Ssilirians are a humanoid saurian race that resemble lizardfolk of other worlds.  They stand generally around human height, though they are heavier due to tails and other body parts humans lack. Ssilirians exhibit pronounced sexual dimorphism, which is the primary subject of this post.

Traits in common

All Ssilirians share some traits. They all have tails and sport three fingers on each hand, two toes on each foot, and a non-prehensile tail. Their eyes are usually yellow, though some have green or brown eyes. Their bodies are covered in thick, smooth scales that protect them from many of Ssilir’s natural hazards. Scale colors tend to be greens and browns, enabling them to blend into Ssilir’s jungles.

Ssilirians are fully amphibious. Many Ssilirians spend far more time in the water than on land. As mentioned last time, many of their cities are built on or near water, so the race has adapted well to amphibious life.  Ssilirians are expert swimmers who can move through the water about as quickly as they can on land. Water sports are a major part of Ssilirian entertainment.

Finally, the Ssilirians are a hardy, healthy people. Ssilir has erratic and often severe weather patterns. In addition, the tropical climate breeds dozens of flora, fauna, and diseases so the Ssilirians have developed resistance to many of these hazards.

3.5e Traits

- +2 Con: Ssilirians are a  healthy and hardy people
- Base land speed 30′
- Poison resistance: +4 racial bonus on saves against poison and disease
- Natural armor: +1
- Accelerated Natural Healing: Ssilirians recover hp at twice the normal rate during a rest.
- Adept Swimmers: Ssilirians have a swim speed equal to their land speed. They also have a +4 racial bonus to Swim checks to perform special actions or avoid hazards and may always take 10 on Swim checks, even when distracted or endangered. Ssilirians may also use the run action while swimming, provided they move in a straight line.
- Hold Breath: Ssilirians can hold their breath for a number of rounds equal to 6x Constitution score before risking drowning or suffocation.
- +4 racial bonus to Hide checks underwater or in areas of heavy vegetation.

Male Ssilirians

Male Ssilirians stand taller than females but weigh a little less. Males are about 6 feet tall on average from foot to top of the skull and weigh around 170 lbs. Ssilirian men, like male avians, are visually striking and many Ssilirians believe they are descended from birds. Most Ssilirian men have horns, fins, and other protrusions on their heads that make them more noticeable. These protrusions are not factored into base height. Males coloration ranges across the green spectrum from bright grass green to deep forest green.

Men have a highly sensitive sense of smell that evolved from a need to detect female pheromones. Male Ssilirians have honed this sense for use in hunting and tracking.

Male Ssilirians have sleeker, more streamlined builds than females. Men generally appear more suited for water than land and are more agile and nimble than women.

Male 3.5e Traits

In addition to the general Ssilirian traits listed above, male Ssilirians have the following traits:

- +2 Dex: Male Ssilirians are athletic and agile
- Scent
- +2 racial bonus to Climb and Tumble checks.
- +4 racial bonus to Survival checks when tracking by scent.

Female Traits

Female Ssilirians are shorter but broader and stouter. They are physically stronger than men and have low centers of gravity that make them especially suited to life on land. They are visually plain but they are capable of emitting powerful pheromones. They use these pheromones to attract or repel men, whose well-honed noses make them highly sensitive to women’s scents. Females are usually brown-colored and lack the fins and horns that men have.

Women usually have sharper eyes, though their senses of smell are not as finely-tuned as men’s.

3.5e Traits

- +2 Str: Female Ssilirians are physically strong and sturdy.
- Stability: Female Ssilirians have +4 on checks to resist being bull rushed or tripped while standing on the ground.
- Pheromones: Female Ssilirians can negate any bonuses a creature gets for tracking by scent. They can also create a false trail with scent and make themselves smell like other creatures.
- +2 racial bonus to Spot, Listen, and Search checks.

Welcome to the first Ssilir Saturday! This blog series is meant to provide a bit of background for the world Qul comes from. You can expect a Ssilir Saturday post about every week and each one will delve deeper and deeper into the world called Ssilir.

Today I’ll give you bashers a basic overview of Ssilir so you can get a basic idea of what kind of world Qul’s used to.  This one’s short, but if there’s anything in particular you want to know about Ssilir or its people, let me know and I’ll make a list of things that you, my fans, want to hear about.

Physical Characteristics

Ssilir is a roughly Earth-sized world located in a distant and as-yet undiscovered crystal sphere. The planet is third in its solar system and has an axial position such that its southern hemisphere gets far more sun time than the northern. About 90% of Ssilir’s surface is covered in water and 90% of the planet’s land masses are located in the southern hemisphere. Of those landmasses, most form a ring of three small continents and dozens of large islands and archipelagos around the southern pole. The land masses are all riddled with lakes and rivers. Ssilir has four moons, each one named for one of their six gods. The remaining two gods are linked to the sky and the planet itself.

Climate & Terrain

Because of all the water, Ssilir maintains very mild temperatures across the globe. The temperatures gradually cool the further north a body travels, and the northern pole is surrounded by an island of ice. However, temperatures rarely shift suddenly in any part of the world. The amount of water on the planet does cause dramatic weather patterns. Large storms and hurricanes occur frequently, though since most of the land is concentrated in one quarter of the planet, most Ssilirians are unaware of the extent of storm patterns across Ssilir.

