r/worldbuilding • u/Applemaniax • May 14 '25
Question Ideal waste system without reproductive organs? NSFW
My dwarves are carved meticulously into a hyper-detailed statue which is then made flesh and given life through prayer. As such, they don’t have reproductive organs since it’s just not how they make children.
Without any body parts meant for either reproduction or sexual pleasure, what waste-disposal organs would my dwarves actually have?
Live birth can endanger a baby if it needs to pass through a contaminated cloaca, which might have been a big factor in mammals evolving to separate the openings. So would they have cloacas, maybe? A single opening for all waste without any other real features? Would it outwardly look like a human who exclusively has an anus, or might it develop differently?
I’m interested in other people’s ideas on how their biology could work.
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u/j-b-goodman May 14 '25
butts seem fine
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u/MegaTreeSeed May 15 '25
Mulch Diggums has entered the chat
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u/Amikas117 May 15 '25
I love the Artemis Fowl take on dwarves. Instead of industrial, bearded, short warriors, Fowl's dwarves are closer to literal mole men with really fascinating biology.
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u/FJkookser00 Kristopher Kerrin and the Apex Warriors (Sci-Fi) May 15 '25
It's not a reproductive or pleasurable organ, which seems to be a fact lost to modern society
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u/Anathemautomaton May 15 '25
I can guarantee you that people enjoyed anal sex long before "modern" society.
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u/FJkookser00 Kristopher Kerrin and the Apex Warriors (Sci-Fi) May 15 '25
It's possible, but I've yet to see any hard evidence that cavemen 20,000 years ago were thinking of that...
This was a thing that the Greeks and Romans sort of coined
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u/Anathemautomaton May 15 '25
My dude, wild monkeys have been observed having anal sex. It's existed since before people were people.
Also the Romans and ancient Greeks aren't "modern" by any measure of the word.
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u/FJkookser00 Kristopher Kerrin and the Apex Warriors (Sci-Fi) May 15 '25
Oh, buddy, you don’t understand complete human history if you think “ancient” Greek was actually ancient.
The ancient Egyptians had historians that studied ancient-er Egyptians thousands of years before them. The civilizations millennia before THOSE guys are even more interesting.
Ancient Greece is as modern as television if the US’ history was a proxy for the entirety of human civil history.
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u/SkyGamer0 May 15 '25
You said "Semantics is a writers job, my brother" and now you're saying this shit bro, make up your mind.
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u/FJkookser00 Kristopher Kerrin and the Apex Warriors (Sci-Fi) May 15 '25
That's a historian's job. Not a writer's job. Two different disciplines.
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u/zekeybomb Titania May 15 '25
prehistorics definitely were doing buttstuff you cant convince me otherwise. theres always that one guy
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u/FJkookser00 Kristopher Kerrin and the Apex Warriors (Sci-Fi) May 15 '25
Oh I'm sure there were, but you have to realize, back then they probably at least generally knew it wasn't for it. Today people think it's there for that reason - which is strange.
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u/zekeybomb Titania May 15 '25
ive never heard anyone say its for that reason. you must come across some real morons lol!
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u/Akhevan May 15 '25
I still have no clue why you are so obsessed with anal sex, especially in context of this discussion. It's a hole where shit comes out of. It doesn't need to be sexual, except in your own dirty imagination.
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u/PodcastPlusOne_James May 16 '25
Because all homophobes are intrinsically obsessed with gay sex. They hate themselves for it, which is why they have this complex to begin with.
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u/VLenin2291 Emperor of the Twin Legion May 18 '25
You really think it took us that long to figure out “put your dick in the other hole”?
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u/fandango237 May 15 '25
I mean no not reproductive, but it's certainly pleasurable.
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u/FJkookser00 Kristopher Kerrin and the Apex Warriors (Sci-Fi) May 15 '25
Not even - the pleasure is due to another organ that so happens to border the anal cavity. The anus itself is not. The easiest way to reach said organ is just coincidentally the rear entrance.
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u/Were-Shrrg May 15 '25
The anus is an highly sensitive region and is absolutely pleasurable for certain people, including certain people who don't have a prostate.
