Bracken life cycle!!!!! These are all hcs obviously for fun. my source is i made it all up
They start as tini itsy bitsy little turnips.
They begin developing as tiny plants, with their roots slowly turning into their body, with only their leaves visible above ground. Once the body is fully formed under the soil, the baby bracken will dig its way out and emerge vaguely the size of a rat.
They will spend their time trying to hide under fallen leaves, in rock crevices or any place that may seem dark and damp. They don't have a good grasp on their environment past the need to feel hidden. Brackens are obligate carnivores from stage one and even as little babies they must find bugs or smaller rodents to hunt and eat. The first few meals are the hardest and what ends many baby brackens' lives
In addition, in this stage they are mostly the ones hunted. Every season of new brackens, there are many, and most of them get confused for prey by other carnivores. Truly their biggest advantage is their numbers at this stage.
They are still too young to be able to rattle or to stand on their back legs to intimidate, but they will try regardless if running isn't an option (or are simply too spicy by personality).
They offer no food as even babies turn to dirt once killed.
The few that manage to hide away and get their first few solid meals grow to be teens and they grow fast!!
What marks this stage is the baby managing to get on its two back legs. Once on its hooves, the teen will stay on them 80% of the time, becoming more and more humanoid in its shape and even ways of walking and keeping its body upright.
This is more true for brackens which come from moons that got colonized. As they ventured into facilities and living quarters for hiding, a bracken that in the middle of the night would be confused for an odd human running by and not a monster, would be one that stays alive!
At this stage they grow extremely fast, so much so they don't quite understand their own size. This is why their teen stage is their "wandering" stage. They must find a big hideout, often a cave or abandoned buildings, to hide and hunt in as sneaking under rocks and leaves no longer works out.
Their growth becomes very rapid which leaves them a little awkward in interacting with their environment
At this point they start developing their rattling leaves and are capable of producing noise, along with their quickly growing size, they start being a bit more successful in intimidating encounters they want to get out of.
At this stage their food requirement grows with them! Despite this, even if teen brackens are the ones most often confusedly stumbling through your house, basement or in an alley way at night in the streets, teen brackens are for the most part still harmless to humans.
They might still overestimate their strength and attempt a hunt on a human, but they are almost never strong enough or experienced enough to kill someone. Unpleasant to be grabbed by one, but easy to fight off if you are an adult.
The teen will eventually find and set itself a hunting territory where it will grow into an adult!
These are the brackens as we know them in-game!!
They get quite a bit taller, but what's noticable is that they "fill in" and become heavier and stronger. They are still relatively frail as a creature, but their sturdy hands and hooves aren't a joke either. The reason for this is their flexibility. If their skin was too hard, they wouldn’t be able to bend it in the narrow tunnels they like to hide in when not active.
They also become very top heavy and walking on their hooves begins being uncomfortable. Adults mostly sneak and crawl on all fours and stand up specifically to intimidate.
Moreover they become very experienced and clever hunters. Like horrifically smart. And sadly at this point humans are on their menu.
Experienced brackens, which live on moons where company workers go, will often even leave garbage employees might want, in order to bait in a kill.
All brackens at any age are EXTREMELY territorial and do not tolerate each other. Brackens will readily kill any babies of their own kind to ensure they have less competition for food. You will never see two brackens share hunting grounds.
In spite of this, two adults rarely ever engage each other physically and the conflict is usually ended with them sizing each other up and one leaving.
Adults are rare and stay in one spot where they will hunt until they grow old, without ever wandering out of their safe hunting grounds.
After a while brackens will grow old and the leaves atop their backs will stop growing and changing until they all fall and are slowly replaced with many small flowers.
They grow more fatigued and mellow. Without their leaves they are incapable of digesting food, eating or intimidation.
They lose their competitive nature and become completely harmless to others of their kind, big or small.
A blossoming bracken is a completely safe bracken. For the first and only time in their lives, all these brackens care about is finding others of their kind.
Usually their instinct will lead them to all gather at the same spot, assumed to be where they first dug their way out of the ground.
There they will huddle as close to each other as they can. Tens and even hundreds of brackens will form a carpet of blooming flowers, laying down together peacefully as their bodies turn to the soil the flowers need to grow and develop into new brackens.
It is the sighting of dying brackens that earned them the name "flowermen" despite their most common life stages lacking any flowers.
AND THAT'S IT!! If you read this far thank you so much for listening to me yap about brackens they are one of my all time FAVORITE if not FAVORITE alien concept and species.
I think they are fully conscious and intelligent beings with their own unique way of understanding, engaging and living in the world and I'm so invested in them.
@havingawizardproblem thank you for being an answer to the question of who asked,,, i really appreciate it.
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