Mykara

Ancient dwellers of the subterranean realm with mycelial webs stretching throughout the crust, the **Mykara** are one of Auriga's oldest species. Legend has it they have broken onto the surface many times through the ages, in an eternal struggle with the great Urkan beasts. The Mykara use Food  from their unique city to exploit points of interest in unexploited regions. Although captured cities cannot be further developed, they still grant their tile outputs and allow the symbiosis of other factions. To be most effective, the Mykara seek to control the Urkans.

Main Victory Type: Supremacy

## Lore

*The Mykara are a race of sentient plant matter and fungi, a single organism spanning thousands of semi-autonomous agents and time immemorial, ever adapting to survive and thrive. They spread all over Auriga as a massive underground root system, sprouting on the edges of the map, clinging to the regions other factions leave unattended.*

*The Mykara are a single, vast organism that has spread beneath the surface of Auriga, covering most of the planet. Yet all roots lead to home, their capital serving as a hub for their physical spread and their consciousness. Consequently, the Mykara are focused on a single city and have to exert their control over the world by different means, much like the Cultists of the Eternal End.*

*Unlike their more religious rivals, who have to pacify villages and convert them with Influence, the Mykara do not have to be present near the areas they want to claim. As long as you have had vision on a point of interest before and it is located in a neutral region, you can begin growing a Fungal Bloom on it.*

## Faction Traits

### Creeping Presence

This trait prevents the Mykara from producing settlers, but allows to expand by creating Fungal Blooms on Points of Interest across the map so long as they are in a region that is either neutral or controlled by the Mykara. There are several types of Fungal Blooms, which have different effects depending on where they are built, such as the tunnel entrances that can be built on Ruins which allow fast travel for Mykara units. For some of these Fungal Blooms, the appropriate technology must be unlocked before they can be built, such as Alchemist's Furnace being necessary to construct Mykaran Titanium and Glassteel Extractors.

Rather than requiring  Industry to be built, however, the Fungal Blooms require a certain amount of  Food be taken from the main city's Food production for a number of turns. The amount of Food taken by each Fungal Bloom increases based on both the number of other blooms that are progressing, as well as the number of blooms that have been completed. The Food cost to build a Fungal Bloom given a certain number of progressing and completed blooms, represented as X and Y respectively, is as follows:

 per  = 5 + Y + (2 \* X)

So, the cost of the first Fungal Bloom is 5  per , and the cost of the second Fungal Bloom is 7  per  if you start building it while the first is still progressing, or 6  per  if you start it after the first bloom is finished. It should also be noted that this cost updates each turn as other Fungal Blooms are completed, so if you begin building the second bloom while the first is still progressing, but then the first bloom is completed, the cost of the second bloom will reduce from 7 to 6  per . Therefore, the total cost to the Main City's Food production given X progressing blooms and Y completed blooms is as follows:

Total  per  = X \* (4 + X + Y)

Additionally, each new completed Fungal Bloom increases the Luxury Resource Booster cost and Empire Plan Influence cost by 2%.

If another Empire takes over a region where the Mykara have Fungal Blooms constructed, then the existing Blooms will remain, and any under construction will be completed, but they will be unable to construct any more in that region. However, it is possible for the armies of other Empires to destroy Fungal Blooms in a similar way to Pillaging - by dealing Fortification Damage  until the bloom is destroyed.

### Twilight Presence

During a Dust Eclipse, the Mykara are able to use  Dust to buyout Fungal Bloom production. The cost to do this is dependent upon the number of completed Fungal Blooms, as well as the number of turns remaining for that bloom to be completed, with the equation being as follows:

 Cost = # of Turns Left \* [2 + (2 \* # of Completed Blooms)]

### Overgrown Cities

When a faction with this trait conquers a city, rather than the city becoming one that belongs to the faction that conquered it, it becomes Overgrown. While Overgrown, the city's population and improvements remain dormant, it has no trade routes, no militia, no governors, can't be spied on, and has a maximum  Fortification of 100 ; however, units can still be garrisoned on Overgrown cities. An Overgrown city also increases the Influence cost of the Empire Plan as though the owner had gained an additional city, and reduces the Empire's total Approval slightly. Overgrown cities only grant FIDSI output from tiles to the captor's main city, but revert to regular cities when re-captured or captured by another faction without the "Overgrown Cities" trait. Overgrown cities also grant their owner ownership of the region, allowing for placement of Fungal Blooms. An Overgrown city can be razed after owning it for 8 turns.

