Gealcaonach
Before the advent of mechanical timepieces, whatever method of keeping it one might ascribe to, the Dwarves and Gnomes were left to devise a method of telling time without the aid of the sun, moons, and stars. Naturally they still became fatigued over the course of 12 to 16 hours and required six to eight in order to rejuvenate themselves, but in a time before ‘hours’ was a concept they shared with the surface dwellers, these measurements were fairly inconsistent and massively inconvenient. Something measurable, reliable, and readily available would be required in order for the subterranean residents of Mordrekain would be able to keep track of time gone by. In the formative years of the budding empire, this came at last in the form of gealcaonach.
A bioluminescent mycelium growth that can be found all across the modern Underkingdom, gealcaonach was first discovered in several small cavern systems that were breached during the excavation of what would become Vuklenesburgh. It tasted terrible, but grew like nothing the diggers had ever seen before, and it was quickly cultivated in the hopes that a means of making it palatable would eventually be unearthed. Instead, would-be chefs noticed that the plant’s natural glow would die out for long periods of time, only to return just as brightly as before. No matter when an individual patch reached maturity, so long as it was in contact with more of its kind, these periods of light and dark would synchronize perfectly. In short, the plant served as a biological clock.
Within the decade, as Vulkenesburgh’s eventual grandeur began to take shape, the luminous growth could be found throughout the caverns of Mordrekain. It was carefully spread in such a way that entire cities - and the entire Underkingdom as a whole, in modern times - were part of a single, massive growth. Society ebbed and flowed with the plant’s light cycle. Depending on the situation a given individual found themselves in, the citywide blackouts left in the wake of the dark phases might be break time, a few hours of rest, or the closest thing the caverns had to night. The Circadian rhythm of the Underkingdom’s residents quickly aligned itself as well, creating a sort of multi-phase ‘day’ that lasts roughly 30 surface hours, interspersed with seven total hours of sleeping over the course of three two-and-a-third hours mini-nights.
When humans seeking new lands first encountered the Dwarves - having previously only encountered the then-surface-dwelling Gnomes in their incursion into Mordrekain - they got the impression that the short folk were incredibly lazy, given how often they seemed to settle down to sleep. The Dwarves’ complete indifference to the human 24-hour cycle, however, made them unpredictable and tricky to manage in the war that would follow.
Properties
Material Characteristics
Gealcaonach, sometimes called the Cavern Sky Moss, is a shaggy, fungal growth that perpetually seeks to coat any and all surfaces it can manage to reach. In reaction to ambient magic, combined with the chemical composition of the air and the material it's grown on, it gives of a bioluminescent glow bright enough for only a small amount of the fungus to fill a room with light. In most cases, this light will be a light sky blue in color, though reactions with certain metals and gases can change this to a wide spectrum of vivid colors.
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