#spongeroot

[exhausted-archivist]

Cut Content: Plants

I'm slowly making my way through my Herbalist's Handbook project and through the process I've been yanking out references of all fauna in dai, cut or final. So, I thought I'd share some of the cut plants/fungi I've found. They fall into three categories: Cut but Canon through other sources, Cut but Canon - different design, or Cut Entirely.

Personally, I enjoy finding the remnants of such assets in the game files, there is a bittersweet joy in it. Knowing that BioWare did consider adding in the elements and variety I craved but also knowing they likely got cut due to time, scope, or mechanic limitations. I really hope they continue to add new flora for us, and I hope to discover even more in the next game. I'll be interested to see if any of these make an appearance later and if they'll have any of the uses I'm outlining in my herb project.

For more plant posts see: Flora of Thedas Real Plants in Thedas

**Edit - changed the language because tumblr decided to post the image arrangement differently than I had it.**

Cut, but Canon Plants

These first two are actually the same plant- or rather fungus. On the left is a weird one that technically falls into the cut but canon - different design but wanted them side by side.

This is spongeroot. A little surface mushroom that we only know by name thanks to the World of Thedas (WoT) vol. 2 book and by the file names. The left is the cut design, the right is the final design (sans colouration) that we actually see in WoT. It's found in the Trespasser DLC files.

ALT

The second is called ghoul's mushroom. This is a deep mushroom codex. It is one of the most commonly used mushroom by herbalists. [source] Other then that we don't know much about them, but they're found in the base game Inquisition files. Given that they have garden cards, we can presume they were at the very least harvestable at one point.

ALT

Cut, but Canon - Different Design

From top to bottom we have the cut designs of Ghoul's Beard - Short, Blightcap, and Spindleweed - Landform.

Ghoul's Beard Short This has no real difference from the final game version other than it is stockier and bushier than what we see in-game. Personally, I enjoy the exploration into such a simple variation as it would be rather common to have differences in length.

Blighcap This is another common deep mushroom used by herbalists in Thedas. We also see mention of blightcap in WoT vol. 2: "Flat-capped and gray that grows in clay: Blightcap, the hunter's bane." Given the image is stylized, I can't tell accurately the colours, but it isn't flat-capped and thus why it's placed here.

Spindleweed - Landform Interestingly, DA2 had a similar model for when it introduced spindleweed. Though the leaves here are only a single lobe instead of three lobes on the DA2 spindleweed. This is an interesting variation to me because it would lend more variety in the spindleweed family but it would also explain how people could grow spindleweed in their garden away from water.

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Cut Entirely

From top to bottom we have blade lotus, desert bloom, and desert rose. There is no information on either as they seem to be completely new plants that were intended to be introduced into Inquisition's base game.

ALT

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