Chaniboltus

What initially appears to be nothing more than a strange, fungal covered island to the unaware, the landmass known as Chaniboltus is actually just the caps of a truly massive fungal colony that has slowly grown and risen up out of a massive crater in the ocean. An extremely powerful and ancient aura of magical energy prevents the crater from being filled by the surrounding seas, creating a sort of pillar of air straight down to the depths of the ocean floor; this energy doubtlessly being a lingering effect of whatever truly destructive event caused the continent-sized crater in the first place.

From the depths of this crater, dozens of towering fungal pillars rise up to form the stalks upon which the “island” is supported; strong ocean currents continually depositing a steady supply of detritus into the crater, from the water-logged bodies of massive sea monsters, to the sunken remains of various ships, all providing nutrients for the colony as they decompose.

Population
The dominant species on Chaniboltus are a unique race of sentient fungoides. While the species generally lacks any sort of real “name” amongst themselves, they have come to most commonly be called “Migou” by outsiders, a name which they have generally embraced/accepted. A generally reclusive race, the Migou are all members of a sort of tiered hivemind, starting with mindless fungal thralls at the bottom of the hierarchy and gaining exponentially more intelligence/sentience the higher ranked they are. While the organizational structure is extremely complex, splitting off into many smaller command structures and with many Migou serving very specific roles within the colony mostly distinct from the caste system like the parts of one big superorganism, their hierarchy can be more or less be broken down into the following castes respectively:

Thralls
Only being Migou in the most rudimentary sense of the word, the thrall caste is formed primarily out of the remains of various creatures that have washed ashore on Chaniboltus and been subsequently re-animated by special spores for use in menial labour. As such, while they are most commonly humanoids or sea creatures, they come in as many shapes and sizes as can be, and it is not uncommon to see higher rank Migou such as scientists being accompanied by more powerful, exotic thralls as servants or bodyguards.

Workers
The primary purpose for these Migou is for hard labour that a standard thrall may be too dumb or weak to handle. Workers are huge brutes, often being extremely large and bulky, bearing a mixture of nautical and fungal features depending on the manner of labour they do.

While bearing an improved level of intellect over thralls, workers are still generally rather un-intelligent all things considered, mostly just taking orders from either the hivemind or an overseer from one of the higher castes.

Soldiers
While Chaniboltus’s reclusive nature means that conflict with other nations is extremely rare, and its hive-mind structure meaning internal struggle is almost non-existent, the soldier caste’s role is to defend the colony on the rare occasions when it is threatened, most often by a wandering scavenger from the lower depths or by a sea monster which may seek to prey on the colony. These Miqou are usually able to be identified by their second set of arms, more traditionally humanoid body shape, and crab-like chitinous armor.

Soldiers are slightly less physically strong than a worker, but compensating for it with a greatly improved level of intelligence and situational-awareness. Soldiers have the ability to plan/strategize independently from the hive-mind when the situation demands, as well as quickly adapt to situations if those plans fail. Additionally, Soldiers can be grown the most quickly out of all the castes aside from thralls, only taking a few days to fully mature. Meaning in the event of a larger scale threat, such as an assault from another nation, Chaniboltus has the ability to rapidly amass a large, surprisingly formidable fighting force.

Emissaries
While the Miqou are generally quite reclusive and prefer to keep to themselves, on rare occasions when the hive mind wishes to learn more about the state of the outside world, they send members of the Emissary caste out to gather information. As such, most accounts of people seeing and interacting with the Miqou outside of Chaniboltus involve a member of this caste. Generally extremely tall and gangly, and lacking both the high-physical strength and aquatic features of the lower castes, Emissaries instead bear an exceptionally high level of intelligence and near complete free will, allowing them to continue functioning without direct orders from the colony more or less indefinitely. Additionally, to help ensure that any information they gather about the outside world is not lost upon their death, particularly considering the exceptionally dangerous nature of being outside the colony, mostly alone, for extended periods of time, a backup of all of their thoughts and experiences are stored and preserved by the hive mind. This backup meaning that, in the event that they do die, the colony can simply grow a new body for them over the course of about a month, making them functionally immortal.

Scientists
The highest ranking of the castes and by far the most intelligent, members of the scientist caste have almost never been seen directly by outsiders, let alone spoken to, however stories from loose lipped emissaries and travelling merchants describe them as pale, towering creatures with bulbous mushroom-cap heads and dozens of branching, tendril-like limbs jutting out the bottom, akin to a colossal, land-bound jellyfish. If the workers are the limbs of the colony, the soldiers the shield, and the emissaries the eyes and mouth, then scientists are the brains of the colony; The members of this caste indirectly oversee almost all of Chaniboltus’s major operations, commanding and issuing orders to the various lower castes from a massive fungal-structure on the cap that travellers to Chaniboltus have taken to calling the mushroom palace.

Ecology
In terms of ecology, the majority of non-sentient life on the surface of chaniboltus is relatively docile, consisting mostly of living plants and various fungal beasts, including a notable species of bovine-like creatures which produce a thick mushroom broth from their udders, said broth being popular among travellers to Chaniboltus and a food staple among the Migou.

However, as one descends further down towards the base of the crater where mushroom stalks grow, the more fearsome the local fauna become.

Huge scavengers and fungal monstrosities roam free on the lower levels, feasting upon the bloated, rotten corpses of creatures deposited into the crater by the tidal currents, as well as preying on any unwary souls who happen to wander down into their hunting grounds.