Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

[Jacob.Tyr]

The way I see it, there are only three requirements for the evolution of intelligence in a species: 1) a survival strategy that provides a substantial competitive advantage for increased intelligence of individuals and cooperation among individuals, 2) enough time for natural selection to work, and 3) a lot of luck. The physical structure of the species and exactly what its survival strategy is are largely irrelevant - as long as those three requirements are met, intelligence can plausibly evolve. If tool use is a requirement, then you also need some impetus for the evolution of grasping hands, but that's it.

Was looking at Gnolls and Lizardmen, as presented in DnD, which are anthropomorphized hyenas and lizards that stand upright like humans.

Working off the idea we're looking for something that stands upright, which I don't think will really work out without the niche of attrition hunting. I can't for the life of me think of anything else that is bipedal to the extent humans are, and our stance/gait makes it ideal for us to be endurance runners in high temperatures. The problem is that Gnolls are designed to be hairy hyena humans.

I could see them evolving weapon/tool use and civilization while being only partial bipedal, given the insect scenario, but I can't see anything standing upright and remaining hairy/besnouted. Hell, hyena are already intelligent and live in strict caste structured societies. Castes that are primarily maintained via rape, but still.


My assumptions of the human model was to wind up with complete bipedality. Unless we're going to somehow shame intelligent raccoons into standing upright they aren't going to start being bipedal naturally anytime soon.

Hands require prey/food that benefits from fine motor control of fingers-Insects etc.
Bipedality requires attrition hunting. Raccoons lack this.


Octopi use tools and are fairly intelligent, yes. They even use weapons, ripping the tentacles off of man-o-wars and hitting things with them. They're still a far stretch from an "animal"-man.

tl;dr
Not saying we can't have intelligent tool using civilized animals, as we already have many that I think fit all 3 of those requirements, just that they won't be standing upright like gnolls or lizardmen are in DnD.

Slouching most likely, I can see the land ones becoming about as bipedal as a baboon in order to free up their hands for grasping when needed.

[hamishspence]

Dinosaurs included extremely bipedal species.

Slightly different posture- but still bipedal.

[Jacob.Tyr]

Dinosaurs included extremely bipedal species.

Slightly different posture- but still bipedal.

Good point. This came about for them for the same reason as it did for humans. Look into Carrier's constraint, bipedality is a more effective gait that doesn't interrupt breathing and allows for greater endurance running.

Edit-I now cede the possibility of Lizardmen. Too bad we wound up with birds instead.

[headwarpage]

I see your point on bipedalism, but evolution is mostly a series of accidents, and it can get you almost any result you can imagine. There are hundreds of things in the real world that are more improbable than bipedal hyenas. I agree that it's not particularly feasible for an existing hyena population to spontaneously start walking upright. However, I can imagine something evolving along a different path and ending up looking like an upright hyena.

I'm not sure about the idea that only attrition hunting leads to bipedalism, though. Some arboreal primates are bipedal when they're on the ground; while that tends to be kind of awkward, deforestation pursuant to climate change could leave you with a functioning biped (which may or may not be what happened to humans). Kangaroo-type creatures are also bipedal, although with a hopping gait. And, as hamishpence mentioned, there were a number of bipedal dinosaurs (some of which may have also been attrition predators).

Also, who's to say that gnolls evolved in a warm climate? Even if they evolved as attrition hunters, there's no real reason to lose the fur if staying warm was a major concern.

So yeah, you can't just take a real-world hyena and stand it on its hind legs, but you can imagine a series of evolutionary circumstances that would get you something that, to a real-world observer, would look more like an upright hyena than anything else.

Of course, there would probably be related species wandering around too; things that are as similar to a gnoll as chimps and gorillas are to us. If gnolls evolved, there would be other canids, possibly arboreal, that were at least partially bipedal, or had the beginnings of a hand the way chimps do.

[Jeff the Green]

Bipedality requires attrition hunting. Raccoons lack this.

I think you have cause and effect mixed up. As I said earlier, the best evidence we have suggests we weren't predators until we developed advanced tool use, which didn't happen until long after we were bipedal. Attrition hunting requires bipedalism, not the other way around.

