Vreem - Blog Posts

Flora of the Vreem Home World

Flora on the vreem home world is more closely related to fauna, as the two share the same phyla. This is because, the origins of multicellular photosynthesis is fundamentally different than earth's.

Unlike on earth where eukaryotic photosynthesis evolved via symbiosis with cyanobacteria this process never occurred on their home world. Instead their version of photosynthesis developed later as a type of membrane bound protein structure in the earliest ancestor of both their flora and fauna phyla. As a result the flora across the vreem home world is more closely related to their animal life than those on earth.

Here's a collection of different flora-fauna your might come across on the vreem home world. Most flora use a red photosynthetic pigment in their foliage, but other pigments such blue-green and even gold are also found across the world and are typically more common among aquatic species. Each species is listed with an earthling name along side its Onomatopoeia derived from Khllk, a commonly spoken vreem language.

Singing Suitors "Hornfoots"

Evolved from a worm like ancestor, their leaves are modified gills filled with the red photo-sensitive pigment used in their process of photosynthesis. They get their name in khllk due to the rattle like "seed pots" which when blown in the wind produces a sound similar to a "Vreem" chirp. They are colloquially called hornfoots by humans, as their root structures are made of heavily ossified tissue baring a resemblance to horns. Water is drawn from the soil through capillary action similar to trees on earth. Hornfoots are a relatively primitive group of floral type fauna as they retain a central cavity, mouth, and two simple compound eyes. They protect their fills by pulling them inwards into their central cavity.

Sticky Vines Predatory flora are common across their homeworld. Sticky Vines, typically hang from the stocks / branches of other flora and use their two sticky oral arms to snag flying pray. While their too small to be considered a threat to the vreem, their oral arms are difficult to spot in the red jungles they grow in, and as a result they often present a collision hazard below the canopy

Barnacle Snakes Are a related species to sticky vines, whoever they retain more of their ancestral form. They typically grow rooted to a larger structure, a rock face or another large flora species. They share a similar gill structure like hornfoots, but theirs are sticky. They're predominately air filter feeders, surviving mostly on spores and small bugs. Unlike hornfoots they have a complete gut.

Land Corals Red Cups, Anemone Grass and Blood Leafs are three flora species which are from colonial clade. They individual flora which are comprised of smaller specialized clones which function together as a single organisms. This tends to give them a more "plant-like" appearance, similar to other colonial animals like corals on earth.

Pneumopods This group of animals tend to occupy the "insect / bug" niches like those of arthropods of earth They're very small organisms no larger than a human fingernail. However their biology share more in common with echinoderms (starfish / sea urchins) than insects. They have an endoskeleton comprised of plates as a row of tube feet for locomotion. These two have photosynthetic spiney membranes. The species on the right are gliders and feeds on the hemolymph of other flora.

Thinking of some ideas for what a vreem language might look like. I figured since they have crab claws they would have a hard time using cylindrical writing tools so i came up with a stamp like pen instead. This is an example of Khlhk and is one of many vreem languages in my setting. It uses a vertical script of lines and dots and is an agglutination heavy language, so an entire sentence or phrase is also a single word.

Also an example of some graffiti with a stylized version of the script.

All three of the founding species of my setting together with their initial concept sketches and their current final art. The veem changed the most as i felt that too many of the aliens I've drawn so far were too mammalian like. I've got two more alien I'd like to add but I'm still working working on coming up with a better design for them.

A slight update from my old sketch, I wasn't particularly happy about the head. A little too mammalian but i wanted to maintain a a few recognizable bits from the old design. Out of all of my alien designs they've changed the most from their initial concept sketches.

Another sketch WIP

Still have more aliens to draw, this one is for the Vreem. A diminutive species of alien only slightly larger than a mouse. They have an interesting symbiotic relationship with a species of plants collectively called the Tyreem. The plants are not sapient themselves, but they they are able to pass as intelligent very well, at least to the Vreem and have evolutionary co-opted vreem intelligence into cultivate themselves. Its an idea I'm still in the process of work-shopping but in the meantime I've been redesigning these guys