[ Water ] [ Mapping Infinity | Pockets | Bestiary | Flora ]
The Flora of Water
It’s hard for me to talk about the flora of the Bottomless Deep. The thing is—most of it is microscopic plankton. I’ve no doubt these tiny critters are of great importance and variety, but your average planewalker wouldn’t get much use out of them. However, I can readily talk about flora and fauna that can be interesting for someone trying to survive in the Big Tank.
Amber Barnacle
Useful for some, but annoying for others, amber barnacles can grow almost anywhere—from icebergs to boats to particularly large fish. They’re notable for their defensive ability to fire bolts of electricity when disturbed. For most creatures this is a huge annoyance, but some artificers look upon this ability with great interest—after all, it can provide easy access to electrical energy—at least in the Plane of Water. The barnacles are also edible (although the tongue-tingling flavour is something of an acquired taste), and their stems produce an adhesive material that can be harvested for waterproof glue.
Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p50
Blooping Carpet
Once in a while, battlers prowling around somewhere up country in the Sea of Ice describe mind-shattering sounds that resemble many different things, but most of all—roars and wails of some enormous creatures far exceeding even krakentuas and leviathan worms. Those rock-hoppers who’s got something in their brain-pots know that eighty out of a hundred such sounds is merely colliding icebergs and cracking ice flows. One case in a hundred might be an actual megacreature. What about the others? Well, that would be the blooping carpet. This black slime mold spreads around the floating fragments of ice or rock, where it can slowly grow and feed. The mold feeds on anything it can catch—mostly tiny bits of detritus and small fish, but a large enough patch might even snatch a human. Blooping carpet can change its shape, so when it senses anything approaching, it extends a grappling pseudopod. However, this isn’t the interesting part about it. Blooping carpets can also protect themselves by unleashing a powerful blast of sound that can shatter icebergs and scares away potential predators (it even injures the weaker ones). It’s these surreal blasts that are what puts the jitters in green planewalkers. In a weird twist, it appears that blooping carpets don’t have a single unique sound—rather, they mimic and distort sounds they sense around them. Some folks have heard the carpets pronouncing whole entire names or words. Some graybeards believe that they evolved this way to not let predators get too accustomed to their sound. Others, of more paranoid kind, believe that some race from the Para-Elemental Ice has bred those slime molds to spy on the Bottomless Deep’s inhabitants.
Brain-eating Amoeba
There are quite a few parasites and diseases in the Superocean, but most of them only pose a threat for a dill who ingests polluted water. Brain-eating amoeba is an exception to this rule. It attacks cutters who breathe water through their noses—that is, outsiders, who use the water breathing spell. Most aquatic creatures are immune to this infection—indeed, it seems that amoeba infections are more accidental than anything, and these parasites can survive without a host by feeding on bacteria just fine. When an infection occurs though, it’s because the amoeba has latched onto the nerves in the nasal cavity, makes its way towards the brain and—there’s no nice way to put this—starts devouring it, while quickly multiplying. This causes horrible seizures, loss of vision, paralysis, wracking pain and fever and ultimately death. Without treatment, this disease is almost always fatal. Mundane medicine also doesn’t help, but high-level magical solutions can destroy amoebae in the brain. However, a healer must be quick, unless damage dealt by amoeba will become permanent, leaving the patient blind, paralysed or comatose.
Coral—Brine, Brain, Death, and Giant
Corals and other reef-building organisms are foundational in the ecological net of the Plane of Water. They’ll form their calciferous homes on any surface they find suitable and create gargantuan reefs that are twisted into strange shapes due to the absence of gravity. Reefs are prevalent in the Bay of Light, where various races hollow them out to make homes. A lot of such reefs are claimed by ruvoka tribes, who dedicate themselves to protecting these slow-growing beauties. Corals are very varied, ranging from unremarkable (though nonetheless beautiful) to quite strange. For example, the brine coral found in the Darkened Depths is a black, spiky growth that produces acid when disturbed. Death corals protect themselves with paralyzing stings. Brain corals have strangely advanced psionic abilities. Especially dangerous are giant corals, that aren’t actually corals at all, but rather huge tubeworms that form calcareous tubes resembling surrounding coral beds. They feed on any creature they can catch, including humanoids. Giant “corals” ambush their prey and kill it with one bite of their rock-grinding teeth.
Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p50 (brine coral); Monstrous Compendium, 1997 Annual, Volume 4 [2e] (brain coral); LNA2 Nehwon [2e] (death and giant corals)
Entangleweed
One of the most common plants in the plane, the entangleweed is an annoyance for most swimmers. Patches of this green seaweed-like algae are easy to miss in murkier waters, and are just as easy to get tangled up in. Some say entangleweed can actually reflexively constrict objects—it evolved this ability to hold onto floating objects and not get flung about by the currents. Evidently, evolution didn’t achieve this particular goal, since damn things constantly get in my way when I’m swimming. Chant goes that large patches can even strangle an unfortunate swimmer. Not to mention the damage they can deal to settlements or ships. Many herbivorous fish feed on entangle weeds, but they aren’t nutritious for humanoids.
Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p50
Forger’s Delight
Aquatic dwarves gave this name to the strange sedentary animal from the order of ascidians (though others give it a much more embarrassing nickname—orange sea squirt). It looks like a large orange sack of flesh with two openings. It differs from normal ascidians only by its size—largest delights can grow up to ten feet in height (which makes them theoretically able to trap humanoids inside their gullets, although this is rarely a danger). But why would nuggetties hold some sea squirts in such high regard? Well, that’s easy—these ascidians naturally accumulate vanadium. This rare and valuable metal is valued by both metallurgists and alchemists. Enterprising aquatic dwarves farm forger’s delights and then burn them to harvest vanadium from the ashes.