In addition to gaining the FIDSI output of the city, the owner of an Overgrown city will also benefit from a permanent Symbiosis trait after maintaining control of the city for 6 Turns. The trait gained this way varies depending on the faction that controlled the city before it was overgrown. Symbiosis traits cannot be gained from factions that share your affinity, i.e. the Mykara cannot acquire a Symbiosis trait from another Mykara faction. After a Symbiosis trait has been acquired this way it cannot be gained again from additional cities. The Symbiosis traits available to be gained from each faction are as follows:

## Unique Technologies

  Focus:  |  Military

  **Effects:**
Allows you to garrison units in tamed Urkans you control

  Focus:  |  Diplomatic Terms

  **Effects:**
-20% Influence cost  on Diplomatic Interactions, for each controlled Urkan

  Focus:  |  Exploitation

  **Effects:**
+3 FIDSI multiplier on Fungal Bloom

## Heroes

Note: *Base Attributes* reflect the unit's attributes before bonuses from equipment or capacities.

All Mykara heroes are able to wield Claymores, Swords, and Shields as weapons.

## Faction Quest

*A Vaulter leader, saved by the Mykara after the slaughter of her people, slowly comes to terms with her new existence - and the strange symbiosis between the Mykara and the Urkans.*

 The ozonic stench of the Mages' lightning attacks fills my nostrils, mingles with the smell of burning flesh. I stumble down a narrow passage, the dim phosphorescent light from the mycelial veins causing my shadow to flicker across the craggy stone. The rock shakes. I hear the deep-throated roar of the Urkan, and my skin crawls with terror. I'm gripping a weapon, a mighty axe, but it feels like deadweight in my hands. Am I rallying my men or running from the enemy? The passage opens into another tableau of slaughter, my kinsmen dying or dead on the cold stone, their blood sprayed in crimson arcs or pooled in dark puddles. I stop dead.
You cannot linger. You are Toth Ágnes. You are the First of the Bloodline. Others need you. Empty words. This is a slaughter. I know there are no others. I've brought death upon these people who followed me away from the homevaults.----------Memory and reality are hard to distinguish. I slumber, drifting between the past and present. The battle is over, of that I'm certain. I survived, somehow. In the here and now I feel renewal, regrowth, and a desire to reach into new places. I am confused. I slip back into my recollections, the familiarity outweighting the distress...----------Something grips my ankle, and my body tenses, fingers gripping the shaft of the axe. It's only a dying kinsman though. To my shame, I don't know his name. A handful of words spill from his lips, whispered and ragged.
"Avenge us."
 Summary
 Everything is hazy in the aftermath of the Mages' massacre, but I survived. Now I must recover my strength. Now I must prepare for vengeance.
 Reward

 Today I awoke and discovered the horrifying truth. I am Mykara, and the Mykara is me. We are one, a symbiosis of flesh and filaments, memories and myths. In the cold light of day, I can now clearly remember how I survived.
The Mykara had fascinated me for a long time, when I led those who would join me away from the homevaults. It was an anicent fungal species, mycelial tendrils and mushroom fruit, no sign of what it would one day become. Growing largely in the suberranean realm, it was unseen by most, and overlooked by the rest. But I saw its potential. Sinewy, resilient, vigorous, I knew it could transform a Vaulter settlement. And it did. Crops, waste, defense. It was a wonder material. It even began to shed light on the legendary Urkan beasts, who reputedly emerged from the Aurigan crust every few centuries, before slipping back into folkloric tales...sadly one of those same beasts came under the spell of our anicent enemy, the Mages, who used it to find and then destroy us...
As my kinsman died in my arms, as I basked in my feelings of vengeance, a desperate idea came to me. The Mykara had brought me to this juncture, and the Mykara would grant me my revenge. After all, in my heart, I'd always been convinced it was much more than a mere, mindless organism. I scrambled deeper and deeper into the earth, far into the inky darkness of the thickest mycelial forest, where thick tendrils vied with web-like skeins. Unable to move any further, I lay on a bed of filaments, and curled myself into a ball. It swiftly ensnared me, a cocoon of protection wrapped around a heart of malice...
Now we are one. It acts, I act, we act. Sometimes it almost feels like I'm doing things against my will. It is terrifying, but I will grow used to it, even perhaps enjoy it.
 Summary
 My new existence - a union of Mykara and Vaulter - is an unsettling one, but one that gives me power. Before I begin my quest for vengeance, I must interrogate those nearby to learn if others of my vault survived.
 Reward

 I feel myself, my identity, slipping deeper into the Mykara's collective consciousness. It is a soothing, liberating, mind-expanding feeling, as my attention expands across the world and deeper into the past. But it is also a betrayal. I swore I would have vengeance, and I will not break that promise. I must not forget.
As the Mykara has changed me, so I have changed the Mykara. Out of my form, perhaps out of my very cells, it grows workers, builders, soldiers.
Some will be my instruments for my purposes. I will send an army back to our devastated home, and find the Mages' trail.
The site of our old vault--and the massacre--is hazy to me, but I must find it. During my slumber the Mykara moved me, and the geography of the world feels unfamiliar. It is hardly surprising that a Vaulter struggles to recognise the landscape; we've always been happier in the subterranean realm, more attuned to the vagaries of stone, the smell of the depths, and the shades of darkness that you learn from living underground.
 Summary
 The only way to pick up the trail of the Mages is to revisit the site of the massacre, the place I once named home. My armies will need to search among a few candidate sites.
 Reward

