Environmental magic and magic systems

[jseah]

NW_Kohaku's thread in the Dwarf Fortress forums about xenosynthesis struck me as a nice way to add environmental magic. After adding my own twist.

Essentially, the idea is that each thematic group would have its own balanced ecosystem, that created more of the energy source than it used. Each ecosystem would have lifeforms that work to create conditions suitable for its own organisms, incidentally eradicating the rest.
So the world tends to divide itself into domains of opposed themes that are hostile environments to things that come from the other sides. The main intelligent creatures would exist in the balanced areas between these domains and would have to contend with slowly shifting powers over the period of generations.

Example Fire/Earth domain:
Fire-grasses that create heat and grow best in sandy or rocky areas. They will fuse fine soil into coarser sands and eventually rocks over time. Fire-grasses don't like too bright areas and can live in perpetual darkness as they get energy from fire magic.
Black moss that create clouds of low-lying smog that absorb sunlight. Black moss can tolerate light due to this but grows best on rocky areas.
Rock Crabs are scavengers that eat nearly anything but primarily fire-grass and excrete small quantities of molten rock.

etc. etc.

These three alone would slowly convert an area into a hot rocky desert full of black smoke and igneous rock. With large enough areas, it might be able to support larger animals (fire elementals?) and apex predators that consume the heat and rock (making it less heat-y and rocky).

Thoughts? Suggestions?


Fire domain: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13812558&postcount=8

Earth domain: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13818627&postcount=16

[Synvallius]

This is a most interesting idea, but I wonder... What would happen if two opposing elemental environs met? Would they cancel each other out, would they create a wildly diverse area with some areas on fire and others under water, or would they simply not be able to come together at all?
Also, would positive and negative energies be present? If so, what would they (especially negative energy) manifest as? I ask this mainly because I can't imagine a negative energy environment producing anything, and it would negate every other form of life, thus eventually destroying the balance between the fundamental elements.

[jseah]

Two opposing elemental environs would attempt to convert the land to their own native best form, just like normal.

Except that the balance between the two ends up like an equilibrium, whether this is a harsh environment for them or not depends on the tolerances.
Something like a hot and humid swamp for a fire/water interface.

The equilibrium is also going to be unstable. If say, a human came along to the rainforest and planted a critical mass of fire-grass on a load of gravel, the water-aligned plants and animals would start to die off from the excess heat and water would start to evapourate faster than it rained/appeared.
Very soon (in geological timescales, will probably be one or two human generations), it'd be fire and brimstone country.

[Domriso]

I really like this idea. Did you have any concept of how many areas you were planning on? For instance, are you just going to be focused on elemental environments, or are you also going with other magical enviroments?

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Sweet idea!

Are these regions just things that have appeared over time, being severe embodiments of a certain type of environment, or is that just how it always was. It would be fun to imagine that some sort of spirit or perhaps even a group of entities zoned out these regions and caused these environments to be self preserving biomes. Any invasion from other biomes are the spirts trying to spread power, and perhaps intelligents would worship, or be influnced by said entity.

Where would humans live? It seems like they would have a severe influence on the areas, and so the environment might see them as hostile if counteracting the balance.

And as Dom asked, I'd also like to see how far down the rabit hole we go in specific kinds of environments. Is there a potential for certain environments to coexist? Or the area between each be forced into a third?

[jseah]

So far this is just a random idea I put up to gather input on. Haven't really decided on anything.

Just that the idea of ecosystems that terraform their environment to be more favourable strikes me as a way to get the stereotypical Evil land of Deadness and Fire land of Burniness and make them more interesting.

EDIT: will think on it and write up a bit more.

I'm not sure if making more abstract concepts than the classical elements would be worthwhile. While a Wealth domain sounds awesome (gold leaf plants?), it gets very arbitrary quickly.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

No problem. I just am asking questions that might give you ideas for things, or at least to think about. I look forward to seeing more!

[jseah]

Fire Domain (or The Land Of Burniness)
Energy Cycle:
Fire magic is present in most areas in small amounts but can be concentrated by naturally or artificially occurring high temperatures. Red weed has been spotted to sometimes grow near old furnaces that have seen long continuous operation.
Usage of fire magic appears to be able to sustain life, albeit magical life, with the side effect of generating large amounts of heat. All Fire Domain creatures thus shed heat in varying amounts depending on size and metabolism.