Temperatures on the land masses generally stay around 80F (26C). Because of the axial tilt, days are long. Temperatures do not drop much overnight because the nights are so short. Time from sunrise to sunset is roughly 18 hours of a 24-hour day, depending on where a body is on Ssilir’s land.

The land masses are mostly covered in thick jungles and lush plains that teem with all kinds of life. The land has thousands of different species, many that have yet to be discovered by the Ssilirians. Continents have rivers, lakes, and mountains running across them that separate the land into natural boundaries.

People

The sentient race on Ssilir, the Ssilirians, are a warm-blooded saurian race with scales instead of skin. They are fully amphibious and well-adapted to their aquatic planet. The race has a more pronounced sexual dimorphism than most humanoid races. Males tend to be taller and slimmer, and are colored more brightly green than women. Females are usually shorter and broader and carry a marsupial-like pouch for holding young. They tend to be browner in color and less visually striking. Many Ssilirians believe that they are descended from birds and Ssilirian religion holds birds in high esteem.

Ssilirian people are divided into city-states scattered across the land masses. The city-state boundaries usually fall within the natural borders formed by mountains, though some large valleys are shared by two or three city-states. Though an overarching Ssilirian culture exists among across the planet, each city-state also has its own subculture. City-states engage in politics, warring, and trade much like separate nations on earth. Six city-states are held sacrosanct. Positioned roughly equidistant from each other, they each have a major temple devoted to each of the gods. They are officially neutral territories in all squabbles, though unofficially these city-states engage as much politics as the others. Priests of the six main gods are expected to make pilgrimages to at least one of these temple cities during their lives. Qul himself is from Relirasc, the city of the Storm God.

The abundant water on the planet combined with the Ssilirians’ amphibious natures has made the Ssilirians skilled masters of hydraulic power and water use. Waterways serve as major travel paths and many towns and cities are built at least partially on the water itself. Water power is harnessed to provide power to all sorts of Ssilirian works. Ssilirian cities have fountains on every block and water runs through the workings of every part of the cities to provide energy for industry and art. Hydraulic energy has become a symbol of the Ssilirian people.

All right.

• Anti-bot plugin.  Check.
• LJ Crosspost plugin.  Check.
• Bookmark/Social networking plugin.  Check.
• Cast Page updated to include Lasc’s profile? Check.

Still to do:

• Work with my SEO.  Gotta make sure I’m getting the most out of that.
• Finish the layout.  This will probably have to wait until Wednesday or so.
• Look into advertising/spreading the word so I can get my name out there more.
• Look at Twitter as a means of the above.

Long-Term Projects:

• Forum plugin or phpBB3 bridge.
• Ssilir as a fantasy world.
• Browse WordPress plugins, see what’s what.

Ideas for the far future:

• Make Metamorphosis avatars for use on this site.
• Look at ways to enhance the theme.
• See how I can bring a more general audience on-board.

That’s all for today!  Time to get back to work on pages!

- Kage

All right, the semester is over and I have a whole summer ahead of me!  That means it’s time to work on the site and the comic! 

Here are some of the immediate changes in my plans:

• Add a CAPTCHA or anti-bot plugin so I can open registration and commenting without worrying about spammers.
• Finish the overall layout.  I’ll be switching to the “Graphic Novel” ComicPress setup.  This setup was just so I could find my way around the ComicPress and WordPress layouts.
• Look into a plugin that will allow me to cross-post to LJ.
• Research getting a Twitter feed.
• Add a bookmarking that’ll allow pages and posts to be linked to sites like Digg, et al.
• Look at sites and other places to advertise and spread the word.
• Work on my site SEO.

For the long term, here are some of the ideas that I’ve got.

• Look for a good forum plug-in or see if I can find a way to bridge my WordPress installation with my phpBB3 installation.
• Complete work on Ssilir: the World so people can read about the land Qul comes from
• Look at plug-ins in general, see what looks neat and could be useful what doesn’t.

I’ve decided my update schedule will be every Monday and Thursday.  These days are right after days that, even during most of the school semester, I’ll have ample time to put a page together.  I do expect occasional weeks where school will be too overwhelming for me to update the comic.  However, at least for the Fall term, this update schedule should work out.  So if you’re actually following these posts, you can expect the updates to start rolling in soon.

Finally, I will be crossposting this comic to a few other sites.  I’m looking at DrunkDuck as a possibility, and will probably also use PaperDemon.  I will also post pages to my deviantART gallery, but I will probably post them without text there.  My ultimate intent is to funnel people to this website so I can get a better estimate of how many visitors I have total, where they’re coming from, and how to better suit my site to them.  I do love Google Analytics!

That’s all for now.  I’ll hopefully be doing another site update later today, so keep an eye out.

- Kage

Excellent!  I can now crosspost from here to my LJ!  This will be handy in getting updates posted at LJ so my readers there can see.

You all can ignore this post.  I just wanted to celebrate my small victory   I’ll do a more substantial update later.