Mythruna

This is an analog to the mob idea discussion. In this thread, more terrestrial plant varieties are somewhat acceptable.

Bloodwood (tree)

The bloodwood would be a situational decomposer. I'm seeing it as being a small, willow-tree esque plant. Maybe 3 or 4 meters tall. The leaves would look like bloody strips of flesh and it would probably have an irony smell. It would be rarely encountered in marshy environments, but is able to quickly mature anywhere a fresh corpse is. They'll produce fairly substantial fruit that is also rather meat-like. However, the leaves and fruit of the tree are poisonous and need to be cooked very thoroughly as well as de-seeded if they are to be safely consumed. Bloodwoods are able to propagate themselves that way by luring wildlife, poisoning them, then having their seeds take root inside of them. Many animals would likely wise-up to them rather quickly, but the ones that don't would be slowly killed and used as feed for what shouldn't be mistaken as anything less than a predator.

Burning them releases red smoke not unlike blood fog in appearance, but also toxic, able to kill surrounding foliage. Suffice to say, burning fresh bloodwood isn't smart. The sap in the tree is toxic as well, and has the consistency and appearance of somewhat congealed blood. It's a real angel of death, ain't it?

Well, it gets better. See, a bloodwood's wood can survive without roots for a considerable amount of time, can regenerate, and loses its smell while also being fairly decent in a staff or armor(though, it will have a smell of rot when it needs sustenance.) All it takes is exposure to, you guessed it, blood to sustain it. This is effectively the counterpart to living wood, which requires life energy to sustain itself and enhances magic; this wood is effective in physical weapons. At first, the wood will try to grow out again and develop branches and roots and such. As a player, you'd be able to encourage that, or prune it until it stops trying to grow. The former is dangerous, but would allow a weapon or armor to regenerate in combat at the cost of blood loss, and would envonom the weapon -- a great feature so long as you don't cut your hands. Armor allowed to grow would not require any leather straps to hold itself together after some time, instead binding itself together with its own foliage. Unlike corpsemaws, this is not some well meaning symbiosis, and failing to feed it will result in armor made of bloodwood trying to consume you fairly quickly. Corpsemaws would be fairly averse to bloodwood and bloodwood equipment. As bloodwood is pruned, it will gain more of a red-tinged, dark grey color, while 'free' bloodwood will retain a fleshier pink/red tone.

Not a plant, but a general idea. You probably thought of it already, but i felt it worth noting. plants in video games have a habit of being uh... binary, as it relates to physics. You either pass through them, or they're like brick walls. Will plants and certain parts of plants restrict movement without outright halting the player?

I don't know yet.

I believe I brought this up before, but it never hurts to repeat it here. Crystal or mineral-based plants would be interesting.They'd probably have an ambient sound of 'chipping crystal' and would be iridescent. It would probably be too much to make these into sources for magic crystals, but I could see people cutting slabs of crystal wood and what have you to make fortified windows and such. I suppose that as a 'plant' the materials that hey are made out of would be able to capture sunlight in a reasonable capacity, so maybe they could be used like weak solar cells? That would require quite abit of balancing, of course. They would probably require either extreme cold(to grow using ice) or mineral rich soil to thrive.

Clamovin(Screaming vine/clamor vine)

A thick creeping vine that can cover hundreds of meters of land. It's generally found in darker, forested regions, but can grow in most low light areas, or any place that gets little or infrequent direct sunlight. It can, however, survive in marshy terrain quite handily, direct sunlight or no. It has sparse, but thick and fleshy leaves which are safe to eat and taste somewhat tart... and kelpy. They might be useful in neutralizing particularly salty soups, but aren't palatable otherwise. The vines themselves are woodier in consistency than your average vines, with a thick barked core reaching up from the center of each plant. The notable characteristic of this plant is that it creates a hissing or whistling sound by ejecting (typically) malodorous gas through small pores in the plants' surface whenever a leaf is damaged or pressure is applied to a vine. The gas appears to be inert in most cases, and is not itself harmful.  The plant can only do so a few times on any given day, but it is more than sufficient for scaring away would-be predators in most cases. The efficiency of the plants gas production seems to depend on the soil around it; more alkaline and drier soil results in less gas, with the opposite being true as well.

