Creatures

Other Articles: Creatures (index); Templates (List)

This is the master bestiary for the world of Miranda. In here you will find many familiar creatures from various fantasy worlds, legends, and oral histories. In addition there are many that are new creations by us and others that are a completely different take on a long used creature.

Many of the entries will have listings for species and/or race. In the context of these listings a species will either list or link to different species within the same genus. The tell-tale sign of creatures within the same genus, but different species is that they are incapable of interbreeding and producing viable off-spring.

Race, or sub-species, is used to denote creatures within the same species, but that have different physical characteristics. Examples would be the different races of elves. Dark elves, Great Elves, Forsaken Elves, Tainted Elves, and Half-Elves are all capable of interbreeding and producing viable children. Thus they are all members of the same species. This is unlike True Elves or Lost Elves, which are incapable of interbreeding with any of the other elves.

Ethnicity is not used in this section of the wiki. Ethnicity deals more heavily with cultures and shared identities and while this may heavily cross into race and species. Ethnicity will be discussed in the List of ethnic groups.

Animal intelligence is designated for creatures that act instinct with no understandable sense of self - they have cognition, but only the most basic ability to question the whys. Their specific intelligence is highly variable by species, but although capable of memory, training, and learning - they will often revert to instinctive responses.

Any creature with some semblance of intelligence can be considered sentient - it is self-aware.

The highest order of sentience is a creature that is sapient as well. This is defined as a creature that is able to act upon its own judgement with the wisdom of their own intelligence. To contain a spark, however small, of the Shadow Realms.

The gods, devils, titans, and even Krynan itself are not sapient. This is because they are only capable of acting according to their nature - they are bound by what they are for all time. Sapience did not exist in the cosmos until the creation of the Shadow Realms.

The world is divided into different Biomes using the approach like that of Heinrich Walter as opposed to the more complicated system used by the World Wide Fund for Nature.

• Any

  • Sentient

    • Highly adaptible to many different environments
• Terrestrial

  • Tropical Rain Forest

    • Always moist and lacking temperature seasonality
    • Evergreen tropical rain forest
  • Tropical Forest

    • Summer rainy season and cooler “winter” dry season
    • Seasonal forest, scrub, or savanna
  • Subtropical

    • Highly seasonal, arid climate
    • Desert vegetation with considerable exposed surface
  • Woodland

    • Winter rainy season and summer drought
    • Sclerophyllous (drought-adapted), frost-sensitive shrublands and woodlands
  • Temperate Rain Forest

    • Occasional frost, often with summer rainfall maximum
    • Temperate evergreen forest, somewhat frost-sensitive
  • Temperate Forest

    • Moderate climate with winter freezing
    • Frost-resistant, deciduous, temperate forest
  • Temperate Grasslands

    • Arid, with warm or hot summers and cold winters
    • Grasslands and temperate deserts
  • Boreal Forest

    • Cold temperate with cool summers and long winters
    • Evergreen, frost-hardy, needle-leaved forest (taiga)
  • Polar

    • Very short, cool summers and long, very cold winters
    • Low, evergreen vegetation, without trees, growing over permanently frozen soils
• Aquatic

  • Freshwater

    • Water with less than 1% dissolved salt
  • Marine

    • Water with more than 1% dissolved salt
• Outsiders

  • Outsider

    • Spirits and Creatures not of Miranda's Mortal Plane.