[Toastkart]

Second problem is brain size. Most animalistic humanoids and anthropomorphic animals basically have the animals skull grafted on a humanoid body, with maybe the eyes more forward. You're going to need to expand the skull up and out significantly to have anything approaching human intelligence. Compare chimp and human skulls, and then compare chimp and hyena skulls, for instance.

This may or may not matter as much as you'd think. The amount of research that has been done on hyenas is pitiful in comparison to the amount of research done on chimpanzees and other primates. Hyenas tend to be good at cooperative tasks, with some caveats.


There are a lot of different kinds of intelligence. Social intelligence could be an incredibly determining factor in the evolution of general intelligence.

Here's another article on hyena social behavior and intelligence. Sadly, not as in-depth as the others.

Stephen Fry makes an interesting argument in one of his TV series that it's the development of language -- as in, the ability to convey concepts to other humans -- that sparked the rise of human civilisation.

*snip the middle*

So, wildly theorising, an intelligent carnivore might well develop agriculture and civilisation -- if it learns to cooperate with others of its species for mutual advantage and figures out how to convey abstract concepts?

This is a very outdated view. Read the social intelligence study I linked above.

Hell, hyena are already intelligent and live in strict caste structured societies. Castes that are primarily maintained via rape, but still.

You do realize that female spotted hyenas can not be raped due to their anatomy, right? Also, I wouldn't describe their social hierarchy as strict so much as stable.

[headwarpage]

How sure are you that attrition hunting requires bipedalism? I mean, wolves can run pretty long distances; they could probably be attrition hunters if they had to be. Of course, they can also run fast and rip prey's throats out, so they have better options that don't involve long, tiring runs across the plains. So maybe we're just attrition hunters because we didn't have a lot of other options.

[Jeff the Green]

How sure are you that attrition hunting requires bipedalism? I mean, wolves can run pretty long distances; they could probably be attrition hunters if they had to be. Of course, they can also run fast and rip prey's throats out, so they have better options that don't involve long, tiring runs across the plains. So maybe we're just attrition hunters because we didn't have a lot of other options.

I probably exaggerated a bit. Wolves don't precisely do persistence hunting*, however (and when they approach it, it's usually in shifts, more a relay than a marathon), and humans beat their pants off them in endurance. Wolves can run for hours with minimal rest; humans can run for days with minimal rest. The only critters that can beat us at endurance running are sled dogs, and they were selected artificially for it (artificial selection is usually faster than natural selection, and it can create enormous selection coefficients that cause the development of extreme traits that would fall by the wayside in natural selection because of their deleterious side effects).

*Some googling reveals that this is the more accepted term for the strategy.

[headwarpage]

Yeah, I know we can outrun pretty much anything on earth over the long term, but hours is more than enough to run the average deer into the ground. My point is, wolves don't really need to do persistence hunting because they're pretty good at regular hunting, and it's a lot less energy-intensive. So they haven't evolved to be insanely good at persistence hunting. We had to do persistence hunting because we didn't have anything else going for us. Quadrupedal animals could do persistence hunting; being bipedal, while helpful, isn't a requirement.

That's the thing about evolution; it doesn't look for the best way to fill a niche, it just puts an animal out there and says, "can it survive?" If it can find a way, however improbable, difficult, or downright silly it might be, that creature sticks around. For us, it was being smart bipeds that did persistence hunting. That doesn't mean that there's anything special about that combination, or that any one of those things is required for any of the others.

[HeadlessMermaid]

Yeah, I know we can outrun pretty much anything on earth over the long term, but hours is more than enough to run the average deer into the ground.

It was my understanding that the famed endurance of humans didn't make them spectacularly good at hunting per se, but allowed them to swiftly cover vast distances, in order to reach new hunting grounds - effectively minimizing the "we're out of deer, therefore we're screwed" effect. Something that most land predators can't handle that well. Many develop instead the ability to stay alive without food for weeks - hoping some prey will appear in the meantime.

I mentioned earlier the yearly migration of the caribou. We're talking about a lot of meat - thousands of animals, pregnant on the way there and with new-born calves on the way back. Some are bound to stray or stay behind, so easy picking, right? Well, not exactly, and here's why.

