midnight mushrooms
by Eron12 with Hero Forge"For years, Fumaya and Meckelorn have had a good trading relationship. Mostly, we export high quality metalwork goods in exchange for high quality agricultural products form Fumaya. We dwarves are not famous for giant agricultural years, but we dwarves have one agricultural good in large quantities: midnight mushrooms."
-Krogresli, clerical ambassador to Fumaya (also, her parents were apothecaries)
Basic Information
Anatomy
by me with Midjourney
Midnight mushrooms are best identifiable by their jet black color and umbrella shaped pileus (cap). They can grow up to eight or nine feet tall before they collapse under their own weight, die and dump their spores. Most dwarves believe that the ones that are five feet tall are the best ones to harvest, producing the the richest dyes.
Midnight mushrooms are not like real world mushrooms in that they don't subsist entirely on decaying organic matter. They are passive thaumnivores absorbing ambient magical energy for sustenance similar to how a plant photosynthesizes sunlight (a relatively common trait in fungi and plants of Scarnoctis).
Ecology and Habitats
Midnight mushrooms require very little ambient magical energy to thrive, but they are harmed by even a tiny bit of sunlight, so they cannot grow above ground.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Black Clothing Dye
The best way to dye things black and not merely gray is to use dye derived from midnight mushrooms, and we have cheap and easy access to such dye thanks to our good relations with Meckelorn. Diluted, midnight mushroom dye makes a better gray cloth than most alternatives too, so I buy a lot of midnight mushroom dye for my husband's workshop everytime a Meckelorn merchant's caravan is in town."Tanoa, gnome tailor's wifeby me with Hero ForgeWhen I married a tailor, I learned more about cloths and dye than I could ever imagine. It’s common knowledge that brighter colors are more expensive to make than dull colors. I figured black being the least bright color means making black fabric was cheap and easy. I found out black fabric is readily available in Fumaya, but it’s considered something of a luxury good in almost every other corner of Scarterra. Grey cloth is relatively easy to make, but it takes a large quantity of quality dye to make jump from 'grey, to 'black'.
Cosmetics
I never meet a Scarnoctan orc, and I hope I never do, but I have met a Jelly Spear Fighter who pretends to be orc, and he uses midnight mushrooms to blacken his teeth to play the role of stage villain."Zajac of the Fumayan Lanterns, thespian and occasional freelance spy.by Eron12 with Heroforge"Midnight Mushrooms are best known for the ability to distill clothing dyes from them, but they have secondary uses in cosmetics. It’s relatively easy to use the mushrooms as ingredients in hair dyes and makeup for stagecraft or disguises, if your goal is to make your hair or skin or darker. The effect is long lasting, but not permanent. Though the effect can be removed instantly with Purification magic. It’s rumored that some Scarnoctan orc tribes like to chew midnight mushrooms to make their teeth black.
Medicinal Uses
-Lloyd the Physicianby Me with Hero Forge“Midnight mushrooms are poisonous, but they aren’t deadly or crippling, it merely causes rapid vomiting. If a person accidentally consumed a poison, sometimes the best cure is to induce vomiting and expel poison. Not pleasant, but preferable to a deadly poison. I keep a few vials of “midnight tea” in my shop for that very purpose. If you add the right herbs to the tea, it will neutralize the dying aspect of the concoction so the patient’s teeth won’t be stained for more than a week. Midnight tea can also been used for messy pranks, but I of course would never stoop to that though Fools Day is coming in a few weeks and I do have some extra tea…”
Geographic Origin and Distribution
by Eron12 with Hero Forge"Midnight mushrooms grow throughout all of Scarnoctis , but they thrive especially well around Meckelorn. It might be the climate or latitude or our proximity to the Great Stone of Meckelorn. But midnight mushrooms are mildly useful, so we don't complain. We Meckelorners are a pragmatic lot and will make use of any resource we are given." -Krogresli, clerical ambassador to Fumaya
Influence on Dwarf and Elf Fashion
Meckelorner dwarves and Stahlheimer dwarves are locked in an awkward frienemy situation. They never went to war but they bicker and argue a lot. It's a running joke among other Scarterrans that Meckelorners and Stahlheimers are very difficult for non-dwarves to tell apart, so the rivalry is because they are divided by their similarities. If you aren't sure, you can make an educated guess about a dwarves' ethnicities by looing at his or her clothes. Meckelorners rarely wear bright colored clothing unless they are in the nobility or priestly classes and Stahlheimers favor bright colored clothing, or at least bright by dwarven standards. Older Meckelorners still remember the harsh times where they relied on geurilla warfare tactics to survive and dark grey clothing was good camouflage in the mountains. Meckelorners will also say that dressing in black and grey clothes embodies their spiritual ties to the mountains, but ultimately, they like to wear black and gray clothes because it's cheap and easy for them to produce. The Meckelorners have a lot more midnight mushrooms than the Stahlheimers, and the Stahlheimers trade frequently with Elven Empire, and most of their midnight mushrooms end up being traded away."Many of the ships I've been on have carried dyes among our cargo. The Elven Empire produces a lot of high quality dyes coveted throughout Scarterra. What is the one dye we cannot easily make ourselves? Black and dark grey. What are the most popular colors for imperial elf nobles to wear? Black and dark grey. The Elven Empire is probably the only place in Scarterra where poor people wear bright colors and rich people wear dull colors. Nobles are all about their understated elegance. They often favor grey clothing with a small splash of color. Meh, the customer is always right I guess." Almon Genmaer, imperial elf sailorby Eron12 with Hero Forge
Lifespan
About two years
Average Height
6 feet
Geographic Distribution
I really enjoyed this article! I especially love that instead of a straight lore dump, you framed each section as someone actually talking. It keeps the whole thing lively and avoids the usual “here’s a wall of lore, please suffer” problem. Seriously — great job.
Still standing. Still scribbling. Still here.
The Last Home
Thanks, I try to put at least one flavor quote into every larger article. This is one of the special category submissions for Worldember so I went all out for midnight mushrooms. I try to reuse the same POV quoters multiple times, I have this article to keep track of it all.
Master List of Quotes
Master Index Page for all my in-universe flavor quotes