Notes for Zohar III, a planet I'm designing in full for shits and giggles. Feel free to ignore, I'm using this place as a backup since this is where the thread is/was.



OVERVIEW

Zohar III is infamous for addictive biology. The entire planet has a high water vapor level, and creatures communicate at least as much through scent and pheromone as they do sight and hearing. Chemical weapons and defenses stand more prevalent than claws and fangs, already clumsy and prone to overheat thanks to the high gravity coefficient and choking humidity. The packed oxygen, nitrogen, and water make for wildly dominant plants that the animals creep between and over, scraping out a living as the vast arboreal entities battle for sunlight and survival. A uniquely crystalline atmosphere, clear quartz stripped of color and borne aloft by raging winds, refract the tidal sunlight and spread it over the planet evenly, so that there are no day or night, only a sort of sullen evening. These clear sandstorms rage high overhead the plant layer, making local flight impossible and colonization, as a result, impractical. Life has to exist at the terrestrial level here, and without airlift or supplies, it looks unlikely. The local ecosystem is voracious and adaptive.



SPOTLIGHT: THE MANGROVES

The life pod makes it first to the mangroves, an ecosystem based in a saltwater delta. An aquifer has cracked the surface nearby, but heavy salt veins underground have rendered the water undrinkable. The ecosystem is instead based on the mangrove titans, enormous trees that rise on complex root systems from the saltwater below. They filter the salt out, extruding it in thick coats from their roots, and drawing purified water up through their trunks to the canopies high overhead, safe from most grazing herbivores. Soil cover is nonexistent and the footing is limited to either roots or wading through the shallows below, though shallow is a relative term - the water level varies from three to four feet at the edge of the mangrove to about fifteen closer to the aquifer.

As a result, terrestrial fauna is light on its feet and never rises that far in size; they have to be able to bound from one mangrove to the next, looking for the precious water sealed under the tough bark. The mangroves defend themselves with latex veins that can gum up mouths or claws, and natural wellsprings that form deep in the heart chambers, encouraging the wildlife to fight over freely available water rather than hacking through the tough bark.

The competition over these natural spigots is unbelievably intense; closer to the water level, in between thick root systems, oversized and vicious ant colonies reign supreme in an eternal war against each other. They evolve acidic sprays, chemical defenses, and false pheromone trails to lead each other to their doom, while colorful gather near the underside of the roots and try to knock prey loose, each dog-sized insect a hefty source of protein. Some leap and crash into the underbrush with armored skulls and powerful fins to propel them upwards, battering aside their predators with equal verve. Others have evolved pressurized gills that blast spurts of water up above, knocking ants from their perches with unbelievably accurate sprays of water. These colonies thus form the basis for an entire ecosystem of predatory fish in the waters below, feeding on the insects and each other.

Higher up, as the roots become less tangled and the trunks solidifies into cavernous columns, the competition includes more than just ants. Tiger beetles, rapidly moving predators that skirr across the mangroves, form nests in crevices, each darting faster than the eye can keep up and consuming ant scouts and queens in blurring strikes, establishing a skirmish line against the encroaching colonies. Thickly furred climbing mammals, their flexible coats impervious to the clutching mandibles of their insect neighbors, wade through the competition with disdain, picking up choice specimens and cracking their exoskeletons with curved claws, repelling others with foul pheromone stenches that confuse the nose.

Without exception, though, all these forms of life stay under cover, out of the sunlight. For up above in the open air, at the canopies staring down, the aviants reign supreme over this entire ecosystem. Enormous birds with specially adapted wings, their phalanges strengthened and dense enough that they can only glide, not properly fly - but that's enough to grant them a stooping strike from overhead branches that can crack open any defenses the planet can offer, crystalline beaks shattering chitin and piercing fur alike.

