Agriculture and City Planning in the Land of Eternal Rain

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:21 am

So I'm doing prep for a D&D scenario aimed at 1 new player, several old. Part of this involves doing a write-up for the island they arrive at in session 1, based on my previous questions about their setting preferences. However, I was doing a bit of research and have noted some potential problems in the setting I am working on.

This place is supposed to be an agricultural hub. It has been established that the god of the island causes more-or-less perpetual rainfall, while simultaneously preventing any particularly devastating weather from occurring. The reliable input of water, combined with a reasonably fertile environment, causes this place to produce lots of food, much of which is exported to neighbors.

Now, I am aware that perpetual rainfall is not in fact a universal improvement to agriculture. In addition to the fact that valuable sunlight is limited by the cloud cover, the dampness is likely to make mold a huge problem. And buildings are likely to face all kinds of stresses. Cracks will get widened, bowl-shaped areas without proper drainage will flood. I can handwave away some problems by saying that lots of people become civic-minded hydromancers, but it would be even better if farms and buildings were designed in ways that minimized their weakness to over-watering.

I think I'm going to say that, away from the holy mountain the Rain God lives on, at least one day of the week is sunny, so the environment isn't totally messed up. Rice and melons were going to be the main crops, but I had a conversation earlier today that seemed to indicate that Northern European grains might be better suited to a high precipitation climate. Any thoughts? I'd like to make this idea into something vaguely plausible as a society.

K · Post by K » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:31 am

I'd think a Mayan/Aztec-style city and jungle would be better suited to constant rain, with terraced farms. This makes corn and beans and squash grown in the same plots as the crop (corn for the beans to have a thing to grow up, squash to stabilize the soil).

You can also have aqueducts and it won't be weird.

Note: Europe has about half the rainfall of South America.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:33 am

have you never seen it rain while the sun was shining?

aside from that, well underground housing with the above ground irrigating water to the fields and AWAY from the housing and other buildings would help and work.

underground food stores to keep them dryed, with ventilation built such that water is harder to get in. like an S trap in plumbing, but an inverted J for ventilation so air can flow, but rain cant fall DOWN into the vent.

unless you NEED real world vegetation as food sources, there could be new fruits and vegetables for your game that do not have real world counterparts. this is an "agricultural hub" as you say, so they could have developed new veggies and fruits that thrive on higher watered areas, and even less light. to help them be that hub, it could mean those things grown in this area are located only hear as it offers the proper growing conditions and makes them exotic goods.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:36 am

Tomatoes grow really well here.

So do a bunch of poisonous plants, like nightshade, morning glories and poison ivy.

The potholes and structure decay are more due to our freeze and thaw cycles and a lack of funds for maintaining infrastructure than to the neverending cloudcover and daily showers.

The floods do kill a few now and then, but the terrain is such that there is almost always higher ground nearby, so property damage is far more common.

Our combined sewers mean that sewage washes into the rivers frequently, but the local cultists have ways to deal with that

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:37 am

If you have a central mountain in perpetual rain, you can have ten thousand streams flowing from it, which act as irrigation trenches(or however many; I just thought ten thoysamd sounded cool). That gives you plenty of water, and still lets you have plenty of sun. They can also drive waterwheels for gristmills, so that grains are a good idea. Then you can also incorporate wheel spokes (the streams) and hubs (the mountain) into the setting symbology, if you want.

That probably gives your setting a slight but distict slope away from the center, and possibly makes "higher" status a little more literal than usual: farmers on the outskirts, gristmills in cities at the base of the foothills, nobility above that on the slopes, and clergy close to the top. that also preserves that medieval conceit about paler being nobler (because they're under clouds all the time instead of in the sun).

You could even justify a Venice-like city inland, built on a lake, with the mountain towering behind it.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:41 am

fectin wrote:If you have a central mountain in perpetual rain, you can have ten thousand streams flowing from it, which act as irrigation trenches

which could offer something such as the Nile river delta originally offered before it became so desolate.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:50 am

If it's magic rain, there's no particular reason why the rain can't come from a bunch of isolated cumulus clouds instead of a constant overcast of no sunlight. The sun still shines while it's raining.

Even so, if the average rain is more than a constant misty drizzle, you're going to have issues with flooding like mad. The ground is going to erode and the land is going to be more or less constantly flooded in most areas. Which is fine if you're growing rice, but that will probably screw over anyone that's trying to grow melons.