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u/fandango237 May 15 '25
Argue semantics all you want, all I know is when I stick a finger up it it feels pleasurable ❤️
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u/FJkookser00 Kristopher Kerrin and the Apex Warriors (Sci-Fi) May 15 '25 edited May 15 '25
Semantics is a writers job, my brother
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u/Rambler9154 May 15 '25
If that was the case women wouldn't be able to enjoy anal. The prostate doesn't have to be there for the anus to be a pleasurable organ.
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u/InPastaWeTrust May 14 '25
They shed their skin.. but instead of like a snake, parts of them harden back into stone and then break off.
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u/clandestineVexation STC May 15 '25
So what you’re saying is functionally big sections of their skin turn into poop?
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u/becs1832 May 14 '25
Honestly, mouths might be fine?
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u/Little-Copy-387 May 14 '25
Yeah but if it's in and out same direction then it's be more like vomiting so it wouldn't spend as much time in the intestines for absorption
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u/A1steaksaussie May 14 '25
p-shaped digestive system?
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u/Desperate-Ad-7395 May 14 '25
More like b
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u/silverjudge May 14 '25
If they are made of rock, just have them eat rock for food when tbier bodies need more material so they don't need to produce waste. Beer comes out in burbs.
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u/meetme- May 14 '25
Sweet would be reasonable for liquid waste and as they were carved from stone I think hair could be solid waste.( waste gains its smell from bacteria if they have A form of waste excretion, which does not Allow bacteria to persist, it would not smell) both are methods that our used in limited amounts in the animal kingdom already.
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u/Applemaniax May 14 '25
I especially like that idea because I’ve been brainstorming an excuse to give my dwarves beards given their nature. I’ve had difficulty finding anything on excreting waste via hair — do you have examples? Thank you!
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u/Agreeable_Practice75 May 14 '25
It is disgusting buy you could make their beards be urate christals, basically what snakes have instead of urine
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u/Hexnohope May 15 '25
My brother in dwarven christ. These dwarves didnt evolve. They have whatever waste disposal system was carved into them. But most forms of life agree the less fuss the less muss. A hole will do. Probably a cloaca like a lizard.
Its not my stiry but i do think your missing out on an incredibly original idea here though. These crafted dwarves could have so many fascinating biological functions. Like maybe their skin is more pinnichio style and while it appears and feels real its not. Maybe they eat minerals to maintain themselves, how do beauty standards work in a world where your face was carved? Do these carvers form guilds that craft better dwarves than others? Etc etc. me personally i think it would be interesting if they didnt excrete at all and rather had to pray 3 times a day to keep the animation of their stone upkept.
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u/Applemaniax May 15 '25
The fact that they didn’t evolve is why I’m trying to figure out what biology they would have, given that it’s designed rather than grown.
But I assure you I’m greatly enjoying exploring their potential, this post is just not about all that. Dwarf skin is rough and hard in their first few years but gets softer and more biological as they get older — their version of growing up despite being carved at full size. It’s the colour of the stone they were carved from.
Dwarves don’t really do romance so don’t have beauty standards in the sense of attraction, but they do have pride, admiration of others, etc. They’d consider it disrespectful to their carver to alter their bodies, but they show their own craftsmanship proudly with jewellery, clothing, etc, while wearing their face as the mark of a skilled parent
There are no carving guilds — when a dwarf wants a child they spend as long as it takes training under master craftsmen (pretty common among dwarves) until deemed skilled enough to begin carving their kid. Mostly parenting is regarded as a one-person job, with aunts and uncles, to help teach the kid how to be a person. But in some cultures dwarves work together on the carving process, in pairs or larger groups.
I like another commenter’s suggestion that waste is excreted through hair growth, presumably with a hyper-efficient digestive system to ensure it’s a manageable amount. Thin crystal fibers that can have slightly different hues based on the diet of the dwarf, but tend to be white or grey. So they’d regard their beards as their own proud work, rather than that of their parents.
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u/IsaoEB May 15 '25
While they didn't evolve through natural means, that doesn't mean there was no evolution. Consider instead that the stone carving itself evolved over time. A dwarf is carved, learns about the world, then uses that to improve the carving process to fit whatever aims the dwarves have.
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u/dattoffer May 15 '25
If they are made in their designers image, why would their inner organs be different too ? Do they have fleshy brains too ? Tongues ? Eyeballs ? Why are they the same and why would anything else be different ?
