To boldly alchemize what no one alchemized before
An Odacer-Faustin Kudzu about to eat an unsuspecting traveler
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide additional defenses for Al-Khali
- Image Credit: Creepervines attacking Lina Graf by David Buisan
- Canon: N/A
- Links: Creepervine (base species), Ice Plant (a plant from which genes are transplanted into the base creepervine genome) Al-Khali (the place where it was created)
- Name: Odacer-Faustin Kudzu
- Homeworld: Odacer-Faustin
- Other Locations: N/A (currently; may be introduced on other planets at later points)
- Classification: Vine
- Average Growth Cycle: The Odacer-Faustin Kudzu starts its first two to three months as a vine whose roots are taking hold in the permafrost, during which it is considered immature, as it grows long/tall enough to be able to support a mouth, after which it spends another 4-6 months to grow said mouth, and, along with it, the rest of the vine, grows to about 20-30m on average, where it will spend a final ten years or so when properly cared for. It can reproduce asexually.
- Viability: As is the case for the two base species, the Odacer-Faustin Kudzu is a carnivorous plant, which survive in cold temperatures with minimal sunlight by eating unsuspecting animals once it has grown a mouth; however, in the first two months or three of its growth life cycle, as the plant matures, it requires more sunlight, before the mouth grows big enough to eat animals, at which point its reliance on sunlight diminishes, but their needs for water are covered by the planet's snowfall regardless of where thet are at in their life cycle.
- Description: The Odacer-Fautin Kudzu is a Sithspawn vine that carries a mouth (one for each mature specimen), made to eat animals roughly up to Wookiee-sized in mature specimens, and can induce unease as well as fear of its acid, which, fortunately, isn't spit, thanks to its high viscosity, and is simply saliva that the plant uses to break down its prey into constituents the plant can consume as the prey is digested. However, that acid is, in fact, similar to common animal gastric juices in that it is a strong acid and it can then be neutralized by a strong base. Finally, while it can resist the cold weather of the planet, thanks to the ice plant genes being introduced in it, it also has the side effect of not being able to survive in hotter climates. It also contains thorns about 2-5cm in length, depending on the length of the vine to which it is attached. The thorns have roughly the same properties as the teeth in the mouth.
- Average height: 20-30m
- Average length: 20-30m (at maturity)
- Color: Green
- Nutritional Value: Protein source
- Distinctions: Crocodile-like mouth, 2-5cm thorns (length dependent on the thickness of the vine) that have the properties of the mouth's teeth
- Strengths:
- Minimal sunlight needs when mature
- Can survive in low temperatures
- Rapid growth when properly fed (about 10-15cm a day)
- Can induce unease and fear while writhing to an equivalent level to Force-horror; may cause a weak-minded being to run away or cower
- Weaknesses:
- Mouth: if the mouth of a semi-mature or mature specimen is somehow cut off, it is essentially a deferred death sentence for the plant as its nutritional needs then cannot be met in full
- Needs feeding of animal organic matter (about its own weight once every three to six months) once into maturity; if it does not encounter meat during that span, its nutritional needs cannot be met
- Sunlight needed before it reaches the stage where the mouth is functional
- Acid is slow-acting and can be neutralized by a strong base
- Doesn't withstand hot climates that well
- Its ability to induce unease and fear can be resisted with strong mental defenses or frequent exposure to the plant
- Its ability to induce unease and fear is severely curtailed in the presence of Force-nullifiers (void stones, ysalamiri, etc.) due to the disabling of the aura of fear: it would then only cause some light incomfort
The Odacer-Faustin Kudzu is, in fact, Janick's first foray into Sithspawn-land, and was, as is the case with all Sithspawn, artificially created one way or another. The Sisterhood of the Black Rose hired her services for creating the Sithspawn, and she also took the opportunity, while at Al-Khali, to learn the fundamentals of genetic engineering as is relevant for making Sithspawn. However, to get the project started, she had to smuggle the seeds of Ice Plants from First Order space, while simultaneously bringing in creepervine seeds from D'Qar, and it was found that the project was simpler if the cold resistance genes were knocked into the creepervine genome than to introduce vine-like qualities into the Ice Plant, and so the creepervine was chosen to be the base species for creating a vine plant that would writhe, induce unease and fear, while being able to survive on permafrost and other poor soils that are commonly found on ice planets such as Odacer-Faustin.
Just because the resulting plant can, in fact, resist cold temperatures, does not allow it to induce fear or unease on its own, so it was found that the usage of Sith alchemy was necessary to confer these properties onto the plant. Hence, its ability to writhe, induce unease and fear was, in fact, a product of the mutations induced by the usage of Sith alchemy onto the genome. And yet ensuring that all desired phenotypes would be in place in the resulting plant required experimenting with alchemy while using twenty different inactive genes as the locations where the genes coding the desired properties were used for replacement. It also grew some thorns about 2-5cm in length, with similar properties to those of the teeth in the mouth, all across the vines, especially the longest and thickest of the gang, adding to its ability to induce unease and fear, and can also cause injuries to unsuspecting animals that are caught in the vines.
In the end, only one successful strain could actually survive with all the desired phenotypes, alchemical or not, while some of the others proved to be viable but did not writhe or induce unease or fear, and others still proved to not be viable at all, for reasons ranging from it being somehow unable to fix atmospheric nitrogen, inability to grow a mouth or inability to put down roots, since the alchemical treatments resulted in knocking out genes for some reason. Nevertheless, those strains in question were still subjected to the same weaknesses unrelated to the usage of alchemy. As a result, the remaining strains were discarded and fed into a molecular furnace for recycling, written off as alchemical failures, after uprooting and hanging the plants out to dry in a heated area. And thus the Odacer-Faustin kudzu, a Sithspawn plant, was born in an alchemical lab on the eponymous planet, and now lines the walls of key buildings around the lab. Of course, because the dark side aura of fear, ranging for about 5-10m from the plant, is borne from alchemy, it has two different levels of fear depending on the presence or absence of Force-nullifiers: while without Force-nullifiers, it can send a weak-minded being running and cowering, with Force-nullifiers, it can only cause light discomfort, with the fear able to be resisted to varying extents.