 Calm, the Mykara whispers, but I am anything but calm. The growing symbiosis, the melding of my self into the Mykara collective, has been arrested as I find myself shaken to the very core. Did the Mykara save me or imprison me?
As my soldiers explored the ancient scene of the massacre, relaying their impressions through the mycelial web that stretches across Auriga, it was the small details that first alerted me to something being amiss. Flooded corridors and stagnant pools of water, lichen overgrowths and collapsed caverns, rusted machinery and scattered bones. Ironically, it wasn't until they came to the chamber of the great orrery, that the truth became impossible to deny. Despite the decay all around, the celestial mechanism had carried on working flawlessly, a testament to Vaulter engineering.
Auriga had circled its sun 284 times since the Mages' attack.
The Urkan beast commanded by the Mages would've returned to the depths. The Mage who was the architect of the slaughter would've died long ago. The same for their offspring. And their offspring's offspring, and onwards for who knows how many generations...
In that thought though, I found a tiny, devious, shard of hope. The Mages were a proud people, enraptured by their heritage, traditions--and history. A clan who committed such a famous victory--with an Urkan, no less!--would likely survive, even prosper, through the ages. The clan would be celebrated. Songs would be sung in their honor.
They wouldn't be hard to find. And so it was.
We will not have our revenge on those who committed the massacre. We will have our revenge on their descendants. They will pay for the sins of the ancestors, and they will have a new song to sing. Is there anything sweeter?
I war with the Mykara, but I still must avenge the Vaulter dead.
 Summary
 We cannot hurt those who committed the genocide, lost as they are to the river of time, but we can hurt their descendants.
 Reward

 *Prerequisites: At least one Urkan has appeared.*
I still feel the Mykara's disapproval, but I also feel their acceptance. Every day our union grows stronger. My thoughts entangle with the collective's, such that I'm sometimes unsure where my mind ends and the Mykara's begins. Calmed, I follow threads of meditations deeper and deeper into the distant past. I witness that the Mykara and the Urkans have clashed many times over the ages. The cycle is always the same. The Urkans emerge from the heart of Auriga and wander the land, wreaking havoc on the fledgling cultures they encounter. Before they can strike a terminal blow though, the Mykara rise up from the depths and pacify the beasts.
For time immemorial, the Mykara have been the Urkans' keepers. And now the Urkans rise again, the Mykara rise likewise.
I wonder how many souls like myself have been merged into the collective over the millennia? Within the collective's memories I find no impression of such spirits--either I haven't reached deep enough into the Mykara's recollections, or the psyches of these individuals has blended so intimately that they've become untraceable. Will this be my fate too?
 Summary
 With the Urkans return imminent, it is time to work in harmony with the Mykara. Even if it weakens us, we must study the ancient tome and be ready for the great beasts.
 Reward

 *Prerequisites: No Urkans have appeared.*
I still feel the Mykara's disapproval, but I also feel their acceptance. Every day our union grows stronger. My thoughts entangle with the collective's, such that I'm sometimes unsure where my mind ends and the Mykara's begins. Calmed, I follow threads of meditations deeper and deeper into the distant past. I witness that the Mykara and the Urkans have clashed many times over the ages. The cycle is always the same. The Urkans emerge from the heart of Auriga and wander the land, wreaking havoc on the fledgling cultures they encounter. Before they can strike a terminal blow though, the Mykara rise up from the depths and pacify the beasts.
For time immemorial, the Mykara have been the Urkans' keepers. And now the Urkans rise again, the Mykara rise likewise.
I wonder how many souls like myself have been merged into the collective over the millennia? Within the collective's memories I find no impression of such spirits--either I haven't reached deep enough into the Mykara's recollections, or the psyches of these individuals has blended so intimately that they've become untraceable. Will this be my fate too?
 Summary
 With the Urkans returned, it is time to work in harmony with the Mykara. Even if it weakens us, we must study the ancient tome and gain dominance over the great beasts.
 Reward