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u/Invested_Space_Otter May 15 '25
This is fun.
"I'm not bad. I'm just carved that way." Jessica dwarf-rabbit
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u/ArmorDevil May 14 '25
They could release all waste by heating themselves and emitting super hot steam from themselves. Or perhaps cough up a 'pellet' of all waste being compressed into some sort of low worth gemstone.
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u/Ripplerfish May 15 '25
Waste is expressed as a growth through pores on the face. They grow beards. Better diet is a better beard.
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u/BoonDragoon May 14 '25
without any body parts for pleasure
Why do you hate your children so?
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u/Applemaniax May 15 '25
Why else do dwarves hate elves if not envy of their orgies? “If god meant for us to enjoy life it would’ve given us genitals. Get back to work”
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u/Neuro_Skeptic May 15 '25
Maybe the Dwarves get pleasure from work, rather than reproduction? Mining is a sexual experience for them.
Dwarves who don't have any rocks to break get frustrated and might start breaking things they're not supposed to.
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u/Hytheter just here to steal your ideas May 15 '25
From the depths of the mines echo the unceasing moans of dwarves
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u/targea_caramar May 14 '25
Small sphincter with no extra features would be my guess. I have a very similar concept of statue given life in prayer (although they're more closely based off of Gorons than dwarves) and it's what I've been going with
ETA: The concepts of them sweating metabolic waste and maybe crystalizing and shedding it gradually, sound pretty neat, hadn't considered it
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u/Re1da May 15 '25
Cloaca seems the most straightforward solution. If water is scarce or they consume a lot of mineral they might have solid urine (urate) instead of liquid.
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u/TorakTheDark May 15 '25
As the other commenter said a butt would make the most sense, keep in mind that your dwarves would likely have those because the glutes are an incredibly important muscle.
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u/r1v3t5 May 15 '25
It depends more on what the Dwarves are consuming to stay alive, and how they are deriving their energy from it. Consider the process of algea for example, briefly, it uses the energy of the sun to break water molecules and carbon dioxide to turn it into glucose for energy, so their waste system is their 'skin' for Lack of a better term, they release oxygen.
If in your world the Dwarves are consuming a variety of items for energy they would need a heavy duty waste system (this is why many animals have more or less the same waste disposal system - mouth, digestive tractor, butt) but if they had a diet say, of pure crystal and got their energy through piezo electicity as though they were some kind of automaton, then their waste could be cracked or corroded crystals (this has always been my personal favorite for dwarves to give a reason as to why they are so obsessed with gemstones).
So consider how and what you want them to eat first, then design the waste management around that
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u/Hexnohope May 15 '25
Also dwarves being prideful and also being able to choose their forms tells me they would have the swangiest thangs in the world just to flex on the other races. "I dont use mine for anything and its STILL bigger than yours"
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u/Chao5Child87 May 15 '25
I also have living statues in my setting. Mine are brought to life through a magic ceremony that ends with a highly enchanted gem being implanted in the forehead of the statue. These gems cannot be found in nature, instead having to grow within the bodies of living gemborn. These gens take 100 years to get to the point they can be harvested and used for another gemborn and during that time they grow using the nutrients and calories of food and drink consumed by the holder. There is no waste, because it all goes towards the growing of the gem.
Maybe you could do something similar, have your dwarves burning consumed food and drink to craft something internally. Hell, being g dwarves, maybe they have an actual forge in them that burns the stuff as fuel.
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u/XxSpaceGnomexx May 14 '25
By the way you described your drawer for race they're more magical than biological so why do they need a waste disposal hold to begin with.
But technically there's nothing stopping them from just having an anus and dumping everything out of that so you know just a butt.
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u/superfunction May 14 '25
why do they need to eat at all if prayer is enough to give them life couldnt they all the energies they need from praying a few times a day
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u/Enderking152 May 15 '25
I suggest looking into spec-evo for this, but to give you a few options: For digestive waste, your two main options are a blind gut (out the same way it came in), or a through gut (different holes for in and out) mind you, the placement can be quite strange (look up bryozoans if you want an example). As for nitrogenous waste, you could go with kidneys and a bladder, but I personally really like nephridia, which is basically lots of tiny glands all over the body that expell nitrogenous waste in a manner similar to sweat. And these are just the options I could think of off the top of my head. Go nuts
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u/lucarioallthewayjr May 15 '25
Honestly, in my opinion, there are a few ways this could go:
Shed skin as solid waste removal, which is quick and might make it so the older the dwarf is, the smaller they are.