Wolves, during that time, try to intercept the herd by making lair somewhere in the general vicinity and hoping they'll bump into it. The trouble is, the area is huge, and the course of the caribou depends literally on which way the wind blows. (Apparently, there are some very annoying mosquitoes up there, which they try to avoid by correcting their course to the wind.) A turn of a few degrees equals veering miles away, and there's no way to predict their route.

So mama wolf and cubs stay in the lair, while daddy wolf goes "hunting". Hunting, in this case, means trying to cover as much distance as he can, hoping to find the caribou. He often doesn't, exactly because long distance running isn't his strong suit. Without any other prey in the area, starvation is a very real possibility, and it all comes down to luck. Which way the wind blows.

Now, what would a pack of human predators do in such an unfortunate situation? First, they'd have a better chance at catching up with the caribou. And second, failing that, they could change plans. Take the long road south and look for other hunting grounds.

In short, predators who can run for days and days may not be better at catching that deer over there, but they are much more adaptable to the environment: they can adapt by moving on and switching environments.

And since environments and ecosystems have the tendency to change all the time, that's a pretty strong advantage.

[Jeff the Green]

Yeah, I know we can outrun pretty much anything on earth over the long term, but hours is more than enough to run the average deer into the ground.

That's why I said I probably exaggerated.

On the topic of evolution, natural selection does a lot of co-opting too. We almost certainly evolved bipedalism before we started doing persistence hunting. And then we evolved advanced tool use for other reasons (I suspect fast butchering of scavenged carcasses, but I haven't seen any good science on it), and then combined the two. Sort of how evolution basically looked at wings and went "huh, these can steer in the water too"* and we got penguins.

*Yes, I'm anthropomorphizing ENS. There isn't actually an intelligence behind it, but it's literarily a useful tool.

[headwarpage]

That's why I said I probably exaggerated.

On the topic of evolution, natural selection does a lot of co-opting too. We almost certainly evolved bipedalism before we started doing persistence hunting. And then we evolved advanced tool use for other reasons (I suspect fast butchering of scavenged carcasses, but I haven't seen any good science on it), and then combined the two. Sort of how evolution basically looked at wings and went "huh, these can steer in the water too"* and we got penguins.

*Yes, I'm anthropomorphizing ENS. There isn't actually an intelligence behind it, but it's literarily a useful tool.

I suspect that at some point, we stopped "evolving" in the sense of selection of the most advantageous variations among essentially random genetic characteristics, and we started thinking about what we were doing and making conscious choices about how we would try to survive. That's an important leap forward in the species' history, because once we started having ideas, evolution wasn't just about genetic attributes; a single individual could try out several survival strategies in its lifetime, and choices, not just genetics, would determine whose genes got passed on. I could easily see advanced tool use being right around that time.

And yes, anthropomorphizing ENS is really convenient sometimes.

[Kitten Champion]

Somewhat ironic given the previous posts -- but still...

For the campaign setting I'm developing I thought I would institute a biological caste system to similar bees or ants. With humanoids being distinguished by morphological differences compounded with magical talents which were created to specialize in a particular subset of tasks that are necessary for the smooth functioning of society. Something like Exalted meets structural functionalism.

I've been playing around with the idea of having the most populous builder/labour caste being natural herbivores, and the minority predatory/warrior caste being strictly carnivorous. I'm just not certain as to how this will effect their physiology, internally and externally, as compared to our own.

[headwarpage]

Somewhat ironic given the previous posts -- but still...

For the campaign setting I'm developing I thought I would institute a biological caste system to similar bees or ants. With humanoids being distinguished by morphological differences compounded with magical talents which were created to specialize in a particular subset of tasks that are necessary for the smooth functioning of society. Something like Exalted meets structural functionalism.

I've been playing around with the idea of having the most populous builder/labour caste being natural herbivores, and the minority predatory/warrior caste being strictly carnivorous. I'm just not certain as to how this will effect their physiology, internally and externally, as compared to our own.

Well, do you want all the castes to be recognizably "human" or do you want more variation than that? I mean, should they all clearly be members of the same species? And should they all be able to reproduce, or will you have a queen (or caste of queens, since we reproduce slowly compared to bees) that does all the breeding? If each caste reproduces independently, how are all the castes functionally part of a single species? What happens if they interbreed (even if it's rare)? If they're biologically incapable of interbreeding, you might have something more akin to several distinct species living in a symbiotic relationship.

