Warwick is a particularly long-lived character I have on a few MUDs (role-play chatrooms). He's a huge quadruped otter, and has accumulated various unlikely descriptions over the years.
His stats: roughly 10' nose to tailtip, 4' tail, 2' shoulder, 250lbs/18st (muscle :)
In metric: 3m nose to tailtip, 1.2m tail, .6m shoulder, 114kg
Current descriptions
[Amber] [Gold] [Leathery] [Snowglobe] [Haematite] [Soapy] [Iridescent] [Latex] [Glassy] [Golden] [Wintry] [Fuzzy] [Tiedyed] [Silicone] [Silicon] [Vinyl]
Older descriptions
[Original] [Wet] [Dry] [Damp] [Aardvark]
These descriptions are current. I seem to be wearing synthetic forms mostly just now - I had just Gold for a while, then added Glassy and Latex, with Iridescent arriving as a result of a suggestion I made to someone else that they decided not to take up. Soapy followed fairly soon after, and Haematite and Snowglobe fell out while I was in Barbados, from the notes I'd been compiling. The others have followed as they occurred to me.
The only real problem with these synthetic forms is that it's hard to come up with substances that would make credible fur, so Warwick ends up being naked. I'm not entirely sure he notices or is bothered (except when he wants to groom - a standard displacement activity for otters, apparently), but it seem that most people prefer him furry, and having him furry makes him a bit easier to write for.
Here's a cheat-sheet I've written to take to conferences, to point out various aspects of otter physiology that people have tended to miss out.
[Note to myself: use the word 'nimble' somewhere]
Just another form.. I can't remember who suggested this, although it does occur to me that if you rub amber with fur (quite likely on a MUD populated with animals) you evolve a generous static charge, which should be good for a laugh.
| All healthy otters have sleek lines, and this one
is no exception; the muscular shapes of his sinuous form emphasise the easy
flow of the whole, glossing over fussy distinctions between neck and torso,
body and tail. That much this otter shares with his brethren, but most otters
enjoy a darker-brown colouration, while this one has a much livelier, redder
hue, and his ears and fingers are downright yellow.
|
[Specific gravity: 0.9-1.1]
I've wanted a furless golden form for a while. I'm not quite as pleased with this as the furred form below; it seems less exuberant than the other.
Feenixfire did a silvery raytracing!
| A neck as long as the head it supports conspires with his forelegs to keep the precise location of this otter's shoulders secret from the casual viewer, while his low-slung hindquarters and heavy tail enjoy the subtle crafting that confuses the one into the other. Just the sort of sleek aspect one would expect in a healthy mustelid: short of leg and broad of muzzle, lithe and sinuous, and thus far all is well. Once past his general shape, it becomes impossible to overlook the rich metallic gleam of his body, golden, not yellow; the clear reflections along his smooth furless form doing their best to tease the phrase 'maltese otter' into the minds of culturally aware onlookers, although there's rarely anything culturally relevant about this creature. |
[Specific gravity: 19.3 - 2.5tonnes]
This came about when someone suggested a leather form. I'd considered one a few times, but couldn't work out a rationalisation that satisfied me. She pointed out about those leather animal toys which.. I think the Victorians had, so I started looking into those, but then found this leather rhino-shaped ottoman (local copy) and decided that was a suitable basis.
| Escaped from one of those hopeless English
Bric-a-Brac shops that buys obscure things on the principle that everything is
eventually wanted, the original owner was perhaps a Victorian department store
with the mistaken belief that animal furniture was The Next Big Thing(tm). |
[Specific gravity: .4?]
