Non-Boring Environments that need Fantasy Representation
Tropical Rainforests
Scrubland/Dry Forests. For extra effect make them the sort that burn very often; some native plants never germinate until after a fire, and some animals not only rely on fire to smoke out prey, but may even start them themselves.
Savannas/Tropical Grasslands
Temperate Rainforests. I almost didn’t include this bc New Zealand is covered in them, and that’s where they filmed Lord of the Rings. But tbh, no one really knows about them, so it belongs here
Taiga Forests
Barren Tundra, perfect for some extreme seasonal dichotomy
Polar Ice Sheets
Desert-Grasslands (arguably the same as Scrubland but Australia’s good at adding its own twists)
Barren Desert
If you like Cacti, look at American Deserts like the Sonoran
Salt Flats
Soda Lakes and Alkaline Lakes
Madagascar’s Karst Limestone Formations
Madagascar’s Spiny Forests
Madagascar’s Baobab Forests
Madagascar’s Subhumid Forests (Madagascar is cool as hell ok)
Danxia Landforms
Badlands/Mountainous Deserts
Steppes and Highland Prairies
Flood Basalts
Newly-Formed Islands, still rife with Volcanic activity
Now for Underwater Environments, sure Coral Reefs are cool.
But there are SO MANY other kinds of environments for aquatic settings, it’s unbelievable:
Seaside Cliffs
Archipelagos. Not just Tropical Island chains like Polynesia (Moana anyone?) but also Coldwater Archipelagos like the Aleutians.
Tidal Flats
Bayous/Cypress Swamps
Tropical River Basins, AKA Seasonally Flooded Rainforests
Mangrove Swamps/Deltas/Beaches
Kelp Forests
The Open Ocean
Coastal Seabeds
Rocky Beaches with Tidepools
And there are a LOT more I could name but this post is already obscenely long as is, if you’d like to toss in your own go right ahead, but my point is if you limit yourself to European Deciduous Forests you’re a wimp.
Tell the players the dungeon is in one of those places but when they get there it’s a European Deciduous Forest with a huge sheet of wallpaper draped over it.
This has nothing to do with anything but it’s the greatest headline I’ve ever seen
This article is amazing
I’d put my favourite quotes from the article up, but it’s the whole dang article.
“It’s just so shocking,” Claire Simeone, a veterinarian and monk seal
expert based in Hawaii, told The Washington Post on Thursday. “It’s an
animal that has another animal stuck up its nose.”
While “eel snorting” has yet to really catch on in the seal community, Littnan said he hopes it never does.
Have I watched the movie in the last decade or more? No. Do I have iron clad evidence to support my argument? Yes.
1. She’s the most knowledgeable about candy. She’s committed to it, and knows her stuff. When Wonka holds up a little yellow piece across the room, she recognizes it immediately. She was able to switch to candy bars for the sake of the contest, so we know she has personal discipline and is goal oriented. Also, two major projects play directly into her strong suits: the 3-course-meal gum that Wonka failed to make safe (gum) and the neverending gobstopper (longevity).
2. She’s the most fit to run a business. Violet is competitive, determined, hard working, and willing to take risks. Her father is a small town car salesman and politician, so she could easily pick up knowledge and support from him. (Veruca’s dad is also a business man, and in a compatible market (nuts), but it’s made very clear that Veruca has no respect or knowledge of business practices or hard work.)
3. She’s the most sympathetic to the Oompa Loompas. She critiques Veruca when Veruca demands to buy one. More importantly, Wonka has been testing the 3-course-meal gum that ‘always goes wrong’ on Oompa Loompas while he presumably just watches. Violet is ready to put herself on the front line, instead of treating the Oompa Loompas as disposable, and would therefore be a better boss.
4. Her personality ‘flaw’ is the most fitting for the company. In the moralizing Oompa Loompa song, they just say ‘gum is pretty cool, but it’s not socially acceptable to chew it all day‘. The thing is, we already know that she can stop if she wants, because she already did that to win the golden ticket. And yeah, she is defensive about the perceived impoliteness of her hobby (like when her mother tries to shame her about her habit during a televised interview) but the obsession with candy and neglect of social norms is EXACTLY what Wonka is all about. This is on brand.
