Creaking Vine

Summary

An extensive and 'fast moving' plant that grows fast enough one can hear it, the aptly named 'creak'. The vines themselves grow from nodule hubs, forming an interconnected series of said hubs for the large growth. These hubs can be found chiefly by their bulging bodies and flowering tops. Different species of creaking vines have different flowers, and some of the more exotic ones provide mana-rich nectar and pollen. Those in more humid environments have larger stalks coming out of them, while dryer environments are firmer and stockier in nature. The plant itself grows like a crossing weave, becoming unusually tough and fabric-looking. These weave strands can grow intertwined with crysium, making it a cheap and effective source of that material.   While some forms of magic can accelerate plant growth, it is not a typically normal occurence in nature. Faster growing plants need more nutrients, and the mana provided by a mage or otherwise is often a substitute. However, a particularly mana-rich area can suffice, and so plants spread with alarming abandon. The creaking vine is an easy contender in a top 5 list of problematic plants where this is concerned. It soaks up mana and nutrients with frightening ease and grows just as much. The vines stretch across the veltron, seeking areas of particularly rich soil or mana. When they find it, they begin growing a new nodule, which then repeats the process.   Creaking vines are not inherently invasive, but they are dangerous to a ridiculous amount of plants because of their nature. They can choke out growths, cover smaller ones, and eat up everything to starve out their competition. However, where there is plants filled with rich nutrients and mana, there are animals. The creaking vine is a staple food of many herbivores, whose appetites are just great enough to halt its unceasing growth. So it is a precarious harmony forms: the animals keep the vines at bay, the vines sustain the animals. If one lacks the other, a collapse follows.   While its food applicability to people is limited, it is a fibrous additive. More important is its tough fibers in themselves, as carefully stripping and working vines can produce fairly durable weaves. Some of the most reliable forms of cloth-based armors come from creaking vines, and botanist families have cultivated even more durable strains. Thanks to its incredible growing speed when allowed, its easy to scale production to demand, so deriatives of it are well-known across Veltrona. The vast majority of peasant armies and other low-cost military forces are usually equipped in creaking vine-derived armors.   Seen as a lower class sort of plant, the creaking vine is often the workwoman's friend more than anyone else's. Its reliability and sturdy nature confer notions of strength and endurance, especially when one doesn't have much to begin with. Some specially cultivated strains are stunted in their growth, but form many more nodules, the aptly named 'flowering vines'. However, it isn't uncommon for the rapacious nature of the plant to be alleged or implied where nobility is concerned. Greed, especially, is a popular analogy due to both's all-consuming hunger.