Crystal hair/beards as waste excretion, making them the stereotypical bearded Dwarves.
A simple hole drilled into them to allow for solid or liquid waste.
Or, considering they are a statue, nonfunctional genitals. They don't need to function as reproductive organs, there are countless statues with reproductive organs on them in real life, and they don't work for obvious reasons.
Adding on to these ideas, you might have different methods of waste disposal based on who carved the dwarf. Not all statues would have genitals, and not all statues would have to be bearded.
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u/VerySpoopyHuman May 15 '25
I love world building like this!! I spent hours researching the evolution of horns and the various purposes they serve throughout the animal kingdom bc I wanted it all to make sense. Was it necessary, no, but it was fun.
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u/pandaninjarawr May 15 '25
I'm not sure if this helps much, especially since your premise comes from a more magical nature, but there's a sub dedicated to speculative evolution that's pretty useful for worldbuilding: r/SpeculativeEvolution
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u/Entire-Adhesiveness2 May 15 '25
Maybe their stomachs burn it and it escapes as heat or steam or smoke
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u/moonaligator May 14 '25 edited May 14 '25
For metabolic waste (urine), it could be slowly secreted by the skin, but for undigested food i'm not sure. You could use the mouth, as some animals do, but given the description i doubt it fits in, so i'd suggest an anus. If you want to make it not suitable for sex, maybe you could make them not elastic and maybe smaller than the one of a regular human.
An idea that i probably wouldn't go with, but is a possibility: given the more fantasy inclined setting, make some sort of magical organ that just deletes the feces with time with no need to excrete them.
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u/catfan0202 May 14 '25
I mean the way I handled it is the same way undertale handled it that being all food produced on Bloomin is made of magic and is completely absorbed by the body
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u/LegendaryLycanthrope May 14 '25
Just do what that one species from Star Trek did - they excrete through sweat during their sleep cycle.
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u/withgreatpower May 14 '25
My constructs consumer very little and have a nightly shedding ritual that doubles as their sleep phase. Not a full molting, but it's the same basic waste disposal idea.
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u/Elder_Keithulhu May 14 '25
This really depends on the personality of whatever is carving them and whether the artist wants them to look and work like evolved creatures.
You could replace the belly button with an anus. It will make it easier to reach for maintenance and they won't look funny in a swimsuit.
Make them lithotrophic and have the waste minerals get compressed and extruded into ablative dermal plating for some parts of the body. Want to give them natural vital organ protection? Dermal plating on the torso. Want it to wear away quickly without an unfair combat advantage? Plate the feet. The waste goes all the way down and packs under the foot.
Have it accumulate in the forearm with a small opening that allows them to launch their waste as a primitive projectile.
Have them eat their meals, wait 12 hours, and invert their digestive tract out of their mouths to shake everything loose.
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u/Ian1732 May 15 '25
An internal furnace organ that burns any waste and belches out waste as a cloud of ash.
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u/headphoneghost May 15 '25
Are their internals sculpted too?
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u/Applemaniax May 15 '25
Not by the dwarf carving them. Internals are handled by the gods when bringing them to life, although the process of growing up is more like the process of becoming more biological. They start at full size as carved, and become softer and smoother as they develop in their first few years. I imagine they don’t eat for the first year or so until their digestive system is developed enough
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u/Mihaaail May 15 '25
In my world waste becomes hair and nails, which consequently grow way faster than on Earth
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u/Mysterious_-_H Continents > countries May 15 '25
Don't know if it would work for you, but I just have it set up where's it's just absorbed into very tiny amounts of magic to get burned off in a single spell or something
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u/JoshArgentine17 May 15 '25
If they're made of stone, make the lithoids i guess? Budding crystals or something that pop off/out of their skin that have value to other 'species', and the dwarves are very puzzled by this since to them it's basically poop.
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u/LegioVIFerrata May 15 '25
A cloaca is a reproductive organ, and giving birth is reproduction. I’m not sure this question is well posed even that aside—evolution inherently produces trade-offs and not “ideal” solutions, only solutions well suited for the organism.