So your island is actually an atoll where you have a circle of land/coral reef surrounding a lagoon full of water. The city in the middle of the island is built like tenochtitlan, with everything floating on the water in the lagoon where it isn't going to be washed away by the constant rain. Food gets grown in rice paddies on/near shore and melons get grown in bowl-shaped arrangements filled with dirt that float out in the lagoon. Grain probably isn't going to happen, but mangos seem pretty plausable. Also, a lot of fishing.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:55 am

Nutrient leeching would be an issue. Waterlogging for certain types of plants would also be a problem. Disease issues in plants could arise from constant moist conditions, such as various blights, moulds and more extreme fungal problems. Other issues also arise from fertilisation; those flowering plants relying on insects or wind to disseminate pollen may have problems, but a skilled horticulturalist could probably pollinate by 'hand.'

Could be solved by farming aquatic and semi-aquatic plants. Sandy soils may still allow for nutrient exhange without becoming waterlogged and crushing cotyledons as clay based soils would.

Lack of extreme weather could be an issue for atmospheric nitrogen fixation, easily rectified by including plenty of thunderstorms. Crops may be grown exclusively for nutrient fixation, for example a fast growing bean crop harvested for compost.

Also consider the use of grow houses or sheltered greenhouses. It would keep seedlings sheltered, in a disease minimised environment and would also allow for growth in atypical seasons. Mainly plants thrive in in a humid, high CO2 environment (part of the reason rainforests are so dense).

Artificial growth mediums could be extracted from various monocots, such as Coconut Palms or grass fibres and could allow for a primitive hydroponics set up.

Complete lack of light is an issue for some plants, but many domesticated crops prefer only a few hours of good light per day. Perhaps some kind of artificial light would allow for mass production of crops?

My knowledge is mainly scewed by Environmental Science and Botany, my knowledge of Agriculture is fairly limited. Keep that in mind.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:58 am

Why not have the mountain be the center of a swirl of storm clouds, with spiral bands reaching out from the mountain for quite a ways? Past a certain distance, there's a pretty strong alternation of heavy rain and bright sunlight which, as I know after watching everything grow about four inches from Hurricane/Tropical Storm Lee on Labor Day Weekend, is fucking great for plants.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:08 am

Sugar Cane needs rather a lot of water, and produces a lot of byproduct. It also let's you make molasses and rum, which is pretty close to being an agricultural powerhouse all by itself. You could probably grow rice as your staple crop, and keep something small, fecund, and herbivorous for yor protein. Actually, you could build a good empire on rice, rabbit, and rum.

If you're worried about scurvy, add magic berries growing everywhere that are chock-full of vitamins.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:19 am

Josh_Kablack wrote:Tomatoes grow really well here.

Actually tomatoes naturally prefer a more arid climate. We've had to tinker with them in order to make them viable for wetter climates.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:45 am

K wrote:

I'd think a Mayan/Aztec-style city and jungle would be better suited to constant rain, with terraced farms. This makes corn and beans and squash grown in the same plots as the crop (corn for the beans to have a thing to grow up, squash to stabilize the soil).

You can also have aqueducts and it won't be weird.

Note: Europe has about half the rainfall of South America.

This could work. I was even thinking about a repressed order of blood mages that would figure prominently in early adventures. Lots of existing imagery I could draw on. The monolithic stone designs would make for very nice local dungeon prospects as well.

shadzar wrote:

have you never seen it rain while the sun was shining?

aside from that, well underground housing with the above ground irrigating water to the fields and AWAY from the housing and other buildings would help and work.

underground food stores to keep them dryed, with ventilation built such that water is harder to get in. like an S trap in plumbing, but an inverted J for ventilation so air can flow, but rain cant fall DOWN into the vent.

unless you NEED real world vegetation as food sources, there could be new fruits and vegetables for your game that do not have real world counterparts. this is an "agricultural hub" as you say, so they could have developed new veggies and fruits that thrive on higher watered areas, and even less light. to help them be that hub, it could mean those things grown in this area are located only hear as it offers the proper growing conditions and makes them exotic goods.

