wait dude your thoughts on enderman biology seem neat, what else are some of your thoughts on how they work? u don't have to answer this w a drawing or anything, am just interested in hearing your thoughts!
I was meaning to add more pictures to illustrate my concept but its been over a week and I will never post this otherwise
OKAYY I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS.
First of all I wanna elaborate on end magic. Ever notice how the Nether portal gives out particles similar to those that surround endermen? well I thought like. What if End magic kind of. flows around all the different dimensions? and is invisible to the naked eye? and it connects them in a way? This was heavily inspired by the dust from His Dark Materials (y'all should read it or watch the HBO series. the worldbuilding in it is absolutely fantastic!)
Endermen can teleport through realms thanks to this end magic that connects them. End magic originates in the end and flows through other realms. The nether has the least amount of end magic flow due to the fact that it's less connected from the end (the "source")
While the amount of end magic doesnt really affect the realms in any specific way, it does affect the enderman life cycle in each of them!
More in-depth analysis of their body mechanisms and life cycles and the logic of it all under the readmore (WARNING: SUPER LONG, LIKE ALMOST 3K WORDS KINDA LONG, I HAVE A VERY SIMPLIFIED VERSION I MADE EARLIER THIS YEAR HERE)
1. CODE
Endermen bodies are made of end magic. But their real "life source" is ender pearls! Each ender pearl is unique and contains "code" that makes up an enderman's appearance (basically dna...but I call it code because video game and because theyre not organic...yknow?).
Code decides things like markings, eye shape, and ear shape - at least these are the things that cannot be changed and are basically "permanent". Due to the un-organic nature of their bodies endermen can shapeshift ever so slightly if they desire to, things like longer hair and sometimes height or body shape can be changed through time.
Most endermen have purple eye, markings, and insides colors, and also varying shades of dark fur - In very rare situations this differs, peobably due to anomalies on the code (glitches) or hybridation- but an enderman cannot willingly shapeshift these unless its written in its code, high-stress situations can glitch the code and lead to an enderman to acquire a different fur color or even different markings. <;- my explanation for purple-eyes in enderwalk and also some of the changes that my cranboo goes thru post-death.
2. BIRTH AND GROWTH
Each enderman has a main, "central" ender pearl...its basically the ender pearl its born (or incubated? I'll refer to it as incubation from not on) with. Ender pearls without bodies have to be taken care of very meticulously because they're fragile and any stress in them can break them or make them too unstable to form a body to begin with.
If you were to look at an ender pearl in the process of it forming a body - You'd see it slowly pulling end magic (purple particles) into itself, and then it'll coat itself with a purple layer (or rarely other colors depending on the code), then it'll slowly form an outer layer that looks like the fur color, then limbs begin to separate until a youngling is fully formed!
The amount of time it takes for an enderman to grow highly depends on the realm its in: Realms with more end magic lead to rapid growth and maturity, while realms with little end magic have very slow growth. Basically endermen born in the end mature in a comparatively short amount of time, endermen born in the overworld would reach maturity at a pace similar of an human, while endermen from the nether can take much, much longer to mature.
Once an enderman is fully grown its aging becomes stunted. The longevity of an enderman depends on which realms it spends its life in, and whether or not it suffers injuries (More in depth explanation in points 4 and 6)
3. ANATOMY
Ender Pearls are sort of like...black holes in a way? They pull the invisible end magic flowing through the realms, and that's how an enderman's body solidifies! They also can create something akin to worm holes for the enderman to teleport (or for players, I elaborate on how that works in point 7)
The enderman body is strange to explain. Try imagine an ice cube in which only the outside of it is frozen, while the inside is still liquid water. Enderman bodies have insides of flowing end magic, their "blood" in a way, while the outer layer or "skin" is more solid end magic to prevent the insides from spilling out. Pure liquid water (only water, liquids containing water like milk or potions dont count, solids like snow or ice also dont count) dissolves the outer layer, making it thinner or can even break it leading to magic leakage. Also the outer layer is...fuzzy? I wanted my endermen to be fluffy, my logic is that fur means more area of outer layer which makes it harder for water and other hazards to fully break through.
An enderman's chest is sort of hollow, basically a very thin layer of the outer skin and some magic to leave space for the ender pearl(s) to be in. The enderman's mouth-throat is the only direct connection to the ender pearl, energy is consumed from the ender pearl to keep the magic pull, so they need to eat sometimes to keep themselves...stable.
In point 1 I mentioned markings, well markings are areas where the outer layer is thinner and slightly traslucid - they match the color of the insides and have a faint glow. All endermen have markings in the chest/back (where the ender pearls are located) and under/near the eyes. Most endermen also have glowing markings on their fingertips and toes, and its not unusual for some to possess markings around arms and abdomen too.