Aviants stand about five feet tall and their wings have specially-designed thrusting spikes with curled hooks, suitable for climbing up tough bark, puncturing it, or pinning down prey for consumption as needed. As said, they are no longer true fliers, but on the hot thermals rising from open water in the early afternoons. aviants tend to glide further inland in search of large prey, and return in the evening on land breezes as the earth cools faster than the water, pushing thermal columns back over the aquifer.

In the heat of noon, then, local life is a little more free to search for food or a mate, but when the sky turns orange the upper trees are barren and empty, as the aviants soar overhead in croaking flocks from one thick trunk to another.

Aside from the mangrove titans, local flora is limited due to the consistent presence of salt; any plant that survives in this area is a halophyte out of necessity, since they either grow in saltwater or must contend with the salt extrusion the mangrove titans use to both filter it out of their systems and defend against parasites and climbing vines. There are pockets of fungal flowers that grow on leaf litter midway up the titans, which draw water vapor from the air itself and reproduce on spores flung into the daily breezes. Some vines have also evolved to tolerate the salt deposits of the mangroves, working their dendrites in under the bark to suckle on water veins, where the latex doesn't kill them instead.

The vast majority of flora, instead, have turned to predation as a source of protein and energy. Rampant entomological competition serves as a feast for anything capable of entrapping them, so pheromone-filled pitchers, bladderworts, and sundews are omnipresent on the lower levels, looking to lure curious scouts or workers to their doom. Other flytraps and catapult traps leave out succulent, edible stamen or fruit equivalents, trapping the offerings with tendrils that snap closed once touched that blast soporific vapors when disturbed. Still others are quietly toxic mosses that creep in and poison the titanwells, feasting on the bodies that lay about as mute warning.

Life in the mangroves is cheap, and all too easily snatched.



SPOTLIGHT: THE OYSTER SHALLOWS

The root systems surrounding the mangrove titans is plastered with oyster beds that filter nutrients from the ecosystems above and from the aquifer itself, creating the bedrock for its own community. Oyster beds provide safe breeding and feeding grounds for hundreds of species of fish that live throughout the tremendous aquifer, for hiding places are abundant in the enormous and emptied oysters and the calcified spat attached to them. Wider water channels wind their way through these beds, creating a labyrinthine paradise underneath the mangroves.

The oyster shallows are a dim existence - sunlight filters only fitfully through the thick, tangled root systems the titans weave underneath themselves, illuminating the living carpet of ants that work their way through the roots above. Dozens of species of fish have evolved ways to knock these ants off into the water below, where the jorah, a local family of fish that travel in aggressive schools through the main channels. Anything that falls into the water is swiftly tugged into the oyster beds and shredded by jorah, with everything else gleefully picking away from the sides - jorah, perhaps intentionally, don't evolve large enough jaws to predate on other fish in an effective manner, but are fantastic at taking tough chunks of chitin out of exoskeletons. They thus live in large, interchangeable schools with archerfish, hammerheads, and the other varieties of fish that specialize in knocking loose ants for the school.

These schools keep to the centers of the channels as best they can - they're prime food for the amphibious ratrawls, a quadrupedal amphibian that dominates most of the oyster beds. They use a chemical compound in their mouths to form quickly-hardening spit, and use that spittle to create shallow-water beds and dens atop the highest oyster banks. From these vantage points they fish in the channels, trying to pick out from the jorah schools with rapid dives. Ratrawls live in small family packs and remain distinct for their ululating croaks that can be heard anywhere in the mangroves during the cool hours of morning and evening, a hefty, deep-chested call.

Ratrawl pads are their own little centers of life - various crabs, starfish, and other microbiology life scratch out lives in the side and the undercarriage of their spittle-spun docks. The amphibians themselves are omnivorous and will eat anything they can get in their mouths with their flexible paws, but are clumsy out of the water and can't dig their own building material out of the way once it sets.

The masters of the oyster beds are huaromin - a nickname in another language that translates to "shore rattler". Indeed, these are tremendous snakes averaging anywhere from a dozen feet to much longer in length, with armored scales and a thick bone-mantled tail that they vibrate against the oyster beds, battering them to pieces to create the steep ravines they swim through. Huaromin channels, rather than the five-to-fifteen foot depth the rest of the oyster beds average, can be as much as thirty to forty feet deep and perhaps ten feet wide, riverlike ravines that cut through the beds and leave channels for the titans to put down new roots into the soil underneath. The great rattlers themselves feed on large prey - ratrawls are a favorite delicacy, when they dive too far into the channels hunting the schools, and rattlers are also infamous for using the vibrations of their tails to knock loose dozens of ants at once, creating a feeding frenzy that they can leisurely pick off jorah from, rather than hunting down the schools when they're on the defensive.

Huaromin themselves are bioluminescent, and the sight of them slowly winding their way through the channels is awe-inspiring - but deceptive. They turn off the display while hunting, and flare it bright on attack, to stun and dazzle their prey.

SPOTLIGHT: SURFACE SHOALS

The surface of the acquifer has less salinity - rainwater and runoff from the nearby jungle collects on the surface and remains there, meaning the lake is stratified into separate levels. The topmost, approximately a hundred feet in depth, is not that much worse than regular saltwater ocean, varying from 15-20% salinity as the constant freshwater addition purifies the top layer. Thus, here shoals of phytoplankton, krill, and brine shrimp rising from the deep to spawn form the basis of a new food chain. The fish here are big, broad swimmers that school to keep diving or swimming aviants from scooping them out of the water easily; they sail through the sun-bright waters and only leave the open waters to lay eggs in the oyster shallows, a journey they make only once at the end of their lives; few make it through the gauntlet of predators there, and fewer young survive, but it's more than would survive if the eggs were left to float in open water, prey for the other fish.

The main predators this close to the surface are garsnaps, fast and agile fish that power through the water at ridiculous speeds. They are explosive hunters that use bursts of speed and an electromagnetic sense to locate their prey, rather than being confused by the visual illusions of school swimming. They're nearly blind when charging, as a protective membrane drops over their eyes at that time; even the aviants don't stay in open water for long, because no matter your size, a garsnap barreling into your side at eighty miles an hour and trying to bore a hole right through with its gnashing teeth is a deeply unpleasant experience, and once it starts gathering momentum the garsnap doesn't care what it hits, so long as it has a pulse.

There's also a breed of enormous euryptid, a kind of arthropod that has adapted to skimming the abundant microscopic life from the top layer of the acquifer. Looking something like an enormous gilled scorpion, these creatures float lazily about the surface, mouth open, filtering their food from the water while their thick shells protect them from virtually any attack. In addition, they're still terrestrial enough to crawl onto the local beaches to lay eggs, safeguarding them from aquatic poachers. Having no natural predators, the sunscorpions, as they're called, keep growing until they starve or parasites hollow them out from the inside; invariably, their shells sink to the bottom, where they contribute to the looming ecological disaster that is the Brinedeep Yeasts.

SPOTLIGHT: THE BRINEDEEP

The bottom of the salt acquifer is a hostile zone - freshwater from rainfall tends to lower the salt saturation at the higher levels, allowing some amount of life to proliferate, but the bottom is hypersaline, bypassing 30% salinity. The only thing that lives this far down, where the salt concentration is so high that it precipitates out in thick piles on the lakebed, are the brine shrimp and the black yeast.

Black yeast is an invasive species, and coupled with a form of invasive cnidaria colloquially referred to as the Grease , it collects in the fallen and abandoned shells of the sunscorpions above. The Grease's mesoglea (the jelly like substance that forms the main mass of jellyfish, anemones, or sea cucumbers) fills in the shell, laced with yeast that feasts off the nutritious dregs of the ecosystems above, feeding the Grease in turn. This chimerous substance fills the shell, and then the mesoglea begins to absorb oxygen, eventually forcing the shell to become buoyant enough to rise to the upper layers.