I'd like to stick with real flora for the most part, but I'm not opposed to magical or specially bred versions with different traits. Your points on underground storage, water channeling, and ventilation could make for some nice adventure locales if I can come up with trouble in the undercity. Synergizes well if I want to go heavy on the Mictlan.

Josh_Kablack wrote:

Tomatoes grow really well here.

So do a bunch of poisonous plants, like nightshade, morning glories and poison ivy.

The potholes and structure decay are more due to our freeze and thaw cycles and a lack of funds for maintaining infrastructure than to the neverending cloudcover and daily showers.

The floods do kill a few now and then, but the terrain is such that there is almost always higher ground nearby, so property damage is far more common.

Our combined sewers mean that sewage washes into the rivers frequently, but the local cultists have ways to deal with that

Cool. The monolithic stone city is built up to the point that lots of it isn't actively maintained, and portions may be underwater. Lots of plot hooks there. An overgrown assassin's garden could lead to all kinds of possibilities.

fectin wrote:

If you have a central mountain in perpetual rain, you can have ten thousand streams flowing from it, which act as irrigation trenches(or however many; I just thought ten thoysamd sounded cool). That gives you plenty of water, and still lets you have plenty of sun. They can also drive waterwheels for gristmills, so that grains are a good idea. Then you can also incorporate wheel spokes (the streams) and hubs (the mountain) into the setting symbology, if you want.

That probably gives your setting a slight but distict slope away from the center, and possibly makes "higher" status a little more literal than usual: farmers on the outskirts, gristmills in cities at the base of the foothills, nobility above that on the slopes, and clergy close to the top. that also preserves that medieval conceit about paler being nobler (because they're under clouds all the time instead of in the sun).

You could even justify a Venice-like city inland, built on a lake, with the mountain towering behind it.

The tech level of the game is definitely advanced enough that the water could get harnessed for stuff like this. At least the corn could be ground, and If I do make a map handout, I like the tiered wheel shape. Centralizing the rain on the mountain makes plotting the aquaducts and rivers much easier.

Grek wrote:

If it's magic rain, there's no particular reason why the rain can't come from a bunch of isolated cumulus clouds instead of a constant overcast of no sunlight. The sun still shines while it's raining.

Even so, if the average rain is more than a constant misty drizzle, you're going to have issues with flooding like mad. The ground is going to erode and the land is going to be more or less constantly flooded in most areas. Which is fine if you're growing rice, but that will probably screw over anyone that's trying to grow melons.

So your island is actually an atoll where you have a circle of land/coral reef surrounding a lagoon full of water. The city in the middle of the island is built like tenochtitlan, with everything floating on the water in the lagoon where it isn't going to be washed away by the constant rain. Food gets grown in rice paddies on/near shore and melons get grown in bowl-shaped arrangements filled with dirt that float out in the lagoon. Grain probably isn't going to happen, but mangos seem pretty plausable. Also, a lot of fishing.

Could also work very well. Last time I ran a game with a floating town was at least 5 years ago, and I never did as much with it as I could.

Winnah wrote:

Nutrient leeching would be an issue. Waterlogging for certain types of plants would also be a problem. Disease issues in plants could arise from constant moist conditions, such as various blights, moulds and more extreme fungal problems. Other issues also arise from fertilisation; those flowering plants relying on insects or wind to disseminate pollen may have problems, but a skilled horticulturalist could probably pollinate by 'hand.'

Could be solved by farming aquatic and semi-aquatic plants. Sandy soils may still allow for nutrient exhange without becoming waterlogged and crushing cotyledons as clay based soils would.

Lack of extreme weather could be an issue for atmospheric nitrogen fixation, easily rectified by including plenty of thunderstorms. Crops may be grown exclusively for nutrient fixation, for example a fast growing bean crop harvested for compost.

Also consider the use of grow houses or sheltered greenhouses. It would keep seedlings sheltered, in a disease minimised environment and would also allow for growth in atypical seasons. Mainly plants thrive in in a humid, high CO2 environment (part of the reason rainforests are so dense).

Artificial growth mediums could be extracted from various monocots, such as Coconut Palms or grass fibres and could allow for a primitive hydroponics set up.

Complete lack of light is an issue for some plants, but many domesticated crops prefer only a few hours of good light per day. Perhaps some kind of artificial light would allow for mass production of crops?

