Dynat Glowshroom Bayou
History
Stone Age: Before 1E 0
Copper Age: 1E 1-1E 2200
Bronze Age: 1E 2200-1E 4400
Iron Age: 2E 0-2E 700
Ancient Age: 2E 700-2E 2200
Middle Ages: 3E 0-3E 2050
Early Modern Age: 3E 2050-3E 2600
Industrial Age: 3E 2600-3E 2700
Machine Age: 3E 2700-3E 2800
Atomic Age: 3E 2800-3E 2850
Space Age: 3E 2850-3E 2875
Information Age: 3E 2875-3E 2900
Genetic Age: 3E 2950-3E 3000
Awakening Age: 3E 3000-3E 3415
Shattering Age: 4E 0-4E 250
The Dynat Glowshroom Bayou’s territories have always been inhabited since times before the Stone Age mainly by wandering tribes that never stayed in this place for too long. In the Shattering Age, though, the Delet Tribal zu’aan took control of it and currently inhabit the area. Unlike many other places of Canlai, the Industrial Age left the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou untouched and didn’t cause its shrinking. Instead, from the Industrial Age on, when means of transport became more efficient, the area became a very important tourist destination and a study site for scholars who above all were interested in glowshrooms. Overall a pacific place, the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou never saw bloodsheds until the great kin’toni raid in 3E 3400 of the Awakening Age, when all the zu’aan living there perished and not a single one survived.
After this notorious event, though, due to the territory not being inhabited by any life form, it slowly recovered and was repopulated by the fauna at the beginning of the Shattering Age and then passed under the control of the Delet Tribal zu’aan in 4E 20. The Dynat Glowshroom Bayou’s importance in the history of Canlai and Taerel in general comes from its various resources both for basic needs such as food and water to power the machines, as well for tourism, scientific studies, and commerce consisting mainly in drugs, clothing and raw materials to trade with other continents. Moreover, the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou has also been an important source of inspiration for many authors who throughout the world’s history created novels, poems, songs and legendariums involving this place as one of the protagonists.
A great example is the series of folk songs from Middle Ages inspired by the misterious wanderers that carried mushroom lamps, clearly referring to the ancient use of the phoor. Many poems by unknown authors mention the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou as one of the main stops throughout the hero’s journey, and many were the works where this place was said to be a hidden home to fairies or deities. From the beginning of Middle Ages up to the end of the Early modern Age (3E 0 – 3E 2600), the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou was the scene of religious ceremonies and host of places of worship. The sacred buildings were kept and preserved for a long time as historical monuments from the Industrial Age to the end of the Awakening Age: after the kin’toni raid most of the monuments were destroyed and only a few traces of them were left.
The most famous ruins of a religious building consist in a white stone altar and a circle of stones surrounding it: it is called Moryr, the White Table. Although the Delet Tribal zu’aan are not religious, whoever visits the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou is still allowed to pray at the Moryr. The scholars identified the white stone used to build the altar as a very refined marble called Dynat Us’tari, a precious material that can be found in the mines surrounding the Bayou’s area.
Geography
The Dynat Glowshroom Bayou is situated in the extreme east of Canlai, between two major rivers being the Bel’rani Green River (187 kilometers) and the Votherthon’s delta. The area is very humid and warm and the Bayou itself is full of swampy water bodies that are very useful to the Delet Tribal zu’aan for their water powered machines. The existence of the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou dates back to Prehistory and studies have proved that since then it enlarged slowly: it is now considered the widest marshy area in the whole Canlai. The Bayou covers a territory of around four hundred square kilometers and since it is devoid of paths it’s very easy to get lost in there: only Delet Tribal zu’aan know the place well enough to guide tourists to the most important attractions.
The tourists’ favourite sites to explore are certainly the swampy lakes where the nys’eldu live and lay their eggs: the biggest one is the Roth Che Lake, a large body of water hosting an enormous number of algae species and nys’eldu egg nests. The waters of the Roth Che Lake are pretty shallow, enough for people to freely walk through the lake and observe the algae and egg nests from a closer perspective. Other swampy lakes can be found in the north-east section of the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou: the most known are the Umdan Pond, Kalmoras Mirror and the Irnysque’s Eye, the latter being an ancient sacred place. The whole Bayou is populated by glowshrooms, but the site that tourists and scholars prefere is a huge glade situated in the south of the territory.
The place is commonly called Glowshroom Sanctuary but only a few know about the ancient name of “Lalos Rynen”. Here, apart from the famous essusk darwor and phoor, many other minor glowshroom types can be found, like fielque and mowiye. The west of the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou is characterized by particularly thick vegetation and tributary streams that tangle up and reach either the Bel’rani Green River or the Votherthon’s waters. This region serves as perhaps the most important communication route for commerce and transport for the Delet Tribal zu’aan. The core of the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou, situated in the middle on the highest point of a rocky section, is undoubtedly the ancient place of worship where the famous White Table, or Moryr, can be observed and also used as a praying spot for religious tourist zu’aan.
Most of the buildings located in the centre of the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou, now ruins after the kin’toni raid occurred, are made with the precious Dynat Us’tari marble: it could be found during ancient times in the mines surrounding the Bayou. However, those mines are now exhausted. The majority of the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou’s territory is plain, with no significant heights: the highest point in fact is the middle, where the ancient religious buildings are located. The area is characterized by a series of mounds that barely reach a height of two hundred meters above the sea level.
