Magical Healing River and Ecological Effects

[mgshamster]

In a world building exercise, we came up with a river that grows a moss. Consumption of the moss can heal most any wound.

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At the head of the river, the healing effect is most potent. It can cure broken bones in a matter of minutes, cancers, magical diseases, etc..

At the mouth of the river, where the river waterfalls into the ocean, the healing effect is at its weakest. It can cure cuts and bruises, minor addictions, etc..

The river is located inside a series of canyons (most of the canyons have water ways, but only one of the waters grows this moss).

How would such a river effect the ecology around it?

At this point, we haven't places any fauna or flora, nor any sentient life. But I can add in whatever I like. I'm just curious to different ideas about the ecology that would form around such a river.

[Contrast]

First question is how the moss reacts? Does it have a super regenerating power itself so it grows incredibly fast? If so it would likely choke out other plant life and provide an incredibly rich food supply for herbivores and resulting predators.

I might suggest making it a fungus instead of a moss so that you could have a weird zone where all the typical plant life is replaced with fungus. Giant mushrooms instead of trees etc. So energetically alive that if you stay there the fungus starts growing on/in you but doesn't hurt you due to the healing properties so a lot of weird looking creatures result.


If not I honestly wouldn't expect it to have too much of an impact - most herbivores wouldn't want to congregate because that would just attract predators and there being healing moss nearby doesn't help when the thing pounces on you and kills you there and then. Maybe the apex creatures would be slightly larger and more powerful than average as they're less likely to be done in by an accumulation of wounds over time.

You might get yearly migrations of larger animals (ala elephants tracking down salt) to fix themselves up of any lingering injuries.

[Aett_Thorn]

I would say that you'd have a lowering of the number of apex predators, actually. Predators usually pick on the weaker members of a species...notable the old, injured, and young. Since the creatures that might eat the moss are almost never injured, and probably stay away from being 'old' for longer, predators would mainly try to feed on the young, but this would potentially reduce their food supply. So you'd have less of them.

Also, unless the healing properties transfer through an herbivore to a carnivore, then you'd eventually have the herbivores injuring the predators enough, but not really getting injured themselves, since they can just heal back up quickly.

[Willie the Duck]

I would say that you'd have a lowering of the number of apex predators, actually. Predators usually pick on the weaker members of a species...notable the old, injured, and young. Since the creatures that might eat the moss are almost never injured, and probably stay away from being 'old' for longer, predators would mainly try to feed on the young, but this would potentially reduce their food supply. So you'd have less of them.

Well, therein lies the question: what kind of healing does it provide? herbivores will still have old and young. Unless it is a fountain of youth, in which case you won't have old, but then you will have a population explosion which will consume all the moss and then you've just killed the goose that lays the golden eggs.

So, really, we need a few questions answered:

• What does the moss cure? (injury and disease? aging? mortal wounds?
• How quickly? (would herbivores be resilient to predation, or would fangs across the throat still mean they died and would be eaten without healing?)
• Does the moss have any super-flourishing tendencies such that it proliferates widely (or, alternatively, is the healing chemical energetically expensive, meaning that the moss only grows because of certain rare factors, and is in an ecologically precarious position)?
• You say, "At the head of the river, the healing effect is most potent," but the head of most rivers is an arbitrary dividing line (where, within a river's watershed, does the "river" start?). And is the healing moss mystically constrained to being from the river's head to it's mouth, or is that just a good descriptor of where it shows up?

[mjb235]

I think this offers another interesting argument for the fungus.

What if the fungus grows from a combination of some mineral carried from the mountains through the river? Animals that drink of the river leave fertilizer that grows the fungus. Also animal corpses that have ingested enough of the water leave the fungus.

So if too many animals are surviving becauze of it less fungus is produced causing potentially more deaths. Which allows the fungus to grow again. Giving it balance.

And if the fungus just accelerates the body's natural healing properties you can still have situations where broken bones don't mend properly.

And certain diseases where the body is literally attacking itself may even be more harmful.

[lebefrei]

Daily healing would also reduce or eliminate cell necrosis, inflammation and other bodily breakdown. Aging would slow immensely or even halt. Muscles would repair quickly; the body would be under the effects of steroids without the downsides.

A quick google suggests almost nothing can survive on moss (poor nutrients) but many animals nibble at it. This includes predators such as bears and wolves. The new ecology formed around this would be one of super health and lead to overpopulation. The balance would shift dramatically. Any animal that does not consume the moss would likely go first, due to inability to compete with this new healthfulness. Then, as healthy mothers give birth to healthy children, which learn from their parents to nibble the moss, population boom would lead to massive competition for resources. The predators would either be strong enough from the moss to continue to kill, or their inability would doom them if the prey become too strong. Eventually there would not be enough food for such healthy populations, and they'd either need to die off, or migrate away to survive. The new wave of super healthy animals migrating away could change the entire world as they spread, if they had eaten the moss through childhood.

Ironically, at the end, the animals that fail to succeed but do see the moss as a food source would consume it as a last resort. If it provides poor nutrition they'd probably eat it down to nothingness. If its healing also extends to nutritional healing, then as the primary consumers of it, if they don't over consume, they may become the ultimate creature in the area.

This doesn't account for any monster with an intelligence score enough to be aware of the healing effect moving in. They'd likely take the river and maintain a monopoly on it, only allowing an elite group to consume it regularly, but also likely using it as a healing source in battle. If magical healing is less common in this world, it could dramatically swing the tide of any war in their favor.

