Tamriel Rebuilt

Sload wrote:

Stalker wrote:In case of guars they needed a domesticated creature used to live in harsh enviroments.

They're also the cutest reptile in the entire multiverse.

Dont let the cuteness fool you! They're actually all evil, like those Bubble-Bobble creatures! [url]http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=177[/url]

If Stalker's being serious (I can never tell with you lot), I'd disagree. I think most lizard type creatures look at home in Hammerfell, this one has bird features, an interting twist. The zoologists of tamriel are gonna producing some interesting books this year!

Stalker wrote:And only because Lute's concepts have become the battlefield (:p)...

hahahaa, and it breaks my heart how it's disrupted the WSG so! *gets teary eyed*

But all in all, if I can contest or revise my guys, I love my monsters anyways

speaking of, here's a revisit to the lizard
[url=http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/4042/packlizard0zs.jpg][img]http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/4042/packlizard0zs.th.jpg[/img][/url]
Since the physiology's changed, he's a lot nastier than the last one (notice the missing arm on the nomad)

*gets bubble bobbled*

Well if people can't tell either I am serious or not I'm definatly on my path to world domination. And no, I was not seriously. I was mererly showing that those arguments can be applied to any creature barerly resembling anything in Morrowind and thus hold no real power.

Anyway now something productive. While these guys won't be as astonishing as the sight of Big Guy walking around the desert they can be used as mules to transport disassembeled tents.

Oh and previous one was better IMO.

And another thing - tents suck. They are boring.

I like the lizard. If you look at creatures living in desert most of them are reptiles (snakes, chameleons and those funny "dancing" lizards). So I think it would make sense to have mainly reptillian creatures in the Alik'R desert too.

Mamals seem to survive in RL deserts.

Yes they do, but if they have fur they might overheat too quickly to be effective pack animals.

There's quite a list of big-sized mammals you'd expect to find in desertous regions (although not the direct dunes themselves, a few populate there). Horses, oxen, llama, and camels, to name a few are the domesticates you'd find in many arid places. Just take a look at the number of domesticates in places like Egypt and Libya.

There are also several furry critters that burrow, coming out in the cool of the evening to feed. I wonder, btw, if OB will allow for time-of-day dependant spawns...

As for the new lizard creatures, they are both pretty cool, but to me there is just something about camels that sets the atmosphere. I dont know what it is about them.

I also share that same affinity. No matter how much I'll try to manipulate Hammerfell, I'll always love that sprite:
[img]http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/4706/camel6at.jpg[/img]
lookit'em! isso ickle cammy!

Macar wrote:As for the new lizard creatures, they are both pretty cool, but to me there is just something about camels that sets the atmosphere. I dont know what it is about them.

I agree. Single-hump camels should be included, it's a pitty we can't add mounts.

Well we can at least have camel mounted enemies. Just like riekling raiders.

Macar wrote:I wonder, btw, if OB will allow for time-of-day dependant spawns...

I'm fairly sure the devs said that there were time of day dependant spawns. And of course at night there will be more vampire activity with its radiant Ai and whatnot

BTW Sload, we cant add mounts? How sure of this are you? I take everything the devs say cant be in with a pinch of salt ever since people made mounts, and other impressive feats, for Morrowind.

It was explicitly said that there wasn't a way to add mounts, but ofcourse there's a chance some clever scripting method could be used.

I don't remember saying them that but I beleive Sload. I guess we won't be able to add horse armor by ourselves either.

I doubt that the plugins will do anything we can't do, honestly. Things also may have changed, as I read this a long time ago (I think it might even have been the same article that first introduced the idea of raising an NPC).

Not that TES games have ever been realistic or consistent, but...

Large mammals don't live in deserts. By large I mean "Ka'gwola" or sauropod size. It's primarily a metabolism problem, with two limits. The first limit is heat. Heat dissipation only becomes a problem at larger sizes. It's a "square-cube" law (volume increases faster than surface area). Elephants are already too large for their metabolic rate (which is slow for mammals). They can only live in warm climates because of their large, veiny ears. Sauropod cooling has yet to be explained (AFAIK), but there are various theories that sort-of work, most of which wouldn't work with the Ka'gwola. The Ka'gwola's shell, if it's bone or chitin or something equally Earth-like, is probably an insulator and will only decrease the available surface area further. The second problem with large mammals is food and water. Even though elephants already have a slower metabolic rate, they need to consume about 10 times their weight (in pounds) of Kilocalories every day. Even a productive desert only produces about 200 Kilocalories per m^2 per year. This may sound like enough to feed a very large animal, but consider that not all of an entire year's production will be available for eating at once... You can get around this with pack animals if you assume they were bred for size and are cared for, but it can become prohibitively expensive to feed them. There is a point where their labor will no longer be worth the cost of food.

