Flora of the Prosperitas Sector
Most crops in the Prosperitas Sector can be found across the Imperium, and consist various of various standard gene-pattern grains. Other life-sustaining plants, such as the kelp harvested alongside the plankton of Kydos, have followed the same standards, engineered by Magos Biologis, for millennia. With essentially no deviation from safe norms, there is little of interest or note to say about them. However, certain wild forms of plant life in the Prosperitas Sector can be worrying hazards to those exploring the wilds.
For example, in the underbrush of Helaerus III, razorvines snag and sheer straight through flesh and bone, dismembering the unwary enough to tug against their monofilament strands, making fleeing from the predators of the forest as deadly as facing them. The defensive seeding method of the Helaeran pine sees it drop its pine cones when the unwary traveller steps on its pressure-sensitive roots – filled with gasses during maturation, these seed cones erupt when they strike the forest floor with the power of a fragmentation grenade. Those unfortunate enough to survive must have extensive surgery to remove the seeds embedded in their flesh or they will take root and start to grow within the body. Even the seemingly harmless ferns on the forest floor have earned the name ‘Hangman’s fern’. They may have a passing resemblance to the ferns that were once found on earth, but their ‘fronds’ are in fact complex strangling arms that coil around sleeping animals and people, crushing and choking them to death and leaving them to decompose feed the plant’s appetite. These are just three major examples of the deadly plant life teeming in the forests of Helaerus, before one even begins to consider the beasts lurking there.
The single most important export of Helaerus, the Steelwood Tree has been known to grow to sizes of over 150m in height and 15m wide. However, their main feature is their incredible density, causing a single tree to have a weight of nearly 100,000 tons. Steelwood is relatively common on Helaerus, but is difficult to find and harvest due to the dangers present within the forest. Steelwood can be used to make a wide range of items, and can be as strong and damage resistant as most steel products. It is seen as a sign of prestige and standing for a household to have a set of Steelwood knives in their kitchens.
Across the sector, the strange beings known as the Cerddwyr – sometimes called ‘Tree-Tenders’ – are found. They appear to at first glance to be fauna, but these strange bipedal creatures appear to simply be a tree-like species of mobile plant. They are found in several shapes, and there are as many variations of their form as there are climates it is found in. They do not generally pose a threat until threatened, and in several circumstances have been observed to ‘guard’ various areas preventing approach, or simply move around arboreal locations ‘tending’ to local plant life. While they are no doubt strange, they are rarely targeted as a threat, unless they are threatening Imperial lives or preventing the completion of another duty. These enigmatic creatures do not seem to communicate; their only concern is the tending to of the ecosystems of the planets they are found on – normally. Some variations of these creatures are more hostile, especially those encountered on worlds close to the Tenebris storefront. Here, warp-exposure drives these creatures seemingly insane which can make them a threat to those that encounter them.