My knowledge is mainly scewed by Environmental Science and Botany, my knowledge of Agriculture is fairly limited. Keep that in mind.

Thanks. Soil erosion being compensated for by dedicated recovery plants and composting gets rid of one of the more troubling issues. Some kind of sheltered growing environment should definitely cover part of agricultural efforts, but I'm not sure what exactly to do with that yet.

Maxus wrote:

Why not have the mountain be the center of a swirl of storm clouds, with spiral bands reaching out from the mountain for quite a ways? Past a certain distance, there's a pretty strong alternation of heavy rain and bright sunlight which, as I know after watching everything grow about four inches from Hurricane/Tropical Storm Lee on Labor Day Weekend, is fucking great for plants.

That would make an interesting combo with a wheel layout centered on the mountain. Also possibly over-encourage the guy who was ranting about terrorist wizards blowing up the world with typhoons.

fectin wrote:

Sugar Cane needs rather a lot of water, and produces a lot of byproduct. It also let's you make molasses and rum, which is pretty close to being an agricultural powerhouse all by itself. You could probably grow rice as your staple crop, and keep something small, fecund, and herbivorous for yor protein. Actually, you could build a good empire on rice, rabbit, and rum.

If you're worried about scurvy, add magic berries growing everywhere that are chock-full of vitamins.

A good export prospect for making this place important to those of its neighbors who can easily feed themselves.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Thanks, this has all been very helpful. I'm going to read through your posts more carefully, do a bit of additional concepting work, then try and put together a more defined concept for your perusal. First, however, I'm going to get some sleep. Hopefully I'll be in better shape to write something up tomorrow.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:40 am

Plants tend to be fairly hardy. Horticultural practices can 'easily' adapt varieties that can tolerate atypical environs. It just takes time, though that time can possibly be reduced with magical/technological intervention.

Germination is when most species tend to be succeptible to disease and adverse enviroments. Even heavy rain can crush some delicate seedlings. Propogation nurseries will increase the percentages of successul growth, whether from sexual or asexual reproduction.

Salinity could be an issue. A high water table can be lowered though the strategic planting of trees, or perhaps via some clever engineering. Keep in mind that a high water table in one location may not neccesarily result in high salinity in the same area...Though it could result in an ecological disaster to the scale of the Tigris-Euphrates river system. An easy way to hang a lampshade on this may be the inclusion of well known salt plains in the vicinity of your city. Harvested salt could also aid in the preservation of food stores.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:02 am

Hi. Guess what. I'm an actual horticulturist. Guess what. I am an actual horticulturist who specializes in growing water plants.

And I have bad news. Even actual waterlillies will DIE if exposed to literally constant rain. Yes thats right. Falling water from the sky landing on things all the time is really bad for lots of plants. Even ones you might think could manage it.

The good news is there ARE plants that can tolerate constant falling water. They aren't widely well known, even to me, because most of them are otherwise considered unremarkable weeds, or are so specialized they ONLY grow in constantly falling water. Or are wild jungle plants in various especially heavy rainfall rainforests.

So three things.
1) Whatever they grow it's going to be weird crap, Ferns and mosses rank in pretty high, flowering plants not so much.
2) The whole place will probably be carpeted in ludicrous amounts of Liverworts.
3) And there is a place on earth where it rains so much they have to build their bridges out of living self repairing bayan trees because its the only thing that won't wash away.
edit: Bonus Thing number 4) Actual fully aquatic SUBMERGED fresh water plants. Now thats another story. So you can grow all the Eel Grass you can eat. Assuming you can make that stuff edible in some way.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:12 am

After seeing lobster's post, I got an idea. Why not make it so that it rains fairly often (not too often...kinda like rainforest levels of rain) and only have the name "Land of Eternal Rain" as an exaggerated title for the area? Also, before anyone asks about the weird/funny way that I write, then I say that I wrote this while tired at work and while realizing that my native tongue is Finnish and not English. But as long as people get my point, that should not be a problem...

Edits, because I could.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:18 am

Edit Edit in the form of a new post.

Please to not mistake your Eel Grass with Grassy Eels.

