Bryophites

Artwork by AstralGoddess [Bryophite] Area: Depends on previous race. Diet:: Depends on previous race. Size: Depends on previous race. Hostility Depends on previous race. Tameable?: Yes Note: This creature can only be played by Event Team members.

A bryophite, in basic terms, is a “plant person”. They are a type of character that has encountered what is called Verridian Moss, a parasitic type of moss that turns them into what they are today.

They are replaced by the moss and mode entirely out of plant material, from their skin to the organs the moss decided to recreate, everything is crafted genetically from some sort of material that count be found in a plant around the world of LOTC.

Often among them are things such as crawling ivy going down their leafy arms, vines and leaves for hair, flowers on their shoulders and collarbones, etc.

Story

One day, a little 7 year old human girl wanted to sleep outside, but her parents said she couldn’t because she would catch a cold. Nevertheless, after her parents were asleep, she gathered her blankets and made a small tent of sticks and blankets on a nice mossy spot and went to bed murmuring to herself, “No one can tell me what to do.” Little to her notice, this moss was a special species. Known now as the Verridian moss, distinguished by tiny microscopic golden colored specks in it, this moss was in the stage of Replacement, the final stage of growth. As the little girl slept, the Verridian moss grew quickly around her; it had been saving all its energy for a moment like this. Around an hour later, the moss had fully enclosed her, and emitted a sweet smelling aroma of sleepiness; now she could not wake up. The moss then proceeded to shoot roots and spores throughout her body, reading it and landscaping. As the little girl slept, the moss replaced every part of her body with plant material. Her hair became roots, her skin became a solid unbroken leaf, her organs replaced with plant-made counterparts, her bones became cellulose. Then it came to her brain, last of all, this would be its hardest task. The Verridian moss plunged in, copying everything, from her memories to her skills to her involuntary motions. It linked its semi-conscience with the girl's conscience. Spending every ounce of energy it has left, it did this so fast the girl still stayed alive. The moss relaxed, it was almost done. It finally analyzed everything it copied; every detail was gone over with scrutiny. It finally finished by going into the next and final phase: Body. All this took 5 hours in full from start to finish. The little girl slept through it all. When she awoke, she felt nothing different, nothing strange until she went to pick up her blankets. She was...green and leafy. She felt her hair; it was...roots. She quickly ran to her mom and dad, who were awestruck. They asked her what her name was, what was on her birthday cake last year, and other questions that only she would know. She answered them all correctly, and her parents accepted her as she was: their daughter. Time went on and something wasn’t right, their girl now acting was extremely rebellious since her new body, always saying, ”No one can tell me what to do.” The moss had taken the last thought in her mind before Replacement, assumed it was the focus of her life as it was the strongest and most fresh, and amplified it to her subconscious life motto/goal/guideline. She was reborn a rebel. She was reborn a plant. She was reborn a Bryophite.

What is Verridian Moss, and Why Does It Do That?

All plants have adapted to certain strategies to get through life. For a specific moss, it started with making more endurant spores, and having little specks of gold, as well as being cushy to spread spores by getting an animal to sit on some the appealing moss and spread spores via them walking. Sentient creatures tended to care more about the texture of something they sat on, so by detecting nearby conscious beings to coordinate release of spores became optimal. Eventually the moss tried with spores that grew on people and produced spores, and, though it was not liked by the host, it was perfect.

The moss got more aggressive progressively, until sitting would cause great puffs of spores which either caused avoidance or washing, which resulted in failure. Learning from its failure, the moss eventually developed sleeping powder, releasing vast amounts of spores once the victim was asleep. This, however, again resulted in failure, as hosts would die soon after as the spores either branched into vital organs or from nutrition deprivation.

It was here that the moss gained such names as 'Nether's Bed'. Undaunted, the moss eventually figured that out, and solved the problem by much trial and error. Doing the unreasonable because it had to, the moss developed a way to not damage the body's system by, well, seeing to the bodily functions itself. After success and success it came to depend on this technique and refined it to perfection.

What is it? / Information

As the victim is asleep, the Verridian Moss releases waves of airborne spores that enter them via their respiratory system. Slowly, the parasite begins to destroy and replace the body from the inside out, a completely painless process. The body is rebuilt by the parasites being controlled by the Verridian Moss, slowly made into a new body, deeply resembling the previous. Scars, injuries, and illnesses are usually not re-made, destroyed and replaced with healthy substitutes. At times this can lead to bryophite “birthmarks” which are patches where the moss was left to it’s own because it needed to replace something with a new portion that was not a duplicate of the original.

Things such as memories can be lost in the process, as the moss isn’t fully sentient, it does not understand the life of the victim and simply recreates that portion of the brain with as much of the original intact as possible. In most situations, a newly made bryophite will forget what names go with what faces, the names of towns, sometimes even their own names. The easier something is to forget, the more likely it is to be left behind.

Old memories will be more likely to be completely forgotten, for instance, if a 200 year old elf is changed, they are very likely to forget anything above 60-70 years ago.

Depending on the race of the victim, the way the body functions may be drastically changed.

Humans, for example, are strict omnivores, they can eat just about anything. A human bryophite will find that they now have a distaste for most kinds of meat, and would rather eat things such as sugary meals, sweets, grains and fruit or vegetables.

Many bryophites might also find the insatiable thirst, for sugar water.

They now breathe, not oxygen, but carbon dioxide, and exhale oxygen, just like a normal plant.

Many of the victim’s physical traits are changed, as well.

New words: Bryophites: [BRY-o-fite] Bryophitian: [BRY-o-fit-ee-an]

Misconceptions (These are Untrue): Bryophites use photosynthesis to get food. Bryophites cannot go in a desert. Bryophite bodies do not age. Bryophites go dormant during winter.

