Consider the Treants

The prompt ping pong has come to a halt due to no fault on either end. We may resume it in the future, but I'm not making promises in the current state of things.

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In the Shadow of the Ancients 
by JasonEngle

Treants (or ents, if you want a Tolkien copyright, or tree-people if you think treants are just tree-ants) are plant people. It is important to remember this, because plants have a different subset of needs and traits that inform their societies.

They don't need agriculture, because their food is all around them. They do practice some forms of farming for pest control. Rot grubs are put in rotten bark to eat away the dead parts and retain the healthy growth. Bats and insect-eating birds are given roosting priorities to keep leaf-eating insects at bay.

They don't need housing - after all, being a giant walking tree leaves you with few predators to ward away, and being exposed to the sky and rain is sort of important. Their homes are their forests, which in turn define their family units - their groves. Treants are not born, but instead 'awaken' from old trees. When a tree is close to waking up, the grove moves close to protect it, and to ready the surrounding area for its first cumbersome steps.

Making My Own New Crobuzon

I saw that this post by The Githyanki Diaspora has come up to the surface, and thought I'd give it a go as a way to ease myself back into blog posting (been very busy this past month, hence the drop in activity and relatively low quality of this post).

The concept is straightforward: take three monstrous humanoids and three monstrous monsters. These are the residents of your New Crobuzon (based on the city within China Mieville's Bas Lag trilogy). I've decided to go with monsters found in 5th edition D&D to the surprise of none.

Styx by Circle Art

The City

A canal city, founded across a Stygian archipelago. The dead wash upon their shores and float through their canals, providing nutrients and income. Those that aren't quite dead bring with them a willingness to do anything to survive - a willingness that is fully exploited and is an essential part of the city's biome.

The city is simply known as 'the city' to many. The Styx's influence on the memory is strong, and trying to place a name on things is harder still when every bit of water within the city is tainted with the Styx's influence. Over time, all residents lose themselves, becoming a caricature of who they once were and an archetypal resident.

The Residents

Myconids: Decomposers of the bodies that wash up within the city; their mycelium stretch out across the canals and bridges. Many myconids escape within the shared spore-driven dream, clinging onto their shared memories to maintain a state of remembrance and cultural identity. Their physical forms meanwhile remain docile and drugged, used as labourers, messengers, and ferrymen.

Sprites: Sprites are the keepers of law and authority within the city. The city's law is not that of the book, but of the heart, for they can see the true colours of those they touch. They make their homes in the slumbering myconid sovereigns, where they cast judgemental looks at the fiends that they share the city with.

Succubi/Incubi: Where there are souls willing to give themselves willingly to anyone able to give them even the briefest respite from the end, there are fiends ready to be of service. Whilst this was the original reason for their settlement, succubi have grown to enjoy the lack of attention they get here; there are few unwanted lustful looks to be had from mushrooms. Their natural aptitude for charisma leads incubi and succubi to take roles in diplomacy and bartering, whilst their superior ability to defend themselves over myconids and sprites also lends many of them to take security roles.

Crokek'toeck from Baldur's Gate - Descent into Avernus

The Outsiders

Crokek'toeck: This lumbering beast is a mascot of sorts to the city, acting as transport between the city's main islands. It is unaffected by the influence of the Styx, and many theorise that, if it were only smarter, it would be an invaluable resource of information on the city's history and residents.

Intellect Devourers: A customary assassination involves providing the target with an elaborate chest, within which is an intellect devourer that has been chosen to start a new life in the city, taking the victim's place and aiming to amend or avoid the mistakes they made. Many parasitise Crokek'toeck or lurk in the undercity, waiting to ambush unsuspecting victims.

Ixitxachitl: Below the waters of the Styx, the ray-like ixitxachitl act as the city's criminal underworld. For an extortionate price, they'll help those that fall into the waters; for an even higher one, they'll give them back to their families after holding the victim for ransom and taking glee in watching their memories and minds deteriorate.

Sources:

Crokek'toeck - Baldur's Gate – Descent into Avernus, pg 230
Intellect devourer - Monster Manual, pg 191
Ixitxachitl - Out of the Abyss, pg 225-226
Myconid - Monster Manual, pg 230-232
Sprite - Monster Manual, pg 283
Succubus/Incubus - Monster Manual, pg 284-285

Game of Mold: Assorted Notions

I found this video a while back. It's pretty neat.