Total noob watergardening mistake.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:01 am

A culture capable of altering the climate should also be capable of creating artificial microclimates

While I know fuck all about water lillies (other than they are tempermental), I do know that actual crops like rice love high rainfall. Even modified dry-land varieties are capable of high prodction in flood conditions.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:37 am

Winnah wrote:While I know fuck all about water lillies (other than they are tempermental)

Then you know less than that because they are actually really easy to grow.

Some plants can tolerate or prefer "high rainfall" but you have to realize it is a relatively small minority and high rainfall is not by a long shot the same thing as literally perpetual rain. Even "high rainfall" plants have their limits, and rice is not farmed under permanent falling water, it is farmed in paddies where water is channeled in by irrigation more than rainfall and the water levels are highly regulated at different depths based on the crop cycle. Too much water depth at the wrong time is just as bad, perhaps worse than too little, and falling water and constant high humidity and other weather conditions associated with rainfall like clouds and cool temperatures will damage the crops, just as the falling water itself literally physically harms them with direct kinetic force.

I mean all this is moot and such because its fiction with magic in and cool is the rule. As such vast fields of giant sacred lotus would be AWESOME for asthetics, style, agriculture, and interesting combat terrain. Lotus have all sorts of interesting interactions with rainfall. But in the end even lotus, a plant that has literally evolved the ability to shed droplets of water more effectively than a ducks back to keep it's leaves constantly dry in the wettest environments... would still die if you put it in literally perpetual rain. So, really, it's magic or mildew.

Microclimates are also workable. But remember, if you put up an umbrella, roof, tent, magic giant tree or tarp to keep the direct falling rain off... it also keeps out the sun and the warmth, but not the humidity or the massive amount of ground water and surface water. Which means even if you have (literal) agricultural niches they are shady, probably cool (but possibly warm with the right shenanigans) and you primarily grow ferns, mushrooms, liverworts and maybe some Taro or other aroids.

To get around that just with microclimates you need magic microclimates like supa magic glass houses, with magic sun lamps. edit: and magic air drying magic ventilators

Basically, yeah, in the end, it all boils down to magic or mildew.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:59 am

I'm imagining a Rube Goldborganism where a series of modified Decanters of Endless Water first feed quickly past wasabi beds before driving a hydrodynamo which links to both algaculture agitators and pumps for flooding paddys.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 12:11 pm

PhoneLobster wrote: Then you know less than that because they are actually really easy to grow.

Providing they have the right conditions. Inert water with proper oxygenation. Hence tempermental, especially when compared to hardier plants that can tolerate far more diverse environs.

I mean all this is moot and such because its fiction with magic in and cool is the rule. As such vast fields of giant sacred lotus would be AWESOME for asthetics, style, agriculture, and interesting combat terrain. Lotus have all sorts of interesting interactions with rainfall. But in the end even lotus, a plant that has literally evolved the ability to shed droplets of water more effectively than a ducks back to keep it's leaves constantly dry in the wettest environments... would still die if you put it in literally perpetual rain. So, really, it's magic or mildew.

Right. Adaptation. Cultivars have been tinkering with the desired qualities in plants for thousands of years, consequently modern domesticated species require certain conditions for growth. Modifying the required conditions for growing crops is not only possible, but required for a civilisation to form and flourish.

Diseases will always be an issue, especially in conditions where they flourish, but diseases can be managed and controlled. Certainly not a viable option in the modern world, but in an egrerain society with cheap labour and magic? Sulphur or alcohol based surfactants to be applied liberally between crop rotations.

Microclimates are also workable. But remember, if you put up an umbrella, roof, tent, magic giant tree or tarp to keep the direct falling rain off... it also keeps out the sun and the warmth, but not the humidity or the massive amount of ground water and surface water. Which means even if you have (literal) agricultural niches they are shady, probably cool (but possibly warm with the right shenanigans) and you primarily grow ferns, mushrooms, liverworts and maybe some Taro or other aroids.

Main issues here will be light, nutrition and propogation. Drainage should not be an issue, otherwise this mythical city has bigger problems than it's food supply. Hygene practices and pest management should already be a priority in this environment, so applying those practices to agriculture and the city environs is a no brainer. I'm not disputing that a host of new pests will plague this type of agriculture, but pests are always an issue, even in small scale or domestic propogation. They can be managed, even if it is extremely labour intensive.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 1:09 pm

Actually, assuming that you use magic to make watery plants viable crops despite constant rain... you might find some information on fresh water aquatic crops useful.

Rice
Rice Fields - For fantasy purposes anyway, are those multi tiered things you see on hill and mountainsides. Water is channeled in from a natural waterway or reservoir at the top and carefully irrigated through everything.

Rice Paddies As Combat Terrain - Rice paddies are complex multi-teired semi-vertical mazes of tiny goat trails and shallow slushy muddy ponds with low walls (which could be soft clay or earth, or dry or even mortared stone or brick), the ponds could range from "dry" (but muddy) to knee deep, and may have rice in that could provide some grassy concealment late in season and no concealment at all when early in season. The major effects on combat is that you are going to be over there and the place you want to be will be up there and it won't be entirely clear how to get there, but it is entirely clear you are first going to have to slog your way out of this mud puddle you are stuck in.

Magic Rice - Real world rice needs carefully regulated irrigation and (fuzzy memory here) actually needs to be dried out as part of the final process to not just harvest it but to actual force it to produce actual rice heads at all. Magic rice in rainy land clearly just gets around that somehow and it's only demand is "moar water!"

Taro
Taro Fields - You may be familiar with Taro (or a close enough relative to get an idea of it's look) as "elephant's ears". But go have a look.. An important thing to remember though is that traditionally Taro was grown on relatively small scales. So for instance you could easily have your Rice Paddy village have what amounts to a couple of paddies dedicated to Taro instead.

Taro As Combat Terrain - Depth wise it's a lot like a rice paddy. Varying with crop phase (and Taro variety) from "dry" mud to shallow water. But the plants, are big, have trunks, potentially huge leaves (again depending on variety and crop phase), and could grow pretty thick (it's shady down in there). Also some forms will throw off runners from the base of the plant which will lace the field with natural trip wires that could easily be underwater, just at ankle grabbing height in the slippery or squelchy mud.

Taro As A Poison - Taro is a popular food crop in the real world from the Pacific islands to China. But there are a lot of sorts of Taro almost all of them (barring some typical common name mix ups that aren't "real" Taro) are Colocasia esculenta. This is interesting for several reasons.
1) That is a single species, it has something like over four hundred varieties, many never flower, many in fact are natural mutations rather than seedlings as many parent plants never flower but the species is especially prone to throwing mutant shoots. It takes a dedicated Taro specialist to tell the difference between many of these species.
2) This makes Taro an Aroid, and as such a member of a plant family that includes the SMALLEST flower in the world and the LARGEST one. Cool?
3) While various aroids are edible many are horribly horribly poisonous. The sort of poison that immediately feels like hot burning needles in your mouth, then it gives you hideous stomach pains, damages your liver, sends you on a totally bad vision trip, and kills you! TARO IS NOT AN EXCEPTION. So you need to cook your Taro properly. You need to identify your Taro correctly (remember, over 400 mutants of the SAME damn plant, and you need a life time expert to be sure!). Even some edible forms can be rather poisonous unless properly treated and might even cause irritation if you get sap (or the freaky icky jelly on the exterior of the base of the plant's tuber) on you. And even mild edible forms might be slightly "tingly" if eaten raw, and are potentially linked with high rates of honest to god LEPROSY.

Magic Taro - Again you are making it rain resistant. But you might also make it GIANT! Because that is awesome. Also you probably have special herbal super poisonous magic Taros for poisoning fools and going on shaman voodoo trips with. Odds are good getting the raw untreated sap of those ones on you burns like acid then makes all your limbs fall off with instantaneous leprosy.

Water Ferns
Fern Fields - OK I don't know anyone who does this. However there IS a certain water fern in Australia that was widely used by Aboriginals as a food plant. They just never grew it as a crop and harvested it wild. So it just grows around the edges of waterways, out of the water it looks like clover, only it never flowers and every single leaf is ALWAYS a "four leaf clover". In the water it floats it's clover leaves like lily pads. Now the thing is you COULD grow this stuff in mass. And as such would probably grow it in large shallow paddies or any available lake or body of water. I have even seen it grown in curtains through running water coming off spill ways and waterfalls. You could totally incorporate this right into a rice paddy structure, maybe even on the walls.