The plant would go dormant during snowy months. Through Frowndelia(or throughout a climate's dry/cold season if it's hot/warm), one may see large flowers dotting the surface of the vines, similar in appearance to clematis blooms. The flowers create a powerfully sweet smell, with the petals being usable in confectionery items or for use as a sweetener when diffusing or brewing. After the flowers are pollinated, massive, round, and green hued gourds develop at the buds. As they mature, the outer layer of the gourds harden and become brown and woody, making them exceptionally difficult to breach by wildlife. The gourds carry the same air as the plant, so getting into them can be a rather unpleasant experience. If the temperature gets too cold, the gourds may collapse in on themselves, or explode with surprising force in high heat, dispersing the walls of the gourd along with its seeds rather effectively. Blunt force is also sufficient to cause the gourds to explode, so the fruit can be used as makeshift explosives, though they would only really be effective at pushing back or stunning enemies, and would need to be thrown at a stony surface.

There isn't much in the way of food that can be obtained from the fruit, but the smooth, fleshy seeds lining the walls of the gourds are large and dense. They are quite sour, but by dehydrating them and grinding them into a fine powder, you can use them in nourishing candies, or to simply use as a spice, or as a compact emergency food source. The seeds can be planted, but an individual plant takes up a massive amount of space relative to the quantity of seeds it produces, and is initially slow to develop. The plant can be directed to grow in a certain way, so to speak, using blocks to restrict its growth to specified paths. Though, if you're not careful, it may just grow over the obstructions you build.

Hug Mush

An extremely rare, giant, immobile, and stout mushroom that grows 2-4 prehensile mycelium tentacles from its front, and possesses large, beady eyes. The mushroom's tentacles will gyrate and reach toward nearby sapients and players that don't have any weapons drawn. They are effectively harmless, but will attempt to hug others using the tentacles when there are no hostiles nearby; never forcefully, though(not that they'd be strong enough to be forceful in the first place). They cannot produce their own life energy, but are able to absorb and disperse surrounding life energy. A hug mush would most likely grow in forest clearings rich in life energy, and would visibly deteriorate over time if the surrounding area becomes deficient in life energy and they begin exhausting theirs.  A hug mush can also ward various other fungal infestations and can slightly enhance soil quality. Oddly, it doesn't seem to have any predators, and might even be cultivated by giant ants on occasion(perhaps a more docile type of ant?).

Around a healthy hug mush, some smaller mushrooms will appear over time. They can be collected and used for food, or placed elsewhere to grow into another hug mush. Hug mushes might like players harvesting the smaller mushrooms and may mimic friendly actions like hand waves. Perhaps they would even directly offer smaller mushrooms to players that are starving, showing what can be interpreted as disappointment when their offer is refused.


The process of deterioration would have several significant effects on hug mushes. A hug mush that is in good health would be able to replenish some of a player's life energy with a hug, while a deteriorated one would be more likely to leech small amounts of life energy from players and restore some of their health, though never enough to cause physical effects. Same for plants and perhaps some animals that are presented to it(so you may be able to restore dying potted plants, pets and such with a healthy hug mush, to an extent). They would have vibrant coloration, with smooth, tannish stalks and vibrant caps of various colors and patterns. As they deteriorate, however, their textures would gradually be replaced with prunish textures and dull coloration, with their eyes becoming visibly dulled with cataracts and subsequently having a lower range where they offer hugs and food. Their ability to grow mushrooms drops off quickly(with the quality of the mushrooms it does grow significantly dropping). Their ability to ward off other fungi becomes severely inhibited when their life energy nears ~20% capacity, though they will always have a small area where other fungi can't spread into until they die. They will visibly slump as they deteriorate, and their tentacles will also move slower and droop more, with their cap fraying and curling up. Even in a deteriorated state, they would still offer food and such when they have it, though the animation would show them physically struggling to do so, maybe even dropping offerings it makes on accident, same for action mimicry.