Nahre Lotus
This plant is stinking obscure, and while it does grow on the Plane of Water, it’s not easy to recognise it here, so I’ll be brief. Nahre lotus roots grow in Elemental Water, but their flowers and leaves extend into the Prime Material Plane. Once there, the lotus channels water from the Big Tank to form a pool around itself, making the delicate plant able to survive even in most inhospitable places. No one knows how these plants are pollinated or where they deposit their seeds. However, one can occasionally stumble upon long networks of lotus roots that dig into pockets of Ooze. These roots have edible tubers, which are considered a delicacy by many cultures.
Source: Dragon Magazine #357 p53
Red Tide Algae
One of the most devastating and insidious of all planar natural disasters would be the red tide. It is caused by the crimson-coloured algae growing out of control. These algae produce potent toxins to deter their competitors. Normally this toxin isn’t concentrated enough to cause any harm to human-sized beings, but if the water comes to be polluted by something highly nutritious—say paraelemental Ooze—then algae suddenly bloom en masse and colour the streams red. Such waters carry deadly concentration of toxins. Not only that, red algae toxin persists in the flesh of fish who have contact with it, if it hasn’t been neutralised by boiling or freezing. Upon consumption, red tide toxin causes short-term memory loss, seizures, brain damage and possibly death. Marine animals are also known to become irritable and chaotic, while poisoned by the red tide, so even those immune to poison should be wary of the natives. The poison only has an effect if digested or inhaled—if you use a no breath spell or some kind of breathing apparatus, you’re mostly safe, although it is still irritating for the eyes.
Source: The Inner Planes [2e] p53 (toxin’s effects are homebrew)
Rosy Kelp
There are many species of kelp down there in the Bottomless Deep. A lot of them are edible and some are cultivated by merfolk and sea elves. Rosy kelp is not one of those delicious plants however, in fact it is quite bland when it comes to taste, and very mildly toxic. But recently students of the Alchemy College in the City of Glass have discovered an unusual quality of this species. Consuming the extract of rosy kelp in large enough quantities makes a sod better at enduring radiation and makes the lethal dose of this horrible energy higher. Of course, rosy kelp extract is slightly toxic and doesn’t guarantee safety from radiation sickness, but it does seem to help nonetheless. One of my pals lent me this drop of knowledge—agents of Sunnis have visited our Bubble in hopes of combining rosy kelp with the Sairazul Blue potion and creating a perfect counter to radioactive horrors of Ogremoch.
Source: based on a brief mention in the Inner Planes [2e] pg75
Shiver Sludge
The shiver sludge is an ooze, likely related to rime sludge and snowflake ooze. However, it is even less intelligent than those oozes manage to be, and does nothing but swim towards anything warm and enveloping it. Then, it drains warmth from its prey, freezing it solid and very slowly digesting what’s left. Shiver sludges are big, even giant, but barely noticeable due to being almost transparent. They don’t like water being too cold or too warm, so these pests only appear in some areas.
Source: Dragon Magazine #347 p52
Spiky Sponge
Sponges of all kinds and uses grow in the Bottomless Deep, and spiky sponge is one of the most recognizable of them. These white elegant animals thrive in less than hospitable places such as pockets of Shadow. Spiky sponges have a carcass built from glass, and many canny battlers collect and burn them to quickly collect many improvised caltrops, and some among glassfolk use sponges as raw material in the glass-blowing business. But for merfolk and tritons spiky sponge instead serves as a decorative “plant”. They are famous among us for their lovely quirk—tiny shrimps live in them as symbiotic partners. Only one mated pair claims a single sponge in their adolescence, and as they grow alongside the sponge, they become too large to ever leave it. Thus, a sponge with two shrimps inside became a symbol of eternal love and partnership among nature-loving merfolk.
Tube Worm
Pockets of Smoke and Magma appear to be some of the worst places to make home in the entire Plane of Water. However, the life-giving powers of Water can make even these hospitable for certain creatures. Chief among them are the tube worms. These long, narrow animals can feed on chemicals like sulfur which are abundant in these hot waters. When a tube worm grows, it produces a tube-like shell of calcite and chitin. Slowly but surely colonies of tube worms envelope the elemental pocket, and even when it fizzles out, their shells remain as a carcass for other animals to colonise. I’ve also heard that live tube worms are highly valued by alchemists, but transporting one without harming it is quite a puzzle.
Whirlpool Flower
The large sedentary animal, also known as the giant horseshoe worm, does look like a beautiful flower with many colourful petals, but these petals are in fact sticky tentacles. When some careless fish—or a humanoid—touches one of these pseudopods, it sticks, and the worm quickly retracts it. This creates a strong whirlpool that pulls every potential nearby prey into the creature’s mouth. Even though a strong enough cobber can pierce through the worm’s stomach, they then have to find their way through the strong chitinous tube that surrounds its main body. Kuo-toa, locatah, sahuagin and other races collect those tubes and use them to fashion lightweight and durable armour.
Source: Margarita and Jon Winter-Holt. Sourceless entries are homebrew, though based on real species (or in the case of blooping carpet, on urban legends of Bloop and Black carpet)