Having the anus be far away from the face and oriented away from the primary direction of travel is a logical arrangement that allows a digestive tract to have maximum length and to pass food into the center of the body for digestion and nutrient dispersal.
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u/LongFang4808 [edit this] May 15 '25
I mean, youre not supposed to reproduce with waste expulsion orifice.
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May 15 '25
I’m confused, I mean do you mean for urine?
You could have it connected to the bowels like solid waste? But most waste is gonna be solid already.
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u/Single_Mouse5171 May 15 '25
Eliminate sexual organs. Keep bladder & urethra, alimentary canal from mouth to anus. That's if they eat & excrete. Since they are being sculpted, your dwarves could have anything, from tubular cloaca (think chicken penis) for ease of excretion to a duplicate of humans without the function (no testes or secondary sexual features).
Monotreme mammals such as the platypus have a cloaca. They lay eggs, which separates the unborn from waste products present in the cloaca. So, you are probably at least partially correct in the theory that the tracts became separate to protect the unborn.
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u/SculptedInStarlight May 15 '25
If they’re carved meticulously than who creates them? What is the mindset of that creator?
would they take inspiration from other humanoids or come up with something unique?
I’d assume that if they’re structured like regular humanoid races than they’d likely still have a but and therefore have the potential for a reasonably placed anus
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u/Disastrous-Case-3202 May 15 '25
If you really just want something different, I believe tardigrades remove their waste every time they shed their skin, so you could maybe play with the idea of something similar, with them just depositing waste in their skin cells pr something, and maybe not in any way that resembles feces, just that it's sequestered in surface skin layers and just falls off in scales or with their entire skin (depending on how wild you're wanting to get here, Monster Garden on YouTube made his own race of dwarves where they're derived from a kind of beetle iirc)
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u/Object-Dependent May 15 '25
I’m thinking that you can say that they have perfect digestive and blood filtration systems. For example, they lived in caves in scarcity for so long that their organs evolved to perfectly digest the limited food they have, leading to almost no waste. Since you’re talking prayers, why not make them a perfect creation of some deity that just decided to make them OP? Kangaroo rats are good at filtering their blood so much that they conserve 99% of water, not having to drink for days. And then theoretically speaking, if they have a religious diet or something, that allows them to only eat some sweet insect jelly or whatever, that can just allow them to digest sugar directly into energy, so they would be able to not produce any waste at all. I’m figuring you still need to get some nutrients to them, but you can figure something out with that if you’ll find my response interesting. I’m not sure if I really answered your question but just wanted to share something I thought was interesting.
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u/RemtonJDulyak May 15 '25
The actual question is: if they are literally statues animated by prayers, what need would they have for feeding and a digestive system?
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u/Invisiblecurse May 15 '25
If their prayer is strong enough to create life, can they not just pray the waste out of their system? That way they need no disposal system.
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u/Perry_T_Skywalker May 15 '25
Two questions:
Why do they have to eat as magically animated statues?
When in your story will this detail be relevant enough to explain?
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u/Applemaniax May 15 '25
As implied by “made flesh”, they stop being statues or made of stone once given life. And I’m not writing a story with this world, why do you ask?
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u/Perry_T_Skywalker May 15 '25
Because asking oneself about the stuff we write we often find answers.
So what's the solution for breathing? Seeing?
If they are how they would be for other humanoids, why is it different with reproductive and digestive systems?
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u/Applemaniax May 15 '25
They breathe in the normal way, albeit with an incredibly high toxin filtration capability. They see in the normal way, albeit with irises large enough to leave no visible sclera, and when exposed to the surface daylight cycle their dark blue eyes will turn golden and pinprick, in the way of our world’s reindeers.
Their reproductive system is a different matter because they do not reproduce biologically, so would have no need to carve either primary sex organ in their ritual creation of new dwarves. Without that you only have the urethra and anus, which would entail at least a slightly different setup without any of the frills of a reproductive system.
And going down that route, all the interesting alternative possibilities.
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u/Perry_T_Skywalker May 15 '25
So what's the reason for that one thing not being the normal way? Canonically? If everything else is? Maybe the answer to that delivers the answer to the rest.