They would serve a variety of purposes, but their high life energy needs mean that they can't be placed just anywhere, or otherwise require a great deal of maintenance to keep alive and 'happy'. They would be a reprieve of sorts from the dangers of the magic forests far from civilization, though they would be equally content in a town or city given enough life energy supplementation. In their native areas, they would be useful for gauging the health of the surrounding areas given their particular sensitivity. That said, perhaps their most important role would be making peoples' day a bit better.

I was conflicted about whether to put it in the plants or mob section, but this seemed the most appropriate given its more passive nature to place it here.

Spore Moss

A mostly harmless group of mosses that would be able to grow on trees but can survive anywhere. Spore moss would create a small area of colored fog around over time, which would allow it to spread. Spore moss would be edible when cooked, but is otherwise mildly poisonous. Different spore mosses could have mild, unique effects.

Some sort of carnivorous thorn bush found in the undergrowth of forests. The thorns prick the skin and paralyze the victim like some sort of spider venom, then, once the paralysis has fully taken hold,
the ground immediately around the creature or person becomes like quicksand, sucking them down to be wrapped up in the roots to nourish the plant and quickly mummify the person or creature encased there within.

A fruit salad tree sounds enjoyable. One of those big wide branching oaks who's very wood is shaped in a spiral or dna type pattern, almost as if multiple trees tried to grow in the same spot and ended up bending and twisting around each other and winds up producing the various fruits you might find in a fruit salad.

Possibly with some sort of multi-berry bush growing up around it's base.
Like a blackberry briar patch/bramble bush but filled with all sorts of different edible berry types.

Make it a bit more of a challenge to get to the tree fruit and also risk injuring yourself if you try to pick the berries.

That's a double helix. Probs not what you want lol

Ooh. No I guess not. I was thinking of those old roman columns that have that twisting spiraling shape crawling up them.
Like how a snake likes to twist and coil around the base of something diagonally until it reaches the top.
Or like a coil of rope if it was coiled around something.

But you know, on a tree.

Didn't we already have a thread like this? I could have sworn I already gave out some suggestions that I don't see here.

possibly, but this is the 'official' one.

Allready mentioned this in another topic awhile ago I'm pretty sure, but the topic must have been deleted or locked since then as I cannot find it.
So here is this suggestion of mine from another thread.  I saw it in a cartoon once. Looked pretty cool.

Some sort of large wide trunked tree. Maybe some sort of weeping willow/really thick oak hybrid or something.
It mimics certain sounds through echo chamber-like mouth shaped holes in various areas along it's trunk to lure in prey.
Usually mating calls or calls of distress.

The prey is tricked into getting close to a decent sized hole at it's base where the trunk meets the roots.
Once the prey is close enough, one of two things happens.
Either the earth briefly rumbles under the prey's feet, causing it to trip up and slide towards the hole,
or the prey is pulled down toward the hole by the roots, seeming to move of their own volition.

Either way, the prey is bound to wind up going in the hole that stretches open like a mouth to accommodate whatever size the prey is.
Only then does the prey notice several circular rows of sharp pointy shark-like teeth descending into the hole.
Rows of teeth that seem to rotate when the prey gets dangerously close to sliding into the hole,  
like the blades of a blender or food processor.
Ready to dice up the prey and make it into a puree.

