FALLER’S FIELD GUIDE 2
September 12th, 2022
Tohoku region, West Noto Rural Zone
Jericho the Nidoran
Meet the newest member of my team, Jericho is a nidoran I encountered after Akari and I had a run in with a hostile pride of luxio and shinx. He's a nidoran obviously, or Arma toxa within the Lagomorpha. I'm not gonna spend as much time here, still figuring out if any of this even really matters… nevermind.
Overview
The nidoran line exhibits traits of both mammals and reptiles, but they are in fact lagomorphs and leporids, having split off around 53 million years ago. They developed powerful toxins and heavily mineral-rich biology due to evolving in a very alien environment. The theories are that they lived in a region flush with the exotic energies of moon stones, or evolved on the moon. Though most theories indicate lunar nidoran were simply brought there from Earth by an unknown force.
Regardless, the nidoran line is native to the eastern mainland of Asu (Asia?), spanning across multiple regions and the savanna and field habitats they hold. Arma toxa are omnivores, sharing a niche not unlike that of entelodonts. For non-Earth people, take an emboar on four feet, give them jaws like a krookodile and have them stand at 2 m at the shoulder. Highly omnivorous but more than capable of serving as apex predators, using their brute strength and steel-like armor to overpower their foes.
The nidoking are in fact one of the most dangerous lines due to their tendency to gather armies of pokémon and their insatiable lust for battle and combat. Even their babies act like little monarchs… though they’re generally not malicious despite appearances.
Description
Jericho is about average for a nidoran at his current stage of evolutionary development at 58 centimeters in height and thirteen kilograms in mass, and I’ve noted the signs of impending evolution, his spines and horn have grown longer, and a third claw has started to poke out. Anyways.
Jericho has a round, slightly elongated purple head covered in a mix of scales and leathery skin, the former of which are compressed buttons of hair like a pangolin. It’s very smooth and soft in one direction and can be slightly rough in another. His jaw contains 28 teeth just like Mirko… but it’s far more alien in the way it’s structured. At his stage, his incisors are conventional though his peg teeth are less vestigial, turned into slashing and stabbing implements. It’s the premolars that really fuck with me.
They’ve shifted forward across the diastema, becoming shearing, stabbing teeth. The first two premolars work as pseudo-incisors, jutting forward and serving to cut food, while the third and fourth pair act as canines, and that fourth pair is enormous, forming into the tusks he might have as a nidoking. The fifth pair of premolars act as… premolars, with the remaining six pairs of molars not changing much. Regardless, his dental anatomy makes it obvious he’s an omnivore.
Like Mirko he’s got forward facing eyes, and fairly good trichromatic vision, nothing to write home about it, a very powerful sense of smell with three hundred million scent cells, and a stronger affinity toward toxins and flesh. They’ve got special hairs that can filter out smells so they’re pretty much immune to a lot of awful smells or toxic gases. His ears make up a good portion of his height, about eighteen centimeters, without that boost he’s about the same dimensions as a large beagle. He’s got strong swiveling ear muscles that have got a similar hearing range to Mirko but what’s really unique is his horn.
From what I’ve checked, his horn arises from subcutaneous connective tissue that later fuse to the underlying frontal bone. I’ve been careful to inspect him, his horn is hollow and connects to venom glands that are modified parotid salivary glands like snakes. Basically a mammalian stinger, the horn is heavily reinforced with a mineral lattice similar to lonsdaleite. Which explains how their evolved forms can shatter diamonds. Man this scanner is powerful. As a nidoran his horn isn’t fully reinforced yet, that takes time and deeper energy reserves. In fact carbon-rich minerals are an important part of his diet. The horn itself is sensitive to touch, and grants them enhanced perception to certain energies due to being an excellent conductor for aura.
Now let’s move on to his integument and outer coverings, as a species the nidoran line have a thick protective skin formed from layers of collagen lattices reinforced with wurtzite boron nitride interlaced with carbon allotropes. Think rhinoceros skin but strengthened by incredibly tough nanomaterials.
So a supplement in their diet is boron, and their compressed hair scales are about 80% composite, acting as heavy armor plating. Testing a scale of his for what it was made of was pretty easy. They aren’t as tough as the armor of a nidoking though, just like his horns.
Checking his legs reveals fairly standard lagomorpha biology, though they aren’t as optimized for hopping and jumping, and their sharp claws make them good at climbing and digging. He can run at about 30 meters a second, 108 km per hour, as fast as a cheetah, and yet is still a third slower than Mirko. Pokémon are fast.
His spines are also an interesting development, heavily modified osteoderm structures with ducts linked to a network of venom glands. A light squeeze can send out brief spurts of venom, these kinds of venomous circulation networks are common among poison-types. I’m guessing type genes on this planet are considered homeobox genes, genetic sequences that regulate large-scale anatomical features, master control genes that can direct bodily development.
