Race Name 1: Shining Perennials, or Light Perennials
Race Name 2: Skulking Perennials, or Shadow/Dark Perennials
Description of the race:The Perennials are a species of plants and fungai that have grown to consume the surface world left behind by humanity. During their planet's evolutionary history the spore and seed have ascended to equal measures of dominance for different and varied genetic traits. Where the two species differ is by philosophy and appearance, but they both have largely the same racial strengths and weaknesses with only minor alterations by base form.
Neutral Traits: - Plant Traits
- Partial Hive Mind
Being a plant in the universe is quite similar to being made of meat. Plant cellular structures are very similar to humans, even if their composition of cells, and genetic makeup differ. Plants are susceptible to dehydration, and require air (CO2) to breath. When dehydrated they are also vulnerable to fire. While properly hydrated they are resistant to fire. In either case plants are resistant to electricity while weak to cold.
Partial Hive Mind:
Perennials are a piece-wise species. Each "individual" count of population is itself a nation of smaller parts. One "person" in the Perennial race constitutes tens of thousands of fungal spores, or hundreds of individual floral plants (such as flowers and vines) that collectively identify as a single individual. Parts of the individual can be replaced with little difficulty, as shown below, without loosing an entire individual. Hive-minds can also be collectively attacked as a whole, by certain methods of attacks, which as a result the individual can be disrupted entirely with potentially little effort.
Strengths: - Adaptive
- Natural Camouflage
- Powerful Possession
Adaptive:
Evolution is the backbone of the species. Plants adapt quickly to change, as a species (rather than individually) by growing new resistant offspring to replace them. As each person is a nation unto itself, they can adapt individually, or collectively, to changing environmental conditions or circumstance. That includes viruses, disease, and all manner of toxins.
Natural Camouflage:
While humanity evolved down the path of pursuit predation, rather than developing incredible strength or stamina that meat-things tend to favor, the perennials have developed incredible cunning. In their natural state perennials can blend into nearly any environment. While in their possessed forms, they can mask the nature of the possession, and attempt to blend into the society their host belongs to.
They can also choose not to execute this trait and display their true nature without needing to revert to their base forms. Highly skilled individuals can even utilize this effect to help mask their host's body and form, in an otherwise natural environment.
Powerful Possession:
An individual is recognized when it takes a host form. That is when a collective perennial attaches itself to a body so thoroughly that it can manipulate it and claim it as their own. Much like their mother Gaia, the host they find need not be alive, as they can breath life back into it. This is not true life, of course, but a shallow half-life of simulated function. Perennials who manipulate the dead are referred to as "Puppet Masters" and are generally thought lowly of, as the dead are easier to control than the living.
Perennials typically infect a living host the same way plants do on other planets, but as a sentient life form, it is with the express purpose of conquering an immune-system and over-taking a host. Individuals of a race with some weakness to plant based attacks (such as an allergy, or propensity to conditions such as hay-fever) are especially weak to this form of takeover.
Dead, and undead species, as well as several forms of Elementals lack of active biological functions are also weak to this type of attack as they have no natural resistance to micro-cellular attack, due to having no functioning immune system, or anatomy otherwise sufficiently resistant to being seeded.
Weaknesses: - Feeble Natural Form
- Non-Discernible Anatomy
- Superstitious
Feeble Natural Form:
Outside of the possessed creature, the perennials are very susceptible to attack, as their base form (collections of small plants) is virtually defenseless. Without a body these swarms are slow moving, with ability to act on their environment. Typically while in this state they feign a benign behavior to lull a possible new host into a false sense of security or safety utilizing their Camouflage trait to avoid detection. Failing that, a small fire, or sharp blade may be all that is required to destroy a perennial in this state.