5. Her misstep in the factory is reasonable. Wonka shows everyone a candy he’s very proud of. Violet is like “oh sick, that’s gum, my special interest.” Wonka is then pulls a “WRONG! It’s amazing gum!” So in the very moments before she takes the gum Wonka has mislead her just to belittle her. So when he’s like “I wouldn’t do that” why should she give a shit what he has to say? She’s not like Charlie over here who’s all “Sure Gramps, let’s stay behind while the tour leaves and secretly drink this thing that has been explicitly stated to fill you with gas and is too powerful for safe consumption, oh and also I just saw what happened to Violet so I actually KNOW what this stuff can be capable of” Also, Violet is not selfish about her experience, she tells everyone what she’s tasting and feeling, and everyone is eager to hear it. Taking a personal risk to share knowledge with everyone. Violet is Prometheus: fact.
So Augustus contaminates the chocolate river. Charlie sneaks around and contaminates the vent walls. Veruca destroys and disrupts the workspace. Mike knows exactly what will happen to him and transports/shrinks himself deliberately. Violet had no idea what the gum could potentially do to her, and caused no harm to anyone or anything but herself.
Lastly: Can you imagine Charlie filling Wonka’s shoes? That passive, naive boy? Violet is already basically Wonka. She’s passionate, sarcastic, candy-obsessed, free thinking, and a total firecracker. She’s even better than Wonka, because she doesn’t endanger others.
Violet should’ve been picked to inherit the chocolate factory.
turns people into cowboys or samurais depending on which place you’re in
That explains why cowboy movies and samurai movies are so similar.
Cowboys are Alolan form Samurai
So in Japan it’s called Kirinomitake while in Texas it’s called either Texas Star (because after releasing spores it’s unfolded into a star shape) or the Devil’s Cigar because it starts out as a long oblong mushroom but then it unfolds with an ominous hissing noise and releases a big smoky black cloud of spores.
It only grows in these two places, and people did genetic testing and a bunch of math to determine that the two populations started diverging from each other nineteen million goddamn years ago, so it’s not possible for humanity to have moved it from one place to the other. They’re at the same latitude, but 11,000 fucking kilometers apart not to mention the goddamn ocean in the way.
“this is only another illustration of the unusual and unpredictable distribution of many species of the fungi. It would be difficult indeed to account for it, and we merely accept the facts as they are.”
So apparently it’s pretty common in the mycological world to find some bullshit that can’t be explained and would probably drive men mad to look at too closely, and just sort of shrug and move on with your day.
The species is also the only example of its genus.
Your daily reminder that anyone who devotes their life to studying fungi is not to be trifled with because their brain is full of things humanity was never supposed to notice.
so turns out Lovecraft was 100% right about fungi all along?
You know, there’s another comparable taxon which, like this fungus, has famously existed for millions of years only at similar latitudes and thousands of kilometers apart in separate disjunct populations in the deciduous woodlands of the eastern US and the deciduous forest of Japan/East Asia.
Cryptobranchidae is the family of fully-aquatic giant salamanders containing only 3 species: the hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis), the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus), and the Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus).
These are the largest amphibians in the world.
Like the fungus, these salamanders are very closely related to each other, but are dramatically genetically from all other salamanders, and they live in similar deciduous woodlands near climatically-mild eastern coasts at similar latitudes.
See (map by me):
As of early 2018, however, it’s been determined that the Chinese giant salamander - once considered a single species - is now composed of 5 separate cryptic species.
Check-out the similarities between the American animal and its East Asian relatives.
Like the aforementioned fungus, the Cryptobranchidae family is both very genetically unique and also ancient, and this geographic separation in their distribution is millions of years old. Extinct Cryptobranchidae remains from the Cenozoic have been retrieved from deposits in Nunavut and the Canadian Arctic, revealing their hardiness and wider prehistoric range.
Both the temperate deciduous forests of the eastern US and the temperate deciduous forests of East Asia exist in similar climates, at similar latitudes, and are geologically situated over many extensive limestone caves. It is this geologic aspect that probably influences some salamander distribution in both regions, since this limestone creates ample underground space for salamanders which appreciate a subterranean lifestyle.
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I guess it’s also appropriate to mention that there are only 2 species of alligator - not including caimans - and that the alligators are, like both the fungus and giant salamanders, resident at the same latitudes in the temperate and humid eastern US and temperate and humid East Asia and separated by thousands of kilometers.
American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) and Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis) - map by me:
