I am back from vacation and I believe I did actually stumble over a tiny bit of EverQuest history in the most unlikely of all places!? Bear with me and let me try to explain:
I did go to several places in Japan, including the island of Yakushima. Yakushima is of the south end of Kyushu, the most southerly of Japan's four main islands, and most famous for it's old cedar forests. One can also find the moss-covered "Mononoke Hime" forest there.
In these forests live millennia old cedar trees. The oldest one is the maybe 7000 years old Jomonsugi (Jōmon Sugi). Here are four pictures of this Island King of Trees: Photos from 1918, 1982, current and a drawing.
Now look at the massive trunk (16 m circumference) under the "small" branches (each weights way more than a ton). Can you see the "face" - eyes, nose and a mouth - in the bark? When I saw the pictures in the local museum I instantly thought of the "new" EverQuest treants from Prophecy of Ro.
Of course I can't prove any of this but I think the artist looked for inspiration and found some pictures of Jomonsugi when they created the new treant models. In Remarkable Trees of the World (2002), arborist Thomas Pakenham describes Jomonsugi as "a grim titan of a tree, rising from the spongy ground more like rock than timber, his vast muscular arms extended above the tangle of young cedars and camphor trees".
This would make Jomonsugi the original EQ treant. You can actually visit him but it is a five hour mountain hike from the nearest road to reach.
