biome suggestions

[wind kindle]

I noticed an old post about how we don't have a biome suggestions thread, but we have one for animals. We even have one for pentagonal structures. This just ain't right, so I'm fixing it by adding it right here and now. What are your biome suggestions? As much detail as possible is preferred, including how it could change over time (do trees grow sideways from pillars, but only during the winter when the trees have nothing better to do?)

(photo from Naucicaa of the Valley of the Wind)

[thick eagle]

GG @wind kindle, you just advanced to level 10!

[nova canopy]

i've got an idea for a global one, even made a post abt it. That one's really about what's besides said biome, but here i'll focus on the biome itself: airless forest, and others, so oceans, meadows, deserts, jungles, etc. It'd be a subiome for all those, and it'd generate on half-airless planets, but on a special type, not the impact-driven one. So instead of the planet being hit by a large object at a low velocity, creating a heavy atmo in cracks in the surface, you'd have a planet get blasted by a radiation burst, having it's atmo blown away, and leaving whole dead biomes frozen. Ik, this is supposed to be abt one biome, but this implies the existence of life in the caves, so very low depressions in the ground and cave systems could still have life, matching the dead, fossilized ones on the surface. I feel like having just the same biome, but frozen would be boring tho, so instead the frozen, airless ones would have small craters, cracks, fallen trees, etc. also, trees would be leafless, so only trunks with branches are left standing.

[wind kindle]

A jungle variant that only exists if it is not water and below sea level by 20 blocks. Giant jungle trees grow thickly here, with jackfruit and such. The fruits glow, and shorter trees and foliage grow under the fruit (the fruits act as growlamps). Very lightly glowing moss covers the ground and up to 6 blocks high on the giant trunks.

This also has a wetter variant that doesn't have glowing fruit, instead, there are medium-large mushrooms growing under the giant jungle trees that glow at night, and around the mushrooms are a bunch of various flowers and such that glow too.

Every night, a fog settles in this area, such that you can't see the top of the trees and the jackfruit (if there is jackfruit) are just barely visible by their glow. As morning approaches, the fog seemingly gets denser: in reality, it is getting lower and lower. Eventually, you end up with a thick blanket of fog at your feet that then disappears.

[nova canopy]

oh, so like in depressions that aren't filled with water, a very thick jungle grows? i really like that. imagine, like a cave variant of this, so some luminescent plants/fungi, and a huge jungle. that'd only be the case on planets tho.

big planets*\

maybe it'd be light blue...?

Oh, got another one: an orange forest, like with twisty vines, and everything looking... twisty. trees growing short, as they curl up at the tip, grass growing tall, but - again - curling up, maybe some yellow and red to that, but generally, most things would be different shades of orange. So like everything on earth is mostly green, here the same rule applies. i think this'd go well with hot, dense atmo enviorments

[wind kindle]

I'm not a huge fan of underground variants actually. It feels like a missed opportunity: you have a completely different system and you just plop down trees.

Caves have such a wonderful and bewildering set of characteristics for their flora and fauna, and to just put down slightly modified aboveground lifeforms and food chains...

[crude hazel]

Gotta admit, I'm a sucker for glowing plants

[nova canopy]

yeah, you're right. Plants wouldn't survive in such enviornments, but fungi would. I don't think just a mushroom cave would be good, cause it's uninspired and boring, so here's my idea: on the surface, a jungle with mushrooms in it. but under said jungle, a whole giant cave system of very small mushrooms of different kinds, and a HUGE mycelium. So strands of fungus goin across the cave, with mosses growing around openings. Maybe even some ecosystem of fungus-eating fauna? underwater caves?

you're totally right, caves are way too complex to do them like that

[wind kindle]

And they have all sorts of fungi, molds, algae, and more, not to mention bacteria colonies, rotifera, protozoa... And that's just for the plant-like growths.

[nova canopy]

yeah, mold would just fall under other fungi, but i just came up with something GENIUS. What if there was a half-flooded cave variant? so not just water cave, but not a dry cave. small, tight channels with air pockets connecting to large limestone caverns, with aquiffers and stuff. Fauna and flora could differ, i'm talking specifically abt generation here

so when you go into a small cave like that, you need to roll the dice. if the cave is too long, you'll drown, unless you find a pocket of air. but if it's short, you'll be able to get right through, potentially into a big cavern, idk, maybe it could have structures?

