The technosystem of the Long Night is vast and unpredictable. Species rise and fall with regularity and new variants appear without warning.
To order such chaos, a universal system has been applied to aid the viewer in determining the general nature of an encounter with minimal effort. All creatures will have names designed as such: “Archetype ID-Size-Disposition-!N-Matter Integration!-Numeric Designator”.
Archetype refers to the broad class of organism it belongs to. Some archetypes are broad, others are narrow. All stem from a single ancestral person or species. Like a clade on the tree of life, they are a shared group of traits which has speciated into countless forms, all bearing the trace of their origins.
MCR- Micro, the smallest size. Tiny flies and other vermin are of this scale.
MNL- Minimal, the second-smallest. Some larger invertebrates are here.
SML- Small, the size of vertebrate vermin, analogous to rats.
LSR- lesser, small non-vermin animals. Cats and dogs.
MDM- Large dogs or people-sized.
LRG- The size of a large animal, bigger than a human. A bear or a horse.
HGE- Huge. An elephant-sized creature.
GNT- A gigantic creature, the size of a whale.
TTN- A titanic creature with no known biological equivalent.
AMBT- A harmless, small creature, little more than background radiation unless in truly great numbers.
VRMN- A harmful small creature, a pest or nuisance.
BNGN- A harmless large creature. A prey animal or nonviolent machine.
HZRD- A creature which doesn’t go out of its way to attack people, but is territorial and unpredictable. An obstacle, but one which can be avoided.
PRBM- A creature which may not directly threaten people, but can be a nuisance, stealing items or causing mischief.
DNGR- A dangerous creature, one which will actively prey on people if it can.
SPNT- A sophontic creature, an intelligent being capable of metacognition and the use of N-matter.
HSTL- A semi-sophont that has for one reason or another become unable to be reasoned with.
EXST- An existential threat to civilizations or settlements.
!N!- This creature possesses an N-core, a sophisticated hypertechnological organ which can directly interface with N-matter. It is seamlessly integrated with hypertechnological cybernetics and can use transmutation programs.
!!T!!- This creature is Transcendent. It has a body entirely composed of hypertechnological materials and surpasses all conventional sciences. It is largely immune to most status conditions such as extreme heat, cold, or aging, in addition to the normal strengths of its Archetype.
All species in a given region have a 7-digit number appended to them. This refers to the individual species. The important information is primarily contained in archetype, size, and disposition if one needs to make a quick judgement without caring for the nuances.
Some variants of drones, creatures, and vehicles used by humans follow a different identification system, for example using ####### to denote mass-produced variants of creatures found in civilizations. ####### may also be the ID of things which cannot be distinctly classified into species for other reasons.