mimi_sardinia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mimi_sardinia) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
houseofstrange2019-03-03 02:15 am
mimi_sardinia) wrote in houseofstrange2019-03-03 02:15 am
Entry tags:
Nightlands: Random Plants
Conveniently Made-Up Plants:
Sugar grass - Cold climate grass that tastes sweet. Grows 4 feet high, with orange-yellow glow veins on the leaves, puts out small white flowers with purple-blue glow-lines on the petals. Grows a head of 12-20 1mm seeds. Seeds are edible and are mildly sweet. Tends to be a favourite of livestock, though used as a source of sweetener.
Glow Berries - Berries that seem to be an arcane mutation of blackberries. Glows brightly in multiple shifting colours, during Moon-night. Glow reduces greatly during Moonday. Glowberry juice retains glow for 3-4 hours after juicing, during Moon-night. Glow fades faster if exposed to the Greater Moon. Tastes tart-sweet. Mild magical boost if drunk while still glowing.
Night Fungus - An edible fungus that is black and glows in blacklight. Umami with a slightly bitter taste.
Star Mushroom - 5-lobed mushroom that has glow-lines running from the middle out to each point. Glows white. Edible.
Dragon Treebark - A tree that grows to roughly resemble a dragon. Bark is edible after soaking overnight and cooking. Favoured food of brown dragons who eat it raw.
Stoneroot - A tuber that is, in raw state, extremely hard - hard enough to be mistaken for a rock. Also grows in rocky conditions and even underground. Edibility is gained via soaking overnight and cooking. A frequent crop of Dwarves.
Fireroot - Edible tuber of the Firegrass plant. Firegrass is a brightly glowing red grass that resembles fire. The roots resemble glowing coals when first unearthed and cut. Glow dims in 3-4 hours (faster in Moonday) until tuber is an ashy dark grey. Tastes salty and starchy. Firegrass leaves can be used for medicinal purposes, but only in very small amounts. Too much can be toxic.
Birdflower - Flowers that resemble small birds in flight. Are edible.
Crystalflower - Whole plant is glassy and transparent with veins that glow. Only grows in locations of strong magic and magical outbursts. Is edible, can grow underground. Glassy state fades into a translucent milky state when cooked. Is also very useful for medicinal purposes and mades a much sought after tea.
Faerie Dust - A plant that grows lots of tiny brightly glowing flowers. Grows in highly magical places and is frequently found in and around faerie gateways. Due to this, many treat it as a warning and ill omen. Tends to shed glowing pollen. Considered a herbal medication, though due to the ill omen reputation is ensued by many.
Sunset Wasabi - This comes from watching a video about why wasabi is expensive. Wasabi is a mountain plant, thus I can easily imagine growing in the Sunset mountains. Sunset wasabi will have glow features and to go contrary to the green colour I'd like to imagine it glows yellow-orange. The grated root is still green.
Edit 10:31PM 9/2/21:
Guardian Vine, Needle Bush, Somná Flower, War Tree - All of these plants were crafted by a Tauráquendár plant-singer (a uniquely Tauráquendár variant of that have a particular talent for working with plants) millennia before Nightfall.
All of these plants are semi-sentient and were created to protect locations from threats.
Somná Flower has a pollen that puts almost anything to sleep.
Guardian Vine will whip at any unwanted creature that gets close, and if they are too persistent, will entangle them. The vine is extremely strong, is fire resistant, and magic used on it will make it stronger, thus making it difficult to fight.
Needle Bush is, as it's name suggests, covered in fine needles.
War Tree can be mistaken for being a dryad or treant, as it is very animate when fighting off unwanted creatures.
These protector plants have spread across many Lómaquendár settlements and across all Elenimbér, especially the southern ones.