Also, do you want the builder/laborer caste to be clearly limited relative to the warrior caste? Should they be less intelligent? It fits a potential theme, but I have yet to encounter a task in my lifetime that couldn't be performed better with the application of intellect in addition to whatever other skills were needed. And if the laborer caste doesn't have some innate creativity, how has the society progressed as far as it has? Who invented the wheel, or the windmill, or metallurgy?

I'm not sure there's a "right" answer here, other than maybe the teeth and digestive system to support the caste's diet. A lot of the answers depend on the themes you're trying to develop in your setting. For instance, you could make the laborers strong, but slow and placid, with the warriors being fierce and intelligent. Or you could subvert that trope and make the laborers clever, and the warriors, while physically impressive, mostly incapable of original thought. Or you could make the differences superficial but have the caste system strongly ingrained, like the worst stereotypes of feudal attitudes.

So my answer is, think hard about theme first. The details will follow.

[Grundy]

Edit-I now cede the possibility of Lizardmen. Too bad we wound up with birds instead.

Waitaminute! What's wrong with birds? They are easy on the eyes and ears. And perhaps you haven't noticed, but they are also DE-licious!

It's enough to make me understand why T-Rex went to all the trouble of hunting with those little tiny arms. If a chicken is that good, just imagine what a 3 ton chicken would be like! I wonder if they had fryers back in the day?

[Jeff the Green]

If each caste reproduces independently, how are all the castes functionally part of a single species? What happens if they interbreed (even if it's rare)? If they're biologically incapable of interbreeding, you might have something more akin to several distinct species living in a symbiotic relationship.

If they are incapable of interbreeding (or just don't for behavioral reasons) they are separate species, pretty much by definition.

My advice is to look at haplodiploidy. Without it, it's really hard to create a eusocial species. Not impossible, but hard.

Edit:I missed this.

I suspect that at some point, we stopped "evolving" in the sense of selection of the most advantageous variations among essentially random genetic characteristics, and we started thinking about what we were doing and making conscious choices about how we would try to survive. That's an important leap forward in the species' history, because once we started having ideas, evolution wasn't just about genetic attributes; a single individual could try out several survival strategies in its lifetime, and choices, not just genetics, would determine whose genes got passed on. I could easily see advanced tool use being right around that time.

And yes, anthropomorphizing ENS is really convenient sometimes.

We're probably still evolving via natural selection. Sexual selection is still going to be strong, and some of the traits we evolved to combat diseases we've wiped out are likely gradually being weeded out because they've got costs associated with them. We're also probably evolving to adjust to a different society. The traits that made us successful in the savanna are not necessarily the ones that make us successful today; we're in a different environment, so we'll adapt.

[Conners]

How much would you need to change an ant, or other insets, to get them roughly as big as a human?

[Blightedmarsh]

On the question of metabolism:

It is quite possible to maintain one part or the core of the body at a significantly higher temperature then the rest. It is also true that large cold blooded animals can maintain a significantly higher body temperature then their smaller relatives.

[Kitten Champion]

Well, do you want all the castes to be recognizably "human" or do you want more variation than that? I mean, should they all clearly be members of the same species? And should they all be able to reproduce, or will you have a queen (or caste of queens, since we reproduce slowly compared to bees) that does all the breeding? If each caste reproduces independently, how are all the castes functionally part of a single species? What happens if they interbreed (even if it's rare)? If they're biologically incapable of interbreeding, you might have something more akin to several distinct species living in a symbiotic relationship.

The differences between castes root back to when they were artificially uplifted by a quasi-deity from the stars during their early bipedal stage and re-engineered into something between domesticated animals and industrial machinery. Part of their genetic structure as a whole is part of that god-like being's own code -- like a black box on an airplane -- it bequeaths them with individual magical abilities and recognizable but not extreme morphological differences. They're capable of interbreeding, and have done so regularly for generations, but their dominate traits will always correspond to their magic boon, which always belongs to one caste or another. Those with two abilities are considered defective, and generally have a short and unhappy life.

They're hive-like in the sense of their economy and the culture imposed upon them by their god-king was structured on those inherent magical abilities on all levels, and nearly as regimented in its absolute authority.