Grease-infested shells are a menace; they have no real senses worth speaking about except for touch - when something brushes the thick layer of mesoglea covering the outside of the shell, the interior reflexively tightens and propels the shell forward at great speed as the water trapped inside jets out. The yeast then attempts to inhale whatever it might have struck by suctioning water in through the open 'mouth' of the shell, trapping it inside the gelatinous Grease, where the prey is trapped, leeched of moisture, and finally devoured for its nutrients. Grease shells are only active during the day; without sunlight to photosynthesize from, the shell doesn't have enough energy to force itself into motion, and sinks back to the bottom again.

HOSTILE ALERT

SQUALOR, BRINEWYRM OF THE LAKE

Odd things happen, between the corrupting onset of the Grease and the hypersaline depths of the aquifer. Over time, the mesoglea that fills the shell chambers hardens and thickens, salt pushing past the membrane layer. The yeast tightens and grows rigid with time, strands thickening, becoming stronger. Eventually, the interior chamber dissolves into a sort of biotic broth, filled with nutrients that exchange between all of the communal life forms that make this curious system possible. This broth conducts electrical signals, making the entire hive life form more responsive to its needs - and at the extreme end, preserving captured life until the very web of its neural net is etched into the clinging jelly.

That is the story of Dr. Brian Telvas, who originally descended to this planet with a search party in search of a lost prize, a sentient assimilation rig that escaped from captivity and fled in a sealed cargo rig to this planet. He and his expedition encountered disaster at the hands of their quarry, and the lead scientist himself was entombed in an ancient Grease shell, one so old that it had lost the ability to even properly digest its captured prey. Instead, his neural patterns were etched onto the surrounding mesoglea through consecutive electric stimulation and the dissolution of his physical form, and the remnants of his mind eventually came to control the shell.

The process drove him quite mad, of course. The expedition was over eighty years ago.

Over time, Telvas learned to manipulate the Grease and yeast into some semblance of mobility, and unsatisfied with his progress, found and latched another shell to his own with binding strands. The two Greased shells linked and locked together, and the mouldering amniotic soup poured down the sealed channel, forming another lobe of his burgeoning body. It didn't stop there, of course. It added another, and another. This makeshift serpent now stretches for dozens of feet, with interlocked segments of hollowed out shells, all bound by jelly-like interior, ropy strands of Yeast, and the repossessed bones of his prey, now turned to the construction of its new form.

Squalor, as the dying dregs of Telvas's mind refers to itself, is quite mad. While its form is now enormous and it commands more mobility and power than it has in its lifetime, the nature of the biotic broth the creature's sentience resides in means it lacks the ability to create the proper neurotransmitters that mimic sensation; it's been deprived of all sensation but vague indications of pressure for longer than most humans have lived, with only the vague taunts of Telvas's memories to bear the darkness with. Now the chimeric beast rampages across the lake, not quite understanding what it's in search of - but if it ever captured another sentient being, it would most certainly preserve it, the precious dopamine and serotonin the other creature's brain produces like purest heroin to the deprived abomination. Such a creature would be indefinitely detained in one of its hollow shells, preserved and milked of ecstasy until its neurons burnt out at some long-distant point in the future, just to give Squalor the slightest taste of sensation.

Squalor itself is a brute of a beast, a wyrm composed of interlocked shells bound together with hardened jelly, ropes of plant strand, and bone. The 'head', such as it may be called (where Telvas's brain patterns are etched) is the oldest, and each successive shell and lobe of the serpent's body is bound a little less strongly, the mesoglea and yeast that composes its internal structure less hardened; that stated, Squalor has no vital organs or blood to lose, and the shells that compose his form are themselves nearly impenetrable. Attacking the joints would be the best way to bring this beast down, spilling the interior nutrient soup that lets the beast remain mobile.