~The Novibats' Lore Book ~

[ophanimera]

sections:
post 1: directory
post 2: terms you need to understand
post 3: crash course to the novibats world
post 4: central stone color guide and trait guide
post 5: origin of the species
post 6: average life of a novibat

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Important Terms - A Glossary

Original Novibat - a first-generation Novibat that was a part of forming the origins of Novibat culture

Novibat - a member of the species that was originally a type of fruit bat

Novibats - multiple novibats OR the species as a whole

StarJewel - the object a novibat wears on a chain around its neck, comprised of two parts, the central stone, and the protective case, may refer to the case exclusively

central stone - a fragment of the sea-stone, usually held within a starjewel's protective outer layer

The Sea-Stone - human's term given to the massive stone at the bottom of the ocean, the origin of all novibats magic

metamorphosis - the transformation requiring a StarJewel in which an adolescent Novibat becomes an adult

adaptations - the changes, some complete, some partial in an adult Novibat's physical form that cause it to be suited to a particular biome where it could not have lived as an adolescent

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Part One: A Crash Course to the Novibat World

There are 6 biomes in the world of Novibats.
Woodlands. Coastal. Marine. Aerial. Tundra. Caverns.

xxxxxxxxInside of these biomes are some smaller ecosystems or locations, which have their own special purposes.

xxxxxxxxNovibats are born in the plains of the Woodlands biome. They live there for an entire year. On their first full moon (approximately one month old, may be a bit older than about 28 days), they gain their StarJewels. These are gifts from the Collective, who are the currently oldest living Novibats. The Collective is composed of representatives, one member from each of the Biomes. All of the representatives live together in a small outbreak of cliffs near the Deep Sea Chasm.

xxxxxxxxThe Collective take in orphaned eggs and are the ultimate source of authority in the Novibat world. Sometimes, they will raise an egg to adulthood and let it out to the world to find a family to join.

xxxxxxxxAfter the Novibat’s first year with their StarJewel, the central stone in their StarJewel begins to change color. Whatever color it changes to determines what biome they will live in for the rest of their lives. After it has become one solid color, the Novibat undergoes an instant metamorphosis. The Novibat is then adapted to the biome they were destined to live in. They cannot, under any condition, live in a different biome, for their adaptations are so specialized that they would die somewhere else.


xxxxxxxxYou might imagine the aging process as something like Pokémon evolution, except the Novibat ages from an adolescent into an adult instead of becoming a new and separate species. There are nearly as many variations of adult Novibats as there are groups of Novibats in existence. Adaptations can appear in any extent, just so long as a Novibat can fly, glide, or jump long distances with their wing-like membranes. They also need large ears which allow for echolocation and the ability to hear faint sounds.

xxxxxxxxIf a Novibat exhibits multiple colors in their central stone, this Novibat can be a hybrid of multiple biomes. However, this condition is exceedingly rare, occurring approximately once for every 150 Novibats. Hybrids are usually loners because of their strange physical appearance, but rumors tell of a hybrid camp somewhere secluded deep beneath the mountains.

xxxxxxxxAfter a Novibat has become an adult, their StarJewel is mostly drained of all magical energy. It will still contain only trace fragments of metamorphic energy, useful for reproductive purposes. They can sacrifice their leftover energy to create children in their honor. Usually groups of three will have enough energy for three attempts and groups of two will have enough energy for two attempts to create children.

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origin of the sea-stone and starjewels

StarJewel’s central stones come from the “Sea-Stone”, a large stone at the bottom of the ocean. This stone is actually a meteorite that impacted the ocean and separated a large chunk of land from the edge of the mainland, creating Novibats’ island. Teams of Harvesting Novibats collect chunks of this lighter-than-water stone as it washes up to the shore, where they take them to their nests to break them into appropriately sized pieces, polish and set them into blank cases made of painted sea-glass for infant Novibats. A central stone by itself weighs and feels approximately like a seashell.

Even Marine Novibats do not fully know how large the stone is or how far it reaches into the ground, but it can be assumed it is deeply embedded into the bedrock and that the exposed tips are just a portion of it.

The central stone houses enough magic for the Novibat to transform into an adult and contribute to three litters of children in their lifetime if they are in a typical family unit of three adults, or two litters of children if they are in a monoamorous relationship.

The central stone changes color once the Novibat is ready to become an adult.
Below are the color ranges for each biome.

Woodlands; yellow-green to medium green, brown to tan, sometimes light yellow (like pale gold)
Coastal; golden-yellow (medium yellow) to yellow-orange, yellow-orange to red-orange
Marine: green-blue to cyan, navy blue, occasionally ultramarine
Aerial: sky-blue to powder-blue, snow white
Arctic Tundra: indigo to violet, pink in all shades/tints
Caverns: red to black, usually fairly dark but sometimes they can be bright red

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Common Adaptations For Each Biome

Preview - Adult Forms

Aquatic

• sail-like wings
• elongated forelimbs
• whip-like or fin-like tails
• water-repellant fur or little to no fur
• air sacs or bladders

Coastal Deserts

• large ears with sand-resistant fluff, etc.
• generally smooth or slick skin with some fur
• webbed feet or claws
• forked tails or spade tails
• thick wings and pawpads to combat heated sand
• minimal excess fluff

Aerial or Clouds

• mimic cloud types, even rare types
• large wings and forelimbs
• fluff traps buoyant air to keep afloat
• hollow skeletal system
• clawed hind feet

Caverns

• thick or excess skin flaps to retain heat
• phosphorescent parts to lure in prey
• low-light eyesight
• little to no hair or fur
• partially-transparent wing/ear membranes OR
  thick wings and thick skeletal system
• large paws with many microscopic bristles to climb

