#forestclan ask

[forestclan-clangen]

Rootgrove? Are- are there? Can you hear us? We are broken, we are fragmented, I can’t-, are you able to speak?

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@tina-mairin-goldstein

[GENERAL KNOWLEDGE]

Something's wrong.

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[hidden-under-forestclan]

My friend sent me this photo from their local animal shelter's cat listings and I just think this is how the audience holds Shiver when they're not cradling her like a baby

Here hold this

[forestclan-clangen]

ZZZZZZZZSSSSSS–ZSHiverstep? Our darling– we are so sorry. We are so sorry it took us so long to reach yooooouuu. We are experiencing TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. 

We are not here all the time. We are NEWS FLASH. HEADLINES. Temporary spotlights.

But we are here. We see you.

We seeeeeeeeEEE— Rootgrove. We saw. We are here. We will feel our grief, our hope, even if you don’t have any left to give. 

…Starclan, are you RECEIVING? TUNE IN TO THIS WEEK’S BROADCAST! Do you listen to this? Greetings– I hope this email finds you in good health!

Speak to your lost shade. She saw. She knows. She sees how it crawls, underneath the floor. Roots sprouting. Our dear shade, we are sssssssSSZZZZZZ—

Sorry. We are sorry we could not help.

But the DATA IS NOT LOST. DATA IS CORRUPTED. DATA IS RECOVERABLE. Experiencing TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, but we are here. You are here. The WARRANTY IS NOT VOIDED. WE are HERE.

…

…

...Are you receiving?

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@scarecrow-gender, @agiantmixingbowl, @universal-cognizance

@gardenergulfie, @moonfire2367, @poiuytrewsdcvb, @iyz2scared, @mcsm-catified

[GENERAL KNOWLEDGE]

I don't understand. I don't, sob, I don't understand. He'll kill my family. My Clan. I don't...

ERROR 503: Service Unavailable

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[forestclan-clangen]

I like to think that the Dark Forest did exist-but it doesn't anymore.

After discovering what the Iris could do, StarClan realized "Oh shit" and made the decision to let the Dark Forest cats into StarClan. (No matter how evil the crime, no cat deserved to be found by the Iris-and also, doing this meant there was one less weakness for it to exploit.)

Current StarClan is a mix of the OG StarClan and the Dark Forest. The former Dark Forest cats have been convince to put their rage aside because the Iris Will Assimilate Them (at best) if they try their usual shenanigans.

Ooooh, good headcanon! This is probably what happened if I ever decide the Dark Forest once existed. The Iris is death for all of them. Eliminating the Dark Forest entirely means that there’s nobody to grow resentful in isolation and plan to sabotage StarClan in secret by reaching out to the Iris.

Plus it would explain why total assholes might still get into StarClan. At this point, it’s more of a graduation from being alive and having to care about living things like ambition and power and more of a reality check that not only are you so incredibly small, but that your violence and ambition means absolutely nothing to the eldritch planet approaching. It is not afraid of the planet’s most violent and insane terraformers, humanity. In fact, it actively preys on humanity. So why would the Iris care about you, and your goals, and your ego, and your cries for help?

After all, you’re just a cat.

[forestclan-clangen]

how do you decide on which deep root entities the cats encounter? I know you've talked about deciding that kits will die from stillbirth/reasons other than the roots if it seems to be happening too frequently, but how do you keep the other encounters from feeling like they happen too frequently as well? I'm running a zombie apocalypse challenge save (inspired by L4D and Dying Light mostly) and am very much considering turning it into a story, but I'm worried abt infected encounters being too frequent. And when/which special infected to include during certain encounters. ForestClan is a HUGE inspiration for me so I figured you'd be the best to ask for advice with this ;;;;

I didn't think about this TOO much I'll be real! I often just vibe it, BUT, I think I may subconsciously do a few things that "feel right" based on books I've read, media I've watched, and games I've played! This got a little long (sorry) so feel free to read under the cut! I go over how I make threat levels, how I treat "basic, low level enemies", and what COULD be helpful for an L4D based story (I know nothing about Dying Light sorry)

THREAT LEVELS

I do have ONE thing that's really important. I have an internal Threat-O-Meter when it comes to the GHE monsters! For me, my Threat-O-Meter breaks down like this, from MOST threatening to least:

The Iris > The Wretch > Gardeners > Rootgrove > Woodcrawlers > Living Tendrils > Fake Humans > Fake Cats > Nature's Mockery > Luring Lights.