The Ka'gwola's legs are too long and narrow for it's mass. They appear to attach to the bottom of the body rather than regular shoulders or hips. The legs are "under" the body instead of at the sides. And the drawing suggests that they move their legs up and down far more than any animal with a columnar gait (elephants, for instance, swing their legs like big pendulums--their legs don't go up and down much at all while walking). Legs don't need to be very flexible to allow the animal to sit down. Again, elephants are a good (and only living) example. The shell shouldn't hang too far over the sides, either. Most quadrupeds can balance front or back weight well, but not side weights (or: your feet point forwards).

Even so, the Ka'gwola is better than most of the creatures in Morrowind. Hovering Cliff Racers. All the front-heavy bipeds with mouths larger than their entire digestive track and unlikely legs. The rotary-joint Kwama. Etc. So I can't complain too seriously. The Ka'gwola looks cool, and for 99% of people, that's the important thing.

While I'm on the topic:

Ha'Kwi La

The head plate, beak, and armor design are all very cool. I like this creature overall, but the legs aren't right. The rear legs are a bit too splayed, too far forward, and too low, and the front legs don't attach at the right place.

Actually, this is a point that applies to the Ka'gwola and some of the other drawings, too, and I'm not sure how to explain it well without pictures (and I can't draw). Generally, legs attach to the extreme edges of an animal. The front legs are going to be the very last thing apart from the spine (neck), and they're going to be attached (indirectly) to the spine. The rear legs are as far back as you get, except for the spine (tail), and they're going to attach (indirectly) to the spine. For various reasons, the hips and rear legs almost always join at the top. Not many animals have a spine that bends down to allow a lower connection (as in the Ha'Kwi La and the "underneath" legs of the Ka'gwola). Generally the front legs are also at the very front edge of the body, but the shoulders can be at the top (dogs, cats) or bottom (or, more commonly, attach near the top but only appear to separate from the body at the bottom as in deer, rhinos, etc). In every case, the legs are near the "edge" of the animal.

If you look at a bunch of randomly selected animals, particularly larger animals, you'll see this is almost always true. Now, if you're making an animal with a non-chordate body plan, that's another thing... But there are good reasons for this plan. Anything with a spine is going to want to get as much out of it as possible, which means putting the legs near the "edges."

Basically, the front legs on the Ha'Kwi La should be a little further forward, and should appear to separate from the body near where the neck begins and starts to curve up. The rear legs should attach at the highest and furthest point before the tail begins. There's already a point like that in the drawing, the legs are just not attached to it.

Google for bactrian camel images. They have a vaguely similar neck (okay, not really, but bear with me). Note how the hips of a camel are as high and as far back as possible. And note how the shoulders are attached as a far forward as possible, but note how the legs only appear to separate from the body near the bottom (and, again, at the "edge" of the animal). It's not a good match, but a camel is the closest biomechanical equivalent I could think of.

There's also no visible muscle support for the front legs. The legs themselves have visible muscles, but they don't appear to attach to a large muscle in the body. That's one way to get a bulge in front of the legs if you want one (horses are a good example), but it's not a smooth, serpentine curve.

Also, I'm not sure how well webbed feet would scale up. They work for geckos on loose sand, but geckos are small. Webs tend to be fragile, too. Good for soft sand. Not so good for sharp rocks. Calloused or not, they'd still be skin... Unless someone can think of an alternative.

I don't know that it's possible to make a larger creature an efficient runner on sand. There are rough tradeoffs between foot weight and surface area. But if you're a predator on loose sand, your prey is also on loose sand... As a rough guess, you could probably get away with dinner-plate feet and still sprint fast if you dedicated about 1/3 body mass to the leg muscles (typically, it's more like 1/5), but that would look odd and not leave much room for anything else.