Energy Producers:
Red Weed - A red grassy plant that emits a low but constant amount of heat. Converts fire magic into heat in order to grow. Required fire magic to grow, light not required. Grows well in any terrain type but does best in sandy or rocky areas due to lack of competition from other species.
The roots appear to gather fire magic and nutrients, which are sent to the leaves for storage and processing. The sharp thin shape of the leaves, as well as their strict spacing and arrangement, serve to dissipate excess heat from the use of fire magic.
Leaves are extremely heat resistant, destroyed only by dragon flame, material conducts heat extremely poorly and has incredible heat capacity. Excellent fire retardant material when woven into cloth, inelastic and uncomfortable to wear. Reproduces by runners and tiny red seeds, seeds have alchemical applications.

Torch - A small tree / large bush that appears to be constantly flaming. Continually radiates large amounts of light. Requires area to have critical levels of fire magic and is sensitive to low temperatures. Self-sustaining flame appears to be reaction involving fire magic conversion to light, reaction feeds the plant and becomes unstable at low temperatures, leading to plant starvation. Light appears to be similar to that shed by a large campfire, no effect on vampires (unfortunately); most of the recorded heat from this plant appears to be due to this light and not actual heat generated.
Central wooden spike, the only material part of the plant, is immune to degradation by heat, even to dragon flame. A dense heavy wood with good heat conductivity and very low heat capacity. Can grow on any solid surface.
Appears to reproduce by large pearly embers released from the fire during summer months. Reproductive embers are very light and fragile, they are destroyed if cooled. These embers are hot enough to ignite flammable materials and if landing on such an area, will start a fire, although Torches do not survive the process. Embers will take root on rocks and stony ground if undisturbed and grow a short spike that is very hot to the touch and eventually bursts into full flame as it matures over the period of at least three years, sometimes up to ten.

Scavengers:
Magma Crab - A black crab-like land creature with a single large powerful claw and a smaller fine manipulator, very hard shell that is a good insulator and resistant to heat.
Eats most dead Fire domain materials, observed to sometimes eat sand; when denied sand, will use single powerful claw to break small rocks to obtain edible pieces; will consume live Red weed if no other food is available. Avoids areas weak in fire magic although survives without it. Crabs excrete small globs of molten material that remain hot for longer than natural. Material composition is rocky and made of part ashes, part fused sands.
Crabs fed on a live red weed diet have hotter excretions that stay molten for longer. Crabs denied access to rocks or sand do not excrete and become steadily redder over the period of weeks before exploding in a small fireball; a diet of live red weed appears to accelerate this process. Crabs undergoing this process appear increasingly agitated and will attack indiscriminately as well as attempt to escape containment with their powerful arm.
Crabs appear to gain nutrition from recycling fire magic. Unlocked heat is dumped into ingested materials and excreted. Some Earth magic use is also suspected due to the relationship with sand.
Magma crab eggs are small fragile sacs that are laid in concealed locations under rocks. They are warm to the touch and remain so despite lack of heating, fire magic usage is presumed. Clutches of 30-100 eggs are laid and eventually hatch into tiny crabs with soft shells that harden as the crabs mature.
Personal Notes: can sand be substituted for other heat resistant materials? If crabs can tricked into ingesting them, might perform unusual and useful alchemical transformations.

Primary consumer:
Fire elementals - Appears as living animate fire with a hard solid mass. Normally quite docile and will not attack non-fire domain creatures without provocation. Extremely hot and dangerous, do not provoke. Attacking or otherwise removing Torches appears to qualify as provocation.
Appears to draw Torch flames into itself and consumes magma crabs occasionally. Herds of fire elementals will wander through Torch forests siphoning the fire from Torches. Torches under heavy browsing show signs of stress and may die.
Fire elementals appear to draw on Torch flames for energy and magma crabs for material. Sometimes seen to eat red weed and sand. Attempt to replicate magma crab experiment denying sand resulted in no unusual effect, although denying access to all material except Torches causes cessation in growth and reduced appetite. Specimen recovered normal behaviour and growth when released.
Does not appear to excrete anything although gaseous excretions have not been ruled out. Reproduces by binary fission.

