Mana-Catcher Bloom Species in Ysireth | World Anvil

Mana-Catcher Bloom

The mana-catcher bloom is a large, particularly gorgeous flowering bush with deep violet petals and rich, dark green leaves with a velvety texture and softly serrated edges. In ages past, it was called by other names, almost all complimenting its beauty, but after the Shattering, it was renamed for its life-saving usefulness.   The mana-catcher bloom hosts a symbiotic relationship with a very specific type of spider, which has likewise become known as the mana-catcher. The spider itself has a glossy dark green back, matching the bloom's leaves, but its legs are mundanely brown and furry; it is large, easily palm-sized, and a phenomenal web-weaver. Every night, it weaves an intricate web that covers the entire head of a mana-catcher flower, from petal-tip to petal-tip. Every morning, the bloom awakens and stretches its petals to the rising sun, and shortly after, the glistening web is speckled with hapless pollinating insects. The mana-catcher spider then unfastens its web along half the flower's edge and tugs it like a folding net over the bodies of its prey, then drags its harvest off to its more permanent, protected nest tucked along a stitched-half-closed-with-webbing leaf. This leaves the bloom free to receive its rightful pollination, and the well-fed spider's dozens of tiny offspring feed upon any tiny insects that would parasitize the flower until they, too, grow large enough to pair with their own flower far from their mother's nest.   Why this matters to kinvari is simple and yet inexplicable: somehow, the web that the mana-catcher spider spins accrues environmental arcana like a normal web might collect dewdrops at dawn. Something about the particular silk of this spider, or perhaps the way the threads are woven and spun, traps miniscule amounts of ambient arcana and holds it. It is one of the only known natural ways to harvest and store arcana that does not require arcana or arcane manipulation to achieve, and it is the only way that kinvari on Harokin can survive.


Cover image: by Ty Barbary via Midjourney

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Aug 14, 2023 19:06 by Deleyna Marr

What a wonderfully interwoven world you're building here. Delightful.

Deleyna