Can you draw? I'd really appreciate your help, then.

[Druidus]

I have a novel-in-progress filled with varying species, all sentient, who co-exist on one world. Humans end up being brought to this world. I'm looking for someone who might like to draw some of these races (and their differing genders and/or castes) if I provide them a description.

I'd appreciate the help in visualizing my writing. I would obviously acknowledge anyone who draws something for my book for me, even if I don't use it in the book or even like it much, should the book be published.

If there is any interest at all I will provide more about the species, background, or world. For now, here's just a summary of the first scene in Ch. 1, along with a limited physical description of a Scurgaran:

btw, many of my characters use drugs, and deal with use in different ways. For instance, three main characters, of the humans, start off straight dependent on either opiates or benzodiazepines. This is to change, for some characters.

The following, again, is just a summary of a single scene, from one character's view.

In Aibara – Scene One:
Scene is from the perspective of Nicholas

Nicholas wakes up laying in a sand dune in southern Aibara, remembering nothing of how Urokas took him there. At first, he is not aware of anything being amiss, and he thinks it`s just another normal day. But he notices the glaring sun, and opens one eye to see that he is in a vast desert. He sits up in the sand, noticing the sand for the first time and questioning what it means. The nausea of full opiate withdrawal permeates his body, and when he gets to his feet he begins to vomit until there is nothing left but bile in his stomach. There is pain everywhere, it feels like.

He needs a shot from Damien`s drug-kit. There is a lot of thought that the reader is witness to here, including some of Nicholas` memories. Some of his personality is revealed, and his addiction to IV opiates is detailed (including how it began). His being quite intellectual is established. Finally, bewildered and seriously concerned, Nicholas gets a hold of himself and temporarily pushes down the sickness of withdrawal in order to think.

Knowing how badly he needs a shot right now, Nicholas begins to search for anyone else, particularly Damien. Fortunately, just a few dunes away Nicholas spots the form of Damien laying unconscious in the sand like he`d been himself just previously. Excited though still utterly baffled by events, he rushes over to Damien, and sees that Damien is unharmed and appears normal. Another few dunes away he spies Andrew, and Nicholas checks Andrew out too, finding no harm had come to him as well.

Unable to wait any longer, Nicholas grabs the backpack that is sitting next to Damien, the drug-kit that held all of their – Damien`s – supplies. Quickly, Nicholas rigs up a shot of liquid hydromorphone from a collection of syringes and vials in the kit. When he shoots it, he finally finds sweet relief from the overpowering symptoms of withdrawal, and lays back in the sand to catch his breath and think about all this again.

He comes to the conclusion that there`s nothing to do but wake up Damien and Andrew and see what they know. He tentatively wakes Damien, who unleashes a serious shitstorm of bitching immediately. Nicholas explains what he knows already quickly, which isn`t much, and manages to quiet Damien into his own thoughts. Damien is just as confused as Nicholas. Damien gets Nicholas to rig up a big shot and shoots himself in order to assist his coming to terms with all this. Nicholas then goes to Andrew.

Nicholas wakes Andrew up, and Andrew is much calmer than Damien. Andrew, too, has no idea what happened or what`s going on. They all sit in a circle, talking things through. Andrew declines the offer of a shot from the kit, but takes a strong dose of a benzodiazepine to calm his anxiety (which was raging due to the circumstances).

Andrew keeps trying to come up with a plausible explanation for where they are, though he cannot find one. Damien starts bickering with Andrew when Andrew says they probably blacked out from benzos and drinking. The two begin to bitch at each other, not out of true anger at the other, but because they were scared and didn`t know what`d actually happened. Nicholas thinks it`s pointless to join the bitchfest, that nothing can be gained from it, and retreats into his own mind.

Nicholas thinks for a time, trying to plan his next moves. He notices the lack of tracks of any kind leading to their location. He thinks they`ll have to just choose a direction and go that way in an attempt to find civilization again. Sitting still wouldn`t help, not when they didn`t know if anyone else was aware they were where they were. As Nicholas thinks to himself, he studies the sky. It is devoid of clouds, though it is blue. What differs is the quantity of suns in the sky, and the moons visible. There is one bright and strong blue sun that seems to be dominant. But there is also a white sun that seems smaller, weaker, and more distant. TWO suns, a binary system. And there are two moons visible at the moment (out of a total of four), one extremely large purple and blue moon, pocked with huge craters, which is about ten Lunas in diameter, and one small black and red moon, about 1.5 Lunas in diameter – both moons are orbiting at different speeds.