Jumping Beans - Despite the name, jumping beans are not plants. They are small egg-shaped pellets with a conical depression in the big end and a tiny mouth with tiny gnawing teeth on the small end. They use this mouth to hang onto red weed and slowly chew their way down the plant.
Like all fire domain creatures, the jumping bean is resistant to heat. The beans are also quite tough although they can be crushed with some difficulty.
Their metabolism appears to be running at very low levels when they are eating a red weed, being not much hotter than a freshly baked loaf. When startled or needing to move, the jumping beans perform an extraordinary excretion activity, the metabolism going into overdrive when they move.
The mouth and digestive system rearrange into a short pipe of air through the organism. This strange activity is accompanied by a loud bang and sometimes a tiny spout of flame that launches the bean away from threats, conveniently sending a gout of very hot air their way. Presumably this is also how the bean gets rid of excess heat from the use of fire magic when escaping.
Jumping beans bud smaller beans on their body and the buds grow into small beans before detaching.
Personal Note: Fire magic isn't good at moving things. Figure out how the beans do it. Perhaps something to do with the mouth rearrangement and conical depression?

Secondary consumer
Salamander - Looks like a lizard except about 20 inches long with a half a meter long tongue. Along the back are short fins that periodically flare with fire and continually emit heat. Presumably the heat waste is exhausted from there.
The Salamander eats jumping beans by catching them mid-flight with its long tongue, which it can lash out with at phenomenal speeds. This tongue is also the primary defense mechanism of the salamander, being totally fire resistant and very tough. The lashing movement contains enough force to throw a jumping bean or small rock fast enough to punch through chain leather and various target boards, it will crack stone, as well as dent iron plates thinner than four inches at short range. The projectile is hurled with such force that it travels faster than the eye can see and is accompanied with a sharp crack.
The salamanders are very experienced at this and young salamanders can often be spotted doing target practice. Very experienced salamanders have been observed to shoot jumping beans mid-flight by hurling a regurgitated dead jumping bean with their tongue, the longest range of such a feat was observed to be around twenty meters. The tongue itself can also grab and tear away any appendage or item it can be wrapped around, with enough force to snap bones.
The extreme violence of such a small tongue and body can only be explained by magic and indeed, the salamander is observed to power its tongue with air magic. Presumably, the salamander is able to gather enough from the environment naturally.
In addition to the tongue, the salamander also possess some command over its exhaust fins and can direct gouts of flame and pure heat at perceived threats. Salamanders can detect fire magic and do not use this ability to attack fire magic using creatures and objects. This may be a mechanism by which the salamanders determine the fire immunity of threats and should be kept in mind for future encounters.
The salamander's primary diet is fire elementals. The salamander hunts in packs, their small size greatly helps the preferred ambush strategy, using their tongues in coordination to keep prey off balance and ripping chunks off for consumption. Salamander cries and body movements, especially of the tail, appear to be used in coordinating pack hunts.
Salamanders are quite bright and naturally curious. They will investigate novel objects and surroundings, often posing a major threat until they learn that humans are not edible. Unfortunately, salamanders appear to only communicate for the coordination of hunting and do not transfer this fact to each other. Even among repeat encounters with the same salamander packs, those experiencing peaceful contact with humans will be friendly and curious while those unfamiliar with humans may attempt hunting or defensive behaviour, often with fatal results; acclimated salamanders do not apparently see any problem with displaying friendly behaviour while their sisters attack although any retaliation will cause the entire pack to turn hostile. The short lifespan and high turnover rates of salamander packs means that any contact with a salamander pack is always risky.
Salamanders are hermaphrodites and can be spotted carrying up to three eggs in between their back fins. Young salamanders hatch from these eggs and their mother will feed them until they are able to care for themselves, a period of weaning lasting approximately three weeks. Young salamanders display a markedly increased friendliness with humans if before they are weaned, their mother comes into contact with humans without attacking, and will not attack humans throughout their life. It is surmised that young salamanders are able to infer from their mother's action that humans are not food, although why this ability to infer from other salamanders is lost after weaning is unknown.
Personal note: this theoretically allows there to be permanent peaceful contact with salamanders provided the entire pack is exposed to a human at least every one and a half weeks. Someone else can be the first to try.

Changed the terraformer system to crabs + weeds. Crabs convert soil, weeds do the heat. Crabs have a touch of earth magic about them due to the sand thing. Torches are deep fire-domain "plants" and fire elemental herds are the herbivores.
Carnivores... no idea yet. Gotta think of something that'll eat living fire.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Fire Domain (or The Land Of Burniness)
Energy Cycle:
Fire magic is present in most areas in small amounts but can be concentrated by naturally or artificially occurring high temperatures. Red weed has been spotted to sometimes grow near old furnaces that have seen long continuous operation.
Usage of fire magic appears to be able to sustain life, albeit magical life, with the side effect of generating large amounts of heat. All Fire Domain creatures thus shed heat in varying amounts depending on size and metabolism.

