Sporecrown Thallid

On Dominaria, in the deep forests, there’s new growth. A forgotten species feels the change of things long before anyone--or anything--else. Before the humans and elves, before the goblins and giants. Before the trees and birds. Spores strewn across every plane are the first to sense what’s coming. Already some gather within a skyship to form an agent. This one will be called Slimefoot. It’ll become one of their crew, he’ll live as the humans, angels, vampires, and Planeswalkers. Travel with them, explore, and learn.

On the other planes there are stirrings. Something is coming. Some great changing point. There’s a dragon at the center of that change. But when isn’t there a dragon at the heart of change? I’ve seen them, big and ugly--usually--and so full of themselves. It’s hard to decide which I find more appalling, their hubris or their breath of flame. We spores know better than to think we’re all there is. We’re only a piece of a much greater whole.

They call me a sporecrown. It sounds important in the simple languages of the bipedal species. It’s the word ‘crown’ they get hung up on. Associating a particular type of hat with royalty. But this thallid is no more special than an individual spore. It’s a collection of spores and every spore is a collection itself. Of memories, tastes, ideas, experience. A sporecrown is meeting place of sorts. If studied at Tolaria West the scholars might conclude that a sporecrown is much like a human brain, and they would be as right as wrong.

In seeing a sporecrown as a brain the scholars would give greater importance to it. They would say “It’s like a brain and rest are like cells, maybe limbs, a toe or ear, not quite as vital.” But that’s where they’re wrong. It’s all vital. It’s all the same thing, just a different view.

The sporecrown is a collection. Instead of a brain, it is better thought as a museum. A museum without a collection of art, displays, and exhibits is nothing more than an empty building. A sporecrown is a home for spores. With a sporecrown they’re stronger.

This one wanders the forests of Dominaria tending new growth. It lifts the cap of a mushroom, scatters some spores on the ground near the stem, and moves on. A saproling wanders up to the sporecrown, jumps onto its back, sits on its shoulder. Soon there’s a trail of saprolings following the sporecrown. The little saprolings double in size while in the presence of the sporecrown, happy to be nurtured.

Today I’m a sporecrown; tomorrow? Maybe a man, maybe cosmic dust, maybe a mushroom in a pan being cooked and eaten. Where I am changes, but what I am does not. Oh, how often the two get confused. It’s something I find...amusing.

Written by: Delio Pera @deliopera & deliopera.com