Grandinia

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"'The kingdom is called Grandinia,' says the Mithridate. 'And it lives. Rotting, entombed, Grandinia lives on.'"[1]

Grandinia is a Presbyterate kingdom deep within the Elder Continent. Once a realm of opulent splendor, its landscape is now choked with spores and entombed in a bristling fungal overgrowth.[2][3] While its people are still very much alive and aware, they are trapped under mounds of mold.[4]

A Fungus Among Us[edit | edit source]

"Two things may cause the Homesick Deceiver's ghosts to violently disperse ... One is self-knowledge. The other is feeling truly at home."[1]

The fungus that has infected Grandinia and caused such devastation is called the Homesick Deceiver.[5] Its spores infiltrate the lungs of living beings, leaving them conscious but hijacking and paralyzing their bodies;[6][7] the spores then create a doppelgänger of the victim (including their memories and sense of self), which returns home to spread the infestation.[8] These simulacra have one flaw by design: whenever one becomes aware that it is not the original victim, or whenever it feels truly at home,[9] it erupts in a fungal explosion,[10] scattering spores across the environment and infecting all nearby life.[11] However, if the fungus's host was severely disconnected from reality, their spore-self will effectively be indestructible through this method.[12]

The Homesick Deceiver is empowered by the Mountain of Light, whose vitality allows its spores to exert physical influence over their surroundings.[13] When further from Stone, the fungus's power wanes compared to its strength in Grandinia, which is located "weeks of travel" inland from the coast of the Elder Continent;[14] it can still infest small animals but cannot harm larger hosts in any significant way.[15]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London
  2. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "[...] I continued travelling for weeks, deep into the Presbyterate. Eventually I found myself in a kingdom of silence and rot. The air was thick with choking grey dust. The cities were magnificent, once – grand spires, marble palaces – but they were all entombed in bristling fungus."
  3. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "[...] The Grandmaster died among shattered palaces and mould-pitted temples. By your understanding, this fungus has swallowed a kingdom."
  4. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "Air choked with spores that settle in the lungs. [...] Shrouds of mildew [...] Occasionally, staring frantically from a mound of rot, a pair of eyes."
  5. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "[...] a rare kind of Elder Continent fungus known as the Homesick Deceiver. [...]"
  6. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "I grew tired. So tired. I sat, cross-legged, and I meditated as the dust filled my lungs. [...]"
  7. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "The prey is rendered mute, immobile, imprisoned. [...] a heart beats. An eye blinks. A mind thinks. At that point, don't you think, one might as well be dead?"
  8. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "[...] its spores assume the prey's shape and consciousness just long enough for the confused doppelganger to journey home and spread the infestation there."
  9. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "Two things may cause the Homesick Deceiver's ghosts to violently disperse [...] One is self-knowledge. The other is feeling truly at home."
  10. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "[...] An explosion of spores, infesting everything in sight with fungus. [...]"
  11. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "[...] the Fog explodes. Choking spores fly in all directions, settling in the walls, the ceiling, the floor. A coat of bristling mould creeps over the furniture; mushrooms erupt through the carpet."
  12. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "[...] As far as you can tell, he's the first cloud of Deceiver spores to avoid reaching an existential crisis. It's a profound victory for the truly un-self-aware, you muse aloud."
  13. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "The homesick deceiver thrives on the light of the Mountain [...] Every spore glimmers with it. The sheer vitality of that light is how a spore-cloud is able to exert physical influence on the world: picking up objects, and so on."
  14. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "[...] A tenuous picture takes shape in your mind; in the Elder Continent, distance is measured not in miles, but in time and brightness. Judging by the Mithridate's description, the kingdom that devoured the Grandmaster is bright, but not blinding, and requires weeks of travel from the coastline."
  15. ↑ The Thing That Came In From the Fog, Fallen London "Because the light in London is so pathetically negligible, the deceiver will be much less dangerous than if we were on my native soil [...] Perhaps it could infest a smaller animal, such as a mouse or a bird, but it will not be able to produce enough spores to infest a human. [...]"
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