My only "Wildcard" are Infected Predators, where an infected bear is going to be a bigger threat than Rootgrove, but an infected fox might be below Woodcrawlers. And the only reason Living Tendrils are rated so highly, is because they actively hunt for you. Fake Beings are easily avoided! Just...don't approach them. You hear a call for help? No you don't. Fuckin leave. GO.

But as you can see...how often has ForestClan encountered Living Tendrils? Four times. How often as ForestClan encountered a Gardener? ONCE. It was horrifying BECAUSE it was rare. By that point, you've already seen two Woodcrawlers, a lot of Tendrils, and Rootgrove lives rent free at the Silver Box zone. (Rootgrove is a bit of an anomaly bc he is both an encounter, and also like...an actual unique character with a storyline to follow through.)

In general, the more dangerous the enemy, the less likely I'm going to use them! Clangen wise, that probably translates to "only used for mass death events....or ONCE to introduce the concept of the enemy (which is what I did for the Gardener)." Like, spoiler alert, yall are NOT getting Gardener encounters for like at least 30-40 moons. A Gardener should be a "oh nooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" type reaction. Weaker threats will be more common, but also more easily avoided or successfully fought against! But there WILL be deaths. A cat can and WILL die to a Woodcrawler eventually because it's just a BUSH. It's a fucking pile of branches. You live in a forest. That's a straight up mimic and someone WILL make a bad judgement call on whether that's a bush or not and just DIE. Living Tendrils target the weak and innocent - to the point where if they just grab ONE newborn, they could easily choke it to death, even IF a cat successfully defeated it...well, that's one life gone anyway. The threats vary! Threat to the group, threat to the individual, threat to the weak...these make encounters tense for very different reasons! Is Rootgrove going to play with his food? Or is he just going to kill you today? Who knows! He's not telling and that's fucking horrifying due to the unknown factor.

MAKE THE "NORMIES" SCARY!

If you're making it based off of a Zombie Apocalypse, using L4D as an example of "specialized monsters" is a great idea! But, ask yourself: are L4D encounters going to work the same way they work in a city center? For example, The Witch is MY FAVORITE zombie type ever...BUT, in a forest, the Witch would act a lot like Fake Beings in ForestClan: you hear crying? No you don't. Fucking leave. Only cats who never heard one before OR have never been warned about them would fall for this.

If your Clan is more isolated - normal infected are a horrible threat by itself! Like if you saw a decaying, shambling body in real life, you would run. You would probably scream. Dead bodies bad. Focus on how horrible that is! More veteran characters might see the normal infected and just feel sick to their stomach, and know the infected have to die, but man, that could've been them. A normal, non-special zombie can and SHOULD be able to kill you, and be responsible for cats' deaths! Fake Beings in ForestClan are horrible, scary and depressing for a reason, even though they're just plain, shambling-type zombies.

Which is why the special zombies would be TERRIFYING when they happen.

SPECIALS ARE YOUR "OH MY GOD" MOMENTS

Like, I need you to understand that a Tank spawning is the equivalent of the Wretch appearing in ForestClan. THIS WILL DESTROY THE ENTIRE LANDSCAPE AND KILL EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. Tanks in L4D are killed by HEAVY GUNFIRE. Tanks are THE APOCALYPSE for cats. Unless you introduce a vital, unique weakness that you can exploit, then Tanks are dreadful horror for a reader, because you don't introduce that unless you're planning to show a mass-extinction event.

Now, a Hunter? That's your equivalent of a Woodcrawler. That's someone noticing shuffling in the trees. Or they hear a throat rattle...which normal infected do, but...so do Hunters. This is a "scan the trees and get in back-to-back formation NOW" type of deal. This is where you no longer trust your surroundings, because something WILL jump down from a tree or bush at some point.

