The Sand Plains
The Plains are located both in the bottom left corner of the Nightlight Zone. This biome is a known hotspot for accumulating new arrivals from the surface, and is also where the first people to properly explore the Nightlight Zone first emerged. This biome is mostly made up of sandy terrain, housing a variety of creatures and plants alike.
Geography
The Plains have largely mundane geography. At first glance, they may just look like any other part of the real world's oceans, though there are certain areas that deviate from this norm. There are various natural archways formed out of rock, coated in sand, and serving as hotspots for plants to grow. The Plains have deep ravines and sand-filled trenches where ambush predators lurk, giant rock spires jutting from the ground and creating much more extreme landforms, and sand dunes housing dense pocket forests filled with the biome's signature plants. There are also carcasses found throughout which, if left long enough, serve as hiding places for smaller creatures.
Ecosystem
The Plains are a rather simple environment, the only pressing factors being the dark, the cold, and the occasional currents. The rocks commonly found throughout the regions are often hosts for various plants and other sessile lifeforms. The rocks house large gatherings of supernatural barnacles over their surfaces, small clusters of seaweed and algae at the bases, and the occasional corals that can grow just about anywhere. The corals seem to be largely left alone by the creatures inhabiting the regions.
The animal part of the Plains ecosystems has average diversity, and the creatures often occupy very generalized environmental niches. The food web is dominated by unnatural variations of the vertebrate species commonly found in the real world oceans, namely fish, turtles, and cephalopods. Some invertebrate types can also be found in the Plains as well, though they generally have more bizarre forms compared to the other creatures.
In the Sand Plains, competition is fairly low, with some different species interacting positively with each other. A large majority of the creatures spend their time relatively close to the seabed, resting or hunting in the sands.
Ecosystem Cycles
The Plains have been found to be a static environment, with the only routine occurrences being the ocean currents. Oftentimes there are periods where the currents become stronger, allowing some plants to reproduce more efficiently. Some creatures also exhibit annual breeding seasons, though even then this behavior is not common.
Localized Phenomena
Aside from the currents pulling away the sand from the seabed, there is one other type of phenomena tied to this region, and many others. Throughout the Sand Plains there are several hydrothermal vents found poking through the ground, either white smokers or black smokers respectively. Not only do these produce energy for nearly all plants in the Nightlight Zone, but there have been several findings of a type of blue magma found underneath these vents, which occasionally leak out of the tips and harden at the base. The vents, along with the magma, are thought to be connected to the various seaquakes that take place in the Plains. The seaquakes happen all across the Nightlight Zone, but they seem to be more common in the Plains.
When one of these quakes happen, the ground will crack open, and a bright bluee glow will come from below. A brief period of shaking occurs, and any lifeform caught within close proximity will get burns all over their skin. Countless creatures get killed from these burns. Afterwards, the seam that forms from the quake will fill up with a seemingly endless amount of sand. It has also been found that the Air Pocket Caves are always unharmed during these quakes.
Fauna & Flora
Fauna
The fauna consists mostly of mundane vertebrate species that have fairly high interaction with each other, both for food and symbiosis.
Krill
Coral
Barnacles
Demon Turtle
Beak Tuna
Horned Trilobite
Fixoderm
Sea Snapper
Gladioceras
Brine Worm
Flat Tip Reef Shark
Asseristome
Sandfish
Thanadon
Flora
Most flora in this region grow particularly large, but don't grow just anywhere they can find. Some plants are fickle with where they grow.
Plankton
Algae
Sea Bush
Copper Stem
Spadeleaf
Natural Resources
Besides the carcasses, some resources used by the native lifeforms consist mainly of hard shells, both from the turtles and the Gladioceras. Oftentimes, the shells of these creatures can be separated from the bodies - either from scavengers or by chance - and carried elsewhere. These shells serve as ideal hiding places for small species, or newborns of larger species. There are also natural mazes created by fallen Copper Stems, serving as both hunting grounds and as getaways, for hiding, nesting, or raising young.
The sand in this biome is most used by the Sandfish for ambush hunting, leading other creatures to become cautious when traveling over the sand. Some of the rocks can be used by the Gladioceras for self defense, or as sharpening stations for more predatory creatures.
History
The Sand Plains were one of the first environments to form in the Nightlight Zone, and at one point, it was the largest, covering the entire realm. That was until plant life began to grow in very specific areas, and the currents began to shift depending on the terrain, splitting the realm into its major known environments. The Plains only had a moderate amount of chemicals concentrated over its waters, leaving the plant life to become moderately sparse. Some thousands of years later, Cave Stalkers first inhabit the region. Remnants of their buildings in the Sand Plains are entirely gone, but their items left over show these plains may have once been used as a dump for their waste. After their civilization collapsed, this biome remained relatively unchanged into the present.
Alternative Name(s)
The Plains
Type
Plain
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments