Dark Flora of Carafon

The dark flora of Carafon consists of a number of species of trees and plants which are unique to the cavern city. They are, in actual fact, the results of magical experiments conducted hundreds of years ago. The sage Manuthax, fleeing from a death sentence issued by the High Elders of Euth, was offered refuge in Carafon by the Tyrant Belkuno, along with a small retinue of followers, called the Circle of Manuthax. In return for the hospitality the city extended, the Circle of Manuthax, began a project that would last for more than twenty years, with the goal of creating species of plants that could grow underground without natural light. These plants are now known as the dark flora of Carafon. At the head of the article we see the Black Garden on the Lower Markets level of Carafon, where Manuthax and two members of his Circle are imortalised in statuary, amidst the carefully managed botanical descendants of their cultivars.

Carafon - The Black Garden - Botanical Border by DMFW with Midjourney

The dark flora grow under conditions where no normal plant would survive due to the lack of sunlight and they have been gifted with a variety of ingenious strategies to overcome this deficiency, some verging on the sinister. All dark flora have black stems, black trunks and predominantly black, grey or red leaves. These are designed to preferentially capture the red lantern lights for which the city is known and to amplify the effects of this feeble illumination to achieve disproportionate metabolic effects via unnatural photosynthetic mechanisms.

Carafon - Dark Flora - Wrath Tree by DMFW with Midjourney

One commonly deployed technique is the use of a kind of organic crystal built into the leaves and stems which is able to channel geomagnesic field energy, tapping into the latent arcane reserves of the earth itself and releasing it in small quantities into the normal chemical cycles of the growing cells when triggered by even a small level of light. This is how the Wrath tree, for example, manages to grow throughout the city, but it does still need some illumination to grow and can only be found where humans light the way. It is common practice to hang lanterns from these trees to provide them with the limited light they need.
Dark flora were intended to beautify the city and it was hoped that they could also provide a source of food. Measured against these goals, Manuthax's project can hardly be considered a success. Dark flora is mostly useless for eating. The photosynthetic substitutes within its cells give it a peculiar bitter taste and in large doses it is poisonous, leading to vomitting and hallucinations. Most people would not consider the dark flora to be especially aesthetically pleasing either, but Carafon dwellers often have an attraction to the stubbonly growing forms of its many manifestations, viewing them with a kind of pride, as a symbol of their own endurance underground.

Whilst the account given here is a commonly accepted secular explanation for the origin of the Dark Flora, it should be pointed out that the Church of Hidden Radiance has a completely different and more spirtually focused story in their holy book, the Words From The Dark, which attributes the creation of the Dark Flora to Sanguis, the bloody god who is the father of humankind. Many believers locally prefer that particular story.

There are two notable cases, where the dark flora has proven to be useful in unanticipated ways. The best known example is Speld, which play an infamous role in the life of the city and although it is much less celebrated, the sap of the wrath tree is arguably even more important to Carafon for the role it plays in the creation of Black Resin.