Deep Mushrooms
Deep mushrooms are a staple crop in just about every part of the world. They are nutritious, but held by most to be tasteless to the point that they are unpleasant to eat. A small minority of gourmets consider them a delicacy.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Deep mushrooms are overall pale white in colour, with light brown gills being the only exception. The spores are fine, black granules. Their caps are round but not quite hemispherical and the stem is generally around half their total height.
Their most notable physical attribute is the gentle, green glow they give off at all times. This is magical in nature.
The most reliable test to distinguish them from other, similar glowing mushrooms is to take some of the spores and rub some spit into them. If the specimen is a proper deep mushroom, and not one of its poisonous doppelgängers, the spores will change colour to leaf green and begin to glow like the rest of the fungus.
They are generally considered fit for harvesting once they are six inches tall, although they will continue to grow more-or-less indefinitely given sufficient heat and space. Connoisseurs of the deep mushroom agree that specimens over eighteen inches tall start to acquire an unpleasant after-taste. The largest recorded specimen, found growing in an empty lava tube near an active volcano, was over fifteen feet tall.
Ecology and Habitats
Like all mushrooms, deep mushrooms thrive in dark, moist conditions. However, deep mushrooms are particularly fond of total darkness and depth underground. Warm conditions increase their rate of growth. One of their magical properties is that they are an endothermic life-form: they draw heat from their surroundings continuously. This makes fields of deep mushrooms cold and often misty.
For this reason, they are often cultivated near sources of readily-available heat, such as behind underground forges and kitchens, in order to promote growth. In the Northern Safe Zone they were traditionally cultivated above sleeping areas, making the residents feel cold.
When growing wild, the cold they generate makes their growth self-limiting. This property can be exploited. Caches of deep mushrooms are buried as an emergency reserve in many locations. At their minimum temperature, they grow no further but remain good esculents for hundreds of years.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Deep mushrooms are inextricably linked with both humanoids and monsters. Either can live on nothing but deep mushrooms for years at a time. Their glow is also an inexpensive way of providing minimal light without naked flame or the use of spells. They are a key ingredient in many potions.
Before the safe zones became established, every humanoid settlement had extensive underground galleries reserved for the cultivation of deep mushrooms. When the crops in the fields had been stolen or ruined by monsters, when foraging or fishing was simply too dangerous, the deep mushrooms were always there. It is no exaggeration to say that, were it not for deep mushrooms, humanoids would have gone extinct.
In modern times, many dungeons are fed entirely by crops of deep mushrooms, as the monsters within seldom leave the confines of the dungeon.
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