"Naerina, what need does this thriving forest have for one more plant?"

"It's not for the forest. It's for me."



"Fun" fact: See that big cluster of purple fruits in the top left corner? Those are Harkans, a widely-cultivated edible fruit that is commonly available at almost any grocer. They are also easily found in nature, where even their wild variant offers a nutritious and abundant yield. Now, you might think that this all sounds great! What a useful resource!

But wait! Let me tell you about the Harkan Assassins. The harkan assassin exists to make people ask "Why can't we just have nice things?"

They are palm-sized arthropods that live in colonies of up to one hundred individuals. They migrate from vine to vine, where they consume the bounty and then

You see, harkan assassins have growths on their abdomens that can be folded around the creature like a shell, and it

makes them look and smell just like a ripe harkan fruit. When something mistakes one of them for a free delicious snack, the disguised colony reveals itself and swarms the target, stinging it to death and consuming the body.

So now, most halfway-intelligent Alurians and critters resist the temptation of the wild harkan altogether. Nobody wants their obituary to describe a death by stinging jungle insects.







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