Sxehl-Kuu'naskh

It's freaky, which could be good or bad, depending. I like the way it looks, but I'd agree with another commenter that it's more of a Daedra. The basic body plan could work, even the odd mouth (though it's rather large for the head and body, and I kind of like the mouthless one better for some reason). It's the redundant, not-quite-bilaterally-symmetrical eyes that make it look unnatural.

Chaski

Very cute. The only minor caveat is predation. There are several easy ways to get around that with lore instead of changing the creature (typing is easier than art, so that's preferable where possible). They could only come out at a time of day when there are fewer predators (and have protective coloration or mimicry, which is almost suggested by the drawing). They can't hide all the time, but they could minimize their exposure. They might have a high r-strategy (reproduce like rabbits) that would allow a lot of them to get eaten. Or maybe they're poisonous in spite of their friendly appearance...

Dii'Ga

Also freaky. Bizarre mouth and lower body for a flier. Wouldn't work in real life, but hey: Hovering. Cliff. Racers. On tiny little wings. That half-heartedly flap every ten seconds. Yes, I'm bitter.

Yoba

Evolutionarily, herbivores won't waste energy trying to stay balanced on points as long as big feet are cheap. Mountain goat feet don't widen out that much, but they do widen. If it's supposed to live in the mountains, the legs should probably be much longer and have a wider range of motion than is apparent.

The lower jaw would interfere with reaching grass. The lips should be larger and more muscular, too, if it eats grass. Presumably the jaw grinds front-to-back instead of side-to-side. That works fine, though most modern herbivores chew side to side. You'd want to mention that to the eventual animator if that creature gets used (and there's time to bother with nitpicky details like yoba_anim_idle_chewing_04).

So'kii

It could probably glide but not sustain flapping flight on Earth. That makes it an order of magnitude better than 99% of flying creatures in fantasy art. Yes, I'm bitter. And yes, from me, that's a compliment.

Koku'daa

Real plants can't move a trunk fast enough to be that kind of threat. Not that it stops world-builders from doing the carnivorous plant thing to death.

Something carnivorous plants can do that is not as overused in world-building: spines. Plants have guns!!! Either protein-engine poison spines that are part of the plant (or break off in prey) or poisonous/paralyzing barbs that the plant shoots. Those are not only possible, but actually exist. None of them shoot very far, but some of them probably could be scaled up (alas, not the only one I know much about--the water-drop spore shooting method some mushrooms use, as water droplets just don't get big enough).

Dog with a Shark Head

That sums up the problem: it looks like a dog with a (far-fetched) shark head. As far as I can recall, there is no "chimera" tradition in ES. Which is not to say you can't make one... This is the only creature I don't like.

As others have mentioned, it can't eat. You could probably get away with it if you keep the large upper "horn," but lose the lower one. It's the lower one that would get in the way of eating. Or change its diet and give it a long tongue or trunk to feed with like some of the early proboscidea (the closest real creatures I can think of with such a large lower "lip").

Proboscidea References (some good, some terrible):
http://www.adias-uae.com/stegotetrabelodon.html

Sex selection can make some very odd and useless things (see arthropods), but it can't select for the inability to eat. Sex selection can only make things that don't prevent the animal from surviving long enough to reproduce. Horns are often sex selected, though, either via ritual pre-mating combat (Bighorn Sheep) or just "Hey, look at this! I'm so healthy and successful, I can waste all this food on a giant horn!"

The horn's weight isn't necessarily a problem. Neck muscles can be strong enough to lift even a horn that large (see various dinosaurs and megaherbivore mammals with giant horns, etc), you just have to make the neck look wide and muscular.

Giant Crabs, Scorpions, etc

These are also not possible due to square-cube laws (unless they're somehow endoskeletal with active respiration, etc), but they were in Daggerfall, so you're stuck with them.

Desert Clothing

Might I recommend something more like a kufiyya than a face mask? The strips of cloth can cover the nose and mouth to keep the sun off and help retain water. They can also be pulled over the eyes if it's too windy or too bright (which doesn't happen as often as many think). Masks don't keep sand out, and eyelashes are a pretty good design for that already. When dealing with sand, it's more important to have access to your eyes than to try to keep the sand out (an impossible task). Also, the wind doesn't blow that hard all the time. And when it does, dehydration (a hot, dry wind can chap your lips like you would not believe) is a bigger problem than getting sand in your eyes. Real-life desert nomads rarely cover their eyes, and tend to use more adaptable headgear. Google for pictures of Bedouin, Tuareg, etc.

