The Powers That Be (
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Slivers & Shards: Jaunt Info
Post-Apocalyptic Psionic Kaiju Funtimes
December 1 - January 24
First was the Age of the Ancients. Nine billion Ancients ruled over all of the Living World, ripe with mushrooms, blue with water. They lived on the High Tables, for they were ascended beings and knew the secret of breathing there. They reigned, we think, for a hundred thousand years, since the birth of the world. They knew Paradise, and they built Heaven. But they were fools, and used fire in war. They burned the World down.
Second was the Age of the Mystics. For ten thousand years after the Death of the World, the Mystics built Spires on the edge of the Tables, unlocking glorious powers and sheltering a chosen few - eight million, it is said. They ruled whole Tables, but no one ruled all the Dead World. The eight million Mystics knew secrets of fire the Ancients never did, and while the World was not theirs to travel, everyone in it lived safe, and no one died before they turned one hundred. But they were fools, and their power ran on water. The seas dried to dirt, and the Mystics died.
Third was the Age of the Shadow. For one thousand years, the Umbrian Protectorate united the Vales of the Fallen World. They could not live on the High Tables any longer, and all people were born thirsty and died thirsty, but they were still united, and they were careful with their resources. They ruled Nations the size of Vales. They delved in the depths for crystals, and found they could place thoughts in them. Many of the secrets of the Ancients and Mystics still rang in the depths. The world had died twice, but the Umbrians thought if they could control the minds of everyone, they could prevent a third apocalypse. But they built the hellstones, crystals that could destroy Vales who wanted to think for themselves. And the hellstones, being a violation of the earth as the Mystics violated water and the Ancients violated fire, drew the third apocalypse up from the heart of the world. The Nation-Eaters devoured Vale after Vale, and the Umbrian overlords were shattered for their hubris.
This Age doesn’t have a name. It’s been a hundred years since the Fall of the Protectorate. By the end of the Age there will only be 60,000 people left, they say. Nobody rules anything larger than a Spire, and anybody who thinks he rules a Spire himself best look out. The secrets of the past were lost when the Umbrian Shadow fell. The only secret knowledge people have now is what their grandparents told them - and their grandparents knew the world would end again soon. “Don’t fuck up the air,” we remind each other. Earth, Fire, and Water all turned against us, abandoned us. The world may be nothing but Slivers & Shards, but this is all the world we got left, and it’s going away soon. Hang onto it.
SURVIVING FLORA & FAUNA
Mammal
Molerat - burrowing hairless rodents, blind and aggressive, that live in subterranean hives.
Fang Addax - an antelope with pointed canines. Drinks no water, only blood. Used for milk.
Pole-badger - a hostile, foul-smelling mustelid.
Porcupine - a dense-quilled and vocal rodent.
Burncat - a medium-sized wildcat with a bristly ruff and dark brown, scorched-looking fur. Burncats can burn psi to increase their speed.
Reptile
Asp - an extremely venomous hooded snake.
Rain Toad - a bulbous, waddling toad that can inflate itself into a sphere; a sign water is nearby.
Silt Eel - grinning eels that burrow through the sea.
Bird
Ostrich - the largest animal other than Nation-Eaters. Fast runners; rarely captured as mounts.
Penguin - these divers on the edge of the Sea of Silt become red-faced as the day grows hot.
Chucker - these small, rotund birds live on Spires and glide down hillsides when they run.
Thanopod
Scorpion - the most common animal. Most are extremely venomous.
Tarantula - the largest of these are 20” across.
Dowsercrab - small, horseshoe-shaped creatures that race across the desert towards water.
Isopods - foragers in the Sea of Silt up to 2’ long, the closest thing to fish in the ecosystem.
Winger
Locusts - swarms of 6” grasshoppers. Most common meat animals. Dangerous to crops.
Moth - fluid-siphoning pests that congregate around trees. Dangerous in large numbers.
Antlions - halfway between dragonflies & butterflies as adults; monstrous larvae.
Insect
Ants - inch-long stinging insects that swarm across the desert at dusk and dawn.