Each enderman has an unique combination of markings (some can have same/similar chest markings but different ones on eyes or other parts and vice versa) and its sort of how they identify each other.
4. DIET AND ENERGY
Whatever mechanism goes in there for the ender pearl to acquire the energy isnt fully fleshed out, but i'd say its pretty instant, kind of like throwing something to an incinerator. Endermen dont really need teeth to mush up their food due to this, so they dont have any really. You might notice that I never draw my cranboo with teeth (other than that little fang on the lip, but i'll argue that the fangs on an enderman's lips/mouth are more for attacking/defense rather than eating!)
Also talking about food, while many tend to hc Endermen as more carnivorous I'd say that they favor vegetables! Obviously they can eat anything but iirc hervibore animals get more energy than the carnivores that consume them in a way? Also since the only "food" that exists in the end is chorus fruits I think its logical to think that enderman diet is more veggie/fruit based rather than meat.
When an enderman reaches adulthood, basically the only work the ender pearl has to do is to keep its body stable, but this will slowly wear down the ender pearl no matter how much it tries to "maintain" it! Injury or lack of end magic around means extra work for the ender pearl to keep things together which equals shorter lifespans.
So with this logic, the end having little to no hazards towards endermen and also being the literal source of end magic leads to endermen that spend most their lives there to live for far longer. The Nether, being the realm with the least end magic AND with so many hazards means they have shorter lives. This is obviously only taking natural death/of old age into consideration.
5. AGING, REPRODUCTION, AND BEHAVIOR
When the main Ender Pearl begins to lose its magic pull, the enderman will start "producing" more of them in its core (To a maximum of 6 pearls). This creates more magic pull to keep its body together - but maintaining multiple enderpearls also needs more energy so older endermen tend to have stronger appetites. The magic pull extra pearls create isn't as strong as that of the main pearl though, and processes like healing an injury only strain the main pearl.
Extra ender pearls can be "Extracted" (Regurgitated) to make new endermen, refer to point 2 on how new endermen form! When a pearl is regurgitated it also acquires a thin layer of end magic from the parent, which makes it possible for the ender pearl to "survive" out of the body.
Although the new ender pearls tend to have very similar code to that of the original enderman, it is never the same! code isn't really copied but more like...influenced: instead of direct copy-pasting it'd be like trying to copy a classmate's homework - similar to be just right but not the same. I do not have a whole explanation on the mechanism on how pearls are replicated so, sorry about that.
Since end endermen consume less energy, they take longer to get to a stage in which they need produce more pearls - so they dont reproduce nearly as much as those from other realms. Nether endermen start reproducing very quickly after reaching maturity! Since they start producing new pearls earlier.
This also ties in with how real life animals work in fact, animals who have longer lifespans and less threats tend to reproduce on a lesser scale than those who have shorter ones and are prey animals.
Realm influences behavior around new ender pearls and younglings, and how they interact with each other:
Nether endermen are more defensive, and tend to live in small communities for self preservation and care for their slow-growing youth, theyre also very territorial of other mobs and anything they might find as a threat - this explains higher spawn rates in warped forests.
End endermen are very careless about ender pearls and younglings since incubation/growth is rapid and theres little threats around, but this can lead to pearls being left alone before a body can even form - its not rare for a pearl to be left on the ground and get broken or kicked off to the void due to passerbys.
Overworld Endermen tend to wander alone more, only settling in an area while they are taking care of an ender pearl/youngling, there's rare ocurrences of them having companions.
6. INJURY/HEALING AND DEATH
Grave injury like loss of a limb isnt always fatal, in fact an enderman can regenerate a limb on the span of weeks-months at the expense of a shorter lifespan (it's not like it can control this regeneration though). Usually when healing from an injury, the outer layer is more traslucid and acquires the color of the inside - they can look very similar or almost the same as a marking, the difference is that markings are permanent while all scarring fades eventually.
As explained in point 4, ender pearls need energy to keep the bodies together, and they wear out as time goes on - Outer layer damage requires more work from the pearl to heal, and this affects lifespan along with the kind of realm the enderman lives in.
A Natural death, or death of old age, means that the main ender pearl's pull has basically fully worn out, so much that not even secondary pearls can make up for it. The enderman will lose its appetite and become lethargic, and its body will slowly begin to disintegrate - one could basically see the end magic exude from their bodies as opposed to it being attracted during incubation.
Once the body reaches a dangerously low amount of magic, the enderman fully destabilizes and the leftover of its body dissipates abruptly.