Edit 10:27PM 6/2/20:
Starfall Cotton - A plant exclusive to Starfall Valley, so it's use is extremely restricted to the Eleniquendár Royal Family. It is not cotton, but it does have seeds that are covered in fibre in a similar manner to cotton seeds, hence the name. Star-cotton fibre glows white while still on the plant but can fade quickly. Quick and careful treatment after harvesting can make the fibre highly absorbent to enchantment, making it ideal for highly enchanted fabrics. Due to the highly restricted access to Starfall Valley, such fabrics are exclusive to the Royal Family as the spinning, weaving and.or knitting of star-cotton is done only within the family of the Three Sisters, with the most prolific makers being Veriél and Ëarvendë.
***
Rubberstone - An odd type of rock that only occurs in highly magical areas. While rock hard when mined, once melted it can be tempered into various grades of flexible and even rubbery material via applicaton of magic during the smelting process. Can be mixed with metals to create flexible alloys.
Fire Crystal - Fire Crystal is a low powered type of arcane crystal that shows a flame-like effect inside it, radiating heat and light without much of the risk of fire getting out of control. It can be used fire heating in situations where an open flame can be considered risky. The lead vessel of the Eäroquenya expedition that took Elossí to the South Pole used fire crystals for room heating in their onboard cabins, secured in place in metal frames to create fireplaces that would not take up much space or be at risk of spilling coals in hard weather at sea. Fire crustal is nohere near powerful enough to fulfill the requirements of arcane power crystals, so it is a use that low quality crystals can be put to, with non-heating light crystals being a sibling usage.
***
Edit 10:31PM 6/2/20:
Starfall Moths - A Starfall Valley breed of silk moths. They produce silk that, like star-cotton, is highly enchantable but very restricted in access.
Edit 10:31PM 10/2/21:
Starfall Miniature Unicorns - One of the native creatures that only exist in Starfall Valley is an odd breed of unicorn, that only grow to the size of medium dogs, or small dwarf horses. They are non-sapient, and very docile since they have no known threats due to the protected nature of their home. They are pure white with clear crystalline horns. As far as the Sisters can tell, these are genuine unicorns with immortality, though why unicorn souls would be reincarnated as non-sapients is unknown to them, though they suspect it may be linked to the gentle nature northern unicorns have, and perhaps the Starfall Unicorns have suffered trauma they sought to escape by being reborn this way.
Between Marilla and Veriél a design for small insect-like constructs were crafted that are given the task of following and collecting mane and tail hair dropped by the unicorns, as unicorn and Ki-rin hair is very valuable crafting products, but can become accused if taken from them by force.
Starfall Goats - The valley has a population of woolly goats that product wool for crafting.
Starfall Faerie Dragons - The faerie dragons are a bit of an enigma, having appeared after the Sisters gave Silmá Starfall crystals to grant her an opening into the valley. All of them look like they are made of diamond, like Silmá, though features like horns and frills do vary. The running theory is that the link to the Queen's Domain had an unexpected effect of of the link to the Fae, though unlike Silmá's avatar dragonettes within the Domain, Silmá does not have a direct link to the Starfall dragons beyond a low-strength sense of connection to the valley as a whole.
Shed Faerie Dragon scales look like gemstones and can be used as such.
Starfall White Phoenixes - Tiny, canary-sized non-sapient firebirds make the third mirror to the Great Four Races that live in the valley. These birds can manifest a flame that looks almost exactly like the Starfire of the Sisters. Unlike the unicorns, the Sisters have been unable to tell if the miniature phoenixes are true immortal souls. They do go through periodic flame renewals, at a rate of once every hundred years. The difficulty of identifying whether they are immortal or not is based on the fact that the Sisters, or their kin, have not been able to witness 0 first or secondhand - any of them truly dying.
Like the others, potential crafting material can be gained from the white phoenixes, as shed feathers can be very useful.
Edit 10:31PM 21/12/21:
Further thoughts about Starfall animals:
All animals in Starfall Valley are mostly normal, slightly more magical and always white, but for each substantial animal group there is one larger example with an extended lifespan and higher intelligence. They are not immortal, but can life up to 1000 years.
