Bioluminescent mushrooms and wood

[Adamsor]

Hey!



I want to suggest content expansion in a form of bioluminescent fungi. This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0em0Czk0eQo recently caught my eye and while video itself is in Polish language, at 17:25 there is a fragment with prolonged exposure of how it looks.

 What I’m talking about is Armillaria mellea or possibly in a case of the north Armillaria borealis. In video it is said that mycelium of those species can span area as big as 37 hectares in Europe and almost 1000 in America. Assuming 1000 hectares, given its growth rate, it would be as old as 10 000 years. I think it’s safe to say that such species were present 1000 years ago.

On top of that, there were legends of glowing trees and mushrooms until in XVIII century it was proven that timber supporting mine shafts indeed can glow in the dark.



So what I suggest is:
- Areas infected with Armillaria, where glowing wood could be found. Finding such area may not be so obvious considering bark need to be removed first and not all trees are infected. Possibly it could be harvested and reused by players to create some form of lantern posts. I assume it won’t glow very bright, but probably enough to create orientation spots?
- Maybe some quest involving finding such area? I think there are very clever ideas that could take place here, but I don't want to spoil the fun.

I think it would be a perfect fit for a game’s theme, where almost magical phenomena from legends comes true.

Most of the information contained in this post is based on the video (again sorry for language restriction), though I’ve been doing some research to check if this information is correct. If idea catches I can help find specific references on this topic.

I understand that such expansion may not sound as most pressing. I believe though that it's better to have more ideas/options than less.

[Epätietäjä]

This is a neat idea. I did some cursory "research" on this and found that in Finnish folklore the phenomenon is called "peikonkulta" lit. "troll's gold". In Finnish nature the mushroom you mentioned (Armillaria borealis) indeed causes this, but also a bioluminescent species of moss (Schistostega pennata) grows in Finland.
According to 16th century Swedish historian/cartographer Olaus Magnus, northern people marked their paths in night time forests with these plants, and sages/shamans used these for special effects.
Bioluminescent plankton is also found in northern sea waters, especially in White Sea, and Sami have known the phenomenon as "gallagas" or "gallagas-dolla". In Baltic shores glowing waters are much rarer, but in Finnish folklore it's known as: "merituli" which is apparently a direct translation from old Norse "morueldr" (both mean sea-fire); "noidantuli" (witche's fire) from a folk belief that glowing waters were a result of witchcraft.