It is then that Nicholas realizes they are no longer on Earth. But he doesn`t have time to remark on that. In the distance he notices figures headed there way, as Damien and Andrew are still arguing. As they approach, he becomes more aware of their features. They are bipedal, two arms, two legs, a tail, and a head. The head is elongated and not at all human-like. They are about four and a half feet tall. They are wearing some sort of shell armour from which several protuberances poked through. They are feathered, of varying colour. Nicholas realizes that they look like raptors, like dinosaurs, for the most part.

It is then that he turns to Andrew and Damien again, to tell them they weren`t on Earth anymore, pointing out the suns and moons, and to point out the more urgent fact that they were being approached by dinosaurs wearing armour.

The approaching forces suddenly split up and rapidly surround the three humans. They are gestured at in a way that suggests they should lie down in the sand, and they do so. Several of the figures begin binding the humans, and speaking to them in an indecipherable garbled language.

Lisht-Vin, the leader of this group, comes forward to each of them in turn. Being a decent being, this Scurgaran general offers each of the humans drinks from a water bladder, and orders that their bonds be loosened.

As the humans begin trudging behind the Scurgarans, not knowing their destination, the group heads south.

Scurgarans

The Scurgarans are actually from Earth, like the humans. They were brought here ages ago during the last Seeding events, the offspring of sentient troodon like therapods (a type of intelligent raptor). The reason that they are still there, 65my past the Devil’s Tail cometary impact that wiped out their saurian relatives, is that Urokas itself possess an altered relationship with time. Millions of years have passed outside the system of Urokas, while subjectively much less has passed for the Urokans. They vary in colour, possessing feathers capable of many shades. They are matriarchal, and their males are generally not very bright, being almost domesticated to their females. There are 10+ females for every male, roughly, greatly affecting their society. They evolved a projectile weapon that grows within natural sheathes on their bodies, a three pronged bladed boomerang like device. They are masterful warriors with this weapon, and can hold their own against Wodan troops, for example.

When they were seeded, they landed in Tiberonika to the north. They quickly found fast friends and allies in the Northlanders, a species that devoted itself to the sea and to trade. On Tiberonika they establish their nation of Scurgar, which is controlled by a matriarch chosen automatically through pheromones produced by dominant/alpha Scurgarans. She commands the other dominant female leaders and rules much like a very benevolent Queen (the pheromones cause changes that make them likely to help their people). Any female Scurgaran who gains enough prestige may become Queen.

Scurgarans are worshippers of the Hunt, forever retaining the memories of hunting their prey in the forests and plains of Earth. They are masters of war against stronger and more numerous foes, with great strategical skill. Some of their males possess certain traits that cause the females around them to release a different type of pheromone. This generates a response in that particular male that leads to the creation of a General. Generals are the Scurgaran Lords of War, trained from a young age to lead Scurgaran troops to victory. They are much different from average males, chemically altered by these interfering pheromones, possessing much richer minds. They also answer only to the Queen, and are above all other females of the race. These are traditionally also where the Queen finds her mates.

They are relatively skilled in general with Threading(This is what the manipulation of latent and symbiotic nano/pico-machinery to accomplish feats that might be perceived as magic is called, if you didn’t know about the tiny programmable robots, it just appears magical or unexplainable) having interacted with the Ephyros to the south extensively. Most Threading is done by the military or by certain individuals performing major Hunts, though many common folk use it for simple things, unlike the Wodans who must be Noble or Shaman (or Imperator) (these are castes of the Wodan species) to use it, and who must learn from dedicated schools and not just their elders.

A long time ago, Scurgarans were involved in trading with the Northlanders with a species to the east, in Aibara, known simply as Aibarans. There was a disaster that shipwrecked the Northlander/Scurgaran expedition near southern Aibara, and all of the Northlanders drowned, being physically unsuited to swimming despite their devotion to the sea. The Scurgarans that survived and made shore were able to achieve legitimate status in this new land by imitating the existing Aibarans, which is not hard as the Aibarans are matriarchal in a similar manner to the Scurgarans. This becomes New Scurgar, which holds itself as one of the three Nulsamilates of Aibara, the other two held by Aibarans. There are skirmishes between these three groups, but they generally co-exist in a state of limited war.

I don't really expect any offers of help, but I will greatly appreciate any that happens to be offered. I'd obviously provide you with way more info on it, if you want to help.