The Beastmen of Fatal Radiance
Alright, after this upload I am almost gone for the Christmas days as I am visiting my family.
So, this is going to be just a quick summary on the beastmen in Fatal Radiance and City of Colors
as I have already gone far enough to give descriptions of anatomy and clothing, especially in
the later.
While reptiles have not yet introduced into either of those stories, I took more than a month to
have this being decided in favor for including them, thus they are described in this as well.
Edit: And no, the pun head designer is not intended. :P
Background:
The inhabitants of Domhan are mainly anthropomorphic animals by definition. Their origin lies in the machineries of the Old Ones, which wanted to create workers for themselves as their bodies degenerated too much over time to survive outside their highly advanced cities. This was only possible by them finding technology of a species that was only known as "humans". Developed by a company called Moirai Corporation, the Prometheus Forge 3.14 was used to combine the genetics of humans with that of the animals, whose genetic code was saved on the data drives.
Initially the forge was only used in order to create certain chimerae, which were wolves and foxes for scouting and hunting, otters and minks for fishing, badgers and moles for mining, and several rodents as servants. However, the intelligence of those chimerae was not inferior to that of their creators, and soon it came to rebellions, leading to some of the beastmen to escape and create more of their kind with the Prometheus Forge. Several years later those rebellions would form a revolution in which they fought bitterly against the Old Ones. In that time, it came that some of them found one last instrument of Moirai Corporation: Gaia, a machine that was capable of restoring the world's surface after Judgment Day would have come. It was due to the activation of this machine that the world was brought vitality and fertility within a year, awakening another machine from its slumber.
The cosmic defense mechanism E.P.O.S., a machine that was built to protect the world from dangers of all sorts, descended upon the city of Adamas, where the Old Ones resided. Its dragonic body stood motionless as it destroyed the city with its mere presence within one awful day and one terrible night.
After that the chimerae were free to roam the new world and create their own history and cultures.
Anatomical Structure:
Beginning with the head, it should be said that none of the species has overproportioned. The head designer Cyrus Bryne developed an algorithm that allowed to manipulate the synapse structure of the brain, which the Old Ones did not crack as they created human-like intelligence in their creations, including two species of birds, which coexist with the beastmen. However, the heads are proportionate to more human-like body-sizes.
The torsos of the beastmen are mostly the same as with humans. They have two arms and two legs, but in addition also have tails. The body size differs greatly between species however. For example, a fox is usually slender and petite in comparison to a tiger, which would be massive and tall. Mammalian beastmen are covered in fur, while reptilians have scales covering them completely.
The arms are still the same as with humans and end in five fingers. Instead of regular nails however carnivorous mammals and reptiles may feature claws instead. Hoofed species meanwhile have regular nails, which are usually darker and don't grow as much as they would on humans.
The legs are plantigrade, allowing a much easier stance on two legs. The feet are mostly a mix of human and species-specific features. In case of two-toed unguligrade species that results in plantigrade feet, which end with the actual hooves where the toes would be. One-toed unguligrades like horses meanwhile have their hooves span all over the feet.
Sexual characteristics are rather divided between groups. Male mammals have external genitals, which are the same shape as that of humans. Male reptiles have internal organs, which are closer to what their species may look like. The same tendency is mirrored with the organs of females. In case of reptilian beastmen the cloaca is not connected to the reproductive organs.
The chest of female mammalian beastmen can grow breasts similar to humans. Mammals only have one pair of nipples. Reptiles lack those characteristics entirely.
It should be noted that bats are a strange exception on the mammalian variant as their anatomy did not translate easily with the combination process, resulting in them still being rather like their regular animal counterparts.
Genetic Structure:
Due to the unnatural origin of the beastmen, they are all possessing 23 chromosomes that are however specifically altered to apply the different traits of every species. Therefore, they are in theory even more human than animal, which would make the conclusion clear that they are sexually compatible. However, without evoking divine magic, this is not the case as the genes are diverting too much to be compatible.
The sex-determining chromosomes are solely X and Y, even in cases where Z and W apply like in komodo dragons, or even cases of temperature based sex-determination like with bearded dragons.