphins are entirely a water-dwelling species and humans almost entirely a land-dwelling one. Dolphins on Teppala are quite large, ranging in size from 6 to 84 humans, and even an entire army of humans is no match for a dolphin in a fight unless that dolphin is wounded or trapped within a barricade. Thus humans avoid violence when dealing with dolphins.

Dolhpins frequently fight wars against other dolphin nations, however, and humans have been valuable allies in some of these wars. Even so, because dolphins do not wear clothes, it is difficult for a human to distinguish a friend from an enemy if both are dolphins. Dolphins delineate their national boundaries with rocks when natural boundaries are not available. The borders of dolphin nations do not move much. However, the settlements within these nations are constantly moving, and it could be said that dolphins do not actually have cities or even villages within their nations; the nations are simply unsplittable amorphous entities.

During the Poswob Era, many dolphin nations came to have /žž/ in their name, which led to them being called "The ŽŽ Zone".

Snow Monkeys

Snow monkeys are the dominant species of primate in areas where humans are not present. Historically, in their homelands on the islands of Laba, humans and snow monkeys were about equally strong; however, only humans could build boats, and thus the only snow monkeys that moved from Laba to Rilola are the ones that humans brought with them. Even so, only one migration was necessary, and snow monkeys held sway over much of Rilola for about 4000 years before humans finally won it all in a war in the early 4200s.

Monkey-human relations

Snow monkeys and humans have a complex history of violence and love. At war, monkeys see humans as monkeys stripped of their powers:

• Humans have lost their sharp teeth, so even eating tropical fruits like coconuts is difficult.
• Humans have lost their ancestors' tough skin, and so are constantly being injured by their environment, even by plants such as raspberry bushes that have thorns. Moreover their thin skin is more easily invaded by topical diseases which all other animals, even bare-skinned animals such as pigs, are protected from by thicker skin.
• Humans have lost their body hair, which helped protect them from cold during the Ice Age and as a result humans are forced to spend much of their time sewing and maintaining clothes. Meanwhile, bare skin makes humans more attractive to certain types of predators than a thick coat of hair since they do not need to be peeled to be eaten.
• Humans have lost the ability to painlessly eat raw meat, and although monkeys do agree that cooked meat is overall superior they know that humans could starve to death if they were unable to produce a fire.

Humans are thus easy prey. But at peace snow monkeys see humans as friends and important allies as even though monkeys are capable of bipedal motion, complex tasks such as building boats or carrying heavy objects are impossible. Animals that prey on humans usually also prey on monkeys, after all, and humans are better able to handle dangerous weapons. Nevertheless, although some truly cooperative mixed human-monkey societies did exist, in the end they were all brought down simultaneously in a great war around the year 4208 and the surviving monkeys were forced to literally hide in tall trees in order to survive. The one modern exception to this is Blop, the capital of the humans' largest nation which has invited snow monkeys to move into their city in large numbers, and to inhabit the outlying countryside and live any way they wish.

Crabs

A species of crab named liui (but with many other names) inhabits the waters along the south coast of Rilola, particularly the area around Paba. They are much larger than humans, but their growth rate is variable. They set up nations along the south coast, of which the largest has been for most of history Rasula (also with many other names). Rasula had participated in many wars against humans, always winning. They are sometimes called crabworms because unlike most crabs, they have a very elongated body, resembling the body proportions of a lobster, but are not lobsters.

Crabs cannot swim, and simply walk along the bottom of the ocean to get around. They, too, define the boundaries of their nations with walls of rocks if no natural boundaries are available. Their boundaries do not move often, and most crab nations are very old. By convention they do not enforce national boundaries on land, unless they are living in an agreemtn with a human society and using human roads and borders. For example, the nation of Rasula has a large amount of land to itself in Paba, but humans also live in this territory and it is a human nation, not a crab nation. The declaration of this land as part of Rasula merely means that rival crab nations cannot also claim this land as their own.