It inspired me to try and make some kind of politically-charged fungal setting, but I haven't yet honed it down to its key components or what the general notion of the setting is. I still got some ideas down that I feel like sharing though.

This is a world of decay, where fungal houses fight over territory and power. Politics is dealt through spores, mycelium, and control of organic matter. The setting's land is heavy in themes of decomposition and rebirth. The living die and are reborn once more in new bodies, ready to feast upon the dead and die once more.

Through the Southern Gate by Cze Peku

The noble Houses are fungi. Their territory and their physical selves are one and the same, making them all very dedicated to their cause. Each has its own names (never only one), desires, smells and preferred substrate.

The houses have always struggled for power, and have been doing so since the First Flesh died. The world is built on layers and layers of composting political parties and failed rallies.

Cordyceps by Jacob Dunkan

Titans of past civilisations and worlds still stand, slowly encroached with lichens and fungus.

Fruiting bodies spread their spores throughout the land, creating an ever-constant mist. Vague whispers of slogans - "ours is the cure", "death is not the end", "untied we rot" - drift through the clouds, subtly influencing the behaviour of humanoids and beasts alike.

On the Shore of Dreams by Cze Peku

The Dreaming. The collective world of ancestral subconscious; hallucinations of the dead and dying, live and living. Sometimes spores and creatures lose themselves here, becoming more sensory entity than physical. These creatures are abstract forces of synesthesic being, and they have escaped decay by exposing themselves to mental decay. As long as they are sensed, they exist.

Mushrooms by Anastasia Wyatt

There are living beings here. The next generation of fertiliser, or the descendants of detrivores and fungivores. Ghouls, flyfolk, gnolls, and other such beings have been and gone. The fungus enters their bodies at a young age, grooming them into political weapons and tainting their bodies. Some have the gift to turn these infestations into weapons of their own, combining hedgemagic, basal druidry, and diplomacy.

Mushroom soldier by Maxim Verehin

The living that lose themselves to the infection become walking envoys of the houses. Visually similar to myconids but equipped with speech and eyes for a while. These envoys are invaluable to the houses - they provide a rare glimpse into the minds of their voters, allowing them to see where their allegiances lie. The minds of humanoids are as alien to them as a fungal mind is to us.

Meat by Maxim Verehin

A pastor of the Exquisite Corpse. His life and entrails are laid out before him, all the better for him to predict future omens and aid in medical research. Surely their power must be great, for none of their open wounds become septic- those that do are, of course, not truly faithful.

High Priests take offerings from their flocks of the sick and dying. These offerings of functioning organs are integrated into their own, allowing the priests to better love their charges.

The Exquisite Corpse is a faith of purity and fullness in one's actions. They teach that one must act with full intent of their actions, and that doing so will help them distill their essence and allow their bodies to reject external entities.

Assassin's Trophy by Seb McKinnon

The casualties of war between the houses are many. Fortunately, this one cannot speak of the atrocities it has seen.

Societies rise and fall throughout the layers of rot, and dedicated excavators can earn a living by trudging through the grime and bringing back relics that haven't decayed. The way is harried by giant worms, fungal abominations, oozes, and hidden guardians.

Parasitized Moth Warrior by Vasco Mariano

A fungal inquisitor infects and interrogates a dustknight. Their methods are curt and its questioning equally so. For some, infestation and decomposing before one's own eyes is enough to make one betray their house. For others, the inevitability of death makes their threats worth little.

Arachnid Knight by Chenthooran Nambiarooran

Mannimarco, The King of Worms by Shamine King

Left: a dustknight, plated in chitin and wielding large blades. Their oaths are made to preserve the memory of the living, to stop people straying too far into the Dreaming, and to fight against the final decomposition: the time at which there is nothing left to grow upon, and the final fungal bodies break each other down into dust.

Right: undeath is one of the ways to escape fungal enslavement. Mushrooms grow on dead things, and those that remove decomposition from the cycle are free from their influence. As such, the study of necromancy is rich, with liches wandering market streets alongside worms that walk.

decay by Vladislav Orlowski

Speakers of the Chytrid. An ancient household, noted for the slaying of many of the great Olms that hide in dead lands.

universal carcinogen scp - 135 by Vladislav Orlowski

A prophet's birth is rare indeed, and many lords hope for their death to bring about the coffin birth of the realm's next saviour.