The "train", as we call it, is a fully organic, sentient being that (in most simplistic summary) resembles an unholy mixture of a snake, a caterpillar, an octopus, and a snail. It is segmented into several "cars" and propelled mainly by tentacles. Within the following guide, there will be descriptions of many, many tentacles, several brains, an intricate digestive system, a somewhat less detailed description of the skeletal system, and various mentions of other awful bodily details. This is not a manual for the feint of heart, or for anyone but myself really; please exercise caution moving forward.

The train itself is roughly 20 feet long and, although the cars have variable heights, on average they are about 9 feet tall (when the Conductor is tucked inside). With the Conductor fully popped out, the train can reach a maximum of 13 feet tall. The train is relatively square-shaped in build, so it is about as wide as it is tall (9 feet).

There is one considerably large "main brain" which functions as anyone's brain might: it handles thoughts and emotions, processes information, and responds to situations. This brain resides in the "first car", or "engine room", of the train, detailed in a later section (see Section 1, Subsection C). The train also possesses many, many tentacles (some with suction, most without) to move, some of which are controlled by other smaller brains specialized for motor control.

The train requires lots of moisture due to its amphibious nature, and thus when resting it can often be found by bodies of water or particularly high moisture locations.

It should be noted that, due to a lack of organs built for speaking (i.e. vocal chords), the train is fully mute. However, it does have other methods of communicating.

Subsection A - Exterior Dermal Layer

The most external layer of skin is noticeably fortified and structured. This layer is something of a padding; it does not maintain much structure for the train, but it does provide protection. This layer of skin cells has no pre-defined color or texture, seeing as it can camouflage and change outermost texture with detail and precision similar to that of certain octopuses (i.e. the mimic octopus). Its camouflage can be so precise and detailed that, with much concentration, it has the ability to write out specific symbols on its flesh. This level of control takes a lot of concentration from the main brain to accomplish and as such it is easier to do when the train is not focusing on other things such as intricate movement. This layer covers the entire organism (with the exception of one spot mentioned in Section 1, Subsection C and detailed in Section 2) and even droops somewhat low to the ground to partially hide the "wheels" of the train, which are a plethora of randomly oriented tentacles.

Subsection B - Underlayer of Skin

This layer of skin resides beneath the outermost layer. It is much stretchier, and much of it would hang loose from the body if it weren't for the outermost skin layer. It has no camouflage abilities. It is almost uncomfortably soft and moist in texture, like the skin of a sea slug. It is uniformly a dark, matte mauve. This more flexible layer of skin is necessary for when the train expands throughout various stages of its maintenance and growth.

Subsection C - The Frontmost Car

The first car is essentially the head of the organism. It is the smallest car, coming to a total of 7 feet tall and 9 feet wide. Within resides the main brain, which takes up about 40% of the car's internal space. The muscles that form the Conductor fold into this car (see Section 2) and take up about 20% of the internal space. The bile sac (see Section 1, Subsection G) resides below the brain and takes up the remaining 40% of the internal space. This car has a hold on the top that the outermost skin layer does not cover but the underlayer does. The gemstone of the train fills that hole, giving the train the appearance of wearing a hat with pointy ears. A combination of cartilage protrusions, bone structure, and detailed control of pigmentation work together to give the front of this car a semblance of a "face", similar to that of a caterpillar's in shape and build. When the main brain has the capacity to concentrate on controlling the specific colors of the face, it often decides on what it considers to be an "inviting" look: a large "smile" and big, wide, cheerful "eyes". Due to the level of focus necessary to control the camouflage in specific detail, however, there are some times wherein the train does not appear to have a recognizable "face" with a "mouth" and "eyes" — most often when it's moving.

Subsection D - The Second Car

This is the tallest car, but not the longest. It functions as the one true stomach for the entire organism; it is a compact, dense, nutrient processing machine. It measures 10 feet in height and 9 feet in width. The interior walls provide padding and separation to keep the internal muscular and skeletal structure of the train separate from the acids of the stomach (every car inside possesses these walls). During maintenance and feeding time, it fills with digestive acid and enzymes (see Section 1, Subsection G). Due to the train's snake-like process of digestion, meals and remnants of meals, acids, and enzymes are kept in here almost full time. This makes it the most dangerous and unsanitary car to ride in. The fact that it does not have a mouth leading directly into it and instead must be entered via the consecutive freight car also makes it the hardest to access. It is best perhaps best used only if and when every other car is full.

Subsection E - The Freight / Passenger Car

This car (as well as the caboose after it) are 9 feet tall and 9 feet wide. It functions as a "chicken coup" for the train: a place to store food outside of the stomach. Food and passengers must enter through this car before it can get to the stomach. The way they can enter is through the car's "mouth", found as a seam that splits lengthwise (vertically) in the middle of the bottom floor of the freight car. Worry not; the seam unzips and the mouth opens from there. This car has its own potentially harmful metabolic functions in the form of pre-digestive fluid. Much like how flies (in the absence of teeth) use a mix of saliva and stomach acids that can prematurely break down their food before they eat it, the train may release a certain portion of its own cocktail of acid into the freight car to begin the process of slowly, prematurely breaking down the contents in the storage chamber, as well as to help prepare for maintenance (see Section 1, Subsection G). This does not happen as often as it might in the stomach because this is not a stomach and does not need to be used all the time. This makes it a somewhat safer and more sanitary holding cell for passengers. However, if the train were to do a long trip without food, it might convert this car into what I have been calling a "freight car", wherein it would only hold food for the trip and it would not think twice about using its pre-digestive fluids to break things down in there. It would probably tell you when it was going to use the car for this purpose. Hopefully. Maybe it would try.

Sub-subsection E.1 - Maintainer Tendrils

Within each car where food (or friends(?)(!)) can be stored, there are denser membranes or walls that keep the various acids from touching the tentacular musculature and partitioned organs hidden underneath the soft and hard dermal layers of the train. It's not professional to let guests see the piping laid bare, after all. This acid-proof internal wall is about the hardness of the rooftop your puny, mortal mouth; perhaps a mote more flexible, but no less fortified. Use your own internal tendril to feel it now. Yes, excellent. Carrying on. Though the walls generally cover the sides and floor of the second, third, and fourth cars of the train, there are some openings. The oral opening is in the floor of the third car, surrounded on the outside by an overwhelming force of "tire" tentacles, allowing for the train to vacuum up prey (and clients!) with the awe-inspiring passion of a roomba. This opening closes and opens with ease. There are also smaller, spiracle- or stomata-like openings in the roof wall, mostly condensed in the third (freight) car of the train. These require a muscle to open and are, by default, sealed shut as though glued together by some substance. When the train needs to (such as when cleaning up the finer details of the cars during Maintenance [see Section 1, Subsection G]), it can descend thin (but dexterous) strands of muscle down through the open spiracles, protected from the elements (and yucky bacteria) by a thin layer of mauve, unchanging flesh like the kind on the outside of the train—except this time, coated in a sticky film of mucous. The mucous layer is important for picking up certain substances and cleaning various nooks and crannies. It also possesses some antibacterial properties. These tendrils possess their own brains, making them not very intelligent on their own, but capable of being descended while the train is in motion or with the Conductor popped out. They usually only carry out the function of cleaning or "picking up", but they can extend their abilities with extra concentration from the main brain. Think of these like the brooms or mops of the train. It should be noted that they do not reach the entirety of the train and are mostly for cleaning fine details.

Subsection F - The Caboose

The caboose is a much smaller, smushed version of the freight / passenger car. It shares the height and width, but not the length and not the function. It holds within it the end of the excretory system; the exit. How the digestive system leads to this exit is explained in Subsection G of this section. For passengers, this can be seen as something of an emergency exit if absolutely necessary. The remnants of bile from maintenance can be found in every car, but most often are found here. It is only partially cut off from the freight car by a thin wall that requires the usage of muscles to fully open or close. It could likely hold about one passenger comfortably, maybe two if they're small.

Subsection G - Internal Functions

The largest internal organ of the train is its stomach. All other organs mandatory for life are strewn about the walls of the train, underneath the underlayer of skin and outside of the stomach and chicken coup. There is a skeletal structure for the train that is similar to a snake's in that it's mostly spine and ribcage. It is not similar in its flexibility, however. The train retains enough flexibility in its thick, hardened spine to moderately wiggle in any direction while retaining enough strength to carry burdens and hold creatures inside. The "skull" is located in the frontmost car. The main internal functions to be covered in this section and digestion and excretion, generally referred to as "Maintenance". Once the train is hungry enough, the first phase of Maintenance begins. The train will produce enough digestive fluids and enzymes to fill the stomach. To get the food from the chicken coup into the stomach, the train will kick into high production of less efficient digestive fluids in the chicken coup car and enlist the help of gravity by attempting to back up against a wall, a tree, and tall surface. Once all the contents are broken down, they are absorbed and distributed throughout the train. To clean up the residue, the train will enter the second phase of Maintenance wherein it begins to collect and produce a gigantic amount of bile in the bile sac of the frontmost car. All movement is rendered impossible at this point, so the train will likely park by a secluded body of water to maintain moisture while it spends time filling up its head with bile. The expansion causes the head to swell, forcing the Conductor out of its hole. However, since the train has no concentration on motor function, the Conductor is not fully formed — it looks like a motionless sack of meat and skin flopped over the train's swollen head. Once enough bile is collected, the train spews it through the entirety of the car, collecting with the digestive fluids built up in each cabin. Lots of fluid is expelled out the caboose in one rush, a flood of bodily remains, stomach fluid, digestive enzymes, and bile. The train may need to push up against a tall surface again to get the dregs of the sauce out, which should be possible after most of the bile is expelled from the sac. This is a taxing process for the train, and it is a moment where the train is most vulnerable. It may take a little nap after all this happens. How cute.

After the flood is usually when the Maintainer tendrils described in Sub-subsection E.1 push through their spiracles and descend to ambiently "swab the deck", so to speak. As stated before, they do not necessarily reach every part of the train's insides, but they do what they can.

Maintenance is an efficient yet imperfect process. Remnants of Maintenance can be found in several places throughout the train, as well leftovers of what it ate. Please exercise caution when finding any evidence of Maintenance. Additional help with cleaning up would probably be welcome!

Subsection H - Sensory Functions

There are only two fully functional eyeballs located in the train. They are attached to long tentacular stems that help create the tentacle puppet known as the Conductor (see Section 2). Without the Conductor, however, the train has no human-like sight and instead must rely on a series of light and heat sensors located all around the outside of the body, mostly towards the head. This can make its driving a little insane without some means of assistance, magical or otherwise. The train can hear and smell, although with what organs is largely unknown on account of nothing resembling "ears" or a "nose" being visible. It has no reason not to be able to feel things. As for taste... it does not have a tongue, but it is likely that the taste buds are located around the mouth at the bottom of the freight car. As such, the train can taste anything that enters as it is entering. The mouths are not built for much else besides opening and tasting.

The Conductor is made of a collection of thin tentacular muscles collected under one stretchy section of uncovered underlayer flesh, located on the head of the frontmost car, directly underneath the gemstone. Using the full concentration of the main brain, these tentacles can be precisely constructed into a body that can uphold and maneuver the gemstone as if the gemstone were a second, smaller skull. This is what I meant by a "tentacle puppet".

The shape of the gemstone itself decides the rest of the Conductor's body. This emerald is shaped like a geometric canine head. It is somewhat mask-like in appearance due to its lack of realistic detail. It has a head, a snout, and pointy little ears. It does not have any indentation for a mouth. There are a pair of holes in the nose, signifying nostrils, although no air comes out of these. There are also a pair of rectangular holes in the head where eyes should be. The two functional eyestalks of the train poke out here, through two natural holes in the underlayer skin. However, the eyestalks are not fastened in place, and so they may wiggle around underneath the gemstone. This phenomenon may be extremely unnerving, although it is only visible up close. There are also no eyelids for the eyes, so the given impression is "bulging, wobbling eyes partially-obscured underneath a gemstone mask", which is sure to set off the self-preservation alarms of certain creatures.

The preferred shape of the tentacle puppet is that of a humanoid torso (thus making the shape of an anthropomorphic canine in combination with the gemstone head). Tentacles may combine and compress in various ways to attain the shape and function of humanoid hands, arms, a neck, a chest, and a stomach. They do not simulate the natural breathing or shaking of a humanoid torso, and because the puppet is only covered by the underlayer of skin, it is entirely lacking in hair, nails, visible arteries, wrinkles, nipples, or a belly button. These may be a disturbing details to those who assume the tentacle puppet is not a puppet but rather a fully functional organism stuck to the train. The body is also prone to stretching or writhing in ways that appear unnatural or wrong.

If someone were to attempt to hit the Conductor, their hand might be "swallowed up" by a series of tentacles separated from the offender only by the underlayer of skin. To simulate this effect, place your finger on your cheek and attempt to bite it through the skin.

See Section 3 for how the detail and shape of the Conductor changes over time.

The train will hatch looking mostly how it would as an adult. That's gonna be one huge chrysalis, I am aware. It may be smaller, less efficient at holding and carrying. At Cycle 1, it would likely be at around 85-87% of its adult size and capacity. At Cycles 2 and 3 it approaches 90%. During the last stretch to Cycle 4, it would experience slightly more growth than usual to meet the ultimate 100% size and capacity.

The main part of the train that changes in its first four Cycles is the Conductor. The tendrils used to pilot the flesh puppet take time to grow in length and coordination to meet the advanced dexterity requirements for puppeteering a 4-ft tall torso. As a baby, the Conductor would possess the height, shape, and motor functionality of a sock puppet. It would grow from there, with physical ability and mental experience, into a full-on "person" ripped straight out of uncanny valley. Of course, the gemstone head never changes, but the body underneath does.

As the tendrils puppeting the Conductor grow longer and more defined, the smaller, older tendrils wrap around the base and possess less and less functionality until they become obsolete. The result is a cascading tangle of baby tendrils wrapping around the base of the Conductor's torso, vaguely evident underneath the mauve skin if anyone were able to climb up and get a good look. The resulting effect is like that of a palm tree's bark, and it is freakish. Liable to induce some amount of trypophobia. At least the baby tendrils don't move after adulthood, for a while anyways. They become numb and only usually respond to the most extreme stimuli by pointing directly upwards, much like the hackles of a cat.

Subsection A: Additions

— Used a Winner's Choice to gain a Crit 20 Stray consequence in the Language department.

— Besides that, none for the moment. Clean as a baby scrubbed with Irish Spring Soap.

Subsection B: Plans for the Future

— Potential to add the beetle-esque pop-out horn stuff as a mutation b/c I can't think of how to do it right now + feel like it's. A Bit too Much detail for the first rendition of the train + I want to (FINALLY) get this thing online.

— The legendary Bile Jet...

— Super long and thick / hard-plated prehensile(?) tail that "locks in" to place for extended amounts of time so that the train can a.) be longer, b.) pull carts, and c.) carry more smallguys using its tail.

— Add like +1 foot to height and width of each of the cars. Maybe not to the head car so that the Conductor can still be 4 feet long.

— Big. Like max height and length.

— Four main "chambers". Head is smallest, followed by stomach (tallest but thin), followed by freight car (longest), followed by caboose (short).

— "Is the train crispy or wet?" I ask. 'It's a perfectly good train, sir.' I poke the train. It's wet.

— Musculature composed of tentacles, some big and some small. The tentacles and tendrils can move through the body without skin, but when they pop out into the air (if they do), they are usually coated by some loose pocket of skin (they way we would put on Nylon gloves).

— Large, randomly placed tentacles underneath the entirety of the train allow it to move with surprising agility and steadiness. These are "tire" tentacles.

— Thin, limber tentacles with minds of their own can descend from spiracles in the roof of the freight car to do detail work when cleaning the car.

— Flesh puppet named "the Conductor", made of tentacle muscles all sharing the same flesh sack (think multiple hands or fingers from different bodies stuffed into one big Nylon glove, trying to pretend to be a normal person's hand).

— Lots of bile flooding of the bodily system to achieve digestion and excretion. The acids are contained in the body and do not make contact with the interior organs and musculature of the train.

— Organs are strewn about the train's full insides, in between the stomach / cabin cars and the skin layers. The only collected organ that is (mostly) in one spot is the brain in the front car. This makes it harder to kill by stopping sometimes like its heart or kidneys or whatever, because you can stab one spot of the heart that is spread through the entire organism, but that doesn't shut down the entire system.

I will offer you a string of concepts: Silk Road, Huntington's Red Cars, Etymology of the word for Mailman in Japanese and the Importance of Sending a Message; communication is a method of transporting the thoughts from one brain to another; a connection of electrical signals across the gaps of space and time. Communication brings people closer together metaphysically, the train brings people together physically. Thing is, the train is kind of screwy and so are its methods of communicating and allowing others to communicate. Hurray!

But what I have described to you is a theory, or a series of concepts aggregated into a symbolic meaning. The train, as you now understand it, is an analogy, or perhaps an emblem. But what kind of person is an emblem? Who is the Train; or perhaps we shall call it by its real name: Titivululus? Wait sorry. *Titivlus. *Titlvus. *Tytvilum. *TITYVLUM. *T—

It's not a lot of things. Usually at lead mildly off-putting due to its perpetual silence (and nothing else I'm sure). Needlessly dedicated to its craft, generally imposing and seemingly unaware of or entirely apathetic to how its presentation may affect others. In almost every situation it is very cool-headed; "stone-faced", one might call it, if one were very clever and inclined to do so. The way it communicates through its body and the thoughts running through its mind, were anyone to be privy to them, might come across as ethereal or otherworldly. It seems, if not apathetic, then generally amicable. Neutral... with a perhaps hopefully positive twist. I mean, it seems to keep sentient beings in its stomach without digesting them... mostly.

TYPO COUNTER:

- "TITIVILIUS" — Gortys when changing this profile name.

- "TITIVILUS" — Gortys when changing this profile name, again. That's its new name now! :D

- “tilti... tilivitlus?? tili. tilly” — Dark. the Birth of Tilly