Otherwise, the clothing is good for a desert, and it looks cool, which is the important thing.

Pack Animal One (vaguely avian)

I liked this one. Two minor issues:

Dicoria (two pupils in one iris) is fairly rare (as is four eyes, but that's a Fantasy Convention I'll let pass). If I remember correctly, dicoria is only used by amphibians because one pupil is focused for light above water and one for light below water. I could be completely wrong about that, though, since it's been such a long time since I think I read it. I might not even have the right word for it.

The teeth. What does this eat? It has the mouth of a carnivore (narrow mouth width, wide jaw opening, small mouth muscles, maybe large jaw muscles, no obvious grinding motion, etc), and the teeth are not like any animal. It looks like some of the back teeth are more pointed than the front, which is bizarre unless the creature replaces its teeth and some are "newer" than others. Even then, the back teeth probably wouldn't be sharp, unless it's such a good hunter that it can afford to be a picky, sloppy eater (no large Earth predators can afford that).

Otherwise, I really like this one. Good muscle placement and definition, though that will probably be lost in 3D. Sensible harness design.

Pack Animal Two (lizard)

I like this one, too. The gait is too splayed for its size, but without guessing at the math, it doesn’t look impossible (some more lizard-like dinosaurs got almost that big and may have still had a splayed gait, but even some of the earliest animals had moved on in the Permian--i.e. gorgons, which are kind of mammally... reptiley... freaky things).

Early Therapsids and Gorgons (not good drawings for several reasons, but it's the best I could find):
http://www.palaeos.com/Paleozoic/Permian/Lopingian.html
http://www.palaeos.com/Paleozoic/Permian/Guadalupian.html

A splayed gait would be bad for pack animals as the spine has to move left-to-right. That would tend to knock the packs off or at least make them really hard to tie down. The two rope method in the drawing wouldn't work. Also, they might be hard to animate in a final version.

Other Stuff

The architecture is all good. I particularly like the mix of square and round features, which (to me anyway) reflects the contradictions in Redguard culture. Redguards have more cultural sources than any other TES race (Yokudan cultures that probably weren't monolithic, a mix of Nedic traits from the conquered, Imperial traits from being conquered, terrain as diverse as Elsweyr or Morrowind and the potential cultural isolation and experimentation that produces, etc).

The weapons would probably work, except for the leftmost one (the one that looks like an axe head made with two thin swords). It has the length of a sword and the fragility of a sword for twice the weight.

Weapons are hard to do right in isolation. They depend so much on armor and available materials, etc. To design them right, weapons and armor have to be done simultaneously. So I can't comment more unless I saw what armor was available. Probably no armor or very little in most of Hammerfell due to the climate (and maybe due to the bravado).

Also, the zombie is freaking awesome.

A Reminder

It's not like any of the TES games cared about biomechanics (or almost any fantasy in general--in fact, the nearly correct creatures were the most surprising thing about the recent Lord of the Ring films). I liked all of this concept art except for the "dog with a shark head." It's good work. Whether it looks cool is more important than whether it's realistic, at least in a fantasy game, I just care too much about biomechanics.

Perhaps I care more about biomechanics than I actually know about biomechanics.

And I can be a bit of a jerk.

So, in summary: I really liked the concept art. I'm just saying...

That has got to be the longest damn post I've ever seen...

[Edit]Sorry for the completely useless post, btw... but I'm caught speechless

Thankyee very much, AFFA, it's an honor to recieve such an extensive critique from an esteemed eye.

My biggest drawback in design, as many have contested and pointed out, is my often throwing away biomechanics for design. I can page over old images of extinct mammalia, and (more occuring) scan newer images one would find in recent art sites depicting a thousand surreal beasts. You can tell which one bests the other in quantity these days, and often the largest credible sources mix work up with fantasy themselves, heheh.

For the Ka'gwola, a major help in describing him has been on behalf of Adanorcil and Stalker, mostly in covering my tracks on what it's function and physics would be. The most logical alternative I've heard at keeping him "as-is" was labling it under another phylum; a tortoise, perhaps. Of course, the best action would be to redesign him something more pleasing for the community, and retain that awe of such a sight.