Snowy Breadfruit

A tree native to colder climates, this flowering plant blooms white during the winter and grows a variation of breadfruit that is covered in thick white fuzz or hairs. The fruit can be cooked and the hairs will be burned away, blackening it and making it accessible to eat, though the fruit can be skinned and eaten raw if ripe. The hairs on the fruit are insulating and are especially good at generating heat when exposed to direct sunlight. In particularly warm climates, that means a breadfruit will effectively cook itself in direct sun. The fruit tastes like bread when cooked, but has a pleasant sweet taste otherwise.

You sure have a creative mind Rayblon.

Indeed... it's nice to check in here and see someone who has time to be creative. :)

The connotations of this are somewhat depressing.


TBH, lots of these things are just putting two things already found in nature together. Snowy breadfruit are polar bears and breadfruit, for instance.

I hope that means you're an Avatar fan? :)

Nope! :P

It was good for what it was, and the world building was nice, but the narrative was crap IMO. It's hard to overlook weak storytelling. :\

Blood meadows

A cursed/blessed biome not unlike the moon gardens, but... it's fleshy, there are no trees, the moon rises red, the daytime sky is red, and the sun is blackened by a dark energy coursing through the sky... In fact, the sun looks like the pupil of an eye in the sky. Creatures that would otherwise be inhibited during the daytime like eclipsids are able to roam freely, so it's not necessarily the safest place. It wouldn't necessarily be an evil or disgusting place, but it would preserve and fortify magicks surrounding the dead.

I particularly like that you chose not to intrinsically make this place evil. It's like perceiving death and darkness as a type of nature rather than as evil.

I always thought of things being intrinsically evil to be kind of silly, tbh. Doesn't matter what you are, you're more likely than not just trying to get by. I'm saying this while currently writing up some seriously evil boss mob concepts, naturally.

Sea Echo

A third cursed/blessed zone, a sea echo is a biome that, when entered, would look like a slightly more monochrome area underwater, though with the surroundings being lightly affected by what seems to be shockwaves bending light itself. From the outside, there may be a soft barrier or somesuch, though the specifics of what could be done on the border of this biome elude me. Unlike the bastions of life and death, the moon gardens and blood meadows, sea echoes are most in tune with spirits... or, at least, what seem to be spirits. Most of the creatures and plants here are ethereal, and this place is a rather potent life energy sink, with some areas being much worse than others. Introducing corporeal plant life can lessen and even negate this effect on a local level if one deigns to put in the effort. It may be that there are ethereal blocks which can be collected as well, echoes of the buildings and lands that once were.

Regarding how they come to form, I imagine it would be because of some sort of massive, rapid loss of life... so the echoes would reflect some kind of tragedy. For instance, in one iteration of this biome, the actual terrain has a massive crater, but echo blocks fill it in and show a city instead. Or, a city of echos stands, but all the floors and the ground around them are coated in ash to this day. Or, in some instances, there really is a flooded city of echoes, replete with coral and other manners of marine life. Wind will not blow, and the sun or moon will not seem to move while you are within. Time in a sea echo is static and generated with the creation of the biome -- in principle, it reflects the approximate time of the mass death.

Do a happy biome next!  :)

oh crap happy biome uhhh uhmmm

Bobonga

A kind of white trunked fruiting palm tree that drops strangely percussive coconuts. It has large bulbs around its trunk, kind of making it look like the tree is a stack of coconuts itself. The tree intermittently makes sounds one would expect hide drum to make, and by using fruit of various sizes from bobongas, one can make an instrument.

Xylphrass

A strange variety of cat tail, the fruiting body of this sturdy grass is dense and 'dinks' when struck or run through. Accordingly, they are often harvested and used to craft basic instruments, most often in the form of a keyboard that is struck with a mallet.

Hum weed

An extremely durable and difficult to cut grass, hum weeds, curiously, make sounds when they are rubbed, and can be used to create a massive variety of stringed instruments. Some more exotic musicians around the lands swear by hum weeds because of their unique sound as compared to traditional strings.

Thesia Mushroom

An at-first unassuming mushroom, this large portabello-like fungus has a strange psychedelic effect which is enhanced by music and other sounds, causing bursts of color to go across the screen.

