Gourdhom

Extended cultivation period leads to tremendous growth. Gourdhoms have vestigial limbs that are absorbed into their central body as they approach their first ton. Hollow inside with a waxy exterior there is not much that separates the Gourdhom from the usual Gourd Leshy- besides the immense difference in scale and mobility. Permanently immobile, these sedentary Leshy absorb a resplendent amount of sunlight which is stored within their body and is easily tapped for later use.

After their first decade of life, the part of the Gourdhom that touches the ground permanently fuses with the topsoil and sprouts roots. This expansion grows spacious into it's fifteenth year of life, becoming what many have begun to call a root cellar.

Life Span varies on danger level of the environment

Height: 25-35 feet tall
Weight: ~80-150 tons

Common Cultivars and Phenotypes: Pumpkin, Gourd, Peach, Tree, Cactus, Shelf Fungi

Sex and Gender: Nonbinary, Male and Female flowers on same vine,

Sedentary Autotroph

Eusocial Communities

During the settling season of its lifetime, the period is considered concluded when the Gourdhom's seeds are finally all dry and the last fall from its inner recesses. Each seed can, and usually is grown in an adjacent plot of the Hedge-Garden. Entire blocks have been known to grow sprouts that are grown into Gourdhoms and Leshy alike, all growing up in the shelter of their young parent gourd.

Much like the Leshy, the young Gourdhom is born from a seed or clone in the soil of their world. Steeped in the magicks of the wild, it grows as any Leshy would. When they reach the age of maturity, when they achieve a ripened state something peculiar happens. By choice or by trick this young sprout doesn't leave the Garden and break it's stem. Growing larger than its kin, the adolescent Leshy becomes increasingly sedentary as its body grows thicker vine stems.

Extended Adolescence

Expanding outward, the young Leshy spends much of its time sleeping as energy is being used to create a thicker and stronger outer shell to hold more of its mass. In time, the mass of the Leshy and the thickness of its exterior flesh has made it a formidable if not immobile creature. Content, it quickly absorbs a majority of the sunlight in the largely abandoned garden it grew up in.

Settling

Upon reaching a ton, it is large enough to house four Leshy on a single floor and any limbs it may have grown at the time of ripening season have long since been reabsorbed into its body. Still connected to its roots, the youthful gourdhom begins to shape seeds on the interior of its frame, nestled within the fruity growing flesh. It is at this point where extra compartments and floors begin to grow as it attempts to expand outwards from its heavy core. The period at which a gourdhom stops settling varies it typically stops growing after developing a second floor or basement compartment Real indicators that growth has stopped and that the settling phase is over is marked by significant dehydration in the walls of the gourdhom.

Seeds, that have long since been contained within the shell of the gourdhom begin to flake and dry off of the flesh which begins to sag and break away. Supported by their communities, the gourdhom begins to experience a great desensitization of its senses as they remove the dried seeds and tissue from the inside into the garden-hedge around it. Forming a fertile patch around itself, the fully mature gourdhom often acts as a nursery for sprouts seeking refuge from heavy weather and predation.

Adulthood

After around ten years growth creeps to a slow pace, slowly growing roots and different structures where foundational pressures are applied. Large calloused pillars are the primary growth that develops during this time, with complex root systems reinforcing the creature in place, doing much to stabilize itself and also the soil around it. During this time the gourdhom might not develop strong roots or callouses if it is forced to heal from repeated abrasion and puncture.

Gourdhom have to be grown in a temperate climate and has to experience a weakened summer and winter to deviate from the typical Leshy lifecycle. As it becomes larger and thicker in its adolescence, it becomes less vulnerable to the cold and hot environments as its waxy cuticle provides moisture and exposure protection. As it begins to settle, it too enacts upon it's environment reducing soil erosion and providing protection from windshear.

Many smaller leshy cultivars find shade in the space around the gourdhom and so their garden-hedge squares find a shifting rotation of sprouts living there. When it finally settles down, the gourdhom grow its own clutch of gourd seeds into the soil and inevitably one or two will too remain and settle in the area, creating a block of buildings as the soil quality of the hedge-garden begins to deplete.

Despite their enormous size, the sedentary lifestyle of the Gourdhom does not consume many daily calories. Producing sugars from exposure to the sun, the home in fact provides them in excess. Storing nectars within the rinds of the gourd, where it is still active and fresh, the substance insulates the home.

To the adventurous, it provides an emergency supply of food and energy as well. Concentrated sunshine percolated into sap the substance is initially very thin. With time, dehydration and subsequent rehydration it becomes even more concentrated and becomes stored in cavities on the inside of the walls. When drained, and an old Gourdhom will eventually need to be cleaned and trimmed once a year, the dried substance is a flammable fuel that can be used for heating or other exciting endeavors.

Many say sedentary behavior of a Gourdhom is noticeable when it is in its sprouting phase, even though there is no other identifying markers for it. Scholars understand though that this behavior is caused from a lack of interrupting contact caused from overcrowding. Requiring a decade of growth and calorie consumption, Gourdhom tend to emerge from Leshy that grew to ripened maturity uninjured and unmarred through sprouthood.

It is hotly debated that either Leshy who are complacent develop into Gourdhom, or that Gourdhom are complacent due to their lack of natural predators. Either way, it is nature's pack response to danger for this cultivar to be unshaken, unbowed and uncowed in the face of danger. Even in situations that would cause the imminent destruction of the Gourd, they remain with a steeled, slightly ecstatic facial expression.

In some circles it is widely accepted that this behavior is a sort of non-adaption. Defense readiness and vigilance manifest the sapient species in the form of anxiety. Although these reactive processes provide the means of survival for an individual over the long term these become maladaptive and affect the individual's physical and mental health. With sanguine tendencies, to some the Gourdhom is a beacon of stability in emergency.

Leshy express a healthy fear of fire, and perhaps the most jarring of all is the Gourdhom's utter indifference to its heat, destructive power and unpredictability. In the packed streets of Wistirwick, fires are known to rage and ravage entire blocks in a matter of hours. To bystanders the horror of the conflagration is amplified by the dopey, unchanging and positive faces plastered across the Gourdhom's even as they consumed by flames.

The face of a Gourdhom does not proportionally grow with its body and remains towards the top. Usually in full view of the street it is on, the expression rarely changes from a look of passive and permanent jubilance, sometimes complete with rosy red cheeks and smile lines.

Gourdhom exist in rural and urbanized environments and almost never in nature as stand alone Leshy.

Gourdhom do not typically pursue higher education, but are trained in various performance trades and local histories. Due to their nature, seldom do they feel pressure to achieve an edge above the other leshy.

With eyes permanently affixed to the "face" of the gourdhom, this is more of a social appendage made to aid in the communication of emotions and ideas. Gourdhoms have an imprecise visual, auditory and olfactory sense around them and inside them. Enough to delineate fuzzy shapes, sounds, and hormonal signatures off of other Leshys, Gourdhom cultivate a sensitive tactile senses to guests and residents inside their spaces.

Place something here.