Moonfruits

Banana-shaped fruits, growing on palms in the Pale Crescent and cultivated by Crescentborn.

Description

Moonfruit palms are tall trees only growing in the Pale Crescent with large leaves shaped like a crescent moon. Their color is also reminiscent of the moon, shining in a silver-green color and very reflective of light.

Their fruits are similarly crescent-shaped in a silver color, but they are pure silver instead. As they ripen their color turn from a dull grey-ish color into shining silver and once they ripen, which only happens during a full moon, they reach their full shining silver color. After the full moon has ended, the tree rejects any old fruit which then start rotting within only a few days. In that time, they almost immediately lose their shinyness and turn back to a grey color, this time way darker.

It takes a tree almost twenty years before they are matured and can actually grow trees, though many need even more time before their fruits can be first harvested. During the first few years of maturity, fruit are often very small and fall off the tree to rot way before they had a chance to ripen

It takes a tree almost twenty years before they are matured and can actually grow trees, though many need even more time before their fruits can be first harvested. During the first few years of maturity, fruit are often very small and fall off the tree to rot way before they had a chance to ripen.

Once a tree is ready to fully grow fruit, a cycle takes only a single month between full moons. Only one to two days after the full moon has ended, the tree has shed all its old fruit to rot and turn into new trees and uses the energy it collected from the full moon to grow blossoms. These are then fertilized by some of the few insects living in the Scorched Plains, mainly Djinnbees and Crescentcrawlers. After they have been fertilized, the petals fall off and the fruits start growing. These are extremely poisonous, and are sometimes even used to create poisons, only being edible during their small ripeness period. While they are ripening, which takes the rest of the month after about 5-7 days of blooming, Sandlings climb up the palms digging themselves through the bark, laying their eggs into the budding fruit. If the ripened fruit are then not harvested during the full moon, these eggs hatch inside the ripe fruit, right after they have fallen off the trees. The small worms then devour the fruit within only 2-3 days, ingesting the small tree seeds before burrowing in the ground. They then excrete the seeds underground, allowing a new tree to sprout just after the next full moon.

Uses

Crescentborn rely on moon fruit for much of their sustainance (along with Tidepearls) and have cultivated the trees for a long time. Harvesting Moon Fruit is deeply rooted in their culture, always being done during the full moon when the fruit are in their prime and combined with a long ritual worshipping Lunara and Kalia.

There have been many attempts to cultivate the palms outside the Pale Crescent, but so far every attempt has faded, with only a single tree bearing fruit a single time before dying. This tree was located directly in the Moon Gate.