I wrote this and Haematite while I holidayed in Barbados. I just took the notes I'd written and jammed them together really, so I don't think these are as polished as I'd prefer, although I can't see anything in particular wrong with them.
| An unusual and expensive-looking /objet d'art/,
nobody's going to make a ten foot model of an otter without spending money but
it would be hard to estimate the value of such an enterprise. From the way the
light reflects, it looks like solid flint glass, yet it doesn't exhibit the
green tint of large glass sculptures, and a touch would refute the apparent
vitrious nature in favour of a more malleable substance. |
Written the same sort of time as Snowglobe. Haematite's density is 4.3 times that of water, so Warwick becomes half a tonne. The only thing I don't really like about this description is the slow-down in his movements (which I decided would be the cube root of the density), but it seemed right to do that with a stone form.
| The sleek lines of this otter are faithfully
reproduced, from his boxy muzzle, flattened skull, subtle shoulders, along his
smooth body to his low- slung hindquarters and thick tail, yet most otters
neither leave such deep pawprints behind, nor furlessly exhibit the dark
mirror-surface of haematite. |
[Specific gravity: 4.3]
This was my response to a friend's pretty eagle ray character. The normal otter response to fish didn't seem appropriate, somehow. :)
| A first glance might suggest an oversized albino
otter, but the second would dispel that misconception: albinos have red eyes,
his are white, and his fur is strangely static and flat on his body. |
[Specific gravity: 0.8]
As I mention above, this started out as weak wordplay on someone else's species (cacomistle -> chromomistle... it made sense at the time). She didn't want to use the idea, so I did. I like it because it manages to be even shinier than the gold description. :)
Drawn by Kaput, who found this spectrascope page helpful. Sidian also recently unearthed my commission. Kaput got the way the spectra merge into each other very nicely; Sidian's curved spectra pick out his form better. One day, I might finish the changes I started making to a raytracing program that'll let me see what this might really look like.
| Well, this is an excessively gaudy creature. His
size would make him fairly remarkable, but what really assaults your optic
nerves is the strident CD-like iridescence of his pelt: Rainbows toboggan with
reckless abandon along his form, tumbling at tighter curves to splash vibrant
fleeting colours over nominally silver fur. The ferocious bristle of whiskers
around his muzzle glitters predictably, but you might not previously have
noticed those few above his eyes and at the back of his elbows. |
This was written as a vague protest against the Inflatables crowd - characters that are living novelty balloons. But they didn't particularly comment, so I've just had it in my list. Just recently, I've started wearing it more. Mustelids are so twisty, if they really were somehow made from rubber, I can't imagine they'd notice, although since his skeleton and teeth are also rubber (albeit a firmer rubber), they might have trouble chewing those rubber fish. One person said they thought this description was a bit sinister. This has Been drawn!
| A lithe ottery form before you in lustrous black,
his sculptured lines emphasised by shimmering electric highlights that chase
each other across his elastic physique as it twists and moves. Muscular details are
clear, his smooth body currently lacking fur; even his muzzle is devoid of
whiskers. His nose does its best to contrive a damp sort of appearance and his
eyes are similarly shiny, while at his hind end, his haunches are comfortably
low slung. His heavy tail divides its attention between maintaining balance,
continuing the sweep of his spine, and swishing. |
[Specific gravity: 1.1-1.5]
Drawn by Kaijima Frostfang.
This was jointly inspired by those faceted 'crystal' animal ornaments and a china otter statue my sister's landlord owned. It was made by some collective in Scotland, but I wasn't able to track them down. I didn't like the idea of Warwick being pointy, which is why he's not faceted here. Theriomorphic is supposed to be a fancy synonym for zoomorphic. Therion is Greek, zoo is Greek, and morphic is Greek via French, so I don't think it makes much difference.
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Like an unexpected lensing in spacetime, this theriomorphic otter. Seemingly
formed of a living glass, his sleek body is smooth - unfurred but bulked to
the proportions of a fully-featured furry animal. He's not completely naked:
his blunt muzzle sports plenty of stiff but flexible whiskers.
|
[Specific gravity: 2.6]
Theriomorphic has an etymology I find amusing: Miriam-Webster has a note for theriomorphic (thErion + morphos), suggesting the reader looks under Treacle. Treacle has this etymology: Middle English triacle, from Middle French, from Latin theriaca, from Greek thEriakE antidote against a poisonous bite, from feminine of thEriakos of a wild animal, from thErion wild animal, diminutive of thEr wild animal. Wacky, eh?
