Flora et Fauna: Exotic Plants & Animals

This week's post about the wildlife and plant life of Evandar is a departure from previous posts where I featured an individual species. There is a very wide array of plants and animals in this world. The geography is varied and the biosphere is complex. This is something that we should expect in any world. Sometimes, plants and creatures from parts of the world are brought out of their native regions and to a place that is less hospitable. Like in our world, this creates challenges to animal husbandry and horticulture with these exotic species.

A thriving trade system that ferries these exotics from their respective native regions to elsewhere is both a thing of great financial challenge and reward. There are parties who view the ability to bring rare specimens to their clients as a thing to boast about. This, however, is something that is only valuable if you can actually deliver the goods. In some cases, the methods of transport will have a high cost in supplies for their specialized cargo. In other cases, the cost is in the acquisition of that cargo is going to be high and securing it against people who would steal it is very much a thing to be concerned with.

While the technology for thing such as hot houses is not common, they are not unheard of. It is partly a thing of technological effort and partly a thing of arcane practice. As such, when a person of high degree has some type of exotic plant or animal that requires such specialized care, they are viewed with a mixture of awe and suspicion. The common person lacks knowledge of such creatures and generally views them as mythical. And mythical creatures are almost unilaterally beings that are regarded with fear in this world.

Interestingly, exotic plants are not regarded with quite the same degree of suspicion. They would be assumed to be poison as a general rule, but there would be less fear of somehow getting involved in an otherworldly mess. There will also be far more production of faux product with the exotic plants. The idea of plants being 'safer' than animals is rooted in the mythology that says the plants are the result of the efforts of the benevolent deities. Animals, however, have the potential of being tangled up with the malevolent deities.