Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hello there, all you would-be World Creators! It's your friendly neighborhood FKT, with some questions to keep in mind when you're trying to think up a creepy-crawly of your own. Granted, answering all these won't guarantee your concept is accepted, and in some cases they won't apply to your species, but if nothing else, it's a start.

If you have any questions, either to add to this list or to direct at one of the staff, you may post them in the thread. I do my best to define terms I don't think people will understand, but I might overlook something.

For Non-Sentient Species:

- What environment does your species live in? What adaptations have been made for this environment? What advantages do members of the species have in surviving their environment?
- What is the body type for your species? Are they heavy or light? High-density or low? How big are they?
- How do members of your species move about? Legs? Wings? Tentacles? Are they even mobile?
- What is the average life span of your species? How does their life cycle work? How do they reproduce?
- How does your species gain energy? Are they autotrophic (producing their own energy, like plants) or heterotrophic (gaining energy from eating autotrophs or other heterotrophs). How active is their metabolism? How often and how much do they need to eat to maintain homeostasis?
- What eats your species? Does it have any natural predators? How does it defend itself against an enemy species?
- How do members of a species interact with eachother? Are they private creatures, or do they live in packs? Do they claim territory? Do they raise their young?
- Does your species depend on a symbiotic relationship? Beyond the predator/prey relationship, there is parasitism (one organism thriving while the other organism suffers), mutualism (both organisms gaining something from the relationship), and commensalism (one organism thriving while the other organism is neither harmed nor benefitted).
- What niche does your species fill in its environment? Is it the top predator, or is it the bottom-feeding cleaner? What purpose does it serve?
- Chemically speaking, what does your species intake? What is toxic to them? Do they carry a preference towards a more acidic or basic environment? Are they even carbon-based?

For Sentient Species (Include questions from the non-sentient species section):
- WHAT MAKES YOUR SPECIES SENTIENT? To what degree are they sentient beings?
- What is the culture of your species? Do they have a certain philosophy? What about a mythology? Language? Do they live in permanent homes? Do they cultivate livestock? How did a typical member of the species live their day-to-day lives?
- Are the members of your species limited to their home planet, or have they branched out into space? What sort of technology does your species possess?

For the People with too much time on their hands (i.e. questions that aren't required for acceptance of a species, but we'd be mighty impressed if we saw answered):

- What sort of genetic variety is there among the population? Are there viable mutations (like albinism, for example) that could have possibly been picked up by the Keepers?
- How does this species interact with other species in its environment (other than symbiosis)?
- Does your species bear vestigial traits (features that are no longer helpful to the creature in its present form of evolution, like the human appendix)? How did these traits emerge previously, and why are they no longer useful?

Additional Tips:
- Sometimes it's helpful to start with an Earthly creature as a reference point. We want to see a bit more creativity than a monkey with butterfly wings, but looking at the wide variety of Earth species may give you some insight as to what works, how species interact in an environment, etc.
- It's been touched on in the questionnaire itself, but LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. Environment is everything in the adaptation of a species, so keep that in mind, because a desert creature probably wouldn't have thick, insulating fur.
- Most of these questions have an understood "why" in them. Don't know why your species has three horns on its left arm? Maybe they shouldn't, then (or you can call it vestigial, so long as you explain WHY ;D).