Ossifer

"In all my years of plant taxonomy, I've found no creature so vile. Men's blood turned green and their skin turned hard to bark. The name "human lichen" feels apt only upon seeing the motionless monstrosities."

-Rembrandt Otto Heinrich of Eldurgrund

Drulluvatn, Mot D'nir, however you recall it, is filled with sights most vile. Home to visuals that harken back to Chyme or horrors worse; every step carries the eerie sensation that you should be elsewhere. Of all the amalgamations I have witnessed and created, the hands of men can mold no horror as visceral as the marshes. This was the lesson I learned in the Forest of Ossifers. To walk among the small saplings and find faces amongst them? They were once an expeditious dispatch, now reduced to ossified skin of bark and bone. Truly, they lost the forest for the trees.

— -J. B. Stalker, the Skinbrandt

Forests of Frozen Men

Ossifers are a parasitic symbiosis between animals and a particular marsh plant. Incapable of reproducing on its own, any ossifer may stand from 4 to 8 feet tall. In the wild, they typically appear as a mound of brown and white bark, with long shallow roots. Each of these roots protruding from the base is layers in sharp spikes and sticky tassels, all of which exude spores when pressure is applied.
When a person or animal steps upon the roots, spores are discharged into the wound, where they will germinate in 2-3 weeks when the pierced wound has already healed. Following germination, the victim will notice ossified skin around the initial wound. Over time, this hardening will spread to the entirety of the victim, resulting in death via suffocation and paralysis 5-6 weeks following the initial injury. By the end of 8 weeks, the deceased victim appears similar to a small tree, yet still maintains abstract physical similarities to its original form. At the 8-week mark, the fresh new ossifer will produce barbed roots of its own, spreading as far as 20 feet from the central mass. The resulting spread from the sapling ossifer will result in local rodents, reptiles, and birds falling prey and forming into an ossified structure as well, eventually producing grotesque and localized woodlands.
While there is no known cure for ossifer poisoning, one may amputate the affected area before the metamorphosis begins. If ossification has already occurred, it is typically too late as the spores have already germinated and spread through the nervous system. Survival rates for the condition are as low as .01%, though reptilian species tend to be the most resistant to poisoning and may even lose the ossification through shedding under the right conditions.

Ossifers are neither animal nor plant. Instead, they are a symbiosis between the two, which gives credence to their colloquial title of "human lichens." While these horrors may not travel and swarm like the Krimits or gorge themselves on flesh like Sputtergits, they strike just as much fear into the heart. Given that there is little public education on the organisms, travelers often fall victim and there are currently no initiatives in the Augury to cut back the growths. Avoidance is considered the best course of action, and those traveling in the marshes should wear thick boots of water-resistant material.
At present, there have been few outbreaks in settled territory and the worst to come from ossifers would be horror stories; for example, those that travel through the marsh may find large wooden territories with half-ossified animals and claim the scene to be like that of a zombie outbreak. after The Silence   , some even claim the creatures to be the works of Arniel Kane given the nature of his own abominations. However, their origin must be far older as they were spread in the oral traditions of the local Naga-Tel before human arrival. However it may have truly originated, Arniel Kane wrote extensive notes on its spread and was inspired by it when crafting his mutagen formula.

Later in history, the symbiosis would come of great interest to J. B. Stalker, a renowned yet feared Rembrandt. While this individual was hired by several barons to discuss research and battle plans abroad, nearly all of his insights involved the utilization of ossifer spores. The Skinbrandt's perverse nature had already been known, but any respectable tactician rejected his advice, believing that the horrors of the marsh should rest in their homeland.

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Anatomy, Physiology, and Communities

"An ossifer (or human lichen, as it is locally referred to), is a symbiosis of plant and animal. The limbs of the victim become rooted to the ground, forming with likeness to a tree's trunk. The limbs, given enough time, will ossify together, forming one robust trunk and its size is dependent upon the victim species. From the trunk, rigid strips of barbed bark will spread upon the dirt's surface. The center mass, the torso of the victim, appears as a knot on a tree. While the torso serves no apparent purpose, it is my theory that it serves as nutrient storage so that the barbs may produce spores.
Areas of infection are typically small, with ossifer forests being no larger than 300 feet across. The territory of infection tends to form near the end of the surrounding territory's ecological succession. Some claim that ossifer forests corral bad luck, though I suspect that the drainage of local consumers causes a trophic cascade; the subsequent disaster resets the ecosystem back to zero, for the plants to arise later on. How they survive the period of disturbance is unknown, but I suspect they hibernate in the surrounding peat."

-Arniel Kane, Conflux of the Quai and harbinger of the Silence

*Any and all art created by Smokingbat7906 in Midjourney*

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