Mosskin

Mosskin possess a flexible, low-density body structure composed of dense fungal tissues, mossy mats, and fibrous plant matter. They have four limbs — two short legs and two dexterous arms with broad, padded fingers — but their skeletal structure is more analogous to fungal hyphae than bone, allowing them to compress, squeeze, or reshape themselves through tight or porous spaces.

Most Mosskin have a rounded head lacking sharp features. Instead of a nose or mouth in the traditional sense, they absorb moisture and nutrients through porous skin and release soft clouds of spores from vents beneath their frond-covered shoulders. Eyes are small, glowing softly, with cap-like eyebrows made of curled moss. A specialized internal structure — the Sporeheart — allows them to filter toxins and attune to ambient magic.

• Sporecasting: Mosskin can release clouds of pheromonal or magical spores to communicate, defend, or aid allies. These spores may carry calming effects, light healing, or momentary illusions.
• Moisture Symbiosis: They naturally absorb water and arcane humidity from their environment, allowing them to regenerate when in damp or magically charged areas.
• Regrowth: Lost limbs or chunks of moss can regrow over weeks. In rare cases, these discarded pieces develop consciousness and grow into Offshoots — childlike echoes of the original.

Mosskin rarely differentiate themselves by gender. Some identify along gender lines borrowed from other species, while others consider themselves ungendered blooms or seasonal selves, changing over time.

Mosskin reproduce asexually through a process called Sporemirroring — during periods of heightened emotion, magic, or seasonal bloom, a Mosskin may expel a specialized spore into fertile ground. If undisturbed, the spore germinates into a Sporeling, a juvenile Mosskin formed with fragmented echoes of its progenitor’s personality.

Occasionally, two or more Mosskin perform a Rite of Mutual Blooming, combining spores into a new, hybrid being with unique markings and traits.

• Sporeling (0–10 years): Small, soft, and curious. Capable of speech and magic within a few years.
• Frondling (10–50 years): Mobile and independent. This is when most Mosskin enter society or seek mentorship.
• Full Bloom (50–300 years): Reached when their body stabilizes its sporecycle and magical affinity. Many choose a domain or path at this stage.
• Memorymat (300+ years): Aging Mosskin may root themselves and become semi-immobile, often serving as advisors, seers, or sentient garden guardians. Some continue to dream and speak through spores or visions.

Thriving in moist, shaded, and leyline-saturated environments, Mosskin are common in:

• The Lilted Vale
• The Deepflower Maw
• Hanging Thistle Groves

They prefer untouched wilds over cultivated land and often form symbiotic relationships with animals, insects, or plants. Many live among ruins or the roots of ancient trees, tending to decay and growth with equal reverence.

Mosskin absorb nutrients through:

• Moisture
• Photosynthesis (via frond patches)
• Decomposition of organic material (leaf litter, fungi, bone dust)

They do not eat in a traditional sense, but they sometimes drink from mineral-rich pools or place their palms over decaying material to “share memories” with it. Ritual feasts among Mosskin involve sitting in misty circles and exhaling colored spores that exchange sensations and stories.

Mosskin are attuned to rot, bloom, and regrowth:

• Spring: Active exploration, blooming new features (cap growths, frond layers).
• Summer: Social bonding, festivals, and long “sunbathing” meditations.
• Autumn: Spore harvests and memory-sharing through decay. Their colorations shift into muted ambers, golds, and grays.
• Winter: Dormant states. Mosskin slow down, some becoming indistinguishable from natural moss beds, only to awaken again with spring dew.

Mosskin are gentle, patient, and unhurried — often described as contemplative or slow, though this is a cultural preference rather than a limitation. When threatened, they defend themselves with confusion spores, entangling roots, or cooperative evasion.

They:

• Rarely lie.
• Dislike sharp noises or sudden heat.
• Value kindness, curiosity, and remembering forgotten things.

Mosskin live in loosely clustered colonies called Grovesouls, which function more like extended mycelial families than traditional households. Each Grovesoul is centered around a Memorymat — an elder Mosskin rooted in a fixed place who remembers for the community and offers visions to the younger spores.

Their society values:

• Consensus over command.
• Rituals of remembrance.
• The care of decaying places — not to cleanse them, but to witness their beauty.

No formal leadership exists. Instead, community members take turns serving as Cycleguides, who tend to communal needs, lead seasonal rites, and maintain harmony. Wisdom is measured in spores shared and stories held.

Mosskin are most commonly found throughout the Lilted Vale and The Deepflower Maw

Some wander to Virellia’s rainforests or glistening cliffs, but most remain in the Vale, deeply tied to its magical humidity and decaying beauty.

Mosskin have high emotional and ecological intelligence. While slow to act or speak, they retain memory across centuries through sporal resonance, allowing even young Mosskin to carry insight from past generations.

They’re adept at:

• Pattern recognition in nature
• Emotion reading
• Long-form memory and lore preservation
• Leyline sensing

Mosskin experience the world not just through senses but through absorption and resonance:

• Sight: Limited in range, but enhanced in low light and capable of detecting bioluminescent or leyline flows.
• Touch: Hyper-sensitive to texture, moisture, temperature, and magical residue.
• Sporesense: A specialized perception via spore cloud emissions. This allows emotional reading, identification of rot or sickness, and sometimes memory-exchange.
• Dreamspore Trance: Elder Mosskin can enter meditative states to recall past events recorded in decaying matter — memories trapped in leaf mold, bones, or forgotten gardens.

