Triun fungus

Prompt: How would a species inspired by gandalf look like?

After the cold of frostpeak all blooms are valued, but none more than the colorful sugary orbs of the sugardew fungus.

Animals have no qualms about the valuable nutrition of the muckshroom. Though we prefer to eat it prepared in a bowl, rather than fresh from the dung.

The precious silverwax from the tallowrim is a staple resource for our long winters, it provides us with good candlelight, and in dire winters it has restocked our fatty bellies many times.

It needs to be more of a 'catalyst', not a 'preparation food'. How can it 'trigger' more changes?

• add some more 'everyday' examples. Like, candlemaking with silverwax. Or jokes about muckshroom.

what are it's dangers?
Gandalfs weakness was that he didn't want to use his true power. He wanted the people to do it themselves. So an addiction to it's 'true form' drugs makes sense.

• lack of fear?
• not seeing the bad
• toxic in high dosis? when synthesized it has very powerful effects, but very risky.
• self-righteousness
• taking on more than you can handle
• quick to anger

Gandalf always knew what needed to happen

• Give the right nutrients

Gandals is often (álmost) late

• Blooms only very late in the season?

Gandalf is old

Made by

• The fox-tailed: animals(creativity) and celestial(intelligence)

he has many names

• is it because it has many functions in different scenarios? In the subsoil it does one thing, in the treetops it does another.

He is good at heart

• not a parasite, but a symbiosis species. like lichen? hmmm, more versatile, like ants, but then not a colony but a single organism. It lives together with a bacteria. The bacteria starts the decaying process, only at a certain point the triun fungus starts to cick in.
• It has a flowery scent about it in all 3 stages. Certain animals can even smell it in its spores.

He does not make big changes, but he sets things in motion

• starting things like? blooming flowers? metamorphosis? oooh, maybe it's a plant with many functions. like how protein trigger nuptual flights in ants, eating this food, leaf, is something many creatures wait for before they undertake a big risky thing, like blooming, waking up from hibernation, metamorphosis.
• Maybe it has mildly intoxicating effects: makes you look for emotional warmth/companions, and it lowers your fear.

Gandalf, the grey, he turned into the white

• Does it metamorphose itself after a big struggle? Like a leaf, that after a stressor, fire, releases seeds/nuts? not fire, something more seasonal. in thawroot it sets the first steps in motion, at sunsurge it sets bigger changes in motion. it could do it agáin in amberfall?
• For each species it has a different variant, catering its needs to that animal's droppings and furs, and giving different nutrients suited for that species.
• Sugardew- Sugary in thawroot -> quick, short energy, wake up -> small bulbs of bright color, mimicking berries, but with a spor-y grey underside. Feeds on fallen furs, decaying and fresh material and sunlight. Animals eat it, digest the spores, and poop out the spores later. It then needs another cycle of cold to sprout again.
• Sugardew hijacks the grasses around it, and uses it's photosynthesis to fill the 'berries' with sugary liquid. In turn it gives the grasses other nutrients that make them grow deeper roots and become tougher, but slower growing. Some blades of grass gain subtle streaks of the color of the sugardew berry. Occasionally one blade of grass can have multiple streaks of color from multiple sugardews. These grasses are often collected and dried and used in decoration and art by the dwarves.
• It comes out at varying times of the season: 'you're as unreliable as the sugardew blooms'
• some years it doesn't come out at all.
• Verdant dungstalk-Muckshroom-Wayfarer’s Fodder - carbohydrates/ protein in sunsurge -> long lasting, building energy -> greenish small mushrooms on tall stocks, with brown subtle stripes, mimicking fresh leaves or young wood (fibers) - feeds on droppings and heat. is eaten, and spores fall on the ground when it is disturbed.
• tallowrim (silverwax)- fathat-fatdoras hahah. fatty in amberfall -> building reserves for the cold of frostpeak -> Grey large bulbs with a rim (like a gutter on a roof) that ooze droplets of fat into the rim. Animals lick the fat out of it. It shoots spores up and around it, with luck it'll stick to leaves, that the drinking animals rub past with their fur. Feeds on decaying matter, like decaying leaves of amberfall.
• The fat has mild intoxicating effects: it makes people want to look for companionship, slow down, settle in. It releases oxytocin like chemicals in the brain when burnt in candles. When eaten, it has this effect much more strongly, and is also known as a love drugs, making the consumers very cuddly and loving.

Gandalf had a bond with shadowfax

• Symbiosis with another organism ? What if it sticks to the fur of some animals that hibernate, and it gathers nutrients from the rotting food in the area, and gives it to the hibernating organism via their skin? not skin, what then?

what does gandalf need to survive? Small acts of kindness

• This fungus needs a combination of animals. not just one. When multiple species come together. How then? droppings? It needs warmth to survive. That's why it only sprouts in the warming seasons. It hibernates in the colder seasons? It waits on the furs near the backsides of animals. When it warms, it multiplies and is left via droppings. It then sprouts 'fruits' in the doppings. No, it spreads if furs are rubbed together. When two animals of the same fur meet, they exchange spores, then the fungus drops to the floor and sprouts if it falls on moist soil with nutrients.

Gandalf replaced Saruman the white, as the main savior of middle earth

• People used to rely on another plant, but the ... silver rain? made this new thing better

Gandalf was chosen to save middle earth by the valar. what prompts this organism?

• It could be a fungus. It is triggered by decaying material (after frostpeak things thaw, and start to rot again. same after the cold of rootrest. Stormquench is wet, also a catalyst for rot.

Looks? Gandalf looks unassuming, but wise. Grey, later white.

• is it fluffy? no. is it mushroom like? Yeah. i like that. It has classic small greyish mushroom vibe in thawroot. It feeds on ceratin from fallen furs. Occasionally it grows on fur if there is dirt or dung on it.