Sidian was kind enough to draw this form. This is the most accurate Warwick picture there is, I think.
Feenixfire's made a raytracing of this fuzzy golden form!
This was the first synthetic form I wrote. It started out as a fully silver form, which I wore for a while, then roleplayed into legitimate existence by having Warwick wrestle with Terminotaur in his T2000 living metal cyborg form, then fall inside (presumably while Terminotaur was changing shape), only to emerge silvered. I turned it gold because I wanted some colour, but I blame that on player caprice. I've not found it necessary to roleplay any of the later synthetic forms coming into existence. :)
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Warwick appears to be made of pure gold! From his fuzzy little ears, to
his supernumery whiskers, to his soft fur, to his tail; if this ten-foot-
long otter wasn't moving, he would look magnificent. In constant motion,
as he is, he dazzles, casting brilliant scintillations off all about him!
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I wrote this because I thought otters should have a winter coat like stoats (ermines) and weasels. The dorsal stripe and hood should have some rationale (like ermines' black tailtip distracting swooping owls) but I can't think of one. I made a drawing of this, but I can't locate it just now.
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It's wintertime! Warwick has undergone a fur change! (Pretty unusual, since otters don't have winter pelage. Perhaps he's picked up some bad habits from an ermine.) It's a little thicker than in summer, but he is a very pale, smoky-grey all over, with a black dorsal stripe fading to the smoky-grey laterally, extending from tailtip up to his shoulders where it broadens and fades into a darker smoky hood which runs up his neck and over the top and around the sides of his head, ending just below his eye-level. |
The first fully zoomorphic description, and the shortest I have. I hardly ever wear this - the synthetic forms seem more interesting.
I found this rather excellent otter picture (local copy). This isn't Warwick, but it's about as morphic as he gets - expressive eyes and slightly more manipulative than strictly necessary paws. :)
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Warwick is a large sleek zoomorphic otter, covered in rich brown fur with a white lower face and underparts. He is mostly neck, body and tail, his short legs emerging from his loose elastic pelt almost like an afterthought. His face is cheerfully filled with sparkling eyes, shiny black nose, and whiskers, lots of whiskers, all topped off with a broad natural grin. |
Kim Kirkdorfer drew this. Most excellent!
I can't remember why I wrote this, I don't think it was in response to someone else's tiedye description. It may be the result of having impulsively posed that Warwick `tiedyed' someone else, and wanting to see what it would mean if someone visited that on Warwick.
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Good grief. Otters are usually pretty good at getting into various
forms of trouble, but this one's really outdone himself:
Except that the idea's clearly impossible, it looks most like someone
swiped his fur while he was sleeping and tiedyed it!
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I feel there's a dark side to the idea of Warwick's pelt having been removed, even if only temporarily and evidently harmlessly, but I can't see how I could play that - I don't think it would be remotely entertaining to have Warwick suffer pain, and I can't pose things if Warwick's dead (and I certainly wouldn't want him even only temporarily dead). Or perhaps it's not sinister at all: perhaps it's more akin to the cartoony idea of Bugs' Bunny having skin and underwear on beneath his fur and being embarrassed to be seen with nothing on. Hard to tell without lots of expensive psychotherapy sessions. :)
Actually, someone presented a possible mechanism recently - she balanced some pebbles on Warwick's chest and pretended they were buttons, ordering him to take off his silly costume. Warwick didn't understand her, and started juggling them, but it would have been funny to have pretended they were magic buttons, giving whatever garment they were placed upon a way to get in or out. I think he'd just have been in his latex or glassy form underneath.
One of a pair - silicon/silicone - it's a weak sort of joke. Kim suggested something like this, while I was musing about making just a plain purple silicone form.