 *Prerequisites: At least one Urkan has appeared.*
Deep in my slumber, away from my corporeal perceptions, I hear them. A faint babble, not unlike the gentle susurration of waves on the shore. Listen more carefully though, and the murmur becomes more like a chorus of lullabies. They are the voices of children of Auriga, long assimilated into the Mykaran collective, and I am simply the most recent of their number. The youngest sibling.
I know not their names, and even though their bodily forms have no doubt enmeshed into the mycelial fabric to such a degree that identification would be impossible without instruments of science, I can feel their heritage. Among the refrain I detect a Drakken, Wild Walker, Sister of Mercy, Necrophage, even a Morgawr. No doubt there are others I cannot yet discern. I imagine they are in communion--conversing, pleading, persuading--a combined influence on the intentions of the Mykara who harbors them all.
They carry the history of their people, the history of Auriga.
 Summary
 We must strengthen the Urkans we control and defeat the armies of lice that threaten the Mykara's survival. Only this way will the past be preserved.
 Reward

 *Prerequisites: No Urkans have appeared.*
Deep in my slumber, away from my corporeal perceptions, I hear them. A faint babble, not unlike the gentle susurration of waves on the shore. Listen more carefully though, and the murmur becomes more like a chorus of lullabies. They are the voices of children of Auriga, long assimilated into the Mykaran collective, and I am simply the most recent of their number. The youngest sibling.
I know not their names, and even though their bodily forms have no doubt enmeshed into the mycelial fabric to such a degree that identification would be impossible without instruments of science, I can feel their heritage. Among the refrain I detect a Drakken, Wild Walker, Sister of Mercy, Necrophage, even a Morgawr. No doubt there are others I cannot yet discern. I imagine they are in communion--conversing, pleading, persuading--a combined influence on the intentions of the Mykara who harbors them all.
They carry the history of their people, the history of Auriga.
 Summary
 The Urkans are not abroad yet, even though their lice roam. We must bait them to the surface, and ensure they become ours. Only this way will the past be preserved.
 Reward

 In the long silences I begin to discern the voices of the others more clearly. They are singing, a rich tapestry of music composed of many threads, each telling a piece of Auriga's history. In my mind's eye I see glittering cities of chrome and glass lancing up to the heavens, citadel-like eyries on snowy peaks, a band of hunched survivors trekking a devastated wasteland, each a remembrance from the Mykaran collective. I feel the stream of visions is a conversation, but I still lack the insight to follow the nuances, and the images come to me unexpectedly, jumping between long-separated eras like the attentions of a capricious god.
I don't think those that were once Wild Walker or Morgawr or Endless or whoever retain much sense of their own identity, and I feel the same thing happening to myself. The deeper I dive into the Mykaran collective--the more closely I can follow the symphony--the further I feel from my old self. I was a...Vaulter. Yes, a Vaulter leader. Something terrible happened to my people, but I forget the reasons, and only remember the fear and terror. It doesn't matter. It's over now. I'm sure the collective remembers, anyway.
 Summary
 I am Mykara. Mykara is me. Like the others who've come before, I must help preserve the story of Auriga. We must ingest a city.
 Reward

 *Prerequisite: Must be playing a custom Mykara faction without the Overgrown Cities trait*
In the long silences I begin to discern the voices of the others more clearly. They are singing, a rich tapestry of music composed of many threads, each telling a piece of Auriga's history. In my mind's eye I see glittering cities of chrome and glass lancing up to the heavens, citadel-like eyries on snowy peaks, a band of hunched survivors trekking a devastated wasteland, each a remembrance from the Mykaran collective. I feel the stream of visions is a conversation, but I still lack the insight to follow the nuances, and the images come to me unexpectedly, jumping between long-separated eras like the attentions of a capricious god.
I don't think those that were once Wild Walker or Morgawr or Endless or whoever retain much sense of their own identity, and I feel the same thing happening to myself. The deeper I dive into the Mykaran collective--the more closely I can follow the symphony--the further I feel from my old self. I was a...Vaulter. Yes, a Vaulter leader. Something terrible happened to my people, but I forget the reasons, and only remember the fear and terror. It doesn't matter. It's over now. I'm sure the collective remembers, anyway.
 Summary
 I am Mykara. Mykara is me. Like the others who've come before, I must help preserve the story of Auriga. We must reach out further.
 Reward

 The endless winter comes, creating an icy tomb out of an entire world. Snows will lie a hundred hands deep. Oceans will freeze. Life will cease.
Well, if we are fortunate, not all life.
Some species seek refuges from time. Others grasp for the cold reaches of space. For ourselves, the Mykara, we will withdraw into the heart of the planet where molten fires battle against the encroaching ice.
We sing rich remembrances: vivid memories of biological horrors in Endless laboratories; their descendants eking out a life in irradiated wastelands; later, a slaughter of one Aurigan tribe by another in a subterranean citadel. Our melodic discourse speculates on science and philosophy, truth and justice, crime and punishment, but our first instinct is always to preserve. Whatever comes of Auriga, we will abide, ready to share its story.
 Summary
 Soon, the winter will be unending. We must make our first city an engine of our survival, as we prepare to retreat deep into the sanctuary--and warmth--of the mantle.
 Reward