Tree of Ecals Some Siderian-verse worldbuilding: there are some kind of living crystals in the Siderian world which you may have seen in several Siderian landscape paintings as well as in my graphic novel.
This drawing here is a cladogram of the main species groups of ecals. Ecal species grouping is vague (like in plant phylogeny) and there is not a very clear leveling in 'phylum', 'class','order' ect like in animals (at least not yet). So this tree just shows an idea of the evolutionary relationship and shared ancestry of the main species groups of ecals. I don't even know yet if the ends of the branches are orders, families or genera but if I make a rough estimate, I think it's down to the family level. The branch-length does not reflect genetic distance but just shows where split-offs from common ancestors happened.
Some explanation about the tree:
The symbols at each lineage node represents the specialty of this particular group ( I guess at the order level) and aesthetics behind the ecals show clearly what each ecal is specialized in.
Above each ecal you also see some strange shapes and this is a visualization of each ecal's language. They are advanced, intelligent beings and each ecal-group has their unique language. Mind that this is an idea of how the language might look, since many ecals use other energies than visible light (e.g. soundwaves, electricity or via spiritual/life force energies) to communicate with. Some ecals have also learned to communicate sort of telepathically and spiritually with animals.
I've also drawn the underground structure of the soft-body as well as the typical crystal shape, colour and material that each species group (family?) can grow above the ground.
There are two main lineages (phyla?); an elemental one and a spirit one.
The spirit lineage contains ecals who are specialized in interacting with life-forces and ethereal energies in both the physical as well as the astral dimensions. They excel at communication with souls/spirits and in reading the energies from celestial bodies elsewhere in the universe. In the spiritual lineage there are three main lineages (classes?): the life lineage, astral and ethereal lineage.
The elemental lineage is specialized in wielding elemental energies mostly on Earth. The main lineages (classes?) are roughly: Earth /chemical, kinetic, electromagnetic, electric and temperature. Ecals have been able to wield elemental energy since their first emergence in the Siderian world but when I watched Avatar the Last Airbender a few years ago I was like: that's it! That bending of elements is what I sort of see in the Siderian-verse as well, albeit a bit less over-powered and a bit more realistic (for as far as that goes for a fantasy world). Elemental wielding in the Siderian-verse is much more restricted, yet also more varied but it follows some o the ATLA principles. Ecals are the ultimate masters of elemental wielding, but animals and plants (and maybe fungi and microbes too?) can do it to some extent as well. Now what elemental energy really is? I guess just physics...but I think here I will just take the liberty to call it fantasy and maybe I shouldn't try to explain every element of a fantasy world in a scientific way (I find that hard NOT to do...XD). That kind of defeats the purpose of fantasy.
Now a bit of a background of what ecals actually are...
I don't want to disclose too much here yet as I'm loosely planning to make more ecal nerd-sheets but here is some explanation of what ecals are according to my current understanding of them:
Ecals are a life-form that I first classified under fungi but now they have their own kingdom in eukaryotic life.
They are autotrophic like plants, meaning they can convert energy from abiotic resources. Yet they can also consume nutrients from their environment via external digestion like fungi do.
Their underground soft body grows like a fungal mycelium but much of the cellular anatomy has similarities with the animal nervous system since cells can communicate with electrical signals like neurons.
They form a huge underground network with many individuals connecting together, very similar to the wood-wide-web. Many ecals also interact with plants and fungi to exchange nutrients and information. However with their elemental wielding skills and neuron like cells, they can also interact intimately with animals, both physically as well as spiritually.
Their reproduction is much like in fungi (e.g. with spores) and some ecals have more than two sexes. Ecals can also clone themselves asexually so the boundaries of what is an 'individual' can be nebulous like in plants and fungi.
They are mostly sessile (meaning immobile like a plant). However, some ecals can move slowly in the soil by growing directionally while retracting/breaking down their body on the other end. A bit like how plants retract nutrients from the leafs and then just let the leafs die.
All ecals grow above-ground crystalline bodies in which they can 'carve' memories in the atomic structure of the crystals, almost as if creating memory chips. With these crystals, they can also wield elemental energy like I described above.
Each species has their own society with some species or species-groups being solitary while others are social. Their demeanor and culture is highly variable, both between species groups as well as between individuals.
Ecals as a whole have a world-wide distribution in the Siderian-verse but each species-group has particular habitat preferences. Some are all over the place while others are highly endemic.
Art and ecal concept by me. Don't copy/use my art or these specific ideas without my permission.