Non-Discernable Anatomy
Though each individual is highly adaptive, the perennials evolves independently from the others of their ilk. In terms of immune system, and exposure to hazardous chemicals, there is no universal method to treat perennial and their medical sciences will always be at least one stage behind their actual racial development. It would take the entire race being subjected to the same toxin, or micro-cellular attack to develop a resistance to it with their Adaptive trait, but that resistance will not be the same (or even the same type of adaptation) across all members of the society. Other species with advanced medical sciences may also easily identify this weakness if they capture sufficient members of the race to find no causal link to their adaptive immune system.
Superstition:
Being beings of plant and manifest destiny perennial are socially resistant to any technology that requires a great deal of artificial fabrication, and will seek alternate methods around using such technology. This may result in them developing alternative bio-engineered technology, or Gaia evolving magic for her blessed followers, but they will not trade for, purchase for their own use, or otherwise entertain highly-synthetic technologies.
Similarly, due to their deep spiritual connection to Nature, and their world, they they are quite xenophobic to other religions, and cultures that are not highly related in theme or nature to their own. Even still, they're quite inclusionistic (in-group focused) with few outliers.
Economy/Industry :
The Perennials are of Evolution Tier 1, and have no organized form of industry. They've yet to invent the economic idea of money, and use barter and trade with their primary commodity being information.
Buildings: Evolution Tier 1:
Spawning Grounds (Tribe House):
Centered around a shrine to the goddess Nature. For both types of Perennials it is a large pond or small lake with a central "structure" of a large, and very old plant. Typically built upon the burial place of a revered elder. For the Light Perennials that elder often takes the form of a tree formed in the vissage of their goddess. For the Dark Perennials the same goal is achieved through various fungi and mycelium arrangements. The goddess is frequently depicted of sitting upon a the world as if it were a stool, and a throne growing up around her (out of the water).
The remainder of the Spawning Pool is dedicated to the particulars of the Perennials needs it was designed to accommodate, and in this way the Spawning Pool's central Shrine of the Goddess differs from the monument structure.
The Delve (Resource Building):
The primary source of "food", and "food storage", the Delve's outward appearance differs in each iteration based off of the land that was scoured for it. While most perennials possess and consume a host over the course of their life (using that host to hunt for food), those not in possession of a host still need a place to feed. As plants their primary source of nutrients is minerals and water found in soil, a Delve is a nutrient-rich place where topsoil is stripped away, layer by layer, after its fed upon.
While Delves typically change the landscape they don't often damage it in any meaningful way. Commoners of the Perennial races, nearing the end of their cycles, often seek out old Delves in which to die. In time their bodies are converted back into nutrients in the soil for use by future generations.
Shrine of the Goddess (Monument, Religious Icon):
A shrine is a place of raw, wild, and untamed nature whose boundaries are clearly marked. One does not enter into the shrine with expectation of the goddess's protection, but does so anyway to offer up proof of their fealty. What makes a shrine is a sacred space is that it embodies the pureness of their goddess's reflection in themselves. A place may be designated a shrine if it is found to be the natural environment of a "perfect" version of their species, in it's innate, non-sentient state. Both the Light and Dark Perennials have located such an avatar of their goddess and their respective "chiefs" have sacrificed their the resources dedicated for their own abode to generate these shrines.
Shrines of this type differ from those found in Spawning Pools, as these shrines central monument is one of the Goddess's creation, rather than their own.
Method of making more of their kind: Perennials reproduce in exactly the same core manner in which ordinary plants of their species do, with one caveat. In order to establish a new member of their society--to establish sentience--a Perennials must synchronize all of the parts that make up their swarm. This is both a biochemical, and a psychic act as they link up every aspect of the parts that form the whole.
A Perennial who has a host body, can use any of its reproductive methods to infect other hosts, to allow the creation of other Perennials in a new host, but the hosts themselves do not reproduce unless they are alive and capable of doing so. A Perennial with a dead host, who has camouflaged the death of the host, can use the act of reproduction to infect new hosts, but can't actually use the host's (dead) reproductive method to create new members of the host's species.
They also only understand gender as it is experienced through their host species perspective, as plants primarily reproduce asexually, the nature of their gendered goddess is that her host form was female.