Once again thanks for the review, and swift hunting, friend

There is a time to disregaurd bio-mechanics in favor of design (one can always resort to the deus ex machina "it's magic!") But I like your attention to detail. Stick around

I'm currently planning at least one Oblivion plug-in (partly out of guilt, really, but also an apparently spontaneous but highly suspect email recruitment campaign). But after that, I might have time to work on Hammerfell. I can type fast, anyway.

the plant life on the Ka'gwola's back could some how have mutual advantages for both of them, the plant could take in heat and exert it in exange for nuitrients that the Ka'gwola had no use for, this way the Ka'gwola could lose more heat.

I dont think desert plants are wanting for heat! The thing desert plants crave most is water. Could the big guy provide that somehow?

maybe its "hump"or mound on its back could some how hold a mix of fat and water simler to a camel, the roots of the plants could extind into the mound. also i just had an idea what if when the Ka'gwola dies the plants on its back use this valuble time to consume it and flower then they send there seeds to the wind which would land on another Ka'gwola and the process would begin again.

no, no, the big guy's water/fat deposit is on it's belly (it acts as a very low center of gravity). I had originally supposed the back and spine was composed of a large complex of porous ventricals, which act as a coolant system lung as the beast moved. It'd be hell to pay if it stopped moving, but I guess that'd be how animals get complicated, like how a giraffe's heart stops giving blood to the brain when it's head is down.

Either way, I'm planning a remake of the fellow, see if I can't make the newly cold-blooded beast a more efficient feel.

[url=http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/5963/daedra4nr.jpg][img]http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/5963/daedra4nr.th.jpg[/img][/url]
on a different subject, I've got another hammerfell-based daedra for you. I'm not sure how often occuring it'd be, considering it's size. I would assume he would be oceanis island located, or something to that effect, since the main inspiration was simple Regada structure/marine life (obviously). I'm absolutely horrid at complicated ornate dremora style, it's never me anyways.

Those plates on it's face and back, by the way, levitate in place by polarization of majicka. That would also explain why the tentacles on it's skull, though normally hydrovascular lifeless things, sway freely though the air.

I have so much to do, yet I prefer to talk about the possible physiology, muscle placement and biological class of creatures that exist on paper only. Sometimes, I think I should find a hobby that does make sense.




Anyway, as Lutemoth said, Stalker and I have been trying to cover his tracks on behalf of the Ka'Gwola. Lutemoth already knows of this, so here are a few possible adaptations to the original.

- Coldblooded creature: To be able to live in this environment with such size, we figured such a creature would not need to be protected againt heat and sand. On the contrary: it would need its extreme environment to survive. At day, it would thrive on the hot sun, giving it energy to walk for miles on end (nutrition is left out of the picture for now). When darkness falls, he will need to rest, falling into a deep slumber and will probably lie down, looking remarkably similar to a big rock formation. For the nomads, the creature would follow their daily schedule.

- Age: Personally, it sounded logical to me to have them reach considerable age, perhaps even far beyond that of humans. If they also happened to be rare, it would make them incredibly prized possessions, while at the same time being very valuable to the nomads. I imagined they would be used by a certain family for multiple generations (I don't think they would be big enough to carry an entire tribe.) Considering their size, we can not make enough to support all nomad families, so we could explain the limited number of them by saying that they are becoming increasingly rare, (The cause of that is beyond me.) so more and more nomads are forced to continue their yearly migrations in ordinary tents.


All of the above are just suggestions.

Off-topic Dunedweller eye-candy. It just put some color to Lutemoth's detailed DD sketch.

[url=http://img132.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dunedweller22lutemothmo2un.jpg][img]http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/8789/dunedweller22lutemothmo2un.th.jpg[/img][/url]

For some reason it feels akward coloring other people's stuff... makes me feel like i'm stealing it or something.

Although I like the coloring, clothes of desert nomads are often white to help keep the temperature down.

Dirty maybe ? Plus Morden you got the wrong pic. This one has face burners aka metal plates on it.

Perhaps a book could be made, describing ka'gwola, their enemies, that sort. Perhaps they're becoming increasingly rare because of a predator? Maybe a sand worm that hunts in packs?

I think their sheer inefficiency is what's making em extinct. If it weren't for chinese gardeners, the ginko leaf would have never been the last living fern tree of it's kind

Dirty maybe ? Plus Morden you got the wrong pic. This one has face burners aka metal plates on it.

