Inside a Dryad

Well, actually regurgitation might not be needed. Since bones themselves can be dissolved in Hydrochloric acid (HCL) IRL in a few hours. Of course, since these are giant preds, i'd imagine that it would take about an hour per prey. As for if they have intestines or not, that's really up to the viewer, which can be put into two ways of final digestion and absorbtion of nutrients. The first way would have the dryad just having one stomach, and nothing past that. Once prey is fully digested into chyme, the stomach drains itself and the nutrients are absorbed into the stomach walls and dispersed through the body. The second way would have the dryad have intestines, and use them just as a human does. However, in this case all of the digested prey and chyme is absorbed into the intestines with no waste at all.

Personally, I like the second way more, in the case of dryads. Though either way, it is the same.

Alright, I did some research, and it seems that I was wrong on some parts. From what I could dig up, it is indeed possible for stomach acid to digest some bones. At the risk of oversimplifying it, it depends on things like the size of the bone and the kind of bone itself. Bird bones, like chicken bones, are thin and hollow, so they are easier to break down. In most cases, bones in general take too long to completely break down, so they're usually pass through with all the other stuff. So, given enough time, I guess you could theoretically completely digest the skeleton of certain animals.

But, in the case of dryad, I don't think that's enough to allow complete digestion by itself. From what I could gather, the hydrochloric acid found in human stomach would in time dissolve the calcium that make up bones, but what this would end up doing is make the bone brittle and easier to break, since it's also comprised of other minerals like potassium. One way dryads could potentially deal with this is to regurgitate the bones without spitting them and chew on them before swallowing them again like a cow. But that's a really odd behavior for them to have, and there's no way for them to know what regurgitated, so it's not a very good idea. However, since you mentioned that a dryad's stomach is a prime haven for mutualism and parasitism, and you brought up critters whose job is to clean the inside of the dryad's stomach, we could infer that part of these critters jobs is to break and crush bones that have gone brittle over days of being in the dryad's stomach.

Ultimately though, I guess we don't have to mention bones specifically. We can just say that whatever a dryad can't digest she has to regurgitate and just leave it at that, since there are other things other than bones that a dryad's stomach wouldn't be able to break down.

That reminds me, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but if we go with the idea that dryads don't have intestines, then their stomachs should be far larger in proportion to their bodies to compensate. It should take up most of their abdomen in my opinion. Also, I think the tendrils you were referring to are called villi.

Also, I still think dryads should be given a height boost, that's for another discussion.

So I know this is a little removed from what's already been discussed, but a historical use of bonemeal was as a component of fertilizers. How much can dryads use their roots to absorb nutrients from the ground? The article mentions photosynthesis, which merely provides energy, not nutrients, but dryads are carnivorous, so they're not limited to absorbing nutrients from the ground. I think it would be a good secondary source, though, and could create a multi-stage digestive process. After initial digestion for easily-accessible nutrients in a dryad's stomach, the remains could be excreted/regurgitated into the soil below the dryad's roots, upon which nature gets to work returning the rest to the soil. Perhaps the dryad even uses her roots as a sort of grindmill to help break stuff up to speed the process. As such, a well-fed dryad would have a very rich soil bed to plant in. As for hiding the remains, they would either be shallowly buried and/or the dryad could reposition their roots to create nooks and hollows, offering shelter to the animals that help process the remains, visually breaking up the compost heap, and creating areas that are more believable to find small amounts of objects in.

Gamma wrote:

So I know this is a little removed from what's already been discussed, but a historical use of bonemeal was as a component of fertilizers.  How much can dryads use their roots to absorb nutrients from the ground?  The article mentions photosynthesis, which merely provides energy, not nutrients, but dryads are carnivorous, so they're not limited to absorbing nutrients from the ground.  I think it would be a good secondary source, though, and could create a multi-stage digestive process.  After initial digestion for easily-accessible nutrients in a dryad's stomach, the remains could be excreted/regurgitated into the soil below the dryad's roots, upon which nature gets to work returning the rest to the soil.  Perhaps the dryad even uses her roots as a sort of grindmill to help break stuff up to speed the process.  As such, a well-fed dryad would have a very rich soil bed to plant in.  As for hiding the remains, they would either be shallowly buried and/or the dryad could reposition their roots to create nooks and hollows, offering shelter to the animals that help process the remains, visually breaking up the compost heap, and creating areas that are more believable to find small amounts of objects in.

I think that's a very interesting idea. A dryad filters down unabsorbed matter, in tiny liquefied form, through sort of 'reverse roots' into the soil. It becomes part of the soil, becomes nourishing to her, and she's then able to absorb it from the ground through her roots.

This is just the bones, right? The tools and other inorganic matter left behind by adventurers could be ground down in the soil by the dryad's roots, as Gamma suggested - as I doubt they'd be willing to swallow that stuff normally. Though as Shady says, digesting bones is possible. Many animals contain the ability to do so. I feel like these are two different points of argument here? One is about bones, the other about swords, tools, backpacks, etc, right? You wouldn't have a Dryad excrete bones to grind them back up along with the other stuff?

Though I suppose you could. Seems potentially redundant.

Mabye Dryads just spit the extra stuff out......anything potentially interesting, such as weapons and clothes are handed down to the little sapling Dryads.

Cue image of a young two foot tall Dryad wearing an dumb hat her mommy got from a previous meal.



.........Yes I am in a good mood today, believe it

My Fez D:

My idea wasn't that the dryad's roots would grind up the undigestible matter; the dryad would just dump it there. For bones and organic remains, rot takes place as normal, adding nitrates and phosphates and other good-ates to the soil; ferrous metals rust as normal, and objects more resilient to nature would probably just sit there, probably getting buried after a while. Ancient and well-fed dryads could wind up sitting on top of a decent treasure hoard. I'm not sure how exactly they'd excrete it from their stomachs in the first place; the consensus seems to be they don't have an anus, otherwise I'd suggest they'd regularly purge out anything that's fallen to the bottom of their cavernous stomachs and not gotten digested for a few days or so. They could regurgitate it, but I doubt Karbo's interested in drawing that. It's possible that their stomach doesn't have a real bottom, but transitions into roots that wind together, using cilia or slime or something to form a decently watertight seal (slow leakage is probably preferable to keep things fresh) that slowly wrap around undigestibles and transfer them out of the bottom of the dryad. That's also probably easier on the