They start the fire, and the modular cognition and communication between cells takes care of the rest. Very fascinating development. When it comes to his body shape, again he’s pretty conventional besides having only two toes on each foot, though his rear feet have interesting scale pads to provide traction and grip. He’s got a fairly slow heartbeat, about 90 bpm, and a body temperature of 36 C.
Also… his feces are apparently crescent moon shaped and I am so goddamn lucky pokémon are sapient. So it’s mostly gonna be grooming and taking care of things that are hard for them… and teaching them where they should go. Except for baby pokémon…
The modifications to the scanner have revealed some interesting features of his metaphysical biology. There seem to be seven major nodes of energy along with a set series of pathways for aura. Different moves appear to draw upon different centers and nodes, and there’s some odd data I don’t quite understand on how aura is sourced between Mirko and Jericho.
Focus Energy seems to emanate from a sacral node for Jericho, focusing the flow of his power to increase the potential damage of his attacks through a breathing exercise. I’m gonna be heavily studying this in training, to see how well they correspond to the visualization exercises Akari has been lending a hand with.
Anyways, that’s where I’ll be leaving off on Jericho.
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Berry Trees
So I've finished up my first pages on Jericho as a nidoran, so I've decided to write down my observations on the local berry trees, and I'm not talking about a common strawberry or any of the thousand variants of this world. I'm talking about Berries with a capital B, the keystone species vital to the functioning of the world order. Coming from many different families and many different origins and yet vital all the same.
Now there isn't enough room to write down about the over sixty species of Berry, but the ones I've needed to use recently are an easy enough topic.
The oran berry or Citrus oran is a wild fruit closely related to the orange family of Citrus cultivars. It has a wonderful mix of flavors, spreading across the mouth in a burst of spicy, dry, sweet, and then sour. An oran berry is completely spherical with a blue thin edible skin with compact durable seeds nestled in the center. It's a very unique species, containing a number of complex exotic substances and energies that grant a burst of instant energy, treat pain, bacterial, viral and septic infections. Some type of aura-based biochemical set of reactions. From my scans and papers I've read.
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The plant itself is a citrus species, with thorny twigs that can grow into either a shrub or a full-blown tree depending on resources. Easy to identify, dark green, shiny, aromatic, leathery, and evergreen with odd blue patterns along the trunk and branches, along with strong scented white flowers with seven triangular petals and a blue whorled stamen. They're a fantastic plant to find in the wilds, easily producing 250 to 400 fruits on a 10-meter tree. They could be the difference between life and death in the right circumstances.
Which brings me to the next berry species, the chesto berry or Castanea chesto is a species of hardy chestnut imbued with a number of useful properties that let it counteract sleep and sleep-causing moves and abilities. An exotic form of caffeine, a similar instant digestion effect like in oran berries, and the ability to maintain background brain processes taken care of during sleep. Its thick skin and fruity flesh is tough, dry, and not very tasty like the close relative Castanea crenata is. But its sleep-altering properties are useful and well-documented. I was able to maintain consciousness for 48 hours without any side effects from this berry.
The chesto is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree that can grow up to 15 meters tall with oblong and boldly toothed leaves from 8-20 cm long and 3-6 cm wide. The flowers of the chesto tree are 7-20 cm long, upright catkins that contain three to seven berries at a time. Hybrid cultivars with the sweeter-tasting Nihoh or Joseon chestnut have produced a fairly widespread semi-domesticated tree species that make for excellent food materials, though at the cost of far lessened medical properties. The chesto tree can bear hundreds to thousand of berries, and from scans emit energies similar to certain moves and abilities like Uproar, or Insomnia.
It's a fascinating species, and means I can move on to the pecha berry or Prunus persica pecha, a nectarine which can cure poison and toxic effects with ease. A feat possible due to a complex cocktail of antidotes, and the fact most pokémon toxins are based on several core molecular structures due to the vast amount of gene transfer across clades. Sauropsida for example all share a toxin molecule that evolved about 320 million years ago while Synapsida has another. The pecha can of course cure all of them because why not?
The pecha berry is very soft, very sweet and delicious, and rather tender, though its hollow inside pocket doesn't make it very filling. Made it very convenient after I accidentally tripped over Jericho and got poisoned.
The pecha tree can grow up to 7 meters tall, and up to 3 to 4 meters in diameter. Their leaves are lanceolate, 7-16 cm long and 2-3 cm broad with feathery veins, with pretty 3 cm pink flowers with five petals. Instead of a single large seed like most stone fruit, the pecha has small seeds lining the hollow space that stick to the flesh. It makes it easy to consume, and the pecha makes a great sweetener and poffin ingredient. It's good food and medicine for the traveling trainer or plucky explorer.
Now… For the cheri berry or Prunus cheri which is of course closely related to cherries, mainly wild or sweet cherries. Their flavor profile is very spicy, more like a round pepper than a common cherry, and counters paralysis by stimulating the nervous system. They're tiny round berries that grow on more modest deciduous trees, up to 10 meters though hybrid cultivars with wild cherries lets them grow up to 40. Their purplish-red bark and ovoid-acute 7-14 cm long and 4-7 cm broad green leaves make them easy to identify with bundled flowers with 5 white petals, red stamen, and weirdly shaped ovaries.