For example, the cat clowder of the valley has close to 20 cats, but the matriarch of the clowder (since the core of the clowder is the females) is the size of a lynx. The valley wolves are led by a wolf the size of a horse.
But as for the magical creatures, the unicorns seem to be true unicorn souls, the dragons may be true dragon souls and live 1000-year lifespans, and phoenixes have 100-year cycles, but their leaders are, to a herd of unicorns the size of small dwarf horses, a full-size pony, to a flock of dragonettes the size of cats, a lead dragon the size of a standard brown (forest) dragon, but with a mix of gold, silver, red and white features, and in a flock of sparrow-sized phoenixes, one the size of a crow.
There is no humanoid natives - no humans, Elves, fairies, goblins, orcs, ogres - none of those. The only humanoids are the Three Sisters and anyone they allow to enter.
Edit 3:45AM 1/8/22:
Moon Spawn
New idea, there is a small subset of living things that are actually magically aligned to the Greater Moon and the chaotic magic it causes. It is a very rare situation though, so rare that most people think "Moon Spawn" are a myth. Unlike most magically active animals, Moon Spawn animals actually come out during Moonday. Moon Spawn plants are more common and are usually the sort of things that put out magic pollens and spores that are active during the daytime (see Jaren and Avalie's sex pollen plot).
But as per the magic pollen plot, their magic also goes dormant at Moonset, with plant effects ending and animals retreating to their dens to sleep.
In both cases (flora and fauna), how they interact with anything they encounter can be dangerous. Moonspawn flora is the easier to deal with as getting away from the source or destroying the plant in question, or waiting out the effects until moonset is reasonably doable. Moonspawn animals however have the danger of being sentient, and also having a level of hostility towards anyone with normal magic above a certain strength. That being said, Moonspawn are very peaceful to any creature with little to no magic (beyond the ubiquitous light markings all native Nightlanders have, though most suppress) and can actually be quite friendly and practically affectionate to them. Trying to take them into a community however is a risk because almost all Nightlands communities have some degree of magic, which will set off the Moonspawn, who will go feral and try to attack any and all magical objects it sees.
***
Moon Honey - Moon Honesy is a rare but highly prized product made by Moonspawn bees. It has mild chaotic magic effects that in low-magic individuals induces drug-like effects, ranging from relaxants, to stimulants to hallucinogenics. In higher magic individuals it can have an adverse effect, causing sickness.
Moon honey can however be used in medicinal ways that involve a need to suppress magic temporarily, and can be used in potions that remedy adverse magical effects, so long as it is not Greater Moon effects (which it will instead enhance).
Moonspawn bees are actually one of the most common forms of Moonspawn, but even then are still quite rare.
***
Edit 8:00PM 19/1/24:
Unicorn Mushroom - A type of shelf fungus that is white, with an iridescent top and gills on the underside that glow with shifting colours. The association with unicorns are really only because of their colour, and that they grow in high magic deep forest areas, which can also sometimes be where unicorns frequent. Unicorn mushrooms are a sought after edible fungus, but the high magic locations make them rare. They make a meat substitute delicacy.
Saltweed - Saltweed is a plant that is extremely salty. The plant also produces flowers that look like they are made out of pure salt crystals, though they aren't, they are salt crystals held a web of plant fibres. Saltweed is a common salt source that has gained popularity even over mined salt or seasalt, for how saltweed can be easily grown almost anywhere in the Nightlands. Like a lot of magical plants though, any attempts to grow them in the Daylands fails.
Every part of the plant is strongly salty. All parts can be used in seasoning methods, though different parts have gained different usages, with leaves tasting a bit more vegetal, stalks being more woody, roots being more dense in nutrients, and the aforementioned flowers beign almost pure salt. Seeds are a common salt sprinkle.
Fallen Stars - Fallen Stars are small, very bright flowers that pop up in higher magic areas, turning an area of ground into a constellation. They are usually white or close to white, with only tints. Generally they have no significant use, except as a sign of high magic, and floral decorations (akin to Baby's Breath). The fallen star flowers are larger than Faerie Dust.