I'm developing the magical abilities as I think of them, but I wanted to decide on a basic template for each caste -- thus the initial inquiry.

Also, do you want the builder/laborer caste to be clearly limited relative to the warrior caste? Should they be less intelligent? It fits a potential theme, but I have yet to encounter a task in my lifetime that couldn't be performed better with the application of intellect in addition to whatever other skills were needed. And if the laborer caste doesn't have some innate creativity, how has the society progressed as far as it has? Who invented the wheel, or the windmill, or metallurgy?

The intellects of every caste would be relatively equivalent -- a fairly high average to begin with but with sharply divergent environmental factors leading to knowledge being spread unequally.

There are also a bureaucratic and artisan castes with internal/external mental abilities which relate to their social functions. They have a preternatural gift in a certain area like everyone else -- like being born polymaths, empaths, virtuoso singers, charismatic diplomats -- and so on. They are naturally superior in that particular skill or form of intellect, but may be average or below average on any other. However, you'd unlikely see an uneducated or poorly educated member of this caste due to social conditions.

For the builder however, typically their abilities tend towards the more pragmatic. Superior strength and vitality, the ability to heat with a touch or suppress heat altogether, control light and water, to dominate animals, manipulate plants, induce putrefaction, predict weather -- and more of the like.

The society -- that is to say the whole of humandom on this plane -- has remained fairly static since their initial uplifting into sentience 6000 years ago. They had no need for industrialization and determined innovation beyond a late-medieval level of sophistication. Whatever need they may have, someone would be perfect for fulfilling it -- that being the central ideology behind its development. Innovations were doled out sparingly, based on the calculations of their divinity and his bureaucracy. It was imperfect in some respects, but highly functional nevertheless. The only ones who have no use-value within the society itself are the warriors. They were bred for the express purpose of fighting their quasi-deity's war of attrition against other quasi-divinities who were spread out in their own Dukedoms on different planets and planes of existence.

The setting begins 300 years after their god's death. Another deity cleverly gave the more rebellious elements among the warrior caste the means of fermenting in their own version of Ragnarok. As such, what few members of the warrior caste who are left are typically disliked, if not reviled. At the same time, the stasis with which their society was locked was lifted for good or ill. The formerly centralized and regimented society has become subject to diverse power structures -- from totalitarian conservative caste-based rulers to technocratic communists and ardent anarchists. The dam holding back and directing innovation and discovery has burst and technology has advanced tremendously as the population has expanded rapidly. All previous assumptions of "biology equals destiny" have become the root of the fundamental philosophic and political contention of the day.

Builders are, being the most populous, the central participants in all societies. Some survive by relying on their magical boon, while many want to engage in the new market-economy society based on their other merits and consider the former to be archaic.

I'm not sure there's a "right" answer here, other than maybe the teeth and digestive system to support the caste's diet. A lot of the answers depend on the themes you're trying to develop in your setting. For instance, you could make the laborers strong, but slow and placid, with the warriors being fierce and intelligent. Or you could subvert that trope and make the laborers clever, and the warriors, while physically impressive, mostly incapable of original thought. Or you could make the differences superficial but have the caste system strongly ingrained, like the worst stereotypes of feudal attitudes.

So my answer is, think hard about theme first. The details will follow.

I was considering their temperaments. Builders were, at least In my conception, closest to the baseline normal -- the one players can choose without worrying too much about idiosyncratic tendencies or cultural alienation. They're who people in the world consider mundane, even if it's a somewhat insulting -- or comforting -- over-generalization. Although any and every type of magic changes how you think about your world, especially those which manipulate the environment or develop mental acumen. All magic is intuitive, although the skill of its application vary, it's the primary force which shapes humans before environment, before caste, before sex.

As for the warriors, they would have a profound phlegmatic and merciless streak to them. They are not vicious, or even particularly aggressive -- they are refined tools of murder like a gun or a sword -- not berserk animals who'd slash each other to pieces as easily as the enemy. Not emotionless, all the castes retain their basic humanity as it's seen as a strength -- but a passionless existence of fulfilling rational ends through the most effective means available, violence being chief among them.

