The Burning Fog

The Burning Fog is a region on the borderland of Ursaru and Vartai. The site of the most fierce fighting during the **CONFLICT NAME** of **DATE** the Burning Fog exists as the fulfillment of the Saint of Ashes last request of Orynn Kaseyk: that her homeland be restored in such a way that it would never be scoured from the world again.

While it is a land of terrible heat that is only barely traversable by most mortals, it is far from uninhabited. In fact, the region exists as a bastion for all sorts of vibrant and exotic life found nowhere else in the world. Tapshrooms, Steamvines, Ashvipers, and more all thrive within The Burning Fog.

## Flora

### Tapshroom:

A foundational species within the Fog Tapshrooms are a most curious lifeform. Their outward appearance may be superficially similar to many of the great Mushrooms of the Fungal Lands, but few could miss that they are perpetually smouldering. This is a result of the Tapshrooms unique biology allowing it to directly feed on heat. What can be seen as smouldering lines on the Tapshrooms surface are actually 'veins' bringing molten rock up from magma chambers below and into the Tapshroom itself where the lava is cooled almost to the point of solidification before being returned to the chamber below.

Tapshrooms are far hardier than their mundane cousins in the Fungal lands, mostly due to the extreme temperatures they thrive in and their primary source of nutrients. The Tapshroom extracts what it needs, beyond mere energy, to live from the very paste like rock that flows within it. As a result many have called Tapshrooms rock like, or glassy, in texture and composition. Still, it must be said that they are *not* made from rock or glass. Tapshroom flesh may be superficially hard, but with sufficient strength anyone could tell that it is flexible. Almost incredibly so, given its apparent composition.

### Steamvine:

Steamvines are incredible life forms, utilizing far more conventional biology than Tapshrooms but nevertheless tolerating incredible temperatures. The Steamvines grow exclusively from boiling geysers and hot springs, of which there are many in The Burning Fog, by using the mineral rich water to grow and thrive. Every Steamvine is much like a pipe, transporting terribly hot water along its length while sapping the vital mineral nutrients from it as it flows. This is possible because, while the exterior of a Steamvine may look like little more than a strangely thick root, the internal lining of the vine is composed of porous minerals that help the vine extract only what it needs from the boiling water within. Steamvines are extremely common, covering much of the land in The Burning Fog.

### Fogger Tree:

It is from these plants that The Burning Fog takes its name. Fogger Trees are parasitic trees that grow from the ubiquitous Steamvines crisscrossing the ground within the Fog. They are spindly woody plants that, much like Tapshrooms, derive the energy they need to live from heat. Albeit, they tolerate only boiling temperatures rather than molten ones. The tops of Fogger Trees look much like huge branching smokestacks from which an endless stream of steam is bellowed, but their roots are far more conventional. Death and decay is a constant in every biome, and there are nutrients aplenty for the roots of Fogger Trees to absorb, even as their stems punch through Steamvines to capture their heat.

### Trapmat:

Bane of every fool who wanders into The Burning Fog, Trapmats are terrible predatory plants. Like the Fogger Trees they are parasitic, using long straw like shoots to extract steam from Steamvines, but they differ in that they gain no vital energy or nutrients from this. Rather, Trapmats use this steam for locomotion. They are huge, flat, clam like wooden structures lined with brutal thorns require await only the slightest touch to snap shut. The blood and flesh of a Trapmats victim sustains it as it is absorbed by countless pinprick holes in the mats wooden pad that both take in nutrients and project steam to help dissolve prey.

## Fauna

### Firebat:

The emblematic animal of The Burning Fog, Firbats are easy enough to imagine. Wicked creatures that roost in the burning caps of Tapshrooms Firebats are similarly perpetually burning creatures, only they require the flesh of other plants and animals to live rather than just the energy of their heat. While Firebats have only tiny, relatively harmless, teeth they are fearsome predators nonetheless. All Firebats live in communal flocks, and these flocks hunt by immolating their prey and feasting on the charred remains.

### Ashviper:

The Ashviper is, curiously, a rather benign creature. Greyish white creatures Ashvipers are herbivorous snakes that gnaw on the roots of Fogger Trees with their back crushing teeth and drink from Steamvines with their normally retracted mineralized 'fangs'. Still, while an Ashviper is unlikely to attack anyone or anything, if unable to run these creatures possess a superlative venom capable of starting a runaway exothermic reaction in its victim. The bite of an Ashviper will, almost without fail, burst into flames in seconds.