Message #1042358

[Le maître du jeu(Eretas)]

Ecology

Triaxus’s  unique  environment  has  given  rise  to  two distinct  ecosystems.  While  the  physiology  of  a  few creatures,  including  the  Triaxians,  shifts  and  adapts  to the  changing  environment,  most  plants  and  animals are  ascendant  during  only  one  season,  going  dormant or dying back to a tiny minimum population during the other. Such survival methods vary wildly. Some organisms bury eggs or seeds deep in the soil that are programmed not  to  hatch  or  sprout  until  the  favorable  season  has returned,  while  sufficiently  long-lived  creatures  might hide  and  hibernate.  Some  winter-adapted  creatures  like the  fire-horned  acelope  retreat  to  snowy  mountaintops and polar regions during the summer, while the last of the sun-loving karbalands mate and then worm their way into stony niches to die, leaving their gestating young to gnaw their way out of the corpses over the course of decades.
At the moment, the grassy prairies and deep jungles of summer are only a distant memory on Triaxus, as are its summer  residents—the  great  silver  hunting  cats,  leech-bats,  stilt-runners,  porabees,  echo  moles,  and  so  on.  In their place are the hard-edged predators of winter—giant furred  insects  whose  chittering  mandibles  can  tear  a person in half, terrifying frost worms, and the snowbirds whose beaks can punch through plate armor. Some land-based  herbivores  manage  to  subsist  on  the  snowmoss, pale  fungi,  and  hardy  icefruit  trees  that  grow  along  the glaciers and frost-choked fields and taiga, yet in the winter the great lakes and seas are a far better source of food, as aquatic life proceeds with only minimal changes beneath the bergs and ice sheets. Those Winterborn Triaxians who don’t  rely  on  ice-fishing,  whaling,  sharking,  and  other coastal pursuits often raise herd animals like the stringy, goatlike shabals for their blood and milk, working hard to protect them from the moonflowers, stormghosts, ice-shelled  gammenores,  and  psychically  gabbling  moyeyes who would happily take such easy prey. Icy forests make up a large part of the winter landscape, and  Triaxus’s  trees  have  various  ways  of  coping  with  the extreme winters. Some, such as the great conifers, simply shrug  it  off  and  change  hardly  at  all.  Others  lose  their leaves and go dormant, sometimes actively expanding their capillaries and allowing their sap to freeze solid, turning themselves into frozen sculptures that thaw in the summer. Those that don’t run the risk of exploding as their sap freezes inside  the  wood—the  smooth-boled  burst  tree  actually does so intentionally, filling every branch with sap as the temperature  cools  and  using  the  resulting  explosions  to spread its seeds, and turning its groves into shrapnel-filled deathtraps. Still other trees have even stranger variations, such as long-rooted dapoya, which lifts itself above snows and  f loods  like  a  mangrove,  and  the  gora,  whose  thin
summer trunk is wrapped in great scales of flexible fibrous bark, used by locals for everything from making twine and baskets to shingling houses and crafting armor.
One  of  the  most  common  domesticated  animals  in the Skyfire Mandate and other portions of the northern continents  is  the  wolliped.  This  creature  is  shaped somewhat  like  an  eight-legged  alpaca  with  two  large, downward-curving tusks. Its copious fur keeps it warm in the winter and sheds to a length of just a few inches in the summer, with the discarded wool either felted or spun and woven to make most of the cloth in the region. In addition to its utility in textile production, the docile wolliped is also used as both beast of burden and steed, with ground-based cavalry often riding armored wollipeds into battle. Though wolliped tusks are normally used to break through ice or churn tough ground, the creatures also employ them for  self-defense  and  mating  displays—a  battle-trained wolliped can inflict horrific damage on the battlefield.