Extra lore and longer explanations about the jotuns/jotunheim some stuff pulled straight from the sources I used in researching the real world creatures I based my explanations for their biology on.
Jotunheim
Most if not all plants on Jotunheim are carnivorous because of the low levels of light provided to the planet's surface. These plants are also only naturally found around Jotunheim's equator or other geothermal hotspots.
This has lead to food scarcity on the planet and extreme adaptations by the planet's fauna in order to survive. Famines can happen frequently and suddenly. Jotuns do use technology in order to provide heat for agriculture but it's far from a guaranteed food source a bad storm can ruin an entire year's harvest overnight.
This is why even eons after they developed agriculture they still rely on their slow metabolism and other adaptations for survival and why those adaptations have remained virtually unchanged for a time that would usually be considered unusual for a type 1 civilization.
Jotun Biology
Blue skin for diapause/torpor
Red eyes help with hunting/seeing in the dark can detect some ultraviolet light to help with seeing during periods in which their planet was passing behind bigger planets in their solar system and could not take advantage of their sun's rays as easily this also made jotunheim extremely cold.
Sugar in blood Explanation:
Short: glycerol (a kind of sugar alcohol) in their bloodstream, which reduces the amount of stored water in their vital organs, allowing them to thaw out and return to business as usual in the spring.
Long: The accumulation of high levels of low-molecular-weight solutes (polyhydric alcohols, saccharides [e.g., the sugar glucose]) provides cryoprotection to freeze-tolerant animals by minimizing, via colligative [binding] effects, the percentage of body water converted to extracellular ice and the extent of cell volume reduction...
Freeze-tolerant frogs respond to ice formation in peripheral tissues by synthesizing large amounts of glucose in the liver and rapidly distributing the sugar throughout the body...Proton magnetic resonance imaging of freezing and thawing in whole frogs showed a new adaptive effect of the very high glucose levels in core organs.
During thawing, organs such as liver and heart melted first, allowing recovery of their vital functions to begin while the rest of the frog thawed." (Storey 1997:319) "Seminal studies of freeze tolerance in woodland frogs have documented their efficacious system for copiously mobilizing glucose or glycerol in direct response to corporal freezing
countercurrent circulatory system:
The veins and arteries in their legs run right next to each other so the warm blood from their heart heats the cold blood returning from the feet.
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Mischief and Mutants Bonus Features
FanfictionA collection of miscellaneous things I created/images I have altered for the book in order to visualize, think my story/characters through more fully, or to simply just to have fun. This is subject to updates as I continue to develop the story so ch...