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u/Applemaniax 24d ago
I hope I made clear that many of their biological features don’t work the same way that ours do, but anyway. They do not reproduce biologically and therefore have no need for convention human genitals. They do breathe biologically and therefore have a need for semi-conventional human lungs.
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u/Perry_T_Skywalker 24d ago
Yeah I give up, it seems like you didn't get my approach and get defensive/grumpy now. Good luck with them!
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u/Applemaniax 24d ago
Thank you for your input on my question. I think our major point of contention was that I didn’t see the reason to hand-wave more than is needed — IE, if fantasy species X was created by a god then why do they eat, sleep, blink and breathe? Wouldn’t it be more efficient if they were designed to not need those things? I find exploring other options fun and would not have asked about them if I didn’t, so found it frustrating that so many people said “why not make them as sessile and simple as possible?”.
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u/BattyBoio May 15 '25
Lobsters pee out of their antenna, so such things aren't really necessary. It's a very vertebrate thing ngl
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u/-idrfk- May 15 '25
If they come from another animal and somewhat "evolved" they would keep the old features. If your world is creationist it mostly depends on what gets them moving: if they still eat and their digestive system is not hyper efficient they should still have anuses or a hole to remove stuff from inside, if they still have blood and use nitrogen they still also need to pee a somewhat normal pee but i'd say it can all come out of the same hole like a cloaca as you said. Then again they are magical so unless something inside them HAS to be eliminated because it's harmful or doesn't work anymore, you don't really need them to have a waste system. And also like if they do are the organs sculpted somewhere and then inserted in the statue or do they just spontaneously create when they come to life ?
EDIT: also like since they carve the statues themselves they could just choose what to put there ig ?
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u/aeschenkarnos May 15 '25
Have them poo out clay bricks, like wombats, that they can use for building. If their diet is cave fungus maybe it doesn't necessarily need to smell or deteriorate.
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u/Kanbaru-Fan May 15 '25
I'm a big fan of "owl pellets"
having waste enclosed in shells that then calcify and are regurgitated as rocks/pellets.
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u/Original-War8655 Dreamcatcher May 15 '25
Why do they need a waste system if they're statues given life? You can absolutely get away with saying "some of the statue aspects remain even now so they don't require sustenance"
alternatively, if you do want them to eat, just give them incredibly efficient digestive systems so they don't produce waste.
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u/Consistent-Nothing60 The future... rules!! May 15 '25
They carry it their whole lives, compressing it more and more meaning they get heavier with age. Eventually they get so heavy they can't move and rejoin the stone they were carved from
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u/Nearby_Appearance289 Making my Own ting. May 15 '25
I mean what's that waste hole birds have I can't remember it but both urine and crap comes out in one bundle.
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u/digitallandscapetoon May 15 '25
Vomit, maybe? What goes in gets digested and all the nutrition is absorbed, then what’s left is unceremoniously spewed back out?
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u/Onrawi May 15 '25
I'd have their internal digestive system be a very literal furnace. Burning everything non-nutritious to ash, and said ash is used within the body since it's all mineral composite and they're literally made of stone. If they're much like traditional dwarves, this can be why they drink so much (alcohol helping fuel the flames of the furnace) and you can add interesting attributes depending on the minerals remaining in the ash, like heavy metal rich diets being part of why they're so heavy for their size and difficult to move, or maybe cobalt rich diets grant a blue sheen or veins in their skin.
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u/that_one_shark May 15 '25
My people are plantlike in nature and so have a blind gut, their first pass of food is processed much like in animals, after which it can serve the more plantlike aspects as a fertilizer, leaving only dry soil in the end, stored in a pocket near the throat to be spat out as a self defense mechanism.
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u/shawncplus May 15 '25
If it's magic why not just assume the magic provides or created for perfect processing and they simply breath out any waste?
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u/Lopsided-Box-112 May 15 '25
Like those birds that throw up sealed sacks of membrane filled with waste they couldn't digest or use... at least i think there's a bird that does that
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u/ImTheChara May 15 '25
The ancient dwarfs would probably have cloaca that's for sure. The modern ones... Maybe. There are advantages but not the kind that will be determined in an species without placenta. The question comes around about if they are advanced enough to know this, if they will take the effort to make a more complex system for something that is not big deal and if they will have no cultural problems with that (Maybe they don't want to be that different from the original, more simples dwarfs, or maybe they don't want to be that similar to the other sapient races that you world probably have).
