Zuzra Thick Ominous Woods

Geography

Beyond the city of Giurtoz, lie the Zuzra Woods. These woods have been associated with highly mysterious events and its absurd entropy. The woods span over the entirety of the mountain, having a gentle slope and fairly dense trees distributed in the area. The soil of this area remains moderately course and loamy. It is covered by a layer of dead plants, trees, decaying matter, parts of wood, leaves, twigs, etc. It has excellent fertility and gives rise to a wide variety of plants and trees. The mountain is divided by the River Yozo running amidst it. It does not flow from the top but rather sideways through in a flat area of the mountain, made by the conditioning of rocks in that part. It is a violent river with its depth yet unknown. The areas flushed by this river give rise to several plants beneficial to use if used in the correct way. Otherwise they can be poisonous. Despite its violent nature, the river can sustain aquatic life. The behavior of such life however, is highly unpredictable and violent. The trees of these woods span to several hundreds of meters long and branched throughout, although not holding many leaves. The area holds a very diverse ecological system and sustains several food webs and cycles. The area is moderately temperate, supporting many life forms. But the life in this area has a unique, even odd behavior at times. This is due to the highly amplified magnetic fields in this specific area. The highly intensified and concentrated magnetic field lines can disrupt electric signals and cause different behavioral anomalies in animals. The bioelectricity in the organisms of the area is no exception to this effect. This effect can cause mild stupor, random mutations, excessive and uncontrolled cell growth, ferocity, violence, etc. in animals and plants. The Kin'toni residing in the city of Guirtoz are affected by this too. In them, it can cause hallucinations, paranoia, sense of dread, fear, and several other such things. Not all the anomalies can be reported as there are too many of them. The constant sense of dread and tension caused by the field gives the woods a very ominous aura. The Kin'toni of the area avoid the woods at the night as the darkness often worsens the effect due to mental alertness added with the magnetic field effect of the area. The magnetic field effect gradually increases with exposure. The Kin'toni manage to harvest materials despite this effect as in the initial phases of exposure the effects are negligible. The peak of this mountain consists of a flat top followed by a very sudden drop of approximately 500 feet directly into unknown regions of a forest that remain in darkness for most of the time. The plateau's soil is highly infertile in contrast to the rest of the landscape due to the a mildly acidic rain in the areas that are not flushed by the river. The other parts do not retain the acidity and the river helps clean out a lot of this acid to make sure the plant life remains unaffected.

Plants

The flora of Zuzra woods is has a high species density per unit area. The random mutations in the plants often makes it difficult to differentiate smaller plants from each other. Such mutations also damage the genetic pool entirely and can raise the competition amongst the plants. This is not good for the wellbeing of individuals or populations of a singular species but keeps in control the growth of other species and overexploitation of resources for a population burst.

Ileru Ileru are tall bushes found near the longer trees up the slope. Further up the hill their population exponentially increases. They reproduce by the means of spores and release them by releasing a burst of particles in the air via small cavities in their stem. This burst is not noticeable but enough to meet their needs. They have a very thick and branched body with numerous leaves and deep roots. For nutrition they usually rely on the soil and rainwater. But under unfavorable circumstances, they resort to parasitism, where they spread their roots to other plants and try to bind their own roots to their body in order to absorb nutrition from them. This is an evolutionary feature that occurred due to prolonged starvation and constant cycles of mutation. They use parasitism also when they are too close to another plant or sometimes completely randomly too, despite having enough nutrition. In the case of unnecessary parasitism, they start forming tumors and cell growths all over the body to compensate for the incoming energy. These cell aggregates eventually kill the plant and fail to become new plants themselves, which serves as a consequence of their very own evolution.

Uadi Uadi is a species of enormous trees with heights reaching up to 80 meters tall and very thick barks which can house several other animals. Their trunks provide them with a very high amount of mechanical support despite being partially hollow. Their wood is utilized for construction too. They are one of the most stable species in the woods, as they did not need to adapt to any drastic changes or extinction events. They do not need a massive amount of food for their daily requirement and hence just use the minerals from the soil. Their roots are spread very deep in the soil. Their source of water is the underground water reserves caused by the rain due to the depth of their roots. They reproduce by the use of fruiting bodies that they form in the base of their trunks. These fruiting bodies disperse thousands of tiny seeds in the air that travel to other locations and grow into new trees. Their growth takes several decades. During the initial phases of their life, they can reside to parasitic mode of nutrition as they require a lot of material for growth but in later phases, they only need nutrition for the formation of fruiting bodies. Their thick trunk is made of dead tissue that provides them support and does not require nutrition.

Ivese Ivese is a type of tall grass that is found near the bank of the river. They have highly unstable genetic material and hence keep changing their morphology and anatomy to the point their origins become uncertain. Their reproduction is of various types and hence they manage to spread anywhere. They can reproduce vegetatively, asexually, sexually, via spores, and many more other miscellaneous methods. They adapt to any change in the environment in 3-4 generations, making their mutation highly unstable and uncontrollable. This also causes unnecessary changes in specific individuals and affects the population itself. They have almost all forms of nutrition at their hand, be it Autotrophic nutrition, from the ground, saprophitic mode of nutrition where they rely on dead and decaying matter or parasitism. They do not face any competition but their population remains under check by their own instability as it can and does cause death within individuals.