Energy Producers:
Red Weed - A red grassy plant that emits a low but constant amount of heat. Converts fire magic into heat in order to grow. Required fire magic to grow, light not required. Grows well in any terrain type but does best in sandy or rocky areas due to lack of competition from other species.
Material is extremely heat resistant, destroyed only by dragon flame, material conducts heat extremely poorly and has incredible heat capacity. Excellent fire retardant material when woven into cloth, inelastic and uncomfortable to wear. Reproduces by runners and tiny red seeds, seeds have alchemical applications.

Torch - A small tree / large bush that appears to be constantly flaming. Continually radiates large amounts of light. Requires area to have critical levels of fire magic and is sensitive to low temperatures. Self-sustaining flame appears to be reaction involving fire magic conversion to light, reaction feeds the plant and becomes unstable at low temperatures, leading to plant starvation.
Central wooden spike (the only material part of the plant) is immune to degradation by heat, even to dragon flame. A dense heavy wood with good heat conductivity and very low heat capacity. Can grow on any solid surface.
Appears to reproduce by embers released from the fire. Reproductive embers destroyed if cooled.

Scavengers:
Magma Crab - A black crab-like land creature with a single large powerful claw and a smaller fine manipulator, very hard shell that is a good insulator and resistant to heat.
Eats most dead Fire domain materials, observed to sometimes eat sand; when denied sand, will use single powerful claw to break small rocks to obtain edible pieces; will consume live Red weed if no other food is available. Avoids areas weak in fire magic although survives without it. Crabs excrete small globs of molten material that remain hot for longer than natural. Material composition is rocky and made of part ashes, part fused sands.
Crabs fed on a live red weed diet have hotter excretions that stay molten for longer. Crabs denied access to rocks or sand do not excrete and become steadily redder over the period of weeks before exploding in a small fireball; a diet of live red weed appears to accelerate this process. Crabs undergoing this process appear increasingly agitated and will attack indiscriminately as well as attempt to escape containment with their powerful arm.
Crabs appear to gain nutrition from recycling fire magic in fire domain materials. Unlocked heat in the materials is dumped into ingested heat resistant materials and excreted.
Personal Notes: can sand be substituted for other heat resistant materials? If crabs can tricked into ingesting them, might perform unusual and useful alchemical transformations.

Primary consumer:
Fire elementals - Appears as living animate fire with a hard solid mass. Normally quite docile and will not attack non-fire domain creatures without provocation. Extremely hot and dangerous, do not provoke. Attacking or otherwise removing Torches appears to qualify as provocation.
Appears to draw Torch flames into itself and consumes fire crabs occasionally. Herds of fire elementals will wander through Torch forests siphoning the fire from Torches. Torches under heavy browsing show signs of stress and may die.
Fire elementals appear to draw on Torch flames for energy and fire crabs for material. Sometimes seen to eat red weed and sand. Attempt to replicate magma crab experiment denying sand resulted in no unusual effect, although denying access to all material except Torches causes cessation in growth and reduced appetite. Specimen recovered normal behaviour and growth when released.
Does not appear to excrete anything although gaseous excretions have not been ruled out.

Changed the terraformer system to crabs + weeds. Crabs convert soil, weeds do the heat. Crabs have a touch of earth magic about them due to the sand thing. Torches are deep fire-domain "plants" and fire elemental herds are the herbivores.
Carnivores... no idea yet. Gotta think of something that'll eat living fire.

Dragons? It could be how they get their dragon breath!

[jseah]

Dragons? It could be how they get their dragon breath!
Clearly dragons need to be an apex predator! How could it be otherwise?

They'll eat whatever "animal" eats fire elementals. Oh, and virgin sacrifices as well, but eh.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

I have a thread full of magical creatures if you want to take a look. One of them may strike your fancy for fire or other areas. Most of them are being designed around each other like yours are, so it might at least be helpful!

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249905

Ember Deer strikes me as something that could eat the fire grass.

[jseah]

^Will give that thread a think.

Added jumping beans as primary consumer. Rocket-powered beans. ^^


About an earlier comment:
Humans would of course have their own environment (perhaps a standard light-based plant environment). In fact, the human propensity to farm and convert alien domains to farmable areas could be the terraforming impetus of the... let's call it the Nature domain since we're obviously going to come from a human-centric POV.

The idea was not to make the environments overtly hostile to humans. The nature isn't sentient and doesn't kill humans or other domain creatures because it sees them as invaders. It just kills them due to hostile environment.

Torches and Fire elementals would be perfectly fine in a 400*C environment. Humans would object, rather briefly.

[NichG]

I want to simulate this now; evolutionary systems get interesting when the component members can make environmental alterations.

In principle, certain elemental pairings look like they'd be symbiotic. You already have something with a bit of earth magic existing in the fire domain. It might be that the borders aren't as sharp as you might otherwise expect due to this effect. That is to say, all fire domains bordering on, I dunno, wood domains might have a layer of earth domain between them since earth can coexist with either, but wood and fire cannot coexist.

This might give you a natural pattern of 'roads' if the coexisting domain isn't too hostile. Basically, the map would be covered with snaking lines that move where two domains intersect, forming something like a foam or network of bubbles. It raises the question whether civilization would behave differently in one dimension than two dimensions - it gives you a contact network between locations that looks more like a starlane network from a space strategy game than a world-map. Lots of bottlenecks, cities become very important strategic points to hold as any city can basically block its road and cut off trade to points behind it.

[jseah]

It is not often that I pull, if not RoC directly, something like it. But I think I can safely handwave away evolutionary explanations for an ecosystem provided the ecosystem makes some modicum of sense.
Whatever I come up with is unlikely to be anywhere near as weird as compared to what nature will come up with with the same tools, so I think I can be safe that rocket powered herbivorous beans are at least plausible.

I was actually intending the zones to transition to domains that weren't totally antagonistic. A fire / water interface would be a perpetual 'battleground' that worked out to be roughly neutral and thus ripe for another domain that could tolerate the condition to work its way in and take over.
Earth(I'm really thinking more metal/crystal than earth) domain is next after Fire and I have a few ideas to demonstrate this. For now, crunching more imagination beans to think of a secondary predator for Fire (leaning to a salamander/lizard thing)

[jseah]

Added salamander. Will move on to Earth Domain before doing dragon.

Clearly earth domain's energy is earth magic. Like fire magic, it needs a sideeffect or output that is thematically correct (OOC reason) and terraforms the evironment into something hostile (IC reason).
Looking for suggestions...

Currently considering a crystallization requirement. To use earth magic, a crystal must be grown from liquid or air (the definition of crystal here is any long range order, so freezing molten metals count), but there are still a number of problems with the idea and I am not adverse to dropping it in favour of something better.

EDIT: this is also rather useful and I have decided to refine this later for use in that magic system, so I will use setting specific references. Do feel free to steal any part you wish though.

[jseah]

Earth Domain (or the Land of Rockiness)
Energy Cycle
Earth magic is concentrated by crystals or any form of matter with significant long range order. The larger the crystal or metal piece, the more earth magic is gathered.
Earth magic can sustain a form of life and has a side effect of breaking down a very small quantity of matter into its component elements and reassembling it into a new form, often a crystal of some sort. Lack of accurate measurements has not ruled out Earth magic manufacturing material from nowhere or transmuting normal elements into metals.

Earth domain is unique in that creatures from this domain often use magic of other elements. The ordered crystals that are abundant in the Earth Domain can focus and trap magic, and are very useful for alchemical purposes.
The abundance of pure metals and highly magical crystals make the Earth Domain a very valuable area, if dangerous.

Categorization of organisms into their trophic levels is tentative. Most of Earth domain is relatively static and passive, making identification of predator-prey relationships a guess at best.

