❝ Their macabre ways of honoring life and death is something many of us will likely never understand. And yet, there is a faint, almost grotesque beauty to be found in their darkness. ❞

^{— Kuvela Natt, botanist}

The ancient Vistora, an ancestry originally consisting of the fungal Myconids, evolved into sentience through countless eons of their existence away from the surface dwellers living hundreds of miles above the earth.

Upon the discovery of the surface, a subsect of the Vistora, the Selphins, rose alongside their Myconid cousins with their chloroplast skin and petal-adorned heads.

While many remained below ground, select groups found themselves attracted to the bright skies that illuminated the overworld. At first, those who made the trek found it only suitable to thrive in decay-filled areas similar to their homeland, but some wished to transcend this, seeking guidance from the sun they revered so much.

The Selphins’ separation from their Myconid cousins, combined with their rejection of the gloom and isolation that dominated much of their societal values, has caused a great rift to form between the two Vistora. When an outsider is asked their opinion on the matter, all questions tend to devolve to a single notion; would you choose to cloak yourself in the safety of the darkness, or would you throw yourself at the mercy of the light?

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Vistora tend to lack nostrils or mouths, with eyes being the only sensory organ present despite a few being born without eyes anyway. Their senses are largely dictated by the spores they release, being used to process stimuli and communicate with others as they lack vocal cords. The sizes of their heads are quite large to ensure sufficient spore range. They will also use a variety of materials to create skeletal systems to mimic the shapes and statures of kalmenids such as sticks, stones, animal bones, etc.

Vistora are generally in the same height ranges, averaging between 3’2 to 5’9, although Selphins are found to typically be the taller of the two subraces due to their sunlight-driven functions. Their weights are often proportional to their heights, ranging from 32 to 155 pounds on average. Their builds are generally stout or skinny, with Myconids being a tad stockier than Selphins and vice versa.

They need just over 20 years in their uprooted stage to reach adulthood. While Vistora have been known to live for extremely long periods of time before their arrival to the surface, this was only possible through their direct connection to their mycelium. Because they have evolved to uproot themselves, they do not live indefinitely, reaching expiration at 100 years.