The Caliginous Mangrove
Physical - Habitat - Galbar Furious at the disturbance of Slough's death-rest by Vestec in the Deadwood Sepulchre, impulse drove Jvan to create an expansive biome to enclose it, protect it and emulate its aesthetic. The resultant mangrove covers the north shore where the Fractal and Sparkling seas meet. Within its borders lie the Mahd estuaries and the southern edge of the Forsaken Craglands. Nestled between Craglands and Mangrove is the Deadwood Sepulchre itself. Shortly after its creation, the mangrove was claimed as a refuge by old skin-stitch, the avatar of Jvan, who filled it with life. It is worth noting that several underwater Blood Wells open into the mangrove.
Appearance: Thick veils of cloud and fog constantly shuffle over the region, trapped both by the high elevation of the Forsaken Cragland region, and the unusual windless quiet that pervades the jungle. Sound plays odd tricks in the roots, and the water is always still, high tide or low. With the light of the sun diffused in mist and leaves, days pass slowly in the cloud forest.
The Mangrove does not share its progenitor forest's absolute aura of stagnation. Despite its appearances, it is very much a living ecosystem. Its upper canopy is dense and lush, although its leaves are unusually dark, and tasteless to non-indigenous species. Beards of aerial root-hairs hang like rotted curtains, and there is some lichen, but no soft green moss. Below, the heart of the cloud forest is a maze of slender grey roots entangled in one another, stretching from thin trunks to curve into the brine.
The water is brackish and nearly black with silt and tannins. Visibility fades to nothing within a meter. Where the loose, sandy islets of soil end, some areas are silted and shallow, while others are several body lengths deep, and it is rarely possible to tell the difference. Roots are sporadically slick with brown algae, and given Galbar's erratic set of moons, tides are almost impossible to predict or track. Approaching from the ocean, the start of the jungle is immediate, with no transitional zone- Only a stark line where tea-brown water meets blue.
Life: When Our Lord Mutilation came to rest in the mangrove and found emptiness, its former inhabitants unable to thrive in the new biome, It set about repopulating the habitat. Knowing that Jvan could try to claim its sentience again, it made the cloud forest into a place of illusions and invisibility, where not only itself but every other living thing in the jungle was hidden from sight and no less dangerous for it. Many of its inhabitants are blind, unseeing and unseen.
The following categories of organisms are known.
Mist walkers are creatures that seek out, follow, and facilitate the areas most obscured by fog. Tirelessly mobile, their clammy, faintly luminescent bodies are indistinguishable from the dim light of the low clouds.
Peripheral jumpers are rare scavengers that live close to the edge of the mangrove, picking up on visual and psychic cues to determine where lost organisms are going to look next and nimbly leaping away from their cone of vision.
Divers form the mangrove's aquatic fauna, leading complex interactions beneath the surface, collectively grooming the root maze into shapes that suit them.
Mimics move slowly and are perfectly camouflaged between the roots, even in texture and scent.
Drifters are tiny, transparent, prolific creatures, only a few cell layers thick, drawn to material they can land on and digest.
Tunnellers live within the trees themselves in their own hidden hierarchy.
Hallucinogens are the elusive apex predators, manipulating the senses of other organisms through psychoactive chemicals they distribute on air, water, and surfaces.
There are many species occupying each of these categories, from many different phyla- Diversity in all things. Some pass through several of these stages during their life cycle. With varying levels of difficulty, the mangrove fauna can be caught and examined clearly. Most prefer death to discovery.
Vec,
Timemaster