The main ender pearl collapses and disappears with that, the survivability of the extra ender pearls depends on how the final dissipation ocurred, if the enderman was standing and they fall down to the ground they almost always always break or become too unstable to form bodies, but if the enderman was laying down there's a chance the extra ender pearls get a slight end magic coating from the dissipated body.
The way a dying enderman looks in an unnatural death depends on the injury.
Stabbing through the chest fully breaks the main ender pearl and the enderman dissipates instantly, any extra ender pearls also break in that instant.
To kill an enderman without a direct stab to the chest requires to create as much ruptures to the outer layer to exacerbate leakage of magic (or well...bleeding i guess?), at some point it'll reach the threshold that makes it destabilize, and its body fully dissipates.
Death by water exposure looks very similar to natural death, due to the water dissolving their outer layer the magic will leak out more evenly. Any extra ender pearls will not be stable to form a new body if theyre exposed to water after the enderman's death.
Endermen can feel pain due to damage from their outer layer, on the other side the insides are numb. When an Enderman dies of old age it isnt sudden damage to the outer layer rather than it dissipating, so they dont really feel pain but they also lose the sense of touch.
7. ENDER PEARLS AND EYES OF ENDER
So yeah, last big point I'll flesh out is how Ender Pearls work when they're looted from a player - Traumatic and sudden deaths like Chest injury will break all of the pearls so they're the least recommended if a player wants to get some - unfortunately its very easy to go for the chest when you're being attacked by an enderman and want to get rid of it asap.
In the previous point I detailed how the "safest" way to kill an enderman and keep the ender pearls intact is through creating as much damage to the outer layer to cause rapid destabilization, it's important to not make the death too instant because sudden change in environment and too much stress can make the pearls break.
Its important to clean the ender pearls with water after acquiring them - this will take off any end magic coating and make them too unstable to attract more.
After this its important to handle them carefully, causing stress on them will also break them!
Throwing an ender pearl will basically activate the sort of worm hole endermen teleport with - but since the player is organic and NOT made of end magic they'll suffer damage from the teleportation.
Using Blaze Powder on an ender pearl to make an eye of ender will make it more stable and reactive to end magic - but it loses any teleportation capabilities, throwing an eye of ender will make it float towards areas with high levels of end magic (aka end portal!)
8. EXTRAS
Endermen lack a sense of temperature - so they dont really feel too hot or too cold, but their chests tend to be unusually warm while the rest of the body is ambient temperature or the temperature of anything theyre in contact with.
Due to their shapeshifting capabilities, Endermen are very good at imitating sounds/voices. Their malleable bodies allow them to shift the anatomy of their throat to create different pitch, tones, and noises. An Enderman's throat by default is only capable of making the noises we usually hear from them in game.
While endermen are more intelligent than the average mob and can form social circles, most of them dont have a sense of individuality/society as a player does and are more instinct based/animalistic - This doesnt mean that they cannot achieve it though, as there's cases where an enderman can reach more individuality to the point where they can choose to do things like shapeshift-grow their hair out and style it, or acquire a sense of fashion, or identify with a specific gender.
They have retractable claws, but instead of retractable theyre...shapeshifted in?
They have paws on their legs and have 4 toes - they lack pawpads though, their paws are more similar to that of a rabbit (all fluffy means more sneaky and the solid layer helps protect while walking)
End Magic is, by default, a glowing purple-magenta hue when in a flowing state, and is traslucid to dark blue tones as solid - an enderman's body color can range from medium dark purple to dark blue depending on how thin or thick its solid layer is, but altering the arrangement of end magic particles down to a microscopic level can give colors outside of that spectrum with an extra energy cost.
Hybridation is a complex topic (looking at you, c!Ranboo), but I personally believe that enderman hybrids are more like- fully enderman who have "code" of another species in their ender pearl: The ender pearl makes the end magic arrange in a way that it resembles the characteristics of the other species accordingly, and it can even attempt to imitate bodily functions of the other species - But hybrid bodies are basically an enderman body 'shapeshifted' to an extreme and aren't organic in any way - ie: they have no blood, the complexity of their insides can vary, still depends on end magic.
Glitches can also make a non-hybrid enderman to have different capabilities from the "average" enderman or very different traits like eye/insides colors or physiology - sometimes (but not always) both.
High-stress situations or even near death experiences can also rarely cause glitches on the code - the new traits present after a few days/weeks/months (depends on the realm), less severe glitches tend to be rewritten with the original code within the lifespan of the enderman, but more severe ones tend to to last until death.
Hybrid traits and congenital (?) code glitches can be passed to descendants, but the code always has a tendency to converge to that of a "default" enderman one after several generations. This is because keeping a body outside of that framework is harder to maintain - more drastic differences tend to lead to drastically shorter lifespans.
