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bensen-daniel — Chthuman
Published: 2009-02-27 21:55:20 +0000 UTC; Views: 1735; Favourites: 23; Downloads: 18
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Description
Chthuman are mysterious spirits, never seen in the open air and only rarely tamed. Encounters are limited to mines, tunnels, and very rarely the cellars or dungeons of abandoned buildings. As wise as they are secretive, chthuman rarely subject themselves to any kind of human contact, but when contact is made, the results are profound indeed. Chthumian influence can be firmly attributed to three of the four major world religions, and has been suggested for countless philosophical and scientific revolutions. Darker stories of chthuman driving their human contacts insane are unverified, but of course, also unverifiable by their nature.Note: Pavlina does not like it! She says it looks icky! Redesigns are in the works!
Etymology:
English: Humble, Humus, ?human
Russian: Zemliya (land)
Sanskrit: Ksam (earth as opposed to sky)
Greek: Khthon (earth)
Done while listening to:
Little Brother, Germs Guns and Steel
Related content
Comments: 31
thank you!
My wife said it was gross
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So say people about my drawings which I consider "cute" ;]
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interesting...
there something from the concept near similar to what they are... anyhow that thing looks much different
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uh...good? What does this thing look much different from?
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the one i got some years in a dream.. it looks more like a squid not wormlike like the picture you drawn.. even the comapring name with Chthuman - Chtulu is interesting
the version you presented is related to some real existing myth? I googled a bit before but didn't found something usefull
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You can read where I got the name from the description. I got the name by combining Chthon and its cognate in English, Human.
Chthon is the Greek word for "the ground." In Latin, it became Humus (or so they tell me) and possibily Human (a being made from the ground).
In English, Chthonian (of the ground, as opposed to Celestial, of the heavens) is used in religious studies to refer to the spiritual realms under the earth (usually hell, or the afterlife). For this reason, Chthonian is often used to mean "demonic" (in religions where demons are spiritual beings that come from under ground). I am sure that H.P. Lovecraft (who knew greek) adapted the term as the name of his ancient evil god.
I gave Mr. Lovecraft a nod in my description, when I said that encounters with Chthuman often left people insane.
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Ah OK! Now your name choose and background comes a bit more clear for me
Also I now got in my mind the german words Homunkulus(wich has real latin orgin and describe kind of "earth Kobold(similarity with the Cobalt element?)/little people" and have some alchemical similarities and relations with a Golem) and the word Humus(mean good planting soil from fresh but well rotten plant materials)
Look up the conversion of words and there mutations happened from influencing languages over the time comes often very interesting
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I agree. It was that sort of study that inspired me to make that series of elemental animals.
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I agree with Sapien, the crystalline motif is intriguing and nicely executed. It could just as easily be a classical "silicon-based life form" as a supernatural entity, methinks. --Interesting, when I first glanced at this I interpreted it as a curled-up caterpillar-like being, but in full view I see its form as more ammonite-like. Nice work!
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Aha! So the ammonite bit did get through. I'm glad to know that 
Silicon-based life---well, I suppose this is silicon-based in the same way Terry Pratchett's trolls are silicon based. But you can't be too scientifically rigorous about it, or it all falls apart. My problem with silicon-based life has always been this: where does motive power come from? With us, ATP phosphorolates proteins that contract. Put a lot of them together and you get muscles. But how do you make a crystal contract? I suppose if they could focus sunlight to warm certain parts of the crystal, they could get some energy out of thermal expansion. That energy could be stored as stress in springs, or maybe as electricity. Has anyone else thought about this?
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to get to your thought about motive powers for crystalline silicone beings. As with the human body not everything is only carbon 
You know the book "watermind" it is a nice story about a new liveform created from environmental pollutions out of electronic and biological waist mixtures.
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I haven't heard of watermind, but I read the synopsis here [link] Sounds interesting.
Piezoelectricity: a wikipedia ([link] ) search says that:
A) a Piez-crystal produces electricity when squeezed
B) a Piez-crystal squeezes when stimulated by electricity
Okay, here's an idea for you.
