Talk:Vegepygmy/Conflicts

Origins

It looks like Paizo have amended the origin story of vegepygmies. The original text on the main page was updated in 2020 to the updated version. Here is the original version preserved that was sourced from Into the Darklands, a 2008 sourcebook: -Fleanetha (talk) 17:13, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Among the youngest of the Darklands races, vegepygmies are strange beings that are a product of the sporecrafting gardens of the drow House Udrinor in Zirnakaynin. Working toward the goal of making a sustainable source of food in the Darklands, they harvested a number of strange molds and exposed them to strong doses of caphorite rays. Although the results were barely sentient, these early examples did prove self-sustaining and worthy of further experimentation. The drow, always needing in inject cruelty into their pursuits, and believing that food tastes better when it knows it is going to die, were unsatisfied with their unintelligent experiments. Over time, the sporecrafters worked to increase the intelligence of their plant creations, and gave them a rudimentary ability to care for their own communities. It was a great surprise to their creators that once these initial vegepygmies died, their bodies decayed into a strange patch of rust-colored mold that had the power to invade living bodies and create new forms of vegepygmies. They named this new fungus russet mold.

The Stalking Death

Originally the drow underestimated the dangerous properties of this mold. It was only after the disappearance of a large number of the house workers that the full truth was learned. Assuming that the missing workers had been killed by vegepygmies, an eradication campaign was launched to round up and destroy the existing population. Only after hundreds of the creatures had been killed, did they learn that there were many more than they expected and that they seemed much more intelligent. Further study revealed that the missing workers (many of whom were spellcasters) had been overcome by the russet mold and reborn as the more intelligent vegepygmies. Having maintained their free will, this population of transformed workers decided to act before the drow took further steps to eliminate them entirely and rose up in rebellion, inciting vegepygmy populations all over Zirnakaynin and sparking an event still known among the drow as the Stalking Death.

The drow quickly moved to put down the vegepygmy uprising using sword, magic, and fleshwarped troglodytes. Although they quickly began killing the diminutive and relatively weak creatures, they underestimated the virulence and speed with which the russet mold could transform an infected creature, and found themselves facing an ever-growing tide of moldfolk. The drow finally had to call in the help of summoned demons to deal with their "food-supply" issue and end the rebellion.

With the vegepygmy revolt finally ended, the drow moved to eradicate every last patch of russet mold they could find. When they believed they had succeeded, they realized that a few vegepygmies had fled the caverns of Sekamina for Nar-Voth, but were willing to let them be the problem of the dero and duergar who inhabit that realm of the Darklands.