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A glance tells you about a few sizeable rubbery-looking orange fish floating
just above the ground, half in and half out of a long bright blue puddle.
A more careful look would fill in the other half of the story: 10' of
silicone rubber otter, filled with two clear liquids - the top half as
transparent as his thick skin, the lower half forming that puddle, with the
fish floating along the interface.
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One of a pair - silicon/silicone - it's a weak sort of joke. I suppose he needed a cybernetic form.
|
A silvery animal, almost transparent, but with a striking partial mirror-
effect covering his sleek body. Subcutaneously, you see the familiar green
and blue of circuit boards, with the paler tracery of tracks, black squares
of ICs, tiny blocks of discrete components, and the colourful spaghetti-like
confusion of wiring running between them. And, of course, the randomly
implausible flickering of LEDs of all colours.
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Someone I know likes pool toys, but I think this was a one-shot.
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At ten feet long, it would be hard to overlook this quadruped otter, even
though his head doesn't rise much above most folks' waist height. He has the
sleek hydrodynamics of an aquatic animal, but when he curves, creases show
instead of the usual slide of stretchy hide over muscular frame.
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These are obsolete, from when Warwick was more anthropomorphic.
Although this claims to be the original, Warwick started out as a fox (my favourite animal at the time). This lasted a few months until Christmas, when I suddenly liked otters much more. Warwick (as an otter) was partially based on the character Tan, from the Fusion comic. Even here, wearing only a cloak, he's not very anthropomorphic.
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Warwick is comprised of 5'9, 11 stone's worth of lutrine energy. Off-white
lower face, chest and stomach contrast with long mahogany-brown fur
everywhere else. A cloak of soft tan-coloured leather, branded on the back
with a portrait and the legend 'Lutra Sapiens' hangs all the way down to
below his waist, where the plush fur takes effectively over.
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This is probably the second description. It seemed that otters should be wet, and should shake their wet fur at people because it was funny.
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Warwick has just been in the pond! Puddles of water appear everywhere around
him as he lurks, dripping on anything and everything, including you! There's
little happier than a soggy otter, except perhaps a well-fed one, so Warwick
is about as cheerful as an otter can be right now.
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I think this was the third description, and Warwick's wandering around on all fours sometimes. This was probably the start of the transition to a more zoomorphic form, even though he's called an `uplift' here. I think this was when his background involved him being discovered in the lake district, and the scientists being understandably surprised when the found him learning to talk. Which seems woefully kludgy to me now.
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For once, Warwick is competely dry! Covered in long brown richer-than-velvet fur, white ventrally and lower face, this second generation lutrine uplift alternates between bipedality (5'9 high with 4' of tail trailing behind him), standing on all-fours, and anything in between he finds convenient.He sports a soft tan-coloured leather waistcoat around what pass for shoulders in otters, and has an attention span best described as 'desperately variable'. |
Somewhere along the way, I noticed that the ferrets I encountered didn't really care what happened to their lower bodies, most memorably a display at an RSPCA open day where an ferret handler held the animal under its arms, with his fingers circling its chest, and then caught its hindquarters and demonstrated the flexibility of its spine. The ferret couldn't have cared less, not struggling or even seeming to have noticed! Wonderfully silly animals. I'm not sure quite why that anecdote fits here. :)
Probably the third or fourth description. I seem to remember using this one quite a lot, but I have a feeling I actually used Dry more.
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Warwick is a little bit damp. This probably indicates a recent encounter with
the pond, and some soggy, shaken-at furries quietly fuming nearby.
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I actually have this T shirt, bought from the Aardvark Cafe in Manchester. I don't know whether they're still trading. I think Aardvark was supposed to be a pun on Hard Rock. I have no clue where this fits in Warwick's chronology.
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You see a 5'9 anthropomorphic otter with an amiable smile. Wearing a new
long black 'Aardvark Cafe' T shirt over his long torso, he's quite dry
for the moment.
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| This page last changed Mon Sep 15 21:06:30 2008 |
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