The World Tree
Everyone agrees that there was a world tree. The world was once safe and prosperous in its shade, and the tree itself was a visible sign of solace and safety atop its lofty peak from nearly anywhere in the world. Branches and cuttings from the world tree would be brought to settlements and planted, sprouting as hearty magical saplings that served as shrines the the world’s protector.
Then, one day, the world tree disappeared.
Engulfed in a fog that would later be known as the miasma, the world tree has not been seen in an age. The only sign that it ever existed are the saplings dotting the landscape — one in nearly every town, especially the ones that have survived — where they exude a sort of miasma-repellant shield that enables civilization to continue on.
Miasma
A noxious fog that appeared in the absence of the world tree. Exactly what it is, where it comes from, and where it goes — or doesn’t go — are an ongoing matter of study, and a dangerous one in a world that the miasma is harmful to.
Though study via the Lifestream Orb, Cynthia discovered what many scholars have been trying to find out for years: the miasma is a mass of souls that should have returned to the Lifestream, but haven’t. Why is still an open question.
Learning the truth of the miasma is the goal of many a scholar, but studying it has proven difficult due to a few factors: when dealt with outside of the protection of a world tree sapling, it’s poisonous, but when brought inside a world tree sapling’s barrier, the miasma dissipates.
The other factor, of course, is the monsters.
Monsters
Creatures that arise spontaneously from the miasma, many of them are hostile to life on the planet, but they cannot penetrate the inside of a sapling’s shield. Their byproducts — corpses, et cetera — often dissipate inside a shield.
The fact that Mero can exist within a sapling’s protective barrier is as much a mystery as anything else about this world.
Slimes
The Mellow Slime is merely a physically-aligned expression of the slime monster-type; a variety for each element exists, usually in the appropriate environment where that kind of mana’s wellspring can occur, with the commonality being that all of them are unusually laid back.
- Chill Slime (blue, ice-aligned)
- Breezy Slime (green, wind-aligned)
- Balmy Slime (red, fire-aligned)
- Clement Slime (yellow, bolt-aligned)
- Devil-may-care Slime (black, dark-aligned)
- Benign Slime (purple, poison-aligned)
- Sunny Slime (pale yellow w/white patches, light-aligned)
- Unshakable Slime (brown, earth-aligned)