Crabs are tolerant of long periods of time on land, and for this reason, are an ideal choice of a "bridge" animal between the worlds of land and sea. Humans communicate with crabs using written language and sign language: crabs wave their claws and humans wave their arms in predetermined patterns to spell out the letters of each word (generally in a human language, as humans far outnumber crabs in these situations). Then crabs will go underwater and repeat these same signals to dolphins.

Crab-dolphin relations

Crabs enjoy eating dolphins, as dolphins are a very soft and squishy food. Crabs use their claws to tear off pieces of meat and eat the dolphin in small bites. Dolphins cannot really fight back, as their teeth are not powerful enough to grip the crab, let alone injure it, and a dolphin attempting to crush a crab against a wall of rocks would find itself fatally injured by the mere contact with the hard exoskeleton of the crab. Although most crabs first kill the dolphin and then feed on it communally, sometimes a lone crab will stick itself into a swimming dolphin and start nibbling away. The dolphin cannot remove the crab and must simply wait until the crab is finished with its meal. Dolphins have good eyesight, and will generally not swim into an area populated by crabs, but sometimes crabs will occupy large sections of coastline and hide themselves.

Crab-human relations

Crabs know that humans are even more delicate prey than dolphins, and present many more opportunities since humans are often seen wading in shallow water or in boats just offshore where crabs prefer to dwell. Crabs are intelligent enough to realize that humans have political power, however, and that there are consequences to killing a human that do not apply to other animals, even dolphins. Nevertheless, crabs will eat humans during a war, since they consider all wrongs right during a war, and the Vegetable War in the late 2600s was the most devastating war ever fought at that time.

Firebirds

Firebirds (ḳilē or cilai) are a species of large bird that inhabits most of the western part of the continent of Rilola. They once dominated all of Rilola, but warming climates steadily pushed their habitats to the north. Meanwhile, they were outcompeted in the east by humans and societies of other animals allied with humans, leaving them just the northwest coastal area.

Firebirds are a very intelligent species that can communicate using hypnotism. This hypnotism works much better on other bird species than on humans, but firebirds were nonetheless able to keep humans confined in rock nests for many years without worrying about the humans escaping.

Firebird-human relations

Humans discovered the continent of Rilola around the year 400 AD, fleeing in boats from the rapidly flooding Laba. Firebirds captured the first humans and put them in rock nests to raise them as livestock. They observed that humans preferred to eat cooked meat, and flew to Laba to ask for a good recipe for cooking humans over a fire. The human population of Laba was unhelpful, however, so the firebirds decamped back to Rilola except for a small remainder who figured hunting humans in Laba was actually easier since there were more of them and they were very weak and desperate. However, as the climate warmed, even the hardiest of these firebirds died off.

Firebirds enjoyed eating humans, seeing them as essentially fish that lived on land and were thus easier to control. They also captured monkeys from Laba, since monkeys had more muscle mass, and attempted to breed the monkeys and humans together into a hybrid but could not get them to cooperate even with the threat of death.

A few firebird camps still remain, but only in difficult places where free humans cannot readily go. Firebirds can only raise humans in climates where the proper types of foods are available, and since firebirds generally cannot handle temperatures above 70F, this means all of the tropics where humans get most of their foods is off limits to firebird settlement. In the west, firebirds have given up trying to raise humans for food and instead let the humans govern themselves and simply pick off humans that wander outside when a firebirds is hungry.

Firebird-penguin relations

Some firebirds prefer to eat birds, specifically plump and easily chewable ones such as penguins. Although penguins are much larger than firebirds, they are so clumsy that even a single firebird can sometimes kill an adult penguin. (The very small penguin species are in climates too warm for firebirds.) However they usually prefer to attack children instead. Since penguins now live only in nations where humans also live, any firebirds wishing to feed on penguins must also deal with the threat of humans. Given the choice of a human or a penguin for a meal, the firebird will always choose the penguin, and even though penguins are very strong, they cannot handle weapons and thus cannot easily fight back if swarmed by a flock of firebirds.