[PTTG]

Sapient, psionic trees populate Aboria.

Visitors discover a world that seems primeval. Not merely untouched, but vigorously alive and both wild yet aesthetically beautiful, in the way that a carefully-crafted bonsai tree seems at once perfectly posed and completely natural. Animal life is active, and many species lost to Homeline flourish here, including more than a few never seen before. Plants of every kind proliferate, and even deserts' stark beauty seems sharpened here, stronger.

The inhabitants are about a hundred million psionic trees around the world. Each one is a titan of the forest, large enough to smash the records of any living tree on homeline (although some historical trees perhaps not). The average tree of this type weighs some 1,200 tons, but the height varies, as the apparent species of the tree is that of a species native to the area where it lives. Its consciousness is stored in a network of synapses and systems that mainly inhabits the root system of the tree, but also spreads upwards into the core of the bole.

Much of their lives is spent in contemplation, as well as communication with their neighbors and cultivation of their surroundings. They use their psionic abilities to shape the world into pleasingly natural and yet harmonious forms, or create entirely psionic artistry that is hard for humans to even contemplate.

Visitors are observed curiously. They let visitors operate undisturbed for a while so as to see how they really act, although playful tree-beings might send psionic visions to appear in the form of men, mer, or speaking animals. If visitors respond well, then a dialog may begin. If the visitors are stiff, unresponsive, or needlessly destructive, then the tree-beings will set to work driving them out.

Their ethics are different... they do not die of old age, and generally see much of what we call "ambition" as short-sighted or destructive. They also see any kind of group identity as, at best, a benign madness. Fanaticism they see as a terminal case. For all that, pursuit of self-defined ideological goals, such as, for instance, the study of knowledge for knowledge's sake, they respect. But it is art that they admire most. They always seek new forms of inspiration, new artistry. Visitors that provide it will be appreciated.

They are, originally, human, and in fact this is a no-mana worldline. Psionics is strong here, but the trees themselves function via a neural network integrated into them through eons-old genetic engineering and ordinary life processes.