Nardoo as Combat Terrain - Nardoo grows in long, stringy, inter-entangled runners from which the leaf stalks uncurl in a spiral. It's very much trip over material, almost a net. You could totally pull up a sheet of the stuff as an almost instant camouflage blanket. Also those webs and nets not only run along from the bottom of a pond or down a spillway... they ALSO extend like a raft over deeper water, causing a potential for depth confusion and sudden plunges into water deeper than you expected. With a net on top of or entangled around you.

Nardoo as a Poison - The edible part of nardoo are its spore cases, which taste a bit like nuts. You can eat a few raw... if you feel game enough... but if you want to eat much you need to specially grind and possibly cook it. The famous white Australian explorers Burk and Wills famously learned just enough off the aboriginals trying to save their ill fated expedition form starving in the outback to know that the plant was edible... but decided to refuse further aid from the darkies, like say other foods and the way to properly treat the stuff. They learned the hard way that if you eat TOO MUCH of (pretty much any fern) and if you don't properly treat your nardoo... it causes a horrible vitamin deficiency, that kills you WITH BRAIN DAMAGE. This makes tribes that eat Nardoo strange and mysterious to outsiders because they are eating a plant that common sense tells an outsider is deadly, or that the outsider will foolishly go down the Burk and Wills path with...

Magic Nardoo - Actually this stuff totally has the best chance of any aquatic food crop of just growing in perpetual rain land WITHOUT magic modification. It is after all a fern and it CAN grow (not that great, but successfully) in actual permanent waterfalls. Where magic comes in is making OTHER ferns EDIBLE (many ferns will grow in pretty damn super ultra rainy conditions). Because if you can make the trunks of Tree ferns out of magic candy then your crop problems are looking a lot less problematic.

Sacred Lotus
Lotus fields - Actual disciplined lotus production fields come in two types, and both are sort of boring. "Shallow" lotus is grown in about 0.5m to 1m deep water, deep water lotus is grown in something like 1m+ up to about 3m. At the bottom of all that is mud where the long tuberous rhizomes of the plant lie. Those are the main edible bit. But ALL THE REST is also edible (and otherwise useful) including shoots, stems, leaves, seeds and flowers. From that are the long (often slightly spiky) stems and the big round leaves and flowers, which rise up OUT of the water in large elaborate stacks. Go Look a bit. . Of course if you want a COOL look. ANY body of water can be used to farm lotus, and in many real world countries ANY body of water IS used to farm lotus.

Lotus as Combat Terrain - Lotus is ALWAYS in the actual proper water. It NEVER has a "dry land" phase, and in fact would die if it were like that. It generally doesn't even have a "shallow" phase, it's full depth all the time. So your guys are all in deep water, possibly over their heads. When in season lotus is TALL so it's like being in a short but VERY leafy and thick forest, with scratchy stems, and all that knee/neck/deeper water, with mud underneath. Lotus LOVE nutrients, so farmers are likely to keep that water EXTRA super smelly. They may also run fish farming in there at the same time, probably giant magic mutant eels, I dunno. Lotus forms rafts out over deeper water JUST like the nardoo does, but on a MUCH large scale and with tall confusing leaves so you won't know you are in raft territory or not if you get lost. Worst the scale is so large an entire raft could break away and float along with running water or just out into a lake center.

Giant Lotus as Combat Terrain - You totally want there to be GIANT MAGIC LOTUS with like house sized leaves. That way you get complex springy multi layered platforms that may or may not be full of temporary rain water pools on the verge of spilling over into a water fall and cascading down lower teirs of leaves to the water. The general terrain fun of GIANT LOTUS is HUGE. You could have cities under or AMONG those leaves, it would be great.

Mythical Lotuses - There are TWO species of lotus in the real world. Nelumbo nucifera and Nelumbo lutea. There are... a lot of pretty hybrids, hundreds maybe more. But there USED to be eight SPECIES of lotus. They are all extinct now. The closest genetic relative remaining in the mean time is the London Plane Tree. However EVEN IN THE REAL WORLD there are NUMEROUS completely fictional sorts of lotus. From the poorly defined stuff of the "lotus eaters" to well known things like the "Black" and "Purple" lotuses of Asian mythology (which are almost always poisonous, medicinal or outright magic) or the most famous, the Blue Lotus of the Nile (almost certainly actually a mistranslated Nymphaea caerulea that possibly really DOES have some mild narcotic properties and an indescribable subtle but very very sweet, sort of addictive, scent). So OF COURSE you have the cool mythical lotus plants and such in any fictional world. Hell, I'm pretty sure there are "lotus powder" poisons in core 3E.