***
(Will add more when I get ideas.)
Sugar grass - Cold climate grass that tastes sweet. Grows 4 feet high, with orange-yellow glow veins on the leaves, puts out small white flowers with purple-blue glow-lines on the petals. Grows a head of 12-20 1mm seeds. Seeds are edible and are mildly sweet. Tends to be a favourite of livestock, though used as a source of sweetener.
Glow Berries - Berries that seem to be an arcane mutation of blackberries. Glows brightly in multiple shifting colours, during Moon-night. Glow reduces greatly during Moonday. Glowberry juice retains glow for 3-4 hours after juicing, during Moon-night. Glow fades faster if exposed to the Greater Moon. Tastes tart-sweet. Mild magical boost if drunk while still glowing.
Night Fungus - An edible fungus that is black and glows in blacklight. Umami with a slightly bitter taste.
Star Mushroom - 5-lobed mushroom that has glow-lines running from the middle out to each point. Glows white. Edible.
Dragon Treebark - A tree that grows to roughly resemble a dragon. Bark is edible after soaking overnight and cooking. Favoured food of brown dragons who eat it raw.
Stoneroot - A tuber that is, in raw state, extremely hard - hard enough to be mistaken for a rock. Also grows in rocky conditions and even underground. Edibility is gained via soaking overnight and cooking. A frequent crop of Dwarves.
Fireroot - Edible tuber of the Firegrass plant. Firegrass is a brightly glowing red grass that resembles fire. The roots resemble glowing coals when first unearthed and cut. Glow dims in 3-4 hours (faster in Moonday) until tuber is an ashy dark grey. Tastes salty and starchy. Firegrass leaves can be used for medicinal purposes, but only in very small amounts. Too much can be toxic.
Birdflower - Flowers that resemble small birds in flight. Are edible.
Crystalflower - Whole plant is glassy and transparent with veins that glow. Only grows in locations of strong magic and magical outbursts. Is edible, can grow underground. Glassy state fades into a translucent milky state when cooked. Is also very useful for medicinal purposes and mades a much sought after tea.
Faerie Dust - A plant that grows lots of tiny brightly glowing flowers. Grows in highly magical places and is frequently found in and around faerie gateways. Due to this, many treat it as a warning and ill omen. Tends to shed glowing pollen. Considered a herbal medication, though due to the ill omen reputation is ensued by many.
Sunset Wasabi - This comes from watching a video about why wasabi is expensive. Wasabi is a mountain plant, thus I can easily imagine growing in the Sunset mountains. Sunset wasabi will have glow features and to go contrary to the green colour I'd like to imagine it glows yellow-orange. The grated root is still green.
Edit 10:31PM 9/2/21:
Guardian Vine, Needle Bush, Somná Flower, War Tree - All of these plants were crafted by a Tauráquendár plant-singer (a uniquely Tauráquendár variant of that have a particular talent for working with plants) millennia before Nightfall.
All of these plants are semi-sentient and were created to protect locations from threats.
Somná Flower has a pollen that puts almost anything to sleep.
Guardian Vine will whip at any unwanted creature that gets close, and if they are too persistent, will entangle them. The vine is extremely strong, is fire resistant, and magic used on it will make it stronger, thus making it difficult to fight.
Needle Bush is, as it's name suggests, covered in fine needles.
War Tree can be mistaken for being a dryad or treant, as it is very animate when fighting off unwanted creatures.
These protector plants have spread across many Lómaquendár settlements and across all Elenimbér, especially the southern ones.
Edit 10:27PM 6/2/20:
Starfall Cotton - A plant exclusive to Starfall Valley, so it's use is extremely restricted to the Eleniquendár Royal Family. It is not cotton, but it does have seeds that are covered in fibre in a similar manner to cotton seeds, hence the name. Star-cotton fibre glows white while still on the plant but can fade quickly. Quick and careful treatment after harvesting can make the fibre highly absorbent to enchantment, making it ideal for highly enchanted fabrics. Due to the highly restricted access to Starfall Valley, such fabrics are exclusive to the Royal Family as the spinning, weaving and.or knitting of star-cotton is done only within the family of the Three Sisters, with the most prolific makers being Veriél and Ëarvendë.
