[Image Description: Three fan-made Pokemon made to resemble plant-themed mammoths or mastodons.
The first Pokemon is a yellow baby mammoth with brown eyes, green feet, light green inner ears and trunk tip, and green hair on its head, back, and tip of its tail. It has its front feet in a position that appears like it’s going to start walking forward, with its head turned toward the viewer and a smile on its face. Green text outlined in darker green to its right reads “Haymuth”.
The second Pokemon is a lime green young mammoth with brown eyes, dull green inner ears, grass-covered feet and trunk, small beige tusks, and green hair that resembles soy plant leaves on its head. The tip of its tail resembles a soy bean pod. It is walking towards the left of the image and holding its trunk out. Green text outlined in darker green to its right reads "Soystodon".
The third Pokemon is a grassy green mammoth with dark green grass-like hair on its head, back, and feet, purple eyes, lavender inner ears, and long pale lavender tusks. It has small purple flowers growing from its grassy bits, and a large purple flower sprouts from the tip of its tail. It is walking toward the right of the image with its trunk held up and its head turned to look at the viewer. Green text outlined in pink to its right reads "Hedeomadon".
End ID.]
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Haymuth - Baby Mammoth Pokemon | grass Often frolicking in tall grass, the hay-like hair on their body makes for the perfect camouflage to ensure their safety even in the moments when their mothers don’t have their eye on them. / Haymuth are incredibly playful, running around with abandon in tall grass and picking up objects with their trunks to use as toys. Great care should be taken to keep inappropriate objects out of their reach.
Soystodon - Young Pachyderm Pokemon | grass Soystodon trunks are quite nimble and can often get into things that one may not expect. This often leads those living with humans to overeat when food is improperly stored. / While they are more independent than Haymuth, it is not uncommon to see them holding onto their mothers’ tails with their trunks. They do like to distance themselves from adults a bit more, but they are still young and still feel a need for parental guidance.
Hedeomadon - Royal Mastodon Pokemon | grass/fairy The females travel in matriarchal groups with their young, while males either roam individually or in male-only groups. The groups reunite on occasion in order to breed at their discretion, usually when the pennyroyal plants are flowering. / Hedeomadon mothers are very protective of their young during early development, and separating Haymuth from their mothers for even a few minutes can be very distressing for all parties involved if done hastily. They are fine with letting trusted humans watch their young for them, however.
After a long amount of waiting to give that survey some time to garner responses before I got started working on the player illustrations, I'm finally back to posting Cantessy region content! So here's our grass starter Haymuth, now with their evolved forms Soystodon and Hedeomadon! I hope the one other person who picked Haymuth in that survey is still happy with their choice, there were two people who picked them and I only picked them because if this were gen 9 I'd be using a grass starter regardless XD
I wanted to go with the perceived theme of grass starters being based on extinct megafauna, so obviously I'm going to look at extinct animals that were around the Appalachian area in the past. and of course, the first prehistoric beast most think about when dinosaurs are taken out of the equation are mammoths. Fun fact, did you know that the first mastodon skeleton excavated and studied scientifically was found in Kentucky? It's true, and if you've heard of a place called Big Bone Lick, you know at least something about the place now because that's where they were specifically found. (it's called Big Bone Lick because there was a salt lick there that animals would get sodium from, as well as the obvious big bones found there). So with that in mind, I decided to combine mammoths and mastodons with agricultural stuff from around here. Was tempted to go with tobacco for one of them but ehhhh I don't think that'd be all that appropriate for a Pokemon, so I kinda just turned that into a name for a human character instead. (and yet the poison-type gym leader and her occupation exists...you'll find out later, hehe) Haymuth is, of course, utilizing hay in their design, while Soystodon obviously has soy. Hedeomadon is a bit more obscure. Their name comes from Hedeoma pulegioides, also known as the American pennyroyal, or "pennyrile" by local dialect. I literally didn't know it was a Thing that Existed until I started research for this project, let alone that it's a pretty big crop here. And the flowers kinda gave me a fairy vibe, so that's why Hedeomadon gains the fairy type.
In terms of gameplay if this were an actual game, the Haymuth family is gonna be more special-focused ant a bit bulky, with both special stats and HP being highest on baseline. They'll obviously learn a good amount of grass and fairy moves that take advantage of this along with some status moves, and when Hedeomadon has evolved they'll learn the move Royal Bloom, which acts similarly to Flying Press in that it works as both a grass and fairy type move in terms of super-effectiveness (and by that I mean it does double damage to the things that are weak to fairy as well as those that are weak to grass, but does normal grass damage on things that are neutral to or resist fairy). Is that broken? It might be broken, but at least the other starters get something like it so maybe that balances it out? I'unno, I'm a character designer, not a game balancer hehe. I mainly just get the visual for how it'd look, and I can imagine it being like a beam that gets fired out of Hedeomadon's tail blossom thing. That'd be cool o:
Also if anyone wants to suggest other moves for these guys to learn and some physical stats (ie. height and weight, I only have a height for the base form starters atm and no weights XD ), feel free to throw 'em at me :3 Links to their info pages will be provided in the replies!
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Pokemon and related concepts © Nintendo/GameFreak Haymuth, Soystodon, Hedeomadon, the Cantessy region, and artwork © PuppyLuver Studios