Actually its the right pic. I colored it as either wood or bone. It would still be rather warm, but it looks cool... all this scientific talk is making my weary.. i've had enough of 'biomechanics'... thermodynamics and other jibberjabber... I did an Arts degree

edit: 'Arts degree' as in Bachelor of Arts..history and literature... as opposed to Fine Arts.. which is probably where Lutemoth is headed with his talent.

Agreed. Although I did not do an art degree.

in my imagination, I always fancied the Rourken clan differing from that of construct culture known to Stros M'kai. Unfortunately, I'm dull at mechanics:
[url=http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/4568/construct9yh.jpg][img]http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/4568/construct9yh.th.jpg[/img][/url]

The ensnaring cables and wires are not that of electrical, but a complexity of metal coil pneumatic capillaries that pressure and release scalding air. Air and steam is obviously in a constant release, as shown, but to be in the blast radius of such would not burn, but freeze bare skin and brittle armour of men (irons, leather, ect.)

Such high steam pressure does not make an exothermic reaction, but quite the opposite. The endothermic reaction is quite volatile, and must be avoided when dealing with this construct. The Rourken clan did not fully master the boundries of perpetual motion, and to find a working Rourken construct is quite rare.

I like the idea and most of the drawing. I also like the idea of thier attack, probably quite doable as a spell. I think that it also a good idea that hammerfell has less dwemer automunculi and artifacts, because I think vvard. is supposed to have the most (is that true?) I like it, But the head kind of looks like a lopsided smiley face with a toilet seat...

though technically it's not an attack, but rather a hazard indealing with these things, it would be quite interesting as another offensive device. The toilet bowl is the [url=http://www.castledarkmoor.com/pics/gorget1.jpg]gorget[/url], but made large enough to eliminate all possibilities of severing the head (the weakest point in this machine). It disallows periphial view of the two cameras, as additional lenses were attached thus.

I should probably make additional perspectives to show the position of the fake jaw and primary lenses, but first:

[url=http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/5378/pachyderm6ry.jpg][img]http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/5378/pachyderm6ry.th.jpg[/img][/url]
A variant on the pachyderm, his 'trunk' not being his nose, but adapted lips. Roughly the size of a warthog

That looks real to me. What sort of food made that grabbing device necisary? Perhaps it grazes on shrubs and uses it's trunks to scoop foliage into it's mouth. Knowing you though, you already have an answer in mind as well as details about the monsoon mateing ritual where the male performs the elaborate mating dance by balancing on it's hind legs before competeing with other males for the right to mate with the alpha female of the local pack.

You got me all wrong, Macar! .... It balances on the forelegs

Kidding aside, you've got the whole foliage thing right. If you've ever seen a horse eat grass from someone's hand, you'll know how this guy got to eating this way.

On the subject of the Ka'gwola's vialbilty, I'd like to note that mammals use roughly ten times as many calories as reptiles of similar size (this is offset partly by more efficient digestion) As far as nutrition goes I would think of him as a filter-feeder, drawing in huge amounts of either sand or water and digesting all the organic matter within. From the point of view of increasing surface volume, increasing the depth of the ridges on his back would go some way towards this.

The idea I had for their origins would be that they were brought from Yokuda when the Redguards left. The ones still alive are the same ones that were brought all those years ago. We could say that they are decreasing in number now because their "nesting grounds" or somesuch were back on Yokuda.
This could be tied in nicely with the whole Satakal cycle. Something like "When the last Ka'gwola dies, Satakal will take back what is rightfully his and Mundus shall be subsumed once more in preparation for it's rebirth"

I'd also like to say that it's a real honour to have one of your abilities here, AFFA.

excellent ideas there ludovic, adding more depth and realism to this world every moment.

On the subject of the Ka'gwola's vialbilty, I'd like to note that mammals use roughly ten times as many calories as reptiles of similar size (this is offset partly by more efficient digestion) As far as nutrition goes I would think of him as a filter-feeder, drawing in huge amounts of either sand or water and digesting all the organic matter within. From the point of view of increasing surface volume, increasing the depth of the ridges on his back would go some way towards this.

Heh, i suggested that somewhere, they could be the whales of the sand

Lutemoth wrote:A variant on the pachyderm, his 'trunk' not being his nose, but adapted lips. Roughly the size of a warthog

That thing sure gets the prize of "ugliest creature". Which is good.