Sculk Lore Day 2!
Hello fellas, it’s Mod Huskies here again to talk a bit more about sculk in the Mushlands universe! If you missed Day 1, check it out here- it covers the basics. This day will have the highly anticipated breakdown of sculk avatars, and go over the two main sculk characters in this world!
Hive Intelligence and Avatars
Sculk at all sizes operates with a distributed network of consciousness: for example, there is no nervous system or brain. Rather, it uses a strong psychic field to facilitate that sort of self-communication. Of course, sculk will always continue to grow as long as food is supplied, which means that this psychic field can get stretched thin.
The solution to this is the sculk avatar: a main body of sorts, which acts as both a repeater for the psychic signal and a more sophisticated tool for interacting with the world. Only the largest and strongest sculk strains can create a sculk avatar.
Avatars act as the manifestation of the sculk’s will, and carry out its plans on a larger scale. For example, a crafty avatar may pose as a curious traveler to collect stories, or trick unsuspecting people into following it into a secluded place where it can then strike.
Despite being relatively free roaming, avatars cannot venture too far from the region where the sculk strain is located. Going past this limit can result in becoming disconnected from their home strain, leading to the formation of two different sculk strains.
Avatars can look like anything due to sculk’s natural shapeshifting ability combined with its intelligence. However, they will always have an antennae somewhere on their body- this being the most important sensory organ for sculk, going without is like forgoing your eyes and ears. Of course, if they must blend in, an avatar will forgo it to survive. Speaking of shapeshifting...
Sculk Abilities
All sculk at any stage in life have the ability to view knowledge. This displays as an aura around the object or organism containing it- the more filling the meal, the more intricate the aura. This allows sculk to choose its targets wisely, and save its strength for only the high value targets.
Sculk can also shapeshift. At smaller sizes this only manifests as the creation of specialized structures and autonomous Wardens, but for larger strains, this can be used to great effect. Carapaces can be shifted to ward off blows, claws and teeth for rending flesh, wings for flight. An avatar with experience in this front can look like anything, or anyone.
If a sculk avatar is in play, these hyper-specialized creatures can have unique powers of their own. These vary from strain to strain, and could be anything from enhancements of a power they already express to something new entirely.
Finally, sculk possess perfect recall: down to the smallest morsels of knowledge, they remember everything they have ever consumed. Long lived sculk can be walking libraries, full of experiences and secrets lost to time. Even if destroyed to the point where only a handful of cells remain, that knowledge is not lost- just temporarily inaccessible until it grows large enough to regain its intelligence.
Notable Avatars
In the Mushlands, there is a small mining town known as Deepmine. The mayor of this town is Emerl: a gaunt old woman with the eerie ability to pacify even the most irate travelers. No one knows where she came from, or how the town came to be in the first place. But one thing is clear- she will not tolerate open discussion of these topics.
Of course, Emerl is a sculk avatar, originating from an ancient city deep below the sleepy town. Relatively young at only a few hundred years old, she is calculating, vengeful, and yet naive in some key areas. She has a tendency to underestimate the people she meets, and believes she always has the upper hand.
Her unique power is her mind altering spores: when breathed in, they induce feelings of compliance and suggestibility. She uses this power to smooth over the minds of people who are getting too close to the truth, forcing them to forget that this town was anything other than a nice place full of hardworking people.
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In Echino Mesa, the legend of the Cataclysm is well known: an ever-shifting beast which toppled the tyrannical dynasty of the Aphros clan, taking days to subdue and finally destroy. Said Cataclysm was in fact the avatar of a very angry sculk strain, disturbed from its long hibernation by increased mining activity ordered by said dynasty.
After the Cataclysm fell, the strain recuperated slowly, taking on humanlike forms to better interact with and understand the world around it. The most well known of these incarnations, going by the name Samson, is perhaps the most enigmatic of them all. In the present day, he tutors the great grandson of the Aphros clan in the usage of their magic, with his student unaware of his true identity. In the distant past, he was a quiet man, husband to the grandfather of Monstrology.
His unique power is his particular mastery over shapeshifting: not only can he change his appearance, but he can mimic non-organic items as well, such as the clothing he wears. Besides that, shapeshifting comes naturally to him, useful for both exploration and combat.
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Woooow this was a lot! Once again, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask! Thank you for sticking with me. On Day 3 I’ll talk about how these characters have shaped the world they live in, Samson in particular having inspired many myths and superstitions. Hope to see you there!