CONTEST TIME!

I haven't designed any intelligent Pegasian species. Pegasia is for you to populate. Invent a species! Pegasia is prime real estate--not a mere playpen for games but a fully worked-out planet (well, moon). Come up with a good species, plausible for a world with low gravity and dense air. Pick any niche--reefs, rift zones, jungle, prairie, desert, forest, polar, savanna, whatever you like. Describe your species's nature and origin, suggest a range as well as a habitat (it doesn't have to fill a niche all OVER Pegasia and probably won't), describe psychology and culture if any. Take up to a few pages--you'll notice from my sample that each short listing goes to a dedicated page with a couple of illustrations and more details than can fit on the chart below. Draw pictures too if you like. Email the whole mess to me, Chris Wayan, at wdreamb@yahoo.com.

What kind of species? Hmm. Required: intelligent. Smart enough to relate to others interestingly and have some self-awareness. Recommended: make it someone who'd get a report card that says "plays well with others" or at least "doesn't sting others to death then eat them" since your species will have to coexist with a lot of others, and I think any race that preys on other intelligent life will get allied against and either defanged or wiped out... I admit to a certain prejudice against vampires, predators, slavers, religious nuts and savage barbarian warriors. I have to read about clowns like that in the news every morning. I'm more interested in alternative societies that work, not more dysfunctional ones, however dramatic.

My judgments are final (since there's no one else running the site). Of course my judgments are also laughably bad (consider some of the anatomical howlers I've perpetrated on previous worlds in Planetocopia) but hey, editorial prerogative! The best dozen or so will end up on Pegasia. That's it for rules so far. Hmm. I'll frame it as a list...

1. Intelligent species preferred.
2. Describe fully. Clearly. Wittily. NOT webspeak, OK? Readers worldwide must understand you.
3. illustrations if you can. Someone else's picture is fine if they don't mind.
4. A species capable of fitting into a multispecies world.
5. Read the description of Pegasia.
6. Read the description of Pegasia.
7. Did I mention to read the damn description of Pegasia? Oh, good.
8. But was your brain in gear? Have you explored the IMPLICATIONS of the differences? Pegasian gravity's low and the air's dense--gliders, jumpers and fliers will be more common, and long delicate legs are quite adequate--no need for beefy Earth muscles. Organic blimps or passive gliders might work. Pegasia has extensive, rich reefs--could semi-aquatic reefdwellers achieve civilization? Pegasia spins slowly--stronger daily temperature swings. Is your critter OK with both hot and cold? This is a moon, folks! How will big old Zeus in the sky affect native psychology? You tell me. Zeus's strong magnetic field probably means a lot of critters will have either electrical or magnetic senses--inner compasses. But how will brilliant, perpetual auroras on the leading side affect life? Beats me. What will evolve in those weird mid-oceanic vent-communities on the surface instead of miles down like on Earth? You tell me!
9. Don't let me intimidate you into NOT telling me! If you have a beautiful creature you fear is scientifically shaky, so what? Put it out there and let others have a look! Maybe someone else can justify it. Maybe I'll be inspired to. Especially if they're fun. Remember fun?
10. Does your species fit a particular region; do you have a home in mind?
11. Could your species plausibly speak a language like any of the word lists on the new species-designer page? Or can you invent your own language for them? At least some placenames for their homeland that are consistent, pronounceable and unambiguous? (Spelling and pronunciation guidelines at the end of the gazetteer may help.) You may get to name a continent! That's why they're only numbered now.
12. email your species (or questions) to wdreamb@yahoo.com

Here's a reference chart of Pegasia's currently defined peoples. Each species' picture and name link to a page with fuller descriptions, a range- or habitat-map and some larger pictures. The top entries are earliest and thus are the most fully integrated into the tours and regional descriptions; species further down are still under construction. A new species, tentatively named the Drashet (north and west Continent 1), will soon join the list.

THE LURE OF NAMES

On Pegasia, unlike all the other worlds in Planetocopia, I've held off on naming features, leaving you readers to send me proposed placenames in the languages of your proposed natives. The new map of the archipelago around the large island or minicontinent of Busre, off Continent 4, is a straightforward example; Marc Cohen, the designer of the Busrehi, supplied some placenames and listed several dozen wordroots so I could construct more. A more extreme example of alien placenaming is southern Continent 6, home of Logan Kearsley's frolcons, whose language is gestural not sonic. I'll work with ya, I'll work with ya!

But submissions have been hesitant; and emails from some world-builders have suggested that many readers eager to create their own people feel intimidated by this extra linguistic task. It is hard to create a convincing language (and good names)--just as hard as the hard-science knowledge needed to invent a good alien and the artistic skills (verbal and visual) to depict it.

So on Continent 3 and nearby coasts of Continent 2, and on the 165 Islands, I'm trying an experiment; if it works, I'll extend it to all Continent 2, and perhaps the whole Outer Hemisphere. What I’ve done is name the major features along the tour route and introduced more detail about what I see, making the tour as full as I can without unduly limiting the appearance or biology of potential natives. My placenames will come from several hypothetical languages with clear, standardized spelling and pronunciation guidelines. And I’ll group these placenames by hypothetical language on a hidden page for species designers, in the hope one of these tongues will seem plausible for a species you have in mind.

Or maybe the names will evoke a species for you. For me, one of the great pleasures common to travelogues, good fantasy and science fiction is the tremendous evocative power of names. It's no coincidence that Middle Earth and its peoples are real to millions; Tolkien was a philologist and his names and languages are admirably consistent. In contrast, consider two of his contemporaries. David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus and E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros and other books rival Tolkien in originality and philosophical sophistication (Lindsay advocates a form of Gnosticism equally fascinating to punks, goths, Loren Eiseley and Harold Bloom. You try managing that!) But their names are either awkwardly allegorical (Lindsay) or derivative of Earth languages (Eddison); and I suspect that's one reason they're cult classics rather than simply classics. I'd argue that Tolkien's real rival is W.B. Yeats: his otherworldly poetry loots and reworks Celtic mythology and names so thoroughly it might as well be a new, entirely invented mythos. And why do you think J.K. Rowling is a billionaire? It’s partly that she can coin names like Snape, Quidditch, Hogwarts, and (my favorite) Blast-Ended Skrewt. Here's that world-renowned expert, Albus Dumbledore, on the power of names: "Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" I may have just driven a lot of highbrows off this page, but Rowling knows what wizards always have: names alone have real magic; a few words can evoke a world.

So I’ll add names in the hope they'll manifest the creatures who coin them! Sympathetic magic akin to the cave artists of Lascaux and Altamira. But then isn’t that what all fiction does? Summon people out of words? It's still up to you the reader to picture these people... and to actually send me the pictures! C'mon, don't be shy...

The gazetteer will have a full index of native placenames, with descriptions--once the contests's over and we have natives to name them.

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