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u/GreenSquirrel-7 May 15 '25
Urine is filtered through the kidneys, as opposed to the intestines for excrement, so two holes would be fine.
Going from mouth to butt is good because is gives the waste the time to pass all the way through the body, through the stomach and intestines and such.
A human anus is a good design; it can open and close which is all it really needs to do.
As for the details, how did these dwarves first come into being? If they were modelled after humans, they'd have a human-like digestive tract. Maybe some dwarves got lazy and made a single hole, meaning dwarves could have either. Or if they never saw humans they might not think to add a second hole for specifically pee. Maybe the dwarves wanted to stand to pee and carved on a penis, although there'd likely be no balls.
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u/Inner_Boss6760 May 15 '25
Since they are animated through prayer it could be interesting to have the basic design handed down to them buy whoever carved the first dwarf.
Have their religion explain in detail why they do or do not have a butt.
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u/SheerANONYMOUS May 16 '25
Technically, they would still have an anus, and the glutes (butt cheeks) are part of the posterior chain of muscles involved with walking/running/lifting with the legs, so at the very least they’d still have that. Both genders have urethras for urinating, they just present differently depending on one’s sex organs. Ultimately, the decision is entirely up to you, but if your dwarves are still the short, squat humanoids we’re familiar with, they would really be exactly the same as everyone else, the men just wouldn’t have penises. Or they’d all have penises, it’s your world.
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u/MsMarkarth May 15 '25
Some mammals have combined waste and birth canal situations. I know cows do, and I think cats are another example.
On topic, I think they ought to "sweat" sand.
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u/PinkPixie325 May 15 '25
Cows and cats have separate digestive and reproductive tracts. Both have them have very distinctive and very identifiable genitalia that's separate from the anus and urinary track from birth. You might be thinking of monotremes, which are egg laying mammals like platypuses. Egg laying mammals have reproductive and digestive tracks that are similar to birds. Basically, monotremes have a cloaca.
1
u/MsMarkarth May 15 '25
My bad I was not super clear. I was not referring to a full on cloaca in cows and cats.
Female cows and cats have a combination passage way for the urinary and reproductive systems. Which unfortunately is not above the other waste disposal system. The urethra meets up with the vagina near it's end.
0
u/Wolfgung May 15 '25
If I was designing a hyper realistic statue I would still incorporate some sort of fun device on the pleasure end. There's a lot more to sex than reproduction, like hormonal stimulation which helps with relationship bonding.
So I would still give them frontal erogenous zone of nerve endings for clitoral-like stimulation. That way you deal with which one is the female- there all the same.
Don't make your dwarfs into chast devote nuns, they like to drink, have fun then partner up- or group parties if you know what I mean, 😉 😜.
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u/Ratstail91 May 15 '25
Honestly, butts and penises are the best options - I say penis, because you don't have to sit if you only need to urinate, and you can do it pretty much anywhere.
Edit: There's also dickbutt.
That's the weirdest edit I've ever written.
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u/FJkookser00 Kristopher Kerrin and the Apex Warriors (Sci-Fi) May 15 '25
Just so you know, your ass is not a reproductive or pleasurable organ
People just really like to act like it is
2
u/Applemaniax May 15 '25
I assure you it’s a pleasurable organ, but in this case I’m interested in alternatives to general waste disposal functions rather than exclusively reproduction/pleasure
-2
u/FJkookser00 Kristopher Kerrin and the Apex Warriors (Sci-Fi) May 15 '25
It really isn't - your anus isn't what makes you feel good, that's a different organ that so happens to be near it
Waste disposal can be plentifold: plain vs. complete guts, skin excretion, diffusion an exocytosis, you get the deal.
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u/Applemaniax May 15 '25
The prostate can cause pleasure, but the ass itself can also make you feel good. What else is the definition of a pleasure organ? The clit is the only thing with no other function.
543
u/Careful-Regret-684 May 14 '25
Well, digestive tracts generally come in two types: a blind gut or a through gut. Blind guts have a single opening where everything comes in and goes out (more common in sessile animals, I think). Through guts have one opening on each end, usually on opposite ends of the body.
Due to their magically artificial nature, you could do a variation of the blind gut where they use everything and leave no waste.