Editing Parting of the Ways (Fortune: Evolution Game) (section)

== Highlands ==

===Garden Crab===

Garden Crabs are omnivorous terrestrial crustaceans with a tendency to grow their own food.To support their lifestyle, the crabs stay at the equatorial regions near rivers or bodies of fresh water.

An average full grown garden crab can reach up to half the size of an adult male human measured from the base of their grabbing arm, and can be twice as long. The crabs have thick plates of light green carapace covering most of their bodies except their eyes, which have a yellow sclera and normally small red pupils. They are octopedal, where the 6 back legs have 3 limbs each, allowing the crab to easily stand up to reach its flying prey; while the front two legs allow the crab to keep balanced allowing it to move forward.

Though they are crustacean, the gardening crab lays eggs more like a turtle does, digging a hole in the ground, laying its eggs, burying the eggs to keep them well insulated. The male garden crab will usually keep vigil on the egg mound for six months, when it dies. The eggs will hatch not long after, using their already developed spades to pry open their father's shell to digest the meat- all instinctively. The mother will return from hunting to teach the kids how to farm, using its bounty to fertilize the plants. Garden crabs mature after ten years, during that time, one would learn how to garden, fish, and hunt.

===Tunnelsinger (Howling Snake)===
[[File:howler.png|200px|thumb|Tunnelsinger]]
Tunnelsingers are subterranean mammals with an omnivorous diet (roots as well as insects).

The Tunnelsinger lacks eyes, its head instead being covered with a number of short digging arms, each ending in a fingernail-like structure, which they use to dig their extensive warrens, not unlike those of Earth's prairie dogs.

To compensate for their lack of eyesight, the Tunnelsinger has developed extremely powerful hearing, and a flute-like structure on its face capable of creating a wide range of sounds, used for echolocation, communication and defense.

When a dangerous creature enters a Tunnelsinger family's territory, the first snake to notice will let out a deep warning bugle, with other snakes passing it on and retreating into the warren. They will proceed to let out frequent high pitched 'hoots', attempting to scare off the predator.

They use other, more specialized cries for communication, such as mating calls. They will occasionally 'sing' in groups for seemingly no reason, an entire warren spontaneously launching into noise, possibly as a method of exercise for their 'voices'. They also use hard thumpers on their tail to create a somewhat drum-like beat by banging in against the walls of their burrows.

These creatures give birth to live young, about 2-4, and upon emergence, sniff out their mothers teats, and survive on a diet of milk until about 3 months, after which their mother weans them onto insects and roots. They live in small family groups, consisting of around 10-20 individuals.

In terms of size, Tunnelsingers are around the length and thickness of a human arm. 

===Mountain Troll (bull Chomper)===

===Smiler===

The Smiler, or Smiling Chomper is a herbivorous terrestrial repto-mammal found in the the Highlands, Jungle, and Swamp regions of Fortune.

The Smiler is a gorilla sized herbivore that travels in family groups not unlike Earth chimpanzees. The troop is led by a leading mated pair, and child-rearing is overseen by all females of the group. They are most at home in grasslands, but the species does well in forests too. Smilers are well known for their use of tools, unique on Fortune. They use the spikes of the Spineroot plant to dig up large roots and tubers as an alternative to their regular diet of grasses. It should be noted, though, that there is no sense of ingenuity or invention in this, and that it is almost purely instinct. For now, the Smiler's intelligence has plateaued.

Smilers get their names from the creepy looking grin that, because of their jaw structure and musculature, is permanently etched onto their faces, enhanced by facial markings superficially resembling large teeth. 

===Dwarf Chomper===

The smallest of the Chomper species, the Dwarf Chomper is a herbivorous terrestrial repto-mammal. An off-shoot of the bull chomper, they have grown very different to their cousins, growing to about the size of a domestic sheep.