Energy Producers
Netting - This strange organism is a good example of the alienness of life in Earth Domain. It appears as a network of glassy material about a finger's thickness that crawl through and along the surface of the ground, with razor sharp fragile blades about a hand's length and a hair's width that jut out at odd angles. Examination of a short length indicates a sort of pattern to the spikes as they stick out from the main trunk in a spiral fashion. Walking over netting requires heavy chain protection as even hardened leather shoes are shredded quickly.
As far as could be told, this glassy material appears to be fused, purified sand and when dug up for examination does not appear to change. Whether the glass itself is part of the organism is unknown, whether separating a section of the network kills that part or the whole organism is also unknown.
The network is often arranged as a fine mesh of snaking lines that weave from side to side and up and down, often over and beside other lines. The cleverness of this weave is only apparent when magic is directed at it as it very efficiently blunts and absorbs all magic passing through. While not as good a magic shield as a pure sheet of disruptive magic, it is purely a passive network of glass that requires no maintenance. The shape and orientation of the blades is linked to this effect as after removal of the blades, the dug-up glass trunk alone appears to be ineffective at absorbing magic although magic trapped in it moves up and down the trunk from end to end. Whether this is a function of the trunk still being alive is unknown.
The growing end of the network fuses the ground, which can be any sort of soil up to sand, into more glass. Active Earth magic can be detected at the tip. Netting does not appear to grow on rock.
Personal note: Investigate the magic absorption pattern. Very relevant to all magical research interests. Implies that active magic is not required for magic damping effects and perhaps magical effects at all.
Energy producer status is due to magic absorption properties.

Curlywigs - A bush-like formation that grows out of rock and is especially abundant in metal ores. Was found growing in huge quantities out the side of a thrust fault that exposed a hematite lode.
Appears as a solid tangled mesh of essentially pure metal. Metal grows as extremely thin wafers that jut out from the substrate and curls into a fragile ball. Grows in layers as rusted portions of the curls grow new curls.
Small numbers of curlywigs of varying elements can be found simply by digging in the soil, although reactive elements are not present; concentration of curlywigs in soil appears to be an indicator of Earth magic concentration. The concentration of metals caused by curlywigs heavily poisons the soil and soil that has significant quantities of curlywigs cannot support normal plants although netting is unaffected.
The metal curl appears to be a byproduct of the organism that lives at the base. This organism is a thin crystal shard and the width of the curl occurs along the length of the crystal. The composition of the crystal dictates the type of metal of the curl.
Personal note: There clearly isn't enough metal in the soil for the curlywigs to merely purify, although they certainly seem to refine ores into pure metal. They must generate metal somehow, transmuting the soil into metals is one possibility but that violates a key principle of magic... or perhaps our principle is wrong.

Primary Consumer / Energy Producer
Shattergem - Only grows in areas with large amounts of netting or on rocks. Requires high amounts of earth magic. Grows underground and through some rocks with not much more difficulty than on the surface. For any particular rock type, only one type of crystal is found although in different configurations; speculative explanation is that they can transmute appropriate rocks into crystal structure.
Grows as large single crystals with no apparent size limit, largest found was twice the size of a human and looked as if it might grow further. Crystal makeup appears to vary and crystals often contain large amounts of trapped magic arranged in regular patterns. This is very similar to how spells are casted and the arrangements and mixtures of elements appears to be focused on extracting motion from the magic. Fire and water magic are present in large quantities, with air and earth mixed in as well as secondary and tertiary elements. Paradoxically, earth seems to be the rarest element present, the reason for this is unknown.
Occasionally, the crystals will explode when their trapped magic reaches high enough levels. The magic stored in the crystal drives the explosion. The resultant shards are deadly shrapnel, although hard leather is enough to stop all but the fastest and largest pieces.
The shattergems leech magical energy from netting below it and the shards scattered by exploding crystals form new shattergems wherever they embed. Shattergems on rocks grow much more slowly or not at all. This is appears to be a parasitical relationship and thus the shattergems may be primary consumers.
Of note is the continuous hum in areas with multiple shattergems. Shattergems vibrate slightly and large quantities of shattergems appear to synchronize their vibrations to resonate with each other, they have the ability to adjust their own resonant frequency by an unknown presumably complex magical process. A large gem and small gem will arrange their vibrations into musical intervals (perfect fourths and perfect fifths are the most common, but depending on sizes, major intervals and octaves are also observed) and shattergem fields literally sing continuously if softly. Talking or other sounds will alter the singing as the gems attempt to resonate with the extra sound and adapt to each other in a complex feedback cycle.
This is proposed to be a mechanism that the gems use to shed excess air magic, although why they do not incorporate much air magic into the explosion mechanism is unknown; the reason for the resonant behaviour is also unknown. Gems removed from their netting substrate do not hum. Pure magic gems do not hum (pure air magic gems are never found).
Personal note: There should be a way to stabilize the crystals and their magic properties can be harnessed to power or create magic items. Somehow. Additionally, it might be possible to cause shattergems to hum with the correct application of magic.
Also, shattergems may be the reproductive portion of netting instead of a separate parasitic organism, speculation in this direction are unconfirmed.