Forest

• basically just larger adolescents
• claws for climbing trees
• thin wing membranes to glide from treetops
• average sized tails, ears, no earfluff

Tundra

• bushy fur, longer tails
• compact frames for jumping
• thick wing membranes, large enough to glide with
• large and tufted ears
• hard paw-pads to resist impact and cold

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Part Two: The Story of How Novibats Came to Be

xxxxxxxxThousands and thousands of years ago, too numerous to count, a massive meteorite crash-landed into the ocean, creating an isolated island with a ridge of mountains on one side. In addition to acquiring a natural moat with a deep pit full of space rock, the forbidding mountains separated the rest of the island from the mainland.
The life that found its’ way onto the island and the waters surrounding it were forever changed by the magical stone of the meteorite.

xxxxxxxxThis magical stone unlocked nature’s innate ability to change its’ physical form. The first complete species to do this successfully was a species of brown bat that later became known as Novibats. Novibats were able to harness the power of the Sea-Stone and change their physical forms to suit their bodies to any environment, escaping the confines of the small caverns at the base of the mountains and live as adolescents in the woodlands, where they are closer to their natural food source of insects.

xxxxxxxxOriginally, portions of the Sea-stone were not given directly to adolescent Novibats. This was done out of ignorance. The Novibats thought that they were just simply insects lying on the open beach, but after realizing they were inedible, they began to collect them after they were full from eating. They stored them in their caves, sleeping close above their treasured mounds of space rock during the day. Over a period of about a year, they acclimated to the power and the adults started changing shape. Novibats became quadrupedal like the modern adolescent Novibat; losing the hinged hind feet to grasp the cave walls, and their thumb claw at the tip of their wings became a paw. They fell from the walls. Since the changed Novibats were unable to fly gracefully, they left as outcasts, having to take a running start to begin flight, instead of dropping from the cave wall. These wild Novibats went to discover the root of their changing.


xxxxxxxxThey came down from the mountains, gliding in wide spirals down around, stopping at cliffs. Eventually they reached the bottom, where they discovered a cave full of transmogrified creatures which had somehow found solace in each other. Despite not being able to speak each other’s languages entirely, they each could understand what the other was looking for. As a group, they lead the Novibats to the beach, where they re-enacted their transformations. The Novibats brought this information back to their cave, where they shared their newfound knowledge. They knew that it might be useful to keep transforming, so they organized a method of giving stones to their young so that they could acclimate early on and transform at just the right time, instead of abruptly one year in adulthood.

xxxxxxxxOver time, Novibats realized that they could not reproduce as normal bats could. Their reproductive pairs became obsolete and so groups began forming to experiment with the magic left over in their central stones. They realized that they could create new life in inanimate objects, so powerful crafters took over the role of producing effigies of children. Groups who felt strongly for each other could pour their feelings into the central stone and use this love energy to transform the effigy into a real, breathing child with the true magic of their central stones. Through this experimentation, they learned that pairs of Novibats could produce fewer children than three Novibats could. For every Novibat added to the group, the number of children increased, although it was seen as excess to fuel life into more than a group of five children, because of the attention and care that each child required.

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Section Three: The Life of an Average Novibat

xxxxxxxxNewborns are cared for by their parental group, usually consisting of 2 to 3 adult Novibats. The most common number in a parental group is 3, although a few settle down as pairs, eventually forming one or two children and using most of their magic to create said children. They might have enough energy in their central stones to create a single child after that initial litter has grown to adolescent-hood, for a maximum of 3. A parental group of 3 can usually form a litter of 3 Novibat pups and have enough magical energy left to form another group of 1 or 2, for a maximum of 4 to 5.

xxxxxxxxAfter a month, the prepared stones for the young Novibats’ StarJewels are carried to them by courier from the Collective, which are then given to all approximately month-old Novibats on the full-moon of that month. This infant aging ritual takes place on the Plains of the Woodland biome, similar to the adolescent aging ritual. During this ritual, the infants leave their parental groups to begin their adolescent phase, living in large groups of adolescents in the wild.

xxxxxxxxAfter the infant becomes an adolescent (the Novibats you adopt), they must wait a period of one year before they may age into adulthood. During this time, they spend months exploring the plains and occasionally come across humans. They may befriend those humans, should they so choose. Most Novibats are initially distrustful towards humans, and will resist contact with them if a human intentionally seeks them out. Eventually, crystals were discovered by humans in channels of the mountains from which a spring of magical energy flows. These are called MetaCrystals, which can be used to speed up an aging, or can be used to draw Novibats of all types from far and wide to them. Humans have learned to use these rainbow crystals as Novibat bait and so far have made good use of them in bringing custom-order Novibat companions to them, so to speak.

xxxxxxxxOnce an adult, a Novibat with a fully-changed stone will leave the group of adolescents and move out to the biome of their metamorphosis. A human “owning” a Novibat might be construed the same as putting a tracking chip on one of them and watching from afar. They cannot generally control what biome a Novibat will be destined to transform for, although they might be able to alter the desires of the central stone using a special kit or peer into the stone to view a Novibat’s destiny using a special eye loupe. As identification, a Novibat will usually keep its’ StarJewel past adolescence as a form of identification between other Novibats. However, some Novibats choose to abandon their former childhood companions and live in solitude, even choosing not to have children, by the abandonment of their StarJewels.

xxxxxxxxOnce the Novibat has settled into their new home, they may choose to take on any number of vocations or jobs suitable to their biome. However, it’s not unheard of for a Novibat to leave the island entirely in their adolescence and take on the ways of humans. These “pet” Novibats are looked down upon by wild Novibats.