Things to Note

Because of the link between the moss’s semi-conscience and the person’s conscience, in times of great emotion or feeling, the moss body might give a response. This response is sometimes logical to the situation, and sometimes just weird. All Bryophite body reactions are different between people, each person's body might respond differently, but this one thing is always consistent: an individual will always react the same way to the same emotion (see Strength 3). For example, if a Bryophite is very happy or pleased, the moss might start to grow along the skirts of their clothes; if a Bryophite is sad, the moss might begin to release water droplets into their hair, making it look like their hair is crying. ALL races can become a Bryophite. In the event that a Bryophite and a human have a baby, it would be human. The process works the same as normal, even though the Bryophite is a plant. The only time a Bryophite is born is when both parents are Bryophites. In this event, the child would look like how the baby would have looked if it were born from the same parents as their original races, and then was Replaced. Also, a child of a non-Bryophite and Bryophite has no trace of his/her parent being a Bryophite, they are completely normal. If interrupted in the middle of Replacing after the moss has formed a cocoon (for example, by someone cutting the moss open) the person will remain in a coma, and the moss will remain attached to them and will keep growing until the process is complete, you cannot be saved from being a Bryophite once the cocoon is formed. If shown a silhouette of before and after being Replaced, there would not be a difference. Bryophite bodies are exact copies with plant material. The moss is sensitive to changes in color though, so for example, a Kharajyr Bryophite will have the same markings, but the coloration would be off, and its fur would be of a given plant material. Everything is changed, down to bodily fluids too. Bryophite blood is a particularly runny sap. It carries nutrients around its body. Saliva is like the liquid found in a pitcher plant. Byrophites breath Carbon-Dioxide (CO2), not Oxygen (O2). Anything that would be fatal to a normal body is also fatal to a Bryophite. During the process of Replacing, the moss ignores non-living objects like clothes or weapons. Bryophite can NOT control their body to grow or change at will.(e.g. a Bryophite can not grow his arm to reach or shoot roots from his hand) Living moss is one of the only plants not able to be controlled by any form of magic. (e.g. a sorcerer can NOT manipulate a Bryophite’s body or control it) Bryophites have a natural liking of sugar water. Bryophites also usually have natural liking to plants. It is rare to find a lumberjack Bryophite, yet not unheard of (see Weakness 6). During the Replacement, the living moss can’t replicate some parts of the brain as well as other sections of the body. While not stupid or even simple minded, Bryophites are not geniuses. This results in most Bryophite having a hard time becoming a scholar, enchanter or alchemist unless it was already learned before hand (see Weakness 6).

Strengths

• Because their bodies are made out of plants, they can regenerate 1.5 times faster than normal humans and can regrow whole body parts that are as strong as the ones that they lost. That is, providing that they don’t bleed to death initially.
• Plant bodies don’t die from age. However, if the life force of the person runs out, they will die. This means that Bryophites usually will live up to the maximum life expectancy of their former race.
• In events of damage to the body, the living moss will sometimes emit small doses of the same sleeping powder that it used during the Replace stage. This results in two things: relief from pain and a soothing aura around them (which might help if they were angry).
• They don’t get sunburnt.

Weaknesses

• Fire, as they are made of plants.
• They are generally outcasted or make people feel uncomfortable because they are viewed as being different.
• Because they are made out of plants, they are generally weaker than their former race.
• They don’t need sunlight to survive. However, sunlight gives them comfort. At two days without proper sunlight, they will feel mild discomfort, three and they feel slightly dizzy, day four without sunlight results in extreme dizziness, day five becomes nausea (RPly, not through any plug-in status effect), day six brings shakiness, and finally the seventh day without sunlight, giving them all of the above as well as hallucinations. All this slowly goes away, though, when sunlight is reintroduced, and within an hour they are back to normal. Lack of sunlight has been used, unfortunately and sadly, as a torture device against Bryophites.
• They will freeze to death faster than humans because their bodies are more susceptible to cold.
• Bryophites aren't very smart.
  • Unless they were previously one before the Replacement, Bryophites aren’t scholars, enchanters, alchemists, or lumberjacks.
    • Bryophites can learn most Deity magic, it's just difficult for them to learn things which take large amounts of understanding, or large amounts of new knowledge. Bryophites do have the capacity to learn dark magics like necromancy, however it's not very smart to do. Being a creature made the way they are, the practice of dark magics like that would simply cause them to be sickened, and die. Evocation magics, which already in the long run have negative effects on normal beings, are more harmful towards Bryophites, as their magical defenses are lower than other creatures.

What Does One Look Like?

Description A Bryophite looks like it formerly did in shape, but everything is replaced with plant material. This term is vague, because a huge variety of plants have been found in use. Some Bryophites have been found with eyelashes of venus fly traps, others with roots for hair. Only thing that has never been seen is tree bark (i.e. don’t use tree bark).

Reality: Some people have been known to go insane. The fact that their body has changed to a plant is too much for them to handle mentally. One Elf Bryophite has run off into the woods and lived alone. It is important to note that this insanity has no direct connection to the change in their bodies; the thought of being different for the rest of their lives is what drives them mad.

Some Bryophites hav hair of bio-luminescent plant material. As you can see, the possibilities are endless.

Bryophite Requirements

Bryophite's are no longer playable, unless you've already had a character.

You must have an existing character.

You must read the Lore.

You must roleplay the Replacement.

You must make and change your skin according to the Lore (after roleplaying).

You must add that your character is a Bryophite in their bio (/persona add bio).

You have one week to decide you don't like playing a Bryophite to change back, or it is a permanent change to your character. ]