[Contrast]

I would say that you'd have a lowering of the number of apex predators, actually.

Sorry should have been clearer - when I said apex what I meant was the leader of any given herd/pack. So the silverback gorilla in this area will be bigger and stronger than the silverback gorilla elsewhere. It would further reinforce the self replicating cycle where the most successful one who controls who gets what territory and who gets to eat what will be the one who does better.

[Joe the Rat]

Ah, you mean Alphas.

A popular/easy/cheesy as hell way to constrain the top is to have the river originate as a spring. Magical springs are old hat in these types of games. Clearly the spring volume would likely be massive for there to be a consistent flow from start to mouth, though adjacent (not-so-magical) sources continuing and diluting the magic could reduce the suspension of belief somewhat. Or the spring is the source of the magic/growth, which flows into another body and "takes over."

My big question is what's the rest of the ecosystem? Mountains? Forests? Scrub Desert?

My personal visualization is that the substrate of your moss is essentialy sucking the life out of the surrounds. You come across this valley system which is surprisingly dry and barren compared to the surrounding landscape. No trees or grass. At the bottom is this stream, with a rich moss covering the banks. It looks very much out of place in comparison to the land around it. This gives you a nice catch - the moss can heal you, but sticking around too long lets the moss draw the life out of you.

[smcmike]

Let’s say the moss grows prolifically along the banks of the river. Or, better yet, in the water. I’m imagining enormous bloated sea cows that constantly munch on the moss while floating serenely. There’s a twist, though. They are able to survive because they are constantly magically healing. They have no other natural defenses - they simply constantly chew the cud of the moss, so attacks against them heal before the damage can kill them.

This creates a huge source of food for predators. Bears gorge themselves on the constantly renewing flesh. Eagles and vultures squabble over the best back-blubber. Schools of carnivorous fish eat the scraps. The river runs red with gore.

The local terrestrial environment benefits from the nutrients transferred up the food chain and deposited around the forest, though the predator/prey balance is a bit weird with such a huge source of meat nearby. Maybe other herbivore just keep away from the river, with its over-abundance of predators, though mostly fat, lazy ones.

The downstream aquatic environment may suffer from excess nutrients and frequent algae blooms, causing dead zones in the river.

If there are sentient beings in the area, they keep pets that are specially bred to allow for easy slicing off some rump while they nibble moss. The relationship of such a culture with death may be odd. Maybe they actively choose death at some point, instead of endless good health (what does the moss do about aging?). Maybe they perform extensive body modification or pain-inducing rituals, supported by easy healing.

[Easy_Lee]

It would have the biggest impact on omnivores, like humans or apes. Herbivores usually don't survive being attacked by a predator, or pack of predators. Carnivorous predators wouldn't eat the moss. But omnivores could go there for substance and to heal their wounds, enabling them to take more risks and survive more serious injuries in their day to day.

You'd probably end up with a place overrun by apes, goblins, orcs, or the like.

[Notafish]

Assuming the moss can't cure the effects of starvation or being eaten, I'd expect that the macro-scale fauna in the canyons would be fairly normal for the climate, but with severely fragile immune systems. In the canyon, this is probably not a problem, but you wouldn't be able to take any animals out of the canyon without them succumbing quickly to disease. Parasites like leeches and mosquitoes might get particularly robust in mossy areas, too. One other thing that might occur in the world would be the evolution of periodic migrations of flying creatures to the source of the river (I don't know if there is evidence for additional migrations in our world, but it seems like a plausible development to me.

The geology of this world (which would affect the climate and biology) also sounds interesting. If the magic river is in a canyon system and ends in a waterfall, it sounds like there would need to be tiered layers of erodible rock and/or a lot of tectonic activity. Looking at the list of waterfalls that enter the ocean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._into_an_ocean ), it looks like many examples are on large islands (Iceland, Tasmania), although Big Sur, California and South Africa also have examples.

[mgshamster]

Thanks everyone! Lots of great ideas!

Our two favorites are the life leech properties and the sea cows idea. Sprinkled in with some migrations.

We're going to mix those together for how it works in this world.

[Slipperychicken]

How about monsters and animals that drank the stuff their whole lives and have regeneration because their blood is so inundated with excess healing magic.

[Willie the Duck]

How about monsters and animals that drank the stuff their whole lives and have regeneration because their blood is so inundated with excess healing magic.

or they could only survive while exposed to constant healing magic

or they are fine, behave fine, but are so inured to healing magic that it does them no good

or their blood can be used as healing potions

or drinking their blood makes you allergic to healing potions

the possibilities are endless.

[Crgaston]

On the opposite tack, there could be something in the moss that only activates in combination with humanoid biology, so essentially no effect on the local flora and fauna.

[Willie the Duck]

On the opposite tack, there could be something in the moss that only activates in combination with humanoid biology, so essentially no effect on the local flora and fauna.

Or just not in its' raw form.
I am now envisioning a tv adventure series scene where the big bad is racing the protagonists for the magic healing moss, and beats them. As he crosses the bridge, he begins to laugh maniacally, takes a bite out of the moss, and says, "now, I have the ultimate power and invinc-"
<special guest of the week character shoots them. they collapse and fall into the ravine. Everyone stares at them>
special guest: "What? The moss is the ultimate healing magic - if crushed, boiled, extracted in a concentrated alcohol bath, filtered using high performance liquid chromatography, and distilled using a fractionating column and recrystallized into a powdered form."