Superworms - segmented giant mealworms, up to 8” long, destroy stored wood pulp.
Lice - some grow large enough to be seen, but not above ½”.
Termites - mound-builders.
Trees
Date Tree - not half a dozen in the Vale, dates are considered the height of luxury.
Acacia Tree - thorn trees, home of ants and pole-badgers.
Ghaf Tree - perhaps one per Spire survive, pods used to season lentil curry.
Saltbush - coastal shrubs, scraggly and inedible, rendered to pulp vats for mycos.
Grasses
Teff - grain, grown on Terraces & used for bread.
Rye - grain, grown on Terraces, used for bread, porridge, & beer.
Saltgrass - covers the ground near the Silt Sea or salt flats; inedible.
Needlegrass - common near oases, pointed and dangerous.
Water-Bearers
Mistletoe Cactus - purple-brown, spindly, needled; most common plant in the Vale.
Lithops - little plants that look like stones; contain water inside.
Roots
Walking Leeks - vegetables; they are rooted shallowly and slowly drift along dunes.
Lentils - dietary staple, grown in caves or on terraces.
Horned melons - rare, spiky underground fruit; good source of water.
Tumbo - plant whose leaves look like straps; hosts many yeasts & molds.
Yeasts - slimelike fungus, sometimes grow in large, bubbling fields.
Black yeast - grows where nothing else will, the ‘weeds’ of the desert.
Red yeast - used to ferment & preserve grains.
Milk yeast - used to grow yogurts and cheeses.
Baker’s yeast - used to make bread & beer.
Seething yeast - dangerous but valued, caustic, breaks down tough food & cooks without fire
Lichens - flat carpets of hard inedible fungus.
Rock moss - shaggy carpets of this grow across rocks.
Boneflag - this orange lichen only grows near or on dead animals.
Paintmoss - bright-colored, clings to any flat surface, used as pigment & dye.
Mushrooms - stemmed fungus with fruiting heads; most of what people eat.
King Cap - common mushroom, food staple, grown on terraces.
Earthstar - star-shaped husk, food staple. Squirt spores, dead stars roll like tumbleweeds.
False earthstar - like earthstars. Tough-fleshed, smell bad.
Shaggy-mane - wild-foraged mushroom used in bone marrow soup.
Agaric - hallucinogenic mushroom, used as seasoning or in beer.
Miracles - spongy-capped, delicious, rare.
Sheikh truffle - rare, delicious, grow mostly by acacia roots.
Siltfish - floating inedible mushroom on the Sea of Silt. Burned for fuel.
Sandal’s friend - little fast-growing, inedible mushrooms that sprout around latrines & similar.
Phages - flesh-eating fungi.
Hair-eater - ringworm.
Nail-eater - a fungus on the nail beds, causing rashes and athlete’s foot.
Mind-eater - inhaled, rare, causes brain abcesses.
Rock-eater - a fungus that quite literally breaks down rocks; rare and caustic.
Scarbiter - a fungus causing existing scar tissue to swell and spread.
Mycos - these mushrooms only grow on wood; cultivated on vats of wood pulp.
Quorn - fibrous, bluish whisps of fungus, meatlike in texture.
Blight quorn - a poisonous strain of quorn, almost identical,.
Chaga conk - black, shaggy, faintly poisonous vitamin supplement, & sleep aid.
Reicathic conk - disk-like mushrooms, rare, eaten to enhance psi power when Burning.
Bearded tooth - beardlike clumps of highly nutritious fungus. Prized delicacy.
Grass soot - a black particulate plague on trees and grasses.
Pathos - all used as poisons or bioweapons.
Vale feverberry - causes lung fevers; little spotted fungal bodies scatter hillsides.
Purple ergot - hallucinogenic poison, paralytic in quantity, used in beer.
Salt mold - grows on salt flats and seashores,
Tumbo mold - the choking black molds and plaguebearers in tumbo leaves.
Frostbite’s friend - a phage that takes root in chilled flesh.
Dowser’s cotton - a form of white mildew, only blooms near water.
Malak Mashit - a mushroom containing hideously deadly poison.