[crude hazel]

Honestly I'm thinking I want a big mossy forest. One that feels old and timeless and there's moss on all the trees. Like this picture

Also someplace rare that's like this national park in brazil, with white sand dunes that fill up with water every time it rains

[distant cedar]

Wet dunes
Sandworm gonna die

[nova canopy]

yeah, and not like the ugly moss in minecraft, dark moss. like very deep, dark green.

and preferably a dark forest, that gives me the vibe

[wind kindle]

You have this in New Zealand?!

This is Florida's mossy equivalent.

[wind kindle]

I don't think they are usually dark and moody. That sounds more moldy than mossy.

Though a decaying forest would be a fun one too, and fit the dark vibe a lot.

New biome: decaying forest.

[nova canopy]

we got a few here in poland, they are sooo climatic

it's sadly autumn here, so i can't send any good photos, but there's a forest like that near my house

just giant oaks, moss, leaves, and a very dark atmosphere

it's totally awesome, i'd go there more often, but there are wild animals around here, and wolves have been spotted

imma find an online picture of what they look like tho

[nova canopy]

it's not moldy, i promise

ok, i really tried to avoid ai images here, and i'm not sure if this is ai, hope it's not,this shet's getting better by the day, but i've got one

this is the vibe i mean

also, looking at it again, it\s prolly ai :/

[nova canopy]

yeah, the moss doesn't look real at all, it's ai obviously :(

[wind kindle]

Yeah, I can't find any source. It's used for a few sites, namely, meditation sites, but none of them have any info and it doesn't look like the locations they are based in.

[nova canopy]

yk, what? imma go to that forest near me, and snap some pics tommorow

it's not gonna be as dark, as during the summer, and less moss will be visible, due to the leaves falling down, but it's something

maybe i'll get to photograph some of the mossy fallen trees, iddunno

but imma send something tommorow

[nova canopy]

oki, gonna go take the photos now, that's like 20 minutes by bike both ways

see you in like 30

[nova canopy]

ok, got the photos, gonna send one, and with some filters, cause it really didn't give the vibe i was looking for

i mean the photo, cause my camera's shet, the forest was eerie and moody af

ok, this photo had it's guts edited out of it, that's just how bad it was. but the edited thing gives the idea of what i mean

it just was so... pale and not very green, cause of the camera and that it's dry around here

so the leaves were more gray than green

it's the background that matters

that kind of vibe

[wind kindle]

Yeah, I generally associate that vibe with decaying forests, the kind where mudslides and falling trees are a huge problem.

[nova canopy]

welp, i've never encountered one like that... yk, imma get specifically a polish mountain forest, these are exactly what i mean

what the hell i just found the picture on my biology textbook

that shet from google images, really?

oh, that's the vibe i mean

just deeper into the forest, and so darker

not muddy and decaying, rather rocky and deeply green with moss and leaves

and some vines

a mountain biome, rather

and it's lowland counterpart being the typical european old growth woodlands

like the Puszcza Białowieska here in Poland

why the hell did i not look up this place before, this is EXACTLY what i mean

just a bit darker

ferns, mosses (they also should be darker, i'll send photos of what i mean), unidentified plants of all sorts, herbs, and very tall oak trees

so this is what the most common type of moss looks like here in poland

this here is spagnum moss, and what i'm talking about isn't, butit's not that far from it

it looks more wooly than spagnum

and it SUCKS

cause it's really ugly

ok, i got the one i mean

and it's literally exactly what i mean

i work with terrarias sometimes, and this is the prettiest moss i know

[wind kindle]

Gotcha. I don't think of those as dark, and certainly not dark vibes, but I think we are thinking the same general thing.

[nova canopy]

but sark areas are a must have. they're so... moody

dark

drick

frick* god damnit

[wind kindle]

Biome suggestion: decaying forest

This is primarily made up of old trees, due to a lack of fires, strong winds and the like, the trees are not naturally culled. This leads to a forest full of large trees that are rotting. Vines, moss, and mold are abundant here. If you see a tree fall, chances are it had been dead for years, and had acted as a support for vines and such until the trunk and roots had rotted enough for it to fall. The sun doesn't often reach the floor, due to the numerous vines and branches (the vines spread from tree to tree, blocking light in-between). As a result, the bottom is almost always damp and warm. Not a nice place to live as the decaying roots and lack of young growth causes a very unstable soil, prone to floods and mudslides, and the paths are frequently changing as trees fall down, blocking the way with their trunks and branches. The water is unsafe.

