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Blood and Fear: On the Life Cycle of Lah: Difference between revisions
Blood and Fear: On the Life Cycle of Lah (view source)
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{{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |In spite of being a 'flowering' plant, lah is not a true flower, its 'blooms' not true blossoms. Lah is a root with a decorative upper stem, reproducing through the distribution of rhizomes. The baboons and snapjaws of the canyons use the dreadroot supply for food and love the taste of its petals, and any root unfortunate enough to bloom will quickly be defoliated by hungry mammals. Though dreadroot is capable of inducing fear, any relatively intelligent creature is able to overcome the fearful association to return and eat. The process being what it is, fragments of dreadroot are distributed, the rhizome takes root, and dreadroot proliferates without thriving. So it goes. | {{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |In spite of being a 'flowering' plant, lah is not a true flower, its 'blooms' not true blossoms. Lah is a root with a decorative upper stem, reproducing through the distribution of rhizomes. The baboons and snapjaws of the canyons use the dreadroot supply for food and love the taste of its petals, and any root unfortunate enough to bloom will quickly be defoliated by hungry mammals. Though dreadroot is capable of inducing fear, any relatively intelligent creature is able to overcome the fearful association to return and eat. The process being what it is, fragments of dreadroot are distributed, the rhizome takes root, and dreadroot proliferates without thriving. So it goes. | ||
In the flower fields, however, the varied nature of both predators and available food changes. Boars seek a varied diet mainly consisting of starapples and reptiles, not showing a particular interest in dreadroot or lah. The boars will eat lah if no better food is available, but it's quite unusual for such scarcity to disrupt boar territories. Thus: lah flourishes, gaining a measure of cognitive process, limited mobility, and a new means of reproduction. | In the flower fields, however, the varied nature of both predators and available food changes. Boars seek a varied diet mainly consisting of starapples and reptiles, not showing a particular interest in dreadroot or lah. The boars will eat lah if no better food is available, but it's quite unusual for such scarcity to disrupt boar territories. Thus: lah flourishes, gaining a measure of cognitive process, limited mobility, and a new means of reproduction.}}</poem>}} | ||
On reproduction: another common misconception is that feral lah attacks because it is hungry. It is not. Feral lah's practical lifespan is short; it is rare for a fully-grown bloom to survive longer than a week—and during that time it subsists completely on water, salt sun, and soil. The advantage of lah's murderous demeanor is not to sustain itself, but to dramatically speed reproduction of its kind. | {{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |On reproduction: another common misconception is that feral lah attacks because it is hungry. It is not. Feral lah's practical lifespan is short; it is rare for a fully-grown bloom to survive longer than a week—and during that time it subsists completely on water, salt sun, and soil. The advantage of lah's murderous demeanor is not to sustain itself, but to dramatically speed reproduction of its kind. | ||
Most of a lah blossom's growing energy goes into making its 'tumbling pods', thorn-covered husks possessed of tremendous kinetic tension. Through violent shifting of the rhizome's weight inside, these husks roll along the ground at high speed until they encounter a living creature. They then release the surface tension of their husks and detonate, flinging flesh-piercing thorns and buds all around, just after making an obnoxious squeaking noise. If the prey is killed, the rhizome buds can then take nutrients from the prey's corpse and quickly grow into a new feral lah plant.}}</poem>}} | Most of a lah blossom's growing energy goes into making its 'tumbling pods', thorn-covered husks possessed of tremendous kinetic tension. Through violent shifting of the rhizome's weight inside, these husks roll along the ground at high speed until they encounter a living creature. They then release the surface tension of their husks and detonate, flinging flesh-piercing thorns and buds all around, just after making an obnoxious squeaking noise. If the prey is killed, the rhizome buds can then take nutrients from the prey's corpse and quickly grow into a new feral lah plant.}}</poem>}} | ||