• Sporetails: Treated as kin. Mosskin young often ride them or sleep curled up in their nests. Sporetails in turn benefit from Mosskin tending their fungal coats and spores.
• Glowgrubs: Bioluminescent insects that nest in Mosskin shoulder hollows, used for light and musical communication.
• Murkgnats: Considered a nuisance; they lay eggs in spore sacs and can disrupt dreamtrance cycles.

Mosskin names are melodic and gentle, usually evoking sounds of rainfall, forest stillness, or fungal bloom. They often include:

• A Spore Name (personal)
• A Cycle Title (season of emergence)
• An Echo-name (taken from an ancestor or elder mat)

Examples: Thistledew of Autumn’s Breath, Murni Sporeglow, Echo of Rootstar, Pebblestem Rainwake

• The Circle Unbound: Many Mosskin serve as humble but vital members — healers, memory-keepers, and balance-watchers.

Mosskin craft tools and dwellings out of woven lichen, biodegradable resin, and reanimated fungal growths:

• Sporeflutes for communication
• Rootweave cocoons for healing
• Glowcap lamps that pulse with gentle rhythm
• Decay-scribing runes to store memories in decomposing material

• Primary: Sylvanelle, Druidic, Myconid Sporespeech
• Secondary: Elvish (in regions of interaction), Verdwhisper (a dialect of rustling sounds and gesture)

• Speaking loudly is considered disruptive to sporeflows.
• Gifts are expected to be perishable or symbolic.
• Elders are not looked at directly unless invited.

• Minimalistic and organic: caplets of bark, sashes of woven vine, or floral wrappings.
• Some wear shawls made of dewdrop-thread or hang soft bells that chime with the wind.
• Color and ornamentation shift with season and emotional state.

Mosskin culture reveres memory, decay, renewal, and dreams. Their stories are often grown into fungus that changes color when touched, or sung in harmonies of breath and spore release.

They honor the Passing Rot — a belief that everything must fall into beauty through death, and that decay is sacred, not tragic

• Sporeblessing: A rite of welcome where spores are exchanged and briefly intertwine memories.
• Moonwilt Vigils: Silent overnight gatherings during full moons to dream together.
• The Rooting: When a Mosskin chooses a place to begin permanent rooting into the earth, passing from mobile life to eternal memory.

• Burning living plants
• Using metal excessively (especially if mined)
• Consuming meat wastefully
• Speaking over a Memorymat’s trance

The Mosskin’s origins are as elusive as mist through the roots, passed down not in written word but in spores, songs, and decay. Legends tell that they were born during the First Blooming, when the leyline deep beneath the Lilted Vale pulsed with a dream so strong it awakened the moss itself. From that dream rose the first Memorymats, who began to weave consciousness through fungal threads, crafting a new people from lichen, loam, and longing.

Throughout the Second Rooting, the Mosskin acted as caretakers of places long forgotten — ruins swallowed by forest, broken leyline wells, and glades where time flowed strangely. They played a quiet but vital role in nurturing the leyline knots that now stabilize much of the Vale’s magic.

During the Sundering Bloom, many Mosskin groves were corrupted or scattered by leyline fractures, and it is believed a significant number rooted themselves permanently to hold back the spread of magical rot. These self-sacrifices are honored each year in the Wiltwake, when spores are cast over still pools and the stories of the Rooted are sung aloud in mourning-hum.

In the present day, Mosskin continue to thrive in harmony with the land. Though overlooked by some, they remain a foundational presence in the Lilted Vale’s magical ecosystem — ever listening, ever remembering.

Verdworn:
Revered cousins in spirit. Mosskin see the Verdworn as majestic elder siblings — beings of flame and root who act as protectors. Many Mosskin bloom under Verdworn care, and some Memorymats carry fragments of draconic dreams gifted by Verdworn rituals. Their relationship is one of deep mutual respect.

Elves & Gnomes:
Forest elves and gnomes regard Mosskin with fondness and sometimes quiet amusement. Gnomes frequently engage in spore-sculpting collaborations, while elves often rely on Mosskin lorekeepers for forgotten druidic paths and insight into decay magic. The bond is mostly peaceful and symbiotic.

Sporetails & Plant Folk:
Mosskin are often considered spiritual siblings of the Sporetails and kin to other sentient plants. They act as stabilizers, pollinators, and interpreters of fungal memory. In some Grovesouls, Mosskin and mushroomfolk co-govern ceremonies and harvest cycles.

Humans:
Humans often underestimate Mosskin, mistaking their quietness for simplicity. However, those who take the time to earn a Mosskin’s trust find them to be loyal, enigmatic friends — often serving as guides through wild or mist-laden terrain. Still, tensions rise when humans overharvest or build over sacred decayed grounds.

Dwarves:
Relations with dwarves are neutral to strained. Mosskin tend to distrust stonecutting and fire-intensive industries, though some deepstone dwarves with fungal affinity have been welcomed into groves. There are rare but notable alliances involving underground lichen cultivation.

Fey & Spirits:
Mosskin are respected by many Fey for their balance of life and decay. Some Fey courts treat them as spiritual anchors, calling upon them during times of seasonal imbalance. However, certain capricious fey see them as too slow or sentimental, and have historically exploited their trust.

Blight-creatures & Corruptions:
The Mosskin are among the first to detect rot that is unnatural. They serve as sentinels for creeping feyblight, necrotic fungal infections, or soul-parasites. In these moments, the calm, dreamy demeanor of the Mosskin gives way to chilling clarity and decisive ritual action.