The simplistic binary opposites I have in my mind -- warriors are inverted artisans. Artisans are highly emotional, chronically obsessive about whatever they happen to be doing, and often impractical. When they pursue martial arts -- as some are inherently capable of -- it's graceful with an economy of motion that a warrior couldn't match, but is essentially a dance, lacking deadly intensity or adaptability to real circumstances. Bureaucrats on the other hand are inverted Builders. They have an aura of airy indifference, they tend to think abstractly and non-linearly. Some are locked in their own minds in a form of autism, some are pedantic and hyper efficient, others are kingly and controlling, all have a decisively sedentary streak.

I haven't decided on the physical appearance of Bureaucrats, beyond that they're omnivores. Artisans are beautiful aesthetically to the last, are herbivores, and can eat very little relative to others.

[awa]

How much would you need to change an ant, or other insets, to get them roughly as big as a human?

a lot. You would need to completely alter their circulatory and respiratory system as both only work with the assumption of tiny size.

you would need some kind of endo skeleton to help support the organs.

you would need to alter the shape of the animal becuase at human size the square cubed law makes it structurally unsound.

you would need to alter its muscles becuase like every thing else they only function effectively at extremely small size.

no flight with out drastically modified wing size

[headwarpage]

a lot. You would need to completely alter their circulatory and respiratory system as both only work with the assumption of tiny size.

you would need some kind of endo skeleton to help support the organs.

you would need to alter the shape of the animal becuase at human size the square cubed law makes it structurally unsound.

you would need to alter its muscles becuase like every thing else they only function effectively at extremely small size.

no flight with out drastically modified wing size

Yeah, insects just don't scale up well. Of course, there's no reason you couldn't build something that has more advanced organ systems and a decent endoskeleton, but looks exactly like a giant insect. Think of it as a really, really ugly turtle or armadillo. Flight remains a problem, though. In anything other than hard sci-fi settings, though, suspension of disbelief can probably encompass giant insects.

[Conners]

A giant armadillo-like creature which looks and acts like an ant would be fine.

[awa]

it still couldn't look like an insect (at least not the legs) the bigger the animal the thicker the legs need to be in proportion to the animal and to get the most bang for your buck those legs need to be place directly under the animals body. insects have their legs spread out away from the body normally it doesn't matter becuase their little but if you make them human size it becomes real important.

[Jacob.Tyr]

You do realize that female spotted hyenas can not be raped due to their anatomy, right? Also, I wouldn't describe their social hierarchy as strict so much as stable.

The males aren't being raped in their vaginas, either.

[Wyntonian]

The males aren't being raped in their vaginas, either.

See, there are a few things that I never expect to read. I made a list. This wasn't on it, but it should have been.


Welp.

[Conners]

With the gnolls lizardmen and so-forth: How about learning to speak?

Evidently, creatures like parrots can copy the necessary syllables pretty well. And cats can do the same with certain words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaAEsOXu90Y

The question is, what kinds of vocal cords, tongue, and so forth would be required to talk in a comprehensible way?

[Yora]

I would say none. It is believed with very great confidence that particularly orcas, but also some other types of whales, do have actual vocabularies that are learned culturally and are clearly not instinctive vocalizations. The most striking evidence is, that orcas communicate with their young with a much smaller range of specific sounds and new words are added as they become older, being close to proove that young orcas do not yet have learned to talk. Young cats and dogs may be clueless and dumb about whom they appoach, but they already have pretty much the whole range of sounds and body language their species are using. Orcas do not, and the adults are apparently aware of it and use simplefied vocabularies with their young.
And yet, orca and dolphin vocalizations are completely different from anything humans can make with their bodies. Birds can create a wide range of sounds that can even mimic human speech quite well in some species, but their vocal apparatus is also completely different. Birds do not have vocal chords or use their tongue in any way similar to humans, they mostly prodce sounds at the point where the two lungs meet and form the windpipe that leads up to the mouth, that is not in their throats but in their chests. And of course given the size of their lungs and the form of their mouths, parrots have to use completely different physical effects to create sounds that appear to be very similar to human speech.
However, from what I know, parrots and other birds really just seem to sing and not talk. At least to the same degree that dogs can recognize certain sounds. There are some remarkable individuals who did seem to actually be able to construct very simple sentences and understand the meaning of short sentences, but usually it seems to be "one sound - one meaning", which isn't different from "one gesture - one meaning" or "one shape - one meaning".