Primary Consumer
Crawlers - One of two mobile animals in the Earth domain. A crawler is a small hard metallic creature with a delicately patterned shell similar to a tortoise. It possesses an apparent two fold symmetry, with two legs on each the side and one flexible arm-like appendage on each end. The arms and legs are many-jointed limbs made of a substance similar to rock in hardness and appearance. The body itself is covered with the shell that is often transfixed with the blades of the netting plant and sometimes a few shattergems or pieces thereof.
Crawlers use the two arms to break off blades and small shattergems to affix them to the shell, how they see without eyes is currently unknown, or perhaps the eyes have not been spotted; they appear to prefer moving in one direction and cannot see "backwards". They use the legs to dig through soil in order to find more blades and shattergems.
When threatened with physical action, crawlers retreat their legs and arms into the shell, relying on the extremely sharp blades and tough shell to protect them. In extremis, crawlers will also detonate the shattergems on their shell, a slight build up of Earth magic beforehand gives a short warning (usually insufficient). When threatened by magic, the crawlers perform the same retreating action but do not detonate the shattergems; the blades and shattergems on the shell appear to have a weaker form of the magic damping effect of netting.
Over time, the blades on the shell crumble into sand and shattergems lose their stored magic. Crawlers will abandon these for new ones.
Crawlers do not appear to eat any material, and seem to get slower and harder over time. They eventually stop renewing their blades and will find a rock to stick to and turn into the breeding phase after the legs and arms drop off. Breeding phase crawlers disintegrate into layers of shell. Other crawlers will bring blades and shattergems on their backs to the rock and affix these at various positions as well as move the pieces of shell to new places on the rock. The shell appears to convert a rock surface under it into a new crawler over a period of a week given blades and shattergems, leaving a small cavity behind.
How the other crawlers benefit from this activity is unknown but breeding is suspected as crawlers will adopt a specific shell and chase off other crawlers or humans who try to feed it. Shells fed solely by humans do not form a new crawler. The exact amount of times another crawler must feed the shell is unknown. Shells appear to retain their crawler-forming ability without time limit although only three months was tested.

Secondary Consumer
Gargoyle - A stony bat-like creature roughly twice the size of a crawler when wings are folded, with shattergems in the wing spaces instead of skin. Surprisingly light for a creature made of stone, as the body is mostly hollow.
The body is a hollow ellipsoid that acts as a pivot point for the wings. It feeds on loose rock or sand by putting them into the body cavity through a small hole in front.
Shattergems in the wings are drained of their magic to power the flight of the gargoyle, in fact, the wings never actually flap. The ends of the wings have three rocky talons with one of them opposite the other two, the claw-like "hands" allow the gargoyle to carry and manipulate objects, if awkwardly. The gargoyle uses its "hands" to pick up shattergems as well as steal them from crawlers and then implant the gems at various positions in its wings.
Sports a tail at the end of the body, the tail contains a stinger. Said stinger is also the reproductive mechanism and is extremely dangerous. It can punch through solid rock and when reproducing the gargoyle snaps the end off, implanting the rocky tip in its victim. The tail of the gargoyle grows from the base at the body, the 2nd last section then turns into a new stinger.
This rock will slowly crystallize and absorb material around it, usually a crawler, growing until it hatches into a new gargoyle. It appears to be able to effectively convert living material into clear crystals over the period of mere minutes, a process that eventually becomes fatal, although the crystals never hatch into gargoyles. The gargoyles target crawlers and deposit their egg in them, effectively parasitizing on the crawlers, although the conversion process of crawlers takes about a week. Why gargoyle eggs can only convert crawlers is unknown, but likely due to some magic or internal system that only crawlers have.
Apart from reproduction, the tail is also used to break up rocks, crawlers and attacking threats. When used in this way, the gargoyle does not deliberately snap the tip off although it sometimes gets damaged and falls off anyway.
Gargoyles travel in large flocks and love to perch on the edge of a high drop. Presumably their flight action is easier if they can glide from the outset.
Personal note: Investigate the magical network used by gargoyles to maintain a wing-like flight. There is not enough magic in the shattergems to constantly levitate something of the gargoyle's mass at the rate they use it, even as light as it is. It is also obvious that if the wing is going to act like a wing, the gargoyle must use magic from the shattergems to make the stone frame and embedded gems block air despite the wing being mostly empty space without connective tissue.