Glimmertown

Colloquially known as Glimmertown, the city-state Mycota is the political and trade centre of the vast fungal region called The Ferment. It is nestled in the long shadows of the Boneyard mountains, on volcanic islands deep in swampland. It is warmed by the bubbling volcanic vents below, and the heat from the decaying organics of the living city. Always misty, humid, the city gets its name from the huge amounts of phosphorous plants and spores that constantly glitter and swarm through the gloom.
Glimmertown is ruled by the Overmind and Undermind, two of the largest Spore Minds of the Ferment, which control a collection of intelligent plant and fungal species. There are individuals within these collectives, but identity and individualism is rare and complicated.
Privacy is almost unknown, and individual death is nothing - food for new life and an honoured part of the cycle of the Ferment.
Communication between the beings is largely through spores, gases and pheromones, and linked thoughts through vast networks of microbial tendrils that weave through the soil, plants and constructed dwellings.  Outsiders who do not become linked to the Spore Mind directly, can communicate in simple terms using Sporespray.
Architecture is organic, living and grown rather than constructed. Individuals can plug in and out of the network - linked through their living and working quarters.
The ecology is highly organic - the sentients feed off rotting and recycled organic matter, including their own dead. They farm organics in order for them to be composted in vast underground fields known as the Rotting Depths, deep below their primary living areas.
To outsiders, the city and surrounding fungal forests of the ferment are intense and overpowering array of smells, pungent and sweet perfumes over the deep stench of organic decay.
The fungal sentients utilise vast armies of oversized insects and bugs - as pack animals, construction workers, farmers and defenders of the city.

Defences

Vast swarms of giant arachnids and insects are harnessed and commanded to defend when required. Giant beetles, centipedes, worms and the like, as well as flying creatures akin to giant flies and mosquitoes. 
The most feared of defences are The Fever Mounds of Glimmertown.  These can release oison gases and mind-numbing spores can to incapacitate most invading armies.
Far above Glimmertown, in the canopy of the Ferment known as the Greensea, the Greencrest Venari defend the town from potential arial attacks.

Industry & Trade

The Ferment imports food and delicacies from Sunside they cannot grow in the dense gloom, as well as mined rocks and metals they cannot find in their swamps.
They export organic compounds, medicines, potions, and fungal remedies. They are also a massive source of hallucinogenic and recreational drugs that the black market across Shadowfire trades in.

Guilds and Factions

There are two primary Spore Minds that control Glimmertown, known as the Overmind and Undermind.  These massive consciousnesses permeate all parts of Glimmertown.
The Mycanids are the most individualistic of the groups that live among Glimmertown.  They maintain separate identities, but merge with the Sporeminds regularly and when needed they communicate at distances with their spores.

Tourism

Many outsiders seek the wonders of Glimmertown - often lured into drug dens and trances, never leaving.
Others seek to learn the wonders of the interconnected hive minds.
The Overmind employs a large number of Bodyservants and mind-controlled insects to serve the many visitors who spend time in the upper layers of the town.

Architecture

The settlements of Glimmertown are gowns into the walls of the great Zylem Well that drops from the surface of the Ferment, down into the rotting depths.  Houses are grown from fungus to serve as dwellings for the Mycanids, their servants and visitors. Along the rim of the Zylem Well, the constructions tower many hundreds of feet up into the Lumins, and merge with tree-house construcitions in the canopy far above.

Alternative Name(s)

Mycota

Type

City

Location under

The Ferment

Owner/Ruler

Overmind and Undermind

Characters in Location

• Overmind and Undermind