Tinian

Tinians (Tie-Ni-n) are originally a reptilian type race which are essentially the top half of a snake and the top half of a human. While their original forms are much less recognizable, their uplifting by humans has encouraged them to genetically modify themselves to be more appealing to their human partners. They come in a variety of coloration and patterns, and varying physical features, typically having two arms, but with age and prestige up to eight for near-mythical figures.

• Wrap
• Coil
• Accommodation

• Neophate
• Adult
• Sage
• Master
• False God

Tinian definitely give the impression of snakepeople. Possessing the aspect of a human with light soft scales on parts of the body, and the long sinuous body of a snake to “stand” upon and provide locomotion. They often have hair, but some prefer to retain the ancient hood of flat scaled neck of their ancestry. The scales on top of their “tails” are small, often iridescent, and smooth. The scales on the bottom are larger, wider, and often rougher purely from friction.

Most often seen with a single set of arms, this is the most common type of tinian citizen. Their arms usually thin and long, possessing similar topographical characteristics as the rest of their upper-halves. So if they possess heavily scaling their arms are likely similar.

“Height” as defined by a comfortable position with the torso elevated, usually 1/3rd their total length. Most tinians “stand” at least five and half feet to six feet as adult, and up to twenty feet at extreme age and prestige.

Length will vary between ten feet for young adults, fifteen to twenty for common adults, and up to 100 for extremely large specimens.

Skin and scale come in a wide variety of colors and styles. Pearly whites, jet blacks, shining coppers, and shimmering …colors, man. The colors.

Hair, when present, is most common on the top of the head and face like a humans, having been carefully gene tailored over centuries to achieve this look.

While originally their pure strain features were definitely much more snake-like, most modern strains have become much more humanized. With human facial features and the eyes moving to binocular positions.

Eyes remain slit pupils, with a variety of colors, red, brown, blue, green, and other much rarer colors. Sometimes conforming to their scale color as a dominate gene.

Teeth have developed although they still retain their signature fangs, enlarged and strengthened. They also have incisors and molars similar to humans to allow them to imbide human food, although in some strains these may simply be dentures of implanted. Long, forked tongue.

Extremely sharp sense of taste to compensate for a eak olfactory system. Not as sharp as actual snakes, more of their brain area being taken up by high reasoning.

Can talk like a human, but often with a thick drawing out of certain letters. Either naturally or put on as a stereotype.

Eyesight is slightly superior to humans, with minor infrared vision giving them the ability to see heat in particularly warm items compared to the ambient temperature.

The 'human' part of the body is roughly analogous to baseline humans, whoever the jaw, throat, and rib structure are very different and are able to dislocate and expand tremendously. The 'snake' half is roughly similar to what you would expect.

While most organs are general recognizable, the internal layout differs in subtle but important ways which are better understood by someone who has an actual MD. All organs appear extremely resistant to damage from blunt force trauma as well as general crushing of squeezing, being extremely elastic in nature. This allows the tinian to swallow extremely large prey items without internal damage. The stomach resembles more a tube running down the body towards the tail than a sack of fluids, meaning that went hungry tinians almost always appear skinny if they have not overindulged to create extreme excess bodyfat.

The nervous system is not too dissimilar from humans, the brain being located in the head with most of the sensory organs. The spine houses the majority of nerve fibers throughout the body, of note however is the extreme flexibility these fibres are capable of without causing pain.

Tianians prefer a largely meat-based diet, as their baseline digestion systems, while long, do not specialize in processing plant matter. Gene-modding and medical supplements have helped mitigate this dependency, but their tastebuds will still often crave the traditional diet.

Tinians respond well to most inoculations and vaccines, requiring only limited specialized immune-supplements to maintain contact with other species. Their scales can suffer from various diseases without proper hygiene, however, which can be difficult due to their sheer size. Diseases of the gut are somewhat common, as well as growing pains.

As capable of emotions and intellect as humans, Tinian brains appear to have slightly less processing dedicated towards hearing, instead directing to feeling vibrations through their feet pads. Other than this, apart from minor variations in ratios in equivalent parts of the brain, and differing locations of such, there is little different per average brain mass. One interesting note however is the hypocampus (emotion center) is much further away from the cerebral cortex (logic) than in a human brain, suggesting tinians may be more better at suppressing emotions than humans.

Roughly similar to humans, the Tinian bell-curve would perhaps stretch slightly further behind humans on average, being an uplift species and still evolving into modern life, as all sentient life is so slow to do.

Tinians tend to be rather religious, but rarely conservative. They often favor the immediate over long-term thinking, and can be quite self-indulgent.

Tinians tend to enjoy talking with strangers, however some may find themselves feeling the odd sensation of being sized up to be eaten…

Tinians can be difficult to learn about personal space, as they enjoy “hugging” their warm blooded friends immensely.

Certain tinians have a predisposition for magic, but they are not exceptionally gifted as a species, at least, not until late adult stages.

Somewhat rare, but not unheard of.

Being a heavily gene-modded species, tinians vary greatly in appearance and styles. Individuals who deal with other races frequently are much more likely to undergo gene-therapy to appear more humanoid and pleasing to aliens, such as the growing of superfluous mammalian mammary glands. Color variations can be extreme from parent to child, and even among siblings, patterns are more likely to be shared between family members, however.