Magical Lotuses - GIANT MAGIC LOTUS, also, super addictive drug lotus, also, it needs to grow in the rain, also, golden lotus, purple, blue, black, and hell, a TRUE red just so the Chinese breeders of the last three millennia will FINALLY be happy.

Papyrus
It's not a food crop, you grow it for paper, fibers, and flotation devices, ask the Pharaohs, they'll give you the details. But for most purposes treat it like lotus that looks different, and which has it's root raft much higher in the water and is MUCH more likely to raft out over deeper water or form raft islands. There are lakes in Africa full of floating islands formed of lesser water weeds stuck to Papyrus super structures. These islands constantly shift and grow and break and move into an endless shifting labyrinth. Western explorers got seriously lost in this stuff, taking months to travel almost nowhere due to the confusion of the stuff. It's lots of fun.

Other Things There are countless much more boring food plants grown in water. You don't care about them, commonly they are just some funny leafy vine boggy thing that grows in the irrigation ditch that farmers just happen to also harvest to throw in their salads. Other times they are something fun like water chestnuts (both sorts) or that plant in India which you can carve almost anything out of and which gave the Pith Helmet it's name. But generally they are just an "extra" plant or somehow less interesting for role play purposes. I mean, unless you are carving elaborate Pith Armour or something...[/b]

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 1:26 pm

Winnah wrote:Providing they have the right conditions. Inert water with proper oxygenation. Hence tempermental, especially when compared to hardier plants that can tolerate far more diverse environs.

Er. No. Water lilies require relatively still water. They grow on actual real world river banks no problem all the time. And Oxygenation? Where did you get that one? The levels of low oxygen required to kill a water Lilly are serious anaerobic reaction kinds of levels. The sort of levels where well nigh everything except some nasty anaerobic specialists gets killed. Even then the lilies will last longer than a lot of other things.

And I mean hell "not hardy"? Nympheae species are broken into two family groups. One of them is commonly CALLED "Hardy Water Lilies". Trust me. They are hardy. They are easy to grow. They are easier to grow than most common ornamental terrestrial garden plants.

Not putting them directly under a perpetual waterfall is not precisely an elaborate or difficult measure for growing a plant successfully.

Modifying the required conditions for growing crops is not only possible, but required for a civilisation to form and flourish.

There ARE limits to adaption. There are REASONS that Ferns, mosses and Liverworts ARE the dominant plants in situations with constant falling water. It's because they are significantly different to flowering plants in the way they handle WATER, their transpiration just functions in different ways and they BENEFIT from being really wet in ways that more "advanced" plant species just can't.

You just. plain. Won't get "waterfall wheat". Not doable. The existence of wheats more resistant to rust in more humid or higher rainfall areas does NOT mean that "waterfall wheat" is possible.

Not without magic. Good thing we have magic this time, right?

Diseases will always be an issue

This isn't just disease. This is literally the water itself killing the plant. Just like you it drowns, or (does the equivalent of) getting all pruney and melting/rotting away.

Main issues here will be light, nutrition and propogation.

Once you have a roof up in such an environment the main "unusual" issues I would identify would be Light, Heat, and Humidity. Everything else is pretty much standard agriculture. But if you are magicing up light, heat and humidity you have air-conditioned lamp lit greenhouses, thats really not the option I'm thinking is intended here.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 1:59 pm

Let your wizards have a "wall of glass" spell, and you have instant greenhouses.

PL: if you had a roof over your plants (open walls), could they tolerate perpetual rain then?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:43 pm

fectin wrote: Let your wizards have a "wall of glass" spell, and you have instant greenhouses.

You don't need that specific spell. You just need fabricate and a lot of sand. It doesn't even have to be special sand with a certain kind of ash mixed in, since you're making green-panes.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:08 pm

PhoneLobster wrote:Taro
Taro Fields - You may be familiar with Taro (or a close enough relative to get an idea of it's look) as "elephant's ears".[
3) While various aroids are edible many are horribly horribly poisonous.

Cripes, I got some of that out back next to the nightshade, poison ivy, and morning glories and didn't even know it was poisonous.