Silicon-life utilizes solar power by focusing sunlight to produce thermal expansion---thermal expansion stresses piezo-electric crystals, which produce electric current, which can be stored. Electric current can then be used on other piezo-electric "muscles" to produce movement (probably in defense or to move solar collectors). Reproduction...how about this?
Stored energy or sunlight focused on pressurized chambers inside the organism turns water into superheated steam. Minerals are dissolved into the steam, and as the steam cools, seed crystals are introduced to grow the appropriate crystals.
Genetic information is stored as imperfections in the crystal.
I am envisioning a single, giant organism here. It would not reproduce copies of itself, but rather incorporate resources from the environment into itself as it spreads. "Speciation" would occur as mutations build up in the genetic crystals in different areas of the spread. When mutant areas are too different, different regions no longer recognize each other as "self" and attempt to cannibalize each other for raw materials. Competition ensues.
The end result? A crystal maze that covers the continent, spreading mirrored spires, dishes, and panels to collect and focus sunlight, filled with a complicated system of water-carrying tubes, the whole thing extending deep under ground to trap geothermal energy and minerals. Movement and growth are glacially slow, but communication takes place nearly instantaneously as electricity and light are channeled from one region to another. As regions compete, signals are intercepted, scrambled, encrypted, decrypted, and allowed to evolve as their crystal hardware becomes more sophisticated. As the crystal cities fight one an other, intelligence is advantageous.
Now I hope someone will point me to the science-fiction author who had this idea before me.
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Hmm maybe Allen Dean Foster in its Sentence to Prism Story were someone stranded on a crystal overgrown planet.
He didn't worked that thing out to scientific like you done with the above description, but he still have some similar basics in it too.
It is nearly 20 years as I red it so I don't remember much details.
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I've read it, but never heard about it. More recently Axis and Spin talk about silicon-based van-neuman robots that evolve. Too bad the books were boring as hell.
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hehe just rember how boring was the lesson on van Neumann computer architecture at the time I am in university
But anyhow I have both books on my "wishlist" of like to read books
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I don't really get the silicon-based life thing either! The one possible solution I've considered is organisms (or at least the structural constituents thereof) based on silicones rather than silicates. That would lead to greater flexibility, at least, though it still doesn't address your point about energy generation. It's hard for me to imagine under what circumstances silicone-based life might evolve...Perhaps synthetically created? I guess there's also the possibility of a "hybrid" body chemistry as suggested for the creature in "Alien," or at least the employment of silicon compounds in a more superificial way, i.e. for structural support (as occurs in some terrestrial organisms). But yeah, I tend to think the problems are fairly insurmountable, or at least make the evolution of such organisms unlikely in terms of natural selection.
Oh good, I was afraid I was off-base on the ammonite!
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I had an idea at one point for a colonial organism that uses silicates to build shells around itself (perhaps on a hot, geologically active world). Chemo-synthetic microbe colonies in deep-sea vents secrete hard protective coats of glass as they burrow into the crust in search of metabolites. They form the basis for a rich ecosystem on the sea floor, and free up a lot of silicates for other organisms to use. When life conquers land, it does so in a glassy fish bowl filled with sea water. That one I actually used in a story, but it isn't real silicon-based biochemistry.
What was the hybird body chemistry in alien?
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I REALLY like that idea! It's a great metaphor for the way terrestrial organisms colonized dry land by carrying the sea with them in their vital fluids. The book "Hypersea" explores this concept in greater depth.
In the original Alien, Ash describes the "facehugger" as shedding its epidermal cells and replacing them with a layer of "polarized silicon," which is presumably the basis for the adult Alien's exoskeletal armor.
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That would be here ([link] )
Cool.
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worms are icky! This thing is much prettier
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Wow, very creative design. The crystal work is a nice touch
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thanks. I googled "stone" and got amethyst crystals.
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Crazy Cakes! I love it! It looks like something that I could find on a beach! Too Though! I love it! <3 lol! :
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Yes, it was originally supposed to look like a "serpent stone" (i.e. an ammonite), but I forgot that somewhere down the line
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