Plants
As the name of the place states, the vegetation growing within the territory of the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou consists mainly in glowshrooms, a rare type of mushroom that has evolved to use a glow effect to communicate, reproduce and defend itself from wild animals. Most of the glowshrooms aren’t edible but a few species are used as drugs and pain killers. Aside from these life forms, the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou is also the growing spot of a huge variety of plants and trees that prefere marshy soils such as the ciecen shrubs types. Although glowshrooms are usually not edible, the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou still offers food supplies as there can be found many fruits and berries and the territory is thriving with game.
Essusk darwor: this is perhaps one of the most famous glowshroom types known, along with the phoor (that can be found within the same territory) and the enth’ine (growing in the Elmoey’a Fungal Jungle). Testimonies of the existence and use of the essusk darwor date back to the Stone Age. This glowshroom is also known for being one of the biggest of its species, since some specimes have reached a height of one and a half meters and almost the double in girth. It is, although, exceeded in height by the phoor and by a famous giant mushroom specimen (not a glowshroom) called the gingh, inhabitant of the Ehaido Tropical Fungal Rainforest. Unlike other glowshrooms, the essusk darwor don’t change colours during the day or even through the passing of seasons.
They keep their characteristic hot pink shades throughout the whole year and until they die, losing their glowing effect and become brown.
Phoor: altough being very thin, the phoor is considered the tallest glowshroom species, usually being between three and seven meters tall. A phoor specimen is usually characterized by a green translucent stem and a bell-like cap marked by deep cuts. The only glowing part of this glowshroom is the cap itself, emitting a dim yellow light during the day and a strong blue one during the night. The most famous aspect of the phoor is its way of emitting light intermittently, even when severed for at least two days: since the Delet Tribal zu’aan took control of the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou, it has been declared illegal to pick the phoor, but in ancient times this glowshroom was used as a lamp by the ones who wandered in the Bayou at night.
Skel’achi: this glowshroom is mostly known for its hallucinogenic functions that made it a great bargaining chip throughout the whole world. The skel’achi is exported through all Canlai and even to some regions of the Erea landmass. The skel’achi is generally very small, being about one centimeter tall and of the same girth. It grows on the plants and trees of the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou and can be harvested every autumn. The skel’achi grows in large colonies usually numbering from two hundred to four hundred specimens. At first sight, the skel’achi looks like a little rock due to its greyish-brown cap covered in holes and scales.
Animals
The Dynat Glowshroom Bayou is populated by a wide range of animals, most of which also serve as game for the Delet Tribal zu’aan. The majority of the fauna inhabitating the Bayou is characterized by aquatic insects, some of them being edible too. Moreover, several studies have proved the past existence of many other animal life forms living in the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou now extinct such as the pos, the gar’gar, the skeltortor and many others. These extinct animals have been the protagonists of many legends.
Lyeban: this cold blooded oviparous animal has the rare ability of mimicry and, to a certain extent, shapeshifting to hide itself from predators. The lyeban usually spends the day moving slowly on tree branches and plants, choosing the warmer spots where the sun hits the most. Altough it is not easily spotted, the most careful scholars studying this species have described the lyeban to generally assume the colour and texture of tree trunks and plants. Sometimes though, some specimens choose the glowshrooms as a resting place during the day: in those cases, they can use their ability to imitate the glowing characteristics of the glowshrooms and even become semi transparent.
The lyeban feeds on several insect species inhabitating the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou and both males and females lay eggs during springtime.
Nys’eldu: being an aquatic insect, the nys’eldu preferes the swampy lakes of the Dynat Glowshroom Bayou were it lays its eggs once a month. It is the only animal species that shows to be able to feed on glowshrooms: that’s why it acquired its characteristic glowing effect. The nys’eldu has a pair of wide, semi transparent wings and a tail which tip dimly glows during night time. The nys’eldu’s mating season lasts all year round and it only finishes when the insects reach their seventh year of life, when they are old and close to death. Their constant laying eggs and long life span has made them a weed species: they can only be kept under control by the lyeban, their predators, that inhabit the Bayou area as well.
The males’ tail glows blue, while the females’ is green and their diet consists mostly in microscopic algae living in the swamps.
Ran’polunt: the ran’polunt is a grass eater mammal that typically serves as game for the Delet Tribal zu’aan’s hunters. The Dynat Glowshroom Bayou is full of ran’polunt, but these animals can also be found in tropical forests where the climate is mostly warm and humid. Even though the ran’polunt has a wide pair of wings, it seems like evolution made them useless for flight making them too heavy. The animal is also equipped with more or less long pair of hooked horns that it uses to defend itself from predators. Its fur is generally brown, but some specimens are coloured with rarer shades of black and silvery white. The Delet Tribal zu’aan used the ran’polunt’s skin to create hydrophobic clothes: it was considered a real rarity for zu’aan outside the Delet Tribe to possess such a piece of clothing before it was declared illegal in the rest of the world in 4E 248.
Today, only Delet Tribal zu’aan are allowed to possess ran’polunt skin clothing.