Musenka coasts

A unique and rare form of beach, host to strange and remarkably musical life. The musenka beach contains the maracharas and penkbills (http://mythruna.com/forum/index.php?topic=2125.msg20869#msg20869) as well as bobonga, xylphrass, hum weed, and thesia mushrooms. There also tends to be a number of tropical flowers and other flora around the area, with these more exotic plants and animals being mere additions to the standard fare. The nature of Musenka coasts attracts entertainers from far and wide, and a Musenka coast is often a prime location for a festival.

There. Musical beaches are happy right?

Real talk though, I don't think of the prior ideas as sad or depressing. Bittersweet maybe, but there's good in all of them. The blood meadows aren't the safest for example, but they're still a haven if you're the right creature. Just, the player isn't necessarily the right one. There is happiness and satiety given to the inhabitants of blood meadows all the same. The sea echo curse preserves the before of tragedies, yes, but it's also actively working against the dark circumstance of its existence by preserving a glimpse of happiness and prosperity -- the tragedy never coming for these spirits.

I definitely noticed that theres more to those ideas than what someone may be able to see at first glance. For story design, adding those dimensions are what captivates people. Or at least that's what captivates me.

Likewise. Black and white stuff is boring because you're basically shoeing a good idea in essence into this box without diverging from it. It's unnatural and pretty much everything in said box has been used in 50 different ways. The ethos of Mythruna always seemed to encompass something deeper than that which is one of the reasons why i admire it so much.

It occurs to me that since you made a request of me, it's only fair that you write up a biome concept of your own now, no? c:

Ah heck but I lack creativity! Give me a day or two to think of something  :P

The moon garden took a good 2-3 weeks to write, by the by. Most of my ideas take at least ~5 hours of work.

yeesh. gimme a week then lol

(http://i63.tinypic.com/2aajyj7.jpg)

Wisp willow

An ethereal looking tree whose leaves are white and long like streamers, with a parallel venation, reminiscent of the hanging cords of leaves on a willow tree. The leaves themselves are extremely lightweight and flexible, so a slight wind is usually enough to make them seem to flutter and flow. In sea echoes, the leaves of these trees would have a slight glow to them, similar to that of echo blocks.

Rayblon I'm legitimately the worst procrastinator in existence.

(http://i65.tinypic.com/292wswk.jpg)

Me:

(https://i.imgur.com/nm4z5jy.jpg?1)

I see sand and water in that parchment. Hmm, what happens when you mix the two, I wonder?  ;)

Just a short one off;

Ember reed

A type of tall, thermophilic grass-like plant native to hotsprings and  rarely other hot, moist areas like swamps. The plant is grey with intermittent orange banding, spawning a teardrop-shaped cluster of foliage at its base. When it goes to seed, it develops a thick stalk with a slightly whiter color than the rest of the plant, with a branching orange and yellow seed head. The stalk and seed head are commonly said to resemble a lit candle wick.

The pollen of this plant is highly sulphuric and rich with other toxic minerals, which can end in the plant or its pollen combusting if it is splashed with water or is exposed to too much water vapor at once. While exposure can make one ill, it isn't especially dangerous unless a large number are intentionally burned..  At normal levels, however, this reaction simply generates a small amount of toxic smoke and heat. The pollen itself is also bioluminescent in some way, though it may be due to the aforementioned reactions. True to its name, the pollen, when ejected, is reminiscent of glowing embers from a fire. While there are no doubt pollinators up to this task, they are highly specialized and extremely defensive of this rare plant.

They said those plants weren't a problem until our village hot spring caught on fire and killed everyone there...

That's certainly one way it could go down. Another way is that it's used as a delayed onset thermite during war to burn villages with the intent of throwing the enemy off your actual trail. Drop satchels of ember reed cuttings behind homes(or in shallow holes) and let the rain do the rest.