Ferngully Crater – Austin Bunton Designs

This is our city’s densest forest –and only triple-canopy area.

–

Table of Contents:

Preface
Rainforest Crater Specifics
Special Features
Overall (Images Begin)
Cross-section Maps
Appearance Inside
Somewhat-hidden Staircase to the Uber Geode
WoW Views
Dryads and other Forest People who Practice Natural Camouflage Here
2020 Update
2021/+ Updates
2022: Minecraft Scale-model – Views from Atop the FAU
2022: Minecraft Scale-model – Views of the Top of the FAU
2022: Minecraft Scale-model – Views Down in the FAU

–

Preface:

All of the areas in Inisfree with plants are landscaped, growing under controlled conditions, and have aphrodisiacs, colorful plants, and fragrant ones (a.k.a. aromatics), all of which are non-invasive. However, the term ‘landscaping’, when used colloquially, refers to the personal gardens, large flower pots doubling as traffic filters (allowing pedestrian while preventing vehicular), and normal-sized front and backyards, as well as the lawns designed for public viewing, such as in parks, and the rooftop farms and gardens. Flora across our city is typically categorized by size, and kept in areas with distinct borders, evident in the size of the plant-life they contain. Here are the basics:

Landscaping: a no-canopy area; shortest plants, such as those commonly found in gardens, meadows, yards, and the like, always with direct sunlight, and no ‘smart-plants’ (plants in no-canopy areas do not respond to passersby)
Biolume: a sometimes-canopy area; shorter plants, often with direct sunlight, and which glow and change various colors, especially evident in low light and nighttime
Forests: ‘greenbelts’ which are single-canopy; regular-sized plants, such as small to average-height trees
Swamp: the double-canopy of a jungle; taller and thicker plants, including house-sized trees and vines
The Ferngully Crater: the true-rainforest’s triple-canopy; giants including trees several stories tall and taller, mushrooms big enough to function as group umbrellas, and flowers you can use as chairs

…

2024 June 26 Wednesday:

woodland: an almost-forest because it has an open canopy (no continuous cover/shade); trees spread out enough that you can see the grass/floor from a distance
forest: coniferous (needles instead of leaves, and pinecones, staying green; evergreens, etc.) or deciduous (annually shedding leaves, usually after color changes)
rainforest: gets >80″/yr, taller trees, thick canopy (sometimes a double or triple, thus shadier or even dark on the forest floor, compared to normal forests)
jungle: dense but shorter trees, more light gets down through the canopy/ies, denser vegetation in the understory (on the jungle floor)

–

Rainforest Crater Specifics:

Acronym:

F.A.U. is an acronym for “Fern Gully, Avatar, Un’goro”. Fern Gully is the name of an animated movie about a rainforest. Avatar is the name of a CGI movie about humanoids on a heavily forested moon of a gas giant. Un’goro is the name of a rainforest crater in the MMORPG World of Warcraft. The heavily forested environments of these wonderful stories have all been combined here to create an unprecedented synergy for all those beings who revel at the very thought of being immersed in a heavenly and ‘haven-ly’ woodland environment. And speaking of those beings, this rainforest crater is home to many of the Fay; real-life fairies.

Dimensions & Layout:

F.A.U. Crater, sometimes called Ferngully Crater, or just ‘Fau’, has a diameter of one mile. Its side closest to the center of Inisfree, which is also closer toward the core and top of Inisfree’s largest mountain, has a cliff (concave from the perspective of the crater, and convex from the perspective of the mountain) 1.75 miles long, oriented at a nearly sheer 10 degrees. The highest canopy of this crater’s triple canopy is at about the bottom third mark along that cliff, and this triple canopy is a gently-swaying dome of countless leaves which extends all the way over the crater to the opposite side, almost level at that point with the much more gradual and walkable slope leading up out of it and over the foot-hills into the Schlosser ‘Hood, as well as over three quarters of a mile of wooded terrain toward the perimeter of the Kathedrom.

Idyllic:

This region of Inisfree is specifically designed to honor and house guests of the Fay; fairies, sometimes also called ‘fair-folk’. This includes Dryads and many of the other subsets of this race of humanoid people who are so frequented in Outlander storybooks called fairytales. Though all regions and attractions of Inisfree are extremely happy, peaceful, and picturesque, this one is particularly so in the ways that the heavenly forest of our collective dreams must be in order to be worthy of such beings as its guests and residents.

–

Special Features:

There are more ferns in the landscaping of this crater than any other region of Inisfree, and by far. Ferns are considered to be one of the oldest plant types of Earth. Perhaps that is why so many people feel so comfortable and happy around them; millions of years or more to adjust to them throughout the Ages and generations.

This part of Inisfree includes a few signature constructs:

* The mass of terrain that used to occupy this crater was lifted up and became our Cloud City.

Also, there are no bugs in Inisfree. Even in this thick jungle-like forest, you won’t find a single critter. Bugs, like disease, are creations and assumptions of the corrupted species known as humanity; they have never been necessary for a healthy ecosystem or world. (Fairies and Elves are, though, and you’ll always find their finest here.)

Ensuring the waterfalls never end up flooding this crater into (such that it becomes) a new deep lake, our system of connected underground water-table regulating silos is always proactively at work, monitoring and adjusting everything, as needed.

–

Overall:

–

Cross-section Maps:

–

Appearance Inside:

–

Somewhat-hidden Staircase to the Uber Geode:

These images give a decent idea as to what the stone steps look like in the tunnel that connects one side of the floor of this crater/rainforest to one side of the floor of the Uber Geode.