Now the last berry tree I've encountered so far is the sitrus berry or Citrus sitrus if you can believe it, a close relative of the oran berry that split off around twenty thousand years ago. Now you think that means it would be tasty because of that, but that's where you're wrong.
It's a well-rounded ‘flavor’, it's not too spicy, it's not too dry, it's not too sweet or bitter or sour. To be frank, to quote someone from home, it's motherfucking bland! Only made up by the fact it induces full-blown cellular regeneration by either transforming aura into physical mass, or using local matter as feedstock. It’s an ovate or oblong yellow fruit with orange spots with a leathery rind, and free of pulp and packed full of seeds, and can reach 5 kg from time to time. Their plant is a fast-growing shrub or small tree that can reach 2 to 6 m with irregular straggling branches and green evergreen leaves with a lemon-scent and ovate-elliptic shape and up to 18 cm long. Bunch of clustered white-purple flowers are common.
Mirko helped gather a ton of them so we've got a bunch of healing items and food on hand.
Berry Trees are a very odd phenomenon, most well-known for their vigorous growth, able to sprout within 4 hours and grow into a 10-foot, 10-inch diameter tree and or shrub in around 16 hours. Essentially gaining two or three hundred kilograms in about a day. Most plants here grow a few times faster than stuff back home, but not that fast. Which made me suspicious.
Fruit exists as a means of spreading a plant’s genes by using an animal as a vessel for their seed. The very specific properties of berries indicates their beneficial effects are a means of enticing pokémon and people alike to consume them.
My hypothesis is that berries exploit some type of aura phenomenon when passing through the digestive system, which might relate to both how they do what they do and how they grow so fast. Being exposed to exotic energies has to have some benefit when it's tied so closely to life.
It's just a theory at the moment but it's something to test in the future.
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September 14th, 2022
Tohoku region, West Noto Rural Zone
Abra
The Rural Zone has been pretty cool, around 17 C and free of pesky rain. And I’ve been given the chance to encounter a number of pokémon that are either pre-adapted to the semi-urban environment or are naturally drawn to human settlements.
As we left the edge of a small town by the name of Lucida, we approached a short mix of grass and abandoned buildings, and were lucky enough to encounter a few abra! It was a group of three of three sizes, one stood at four feet tall while another was a runt at two feet, and a third was the average of about three feet.
Abra is a well known species, endemic to most regions of the Orient, Vulpes prudensa, the wise fox, closely related to the vulpix, zorua and eevee lines. The abra line could be said to be in a trio with vulpix and zorua, supernatural foxes, vulpix with magic and spiritual power, zorua with illusions and dark fey energies, and abra with their vast psychic heritage and mental powers.
Abra is vaguely humanoid, though their vulpine traits are obvious with their foxlike pointed ears and head though they’re covered in a yellow hide instead of fur, with a leathery brown plate around their chest and a thick tail that acts as a fat store.
They are some of the most powerful psychics in the world, their brains are always growing more refined and more efficient neural connections, constantly generating psychic energy like a squishy engine. They often live around human settlements, drawn by the sheer amount of neural activity, lodging in abandoned buildings and alleyways or even teleporting into people’s beds.
Their sheer psychic power and intelligence would make them an active threat if it wasn’t for their own gentle nature and enjoyment of human company. They spend most of their time sleeping, needing between ten and eighteen hours of sleep a day in a trance that retains defense maneuvers like the instinctual use of Teleport, and telepathic reading of intent and danger. The latter of which is a non-offensive and weak version of Future Sight.
Their biology is nothing out of the ordinary, they’re bipedal foxes with psychic powers. Omnivores, subsiding on berries, vegetables and meat, usually from domestic mon that are easy to catch, especially ones rich in psychic energy.
Anyways…
The three abra are friendly enough when we encountered them, they could likely read our intent. While I wouldn’t have minded catching an abra, forcing the issue wasn’t something I was interested in. Akari was more curious than anything, smiling at the cute fellas. They all knew Teleport, and the biggest one was already using a few psychic moves. Confusion and Psyshock from the looks of things. The biggest one… I suspect he was close to evolving, which would make him around 16 years old. Most pokémon tend to take much longer to evolve in the wild, an ordeal of years or even decades rather than months and years under the tutelage of a human.
They were communicating silently, though making gestures and miming with their hands was a common occurrence as we watched them socialize. One was using telekinesis to grab berries from nearby shrubs, distributing them evenly between each other to feed themselves. Before we left the largest, ended up making telepathic contact, a sudden mental burst of ‘Danger’ in a side route we had almost gone down.
They directed us to take the main route or another side route if adventure was important. The abra were kind souls, though I am curious what they were so afraid of.
What could have scared them off so strongly?