There we have to examples of languages that are completely different from human speech, and the creation of humanlike sound that is produced by an entirely different anatomy. Which together means that there seems to be no specific anatomical setup required to create language.



I have a question of my own closely related to that:
Assuming there is a race of humanoids that is based on aquatic mamals, somewhat similar to seals or otters. As such, they probably would have originally started as land-living carnivores, which then adapted to life in water, and then again adapted to life on land to get their humanoid anatomy.
What things should one expect from such a race?
They probably would have been more close to otters than to seals, since those still have kind of hands and feet, while in seals they have almost become fins by now and it would be much easier for such a species to evolve much longer and stronger limbs.
For some intuitive reason, I think it would also feel right for them to have longer fingers and smaller feet but longer toes. In whales and seals, the fins are almost entirely the first three finger bones, while in humans those three combined are just as long as the fourth set in the palms. They could have started with webbing similar to duck or platypuss feet, but lost that over time to get full use of fingers.
Also, they would still be good swimmers and divers.
Since aquatic mamals except for hippopotamuses and mantees are almost exclusively feeding in fish and I think sometimes shells and squids, they probably still would have more nasty looking teeth than humans.
For the faces, small noses, ears, and lips would probably look right, to decrease drag in water.
Can whales and dolphins smell? That ability would be rather useless to them I think. On the other hand, seals are closely related to dogs and bears, which are both incredibly good at smell, and they also live on land to such extends that smell is till rather usefull. Not sure, what to make of that for an aquatic humanoid race.
Any other things that would appear likely with such a race?

[Jacob.Tyr]

I remember reading about canopy systems in S. America where different animals communicate with each other about danger, using different sounds/responses to different sources of predation. Some signals for danger on the ground, others for aerial. Different species talking to each other to confer an advantage all around, so even with different physiologies they manage to communicate with each other.

They probably won't sound like humans, but I see no reason why just about any species wouldn't be able to develop language. I think common would be outright impossible for them, but learning to understand each others languages would still permit communication between them and other races.

@Yora, as much as I don't believe in it, you could look into the aquatic human theories. There are several pieces of evidence used to try and claim humans have aquatic origins, hairlessness and conscious control of breath being the ones I can remember.
Smell exists in water, or something close enough. It's just sensing small quantities of chemicals that would result in taste if they were higher. Sharks hunt by it, some fish run from areas where they "sense" blood of their own kind. Remember, smell and taste are incredibly similar and taste is very reliant on smell.

Facial characters sound right, shorter limbs and elongated fingers sounds right as well. For teeth, if they're piscivores, lots of sharp teeth used to grab fish is what you'd expect.

Are they marine? What was the ocean they're from like if they were? Marine environments can be very cold, and aquatic animals can get by while being very fat compared to land ones due to buoyancy from living in the water. I don't know what extent it's used by them, but for cold water mammals brown fat could be incredibly important, and is incredibly energetically expensive.

Depending on how far along you're planning their civilization, I'd go with having them be merchant-princes in society. Very fat and inactive on land, but powerful and rich due to their aquatic prowess and tendency to take to shipping on either rivers or oceans, where a crew of them can man a ship without taking on stores of food, as they are more than able to just jump overboard and hunt during long voyages across the sea.

[awa]

i suspect if they were humanoids they would almost certainly spend a fairly large amount of time on land otherwise legs are largely unnecessary for example penguins primarily aquatic but still spend a lot of time on land.

[headwarpage]

Otters are semi-unique among aquatic mammals in that they don't rely on blubber to keep warm; they just have a thick layer of waterproof fur. They also have relatively normal front paws (already semi-evolved for grasping shellfish), but elongated, webbed hind feet. So you'd probably see normal hands/fingers (with retractable claws?), but long toes, probably at least semi-webbed.

Otters are actually really cool and would make great humanoids. They're fairly curious and playful, so it's easy to extrapolate that to a humanoid personality. They're actually related to weasels, so you might see the same type of elongated body with shorter limbs. The only issue might be that they're not aquatic enough; they wouldn't be that different from a humanoid ferret, really.