***
Rubberstone - An odd type of rock that only occurs in highly magical areas. While rock hard when mined, once melted it can be tempered into various grades of flexible and even rubbery material via applicaton of magic during the smelting process. Can be mixed with metals to create flexible alloys.
Fire Crystal - Fire Crystal is a low powered type of arcane crystal that shows a flame-like effect inside it, radiating heat and light without much of the risk of fire getting out of control. It can be used fire heating in situations where an open flame can be considered risky. The lead vessel of the Eäroquenya expedition that took Elossí to the South Pole used fire crystals for room heating in their onboard cabins, secured in place in metal frames to create fireplaces that would not take up much space or be at risk of spilling coals in hard weather at sea. Fire crustal is nohere near powerful enough to fulfill the requirements of arcane power crystals, so it is a use that low quality crystals can be put to, with non-heating light crystals being a sibling usage.
***
Edit 10:31PM 6/2/20:
Starfall Moths - A Starfall Valley breed of silk moths. They produce silk that, like star-cotton, is highly enchantable but very restricted in access.
Edit 10:31PM 10/2/21:
Starfall Miniature Unicorns - One of the native creatures that only exist in Starfall Valley is an odd breed of unicorn, that only grow to the size of medium dogs, or small dwarf horses. They are non-sapient, and very docile since they have no known threats due to the protected nature of their home. They are pure white with clear crystalline horns. As far as the Sisters can tell, these are genuine unicorns with immortality, though why unicorn souls would be reincarnated as non-sapients is unknown to them, though they suspect it may be linked to the gentle nature northern unicorns have, and perhaps the Starfall Unicorns have suffered trauma they sought to escape by being reborn this way.
Between Marilla and Veriél a design for small insect-like constructs were crafted that are given the task of following and collecting mane and tail hair dropped by the unicorns, as unicorn and Ki-rin hair is very valuable crafting products, but can become accused if taken from them by force.
Starfall Goats - The valley has a population of woolly goats that product wool for crafting.
Starfall Faerie Dragons - The faerie dragons are a bit of an enigma, having appeared after the Sisters gave Silmá Starfall crystals to grant her an opening into the valley. All of them look like they are made of diamond, like Silmá, though features like horns and frills do vary. The running theory is that the link to the Queen's Domain had an unexpected effect of of the link to the Fae, though unlike Silmá's avatar dragonettes within the Domain, Silmá does not have a direct link to the Starfall dragons beyond a low-strength sense of connection to the valley as a whole.
Shed Faerie Dragon scales look like gemstones and can be used as such.
Starfall White Phoenixes - Tiny, canary-sized non-sapient firebirds make the third mirror to the Great Four Races that live in the valley. These birds can manifest a flame that looks almost exactly like the Starfire of the Sisters. Unlike the unicorns, the Sisters have been unable to tell if the miniature phoenixes are true immortal souls. They do go through periodic flame renewals, at a rate of once every hundred years. The difficulty of identifying whether they are immortal or not is based on the fact that the Sisters, or their kin, have not been able to witness 0 first or secondhand - any of them truly dying.
Like the others, potential crafting material can be gained from the white phoenixes, as shed feathers can be very useful.
Edit 10:31PM 21/12/21:
Further thoughts about Starfall animals:
All animals in Starfall Valley are mostly normal, slightly more magical and always white, but for each substantial animal group there is one larger example with an extended lifespan and higher intelligence. They are not immortal, but can life up to 1000 years.
For example, the cat clowder of the valley has close to 20 cats, but the matriarch of the clowder (since the core of the clowder is the females) is the size of a lynx. The valley wolves are led by a wolf the size of a horse.