[nova canopy]

i love the idea, and it'd go along with my idea very well, so it's like the middle of a woodland

[nova canopy]

also, "the water is unsafe" sounds incredibly ominous. Maybe some eldritch being lives in the rivers...?

i feel like - overall - the gigant mossy woodland genera has a ton of potential for horror

and not spiders, giant spiders are horribly overused

[crude hazel]

All thanks to that one spider that bit Tolkien as a kid lol

Anyway another biome/feature suggestion: hot springs. Little ones are cool, but occasionally there should be huge, gorgeous ones like Pamukkale:

(I have actually been here and it's not nearly as pretty as this picture, but that's just because of overuse and modernization)

[nova canopy]

looks good

i feel like this would go VERY well with icy biomes

so a whole tropical biome all getting the heat from the volcanic activity

and then just suddently ice and snow

it'd be like sitting next to a campfire in the winter

[nova canopy]

biome suggestion: short woodland

it'd be a very vast forest of really short trees, and so really thin, with the trunks being the thickness of fences

it'd be a lowland biome

surrounding mossy woodlands

and being surrounded by birch, which would be the main type of outside forest

in autumn, the leaves would turn yellow

bright yellow

and cover the ground

making a very moody enviorment

this is inspired by a forest next to my house aswell

we've got a ton of small forests around here

[wind kindle]

Hehe. More of "water not cold" and "water full of organic matter" = "water full of microbes". Though, spiders and snakes would be very common here. Maybe a giant snake that is exactly 1 log thick (so it looks like a fallen tree)? It is generally peaceful, but it is curious and so fearlessly approaches the player from the side (if the player turns and sees it, it still approaches, but it first tries to approach without being noticed). Most players will hit it in surprise, and so it will get thought of as aggressive (it retaliates) until someone just freezes in fear and discovers it actually isn't aggressive.

But "water is unsafe" is a lukewarm muddy water thing, not a hidden horror thing.

But I kinda like the idea of most of the creatures there being peaceful to the player. Destructive weather is very rare in the biome, like once every few hundred years type of rare (that's kinda the prerequisite of it existing), and due to the sunlight being mostly blocked, the majority of life is small like bugs.

A bit of the biome is so old, that most aggressive creatures go away. No large rabbit populations, so no large wolf populations. The land is falling apart, but it isn't going to intentionally kill you (just be very careful what you eat and drink)

[nova canopy]

only if you let it be

i have went to that forest in my pics quite a few times now

and that place FEELS hostile

a forest, and a dark one, is a hostile enviorment

it always has been

here, in Poland, basically the entirety of the country was woodland at one point

and we have a pretty good understanding, of what a dark and decaying woodland is like

well, it ain't a fun place

[wind kindle]

Though I think it would be very fun to have a biome that scares people, should scare people, but it is the biome itself, not what's in it, that is scary. Random mudslides, falling trees, no good path through... And for some reason, it almost feels empty. You are waiting for something to attack, waiting for something to happen, but there aren't any cats chasing rabbits, there aren't any rabbits, at most, there's an occasional bird. The action is so rare, but it feels like it should be constant.

That's my idea of an eerie place, a place where you almost want stuff to attack you because otherwise it feels unnatural. To have something happen would be a relief.

And, that kinda sums up the decaying forest, it is centuries late on something happening and so it is just dying.

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Oooh...

You just gave me an idea

What if the decaying forest is a variant of a dark forest?

Like, it is a variation that you only find in the middle of a large dark forest?

[inland creek]

better than the occasional bird

occasional bird song

but there are no birds

and the song sounds ever so slightly off, for some reason

as if it's something trying to imitate a bird

[wind kindle]

Nice play. Lore wise, that could be two different things. 1) the forest itself trying to bring new life in, or remembering the past life there, or 2) something trying to lure animals in, but for a bit more hostile reason.

Maybe you see an occasional feather up in the treetops.

And that would be a contrast from the younger outlying forest where things happen

[nova canopy]

ok, when you phrase it like that, yes, i agree. it sounded more like a friendly place before

[nova canopy]

oh god imma have nightmares now, that's creepy

that's what i call a hostile enviorment

and it fits perfectly into something, i discovered and maybe am the first to define

imma post it in random tho, cause this is deserving of more recognition

and isn't that closelly related to biomes... tho it is, just not suggestions

[neat swan]

i have this idea for a lush red mesa, my main inspiration for this is Sedona, AZ. basically: it is a desert but with little to no dunes, instead, there is layers of rock with grass, water, plants, ores, and trees on the layers, the name im thinking the name for this biome would be an inverted red mesa.

[bitter pasture]

Deep water caves. Big caves that have little to no light and can have big planets and creatures inside of them. The caves are very sharp with big spikes everywhere basically and in some areas it will be more smooth

You know what this reminds me of

[nova canopy]

The lost river?