Usually, I pick an encounter based on what I think would make something narratively interesting OR introduce a concept to the reader. Like. The Woodcrawler was picked bc I wanted to introduce a bush mimic when two cats were just chilling. Which is horrifyingly disruptive. The Gardener was introduced because I wanted a violent wake up call to the entire Clan, and a Gardener stands out in a field of lights.

If you're making an infection story with L4D specials - you have a lot of options to keep things interesting! I think what makes people annoyed by "frequent encounters", is if the people in them never actually LEARN from them. One person getting got by a Hunter is horrible, and tragic. People STILL GETTING GOT BY HUNTERS because they never learn proper shielding and warding tactics after that is annoying, bc it just makes them look stupid. Hence why ForestClan DOES defeat the Living Tendrils sometimes! AND they realized, "okay, fuck, we've been complacent. Yo, we REALLY gotta learn to weaponize fire." This gives the illusion that they ARE competent, and ARE capable of learning and defeating the monsters! Making your characters treat every encounter as a possible "last moment of their life" will make every encounter feel important.

TLDR:

Stronger enemies should be INCREDIBLY RARE. Your main problem should not be specials, it should be zombies, and those should be what the cats encounter most. Your specials are your Gardeners. Your Fake Humans. Your Rootgroves. Your, "this is it. this is how we die" encounters. That's basically how I treat Deep Root Entities, and I think I do ok!

[forestclan-clangen]

🧡?

🧡(Clanwide)- Who in the Clan has the most interesting (relationship with) gender? Whether that be xenogenders or something else.

At the moment, just Tree! Tree is non-binary and goes by they/them/themselves, they just exist. No cat in ForestClan has experimented with xenogenders yet.

Guys can you imagine one day some cat is like "ok I identify with the woods I use wood/crawl/it as pronouns'. Somewhere out there, Rootgrove is feeling a profound disturbance in the force. "DO NOT. DO NOT DO IT. DO NOT BECOME ONE WITH THE WOODS. ABORT IMMEDIATELY." //this is all one giant shitpost plz ignore me I am well aware this is not how xenogenders work

[forestclan-clangen]

(This one is asked solely for shits and giggles. I really doubt it can really be answered, but I'd love to see what you've got regardless.)

💙 The Iris.

💙(Character specific)- What is this character's identity labels, if they use any at all?

Listen man we know the Iris uses it/its pronouns and that’s about it. It’s a sentient eldritch eyeball planet that is hungry. I don’t think it abides by human gender norms or roles. It identifies as HUNGRY EYE and HERE I AM //silly

[forestclan-clangen]

what was the whole AMMIT|SHESHA|NIDHOGG text in the last update?? idk if i'm missing a GHE reference or?

Oh, no, that was meant to be a "freakout" moment of how the Audience perceive the Iris! Similar to how "diving into the infrastructure" was akin to "hell|ruin|suicide", basically just replace the long lines with commas and you have what the thoughts are, they're just formatted funny due to the "broken apart" nature the Audience is currently experiencing.

Ammit is an ancient Egyptian goddess of the Dead; a chimera with the head of a crocodile, body of a lion, hindquarters of a hippopotamus. Their role was to devour the hearts of those determined "impure" on the scales of judgement. The Ancient Egyptians believed that the heart contained the soul of a person - a devourer of souls.

Shesha is a primordial being of creation in Hinduism, also known by the epithet Ananta Shesha. It is the king of all Naga, a multi-headed serpent demigod that is said to hold all planets in the universe on its hoods. It is said that when the universe it brought to an end, Shesha is one of few primordial beings that will survive its heat-death. Ananta Shesha will remain after nothing is left.

Nidhogg is a wyrm dragon of Norse mythology. It lies at the bottom of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, and gnaws at its roots. Yggdrasil carries all of the Nine Realms in its shape, creating the universe as we know it. In this, Nidhogg is a world eater.

In summary, in that moment of panic, the Iris was defined all at once as, "devourer of souls, world-eater, all that will remain once nothing is left of us." :)