They subsist on a fairly specialized diet, consuming varieties of bluegrass almost exclusively. Their digestive system is host to a variety of beneficial bacteria, giving them something of a gut. They generally attempt to eat every part of the bluegrass, from the nutritious bulbs at the top, to the roots, using their forelimbs and snout to dig them out. A favourite meal of the dwarf chomper is the Fruit-bearing Bluegrass, which they are a chief pollinator of. They seek out the plant for it's sweet-smelling berries, and when they stick their face in the plant's 'goblet' to eat the berries, the pollen on the plant sticks to their wrinkles, eventually transferring to the next plant the chomper finds.

Their snout has shrunk over time, becoming extremely flat, and their eyes shrunk to be less sensitive to damage while digging, resulting in them having a fairly wrinkled, squished face. They possess proto-hooves, forming a small flat sole on their hindlimbs, and a larger hoof on their forelimbs, however, they still maintain the remainders of their fingers, which they use to help in digging.

They travel in large herds for protection, but there is little structure to them - dwarf chomper herds split and join up at a whim, the only constant being younger chompers following their mothers until they can support themselves. As they grew smaller, with a more specialized diet, their lifespan also decreased to an average of 12 years. On the other hand, they reach sexual maturity more quickly and propagate more frequently. With the largely unstructured herds, breeding tends to be indiscriminate, with haphazard sexual selection. Generally the more powerful specimen which survive for longer will simply have more offspring. Their eggs require little time to incubate before hatching, supporting their somewhat nomadic lifestyle.

===Czar Boar (Jelly Boar/Metalhead)===

Czar Boars are a bulky, napalm spitting subspecies of the Imperial Wolf. Years of feeding on a combination rocks and rock-slurry have made significant changes in the Boar; most obvious being its rusty color palate and most notably its explosive saliva. The “saliva” is actually a volatile combination of stomach acid and mineral oil that when put together, create small but powerful explosions. This is actually the boar’s way of “chewing” its food into smaller bites before digesting it, but it has an even more dangerous side effect. Usually kept apart through a thick membrane inside the boar, should the sacks rupture through some accident or predator attack, the boar will explode and usually take any attacker with it.

In order to manage its heavy diet the boar as developed a large internal gland that stores oils synthesized from the minerals it eats. This alternative digestive system stores nutrition that would be otherwise unusable under normal circumstances. The glands location in the boar is what caused it to develop its large humpback. Their once lustrous main now has a metallic sheen and is as sharp as porcupine quills. 

===Highland Tick===

Highland Ticks are terrestrial bloodsucking parasites common to Highlands of the Alpha Continent of Fortune. Highland Ticks are currently identical to other Tick species in everything but colour, discounting the Blood Ants.

The Highland Tick takes advantages of the many large animals in it's habitat, using it's sturdiness and strong claws to cling to their skin, while an adapted leg siphons blood from it's host. Brown Wretches and Mountain Trolls are their most common hosts. As it feeds, it grows bloated and ever so slightly more fragile as its skin stretches to accommodate the fluid within. Once full in this manner, the Highland Tick leaves its host, hibernating inside a tree hollow or under a rock until it hungers again.

Highland Ticks spend a great deal of their lives asleep. Long slumber (3-4 days) punctuated by gorging themselves on a host and the occasional mating (sometimes done on a host if that's where they meet) comprises the entirety of their lives. Gross to humans, from the viewpoint of the tick (if it had one as a nonsentient) life is good.

===Spitter Crab===

===Brown Wretch===

The Brown Wretch is a terrestrial repto-mammal currently found almost only in the Highlands. A relatively recent split among the wretch line Predators. To better survive in the warmer clime their fur comes in lighter, with the added effect of a fur-color shift that better matches the surroundings.

Unlike their cousins these creatures are able to rather easily go from a bipedal to a quadrupedal mode of movement as a result of an advantageous mutation in spine structure and leg musculature. This allows them to not only get at food higher up but also to escape some of their slower competitors (something which they are not adverse to). The flip-side of this is that their jaw power, bone density, and overall takedown ability has suffered.

Though still solitary predators, the brown wretches seek breeding partners more often. Though to match this their lifespan seems on average to be shorter.

Whether what is essentially a chance mutant group will have what it takes to survive in the lively world, is yet to be seen...