But as for the magical creatures, the unicorns seem to be true unicorn souls, the dragons may be true dragon souls and live 1000-year lifespans, and phoenixes have 100-year cycles, but their leaders are, to a herd of unicorns the size of small dwarf horses, a full-size pony, to a flock of dragonettes the size of cats, a lead dragon the size of a standard brown (forest) dragon, but with a mix of gold, silver, red and white features, and in a flock of sparrow-sized phoenixes, one the size of a crow.
There is no humanoid natives - no humans, Elves, fairies, goblins, orcs, ogres - none of those. The only humanoids are the Three Sisters and anyone they allow to enter.
Edit 3:45AM 1/8/22:
Moon Spawn
New idea, there is a small subset of living things that are actually magically aligned to the Greater Moon and the chaotic magic it causes. It is a very rare situation though, so rare that most people think "Moon Spawn" are a myth. Unlike most magically active animals, Moon Spawn animals actually come out during Moonday. Moon Spawn plants are more common and are usually the sort of things that put out magic pollens and spores that are active during the daytime (see Jaren and Avalie's sex pollen plot).
But as per the magic pollen plot, their magic also goes dormant at Moonset, with plant effects ending and animals retreating to their dens to sleep.
In both cases (flora and fauna), how they interact with anything they encounter can be dangerous. Moonspawn flora is the easier to deal with as getting away from the source or destroying the plant in question, or waiting out the effects until moonset is reasonably doable. Moonspawn animals however have the danger of being sentient, and also having a level of hostility towards anyone with normal magic above a certain strength. That being said, Moonspawn are very peaceful to any creature with little to no magic (beyond the ubiquitous light markings all native Nightlanders have, though most suppress) and can actually be quite friendly and practically affectionate to them. Trying to take them into a community however is a risk because almost all Nightlands communities have some degree of magic, which will set off the Moonspawn, who will go feral and try to attack any and all magical objects it sees.
***
Moon Honey - Moon Honesy is a rare but highly prized product made by Moonspawn bees. It has mild chaotic magic effects that in low-magic individuals induces drug-like effects, ranging from relaxants, to stimulants to hallucinogenics. In higher magic individuals it can have an adverse effect, causing sickness.
Moon honey can however be used in medicinal ways that involve a need to suppress magic temporarily, and can be used in potions that remedy adverse magical effects, so long as it is not Greater Moon effects (which it will instead enhance).
Moonspawn bees are actually one of the most common forms of Moonspawn, but even then are still quite rare.
***
Edit 8:00PM 19/1/24:
Unicorn Mushroom - A type of shelf fungus that is white, with an iridescent top and gills on the underside that glow with shifting colours. The association with unicorns are really only because of their colour, and that they grow in high magic deep forest areas, which can also sometimes be where unicorns frequent. Unicorn mushrooms are a sought after edible fungus, but the high magic locations make them rare. They make a meat substitute delicacy.
Saltweed - Saltweed is a plant that is extremely salty. The plant also produces flowers that look like they are made out of pure salt crystals, though they aren't, they are salt crystals held a web of plant fibres. Saltweed is a common salt source that has gained popularity even over mined salt or seasalt, for how saltweed can be easily grown almost anywhere in the Nightlands. Like a lot of magical plants though, any attempts to grow them in the Daylands fails.
Every part of the plant is strongly salty. All parts can be used in seasoning methods, though different parts have gained different usages, with leaves tasting a bit more vegetal, stalks being more woody, roots being more dense in nutrients, and the aforementioned flowers beign almost pure salt. Seeds are a common salt sprinkle.
Fallen Stars - Fallen Stars are small, very bright flowers that pop up in higher magic areas, turning an area of ground into a constellation. They are usually white or close to white, with only tints. Generally they have no significant use, except as a sign of high magic, and floral decorations (akin to Baby's Breath). The fallen star flowers are larger than Faerie Dust.
***
(Will add more when I get ideas.)