Drakevarg
Troubadour
So, latest in my miscellaneous worldbuilding contemplations is how humans would adapt to living in a world bristling with megafauna - particularly in the oceans.
The sea is a scary place, even in our world. But it's thankfully scarce in things like krakens, mosasaurs, megalodons and other such creatures that are fully capable of mistaking a full-sized ship for food. So the thing I've been wondering lately is how shipwrights would adapt to these concerns, at least in the age before ironclads appeared and the threat of chunks being bitten out of the hull could be sufficiently mitigated.
Right now the only ideas I can think of would be nails sticking out of the hull, long enough to dissuade potential maws before teeth could stick in and angled so as to minimize drag, or spiked chains being dragged from the keel. But I thought I'd offer up the question to the forum, see if any other ideas came to mind.
The sea is a scary place, even in our world. But it's thankfully scarce in things like krakens, mosasaurs, megalodons and other such creatures that are fully capable of mistaking a full-sized ship for food. So the thing I've been wondering lately is how shipwrights would adapt to these concerns, at least in the age before ironclads appeared and the threat of chunks being bitten out of the hull could be sufficiently mitigated.
Right now the only ideas I can think of would be nails sticking out of the hull, long enough to dissuade potential maws before teeth could stick in and angled so as to minimize drag, or spiked chains being dragged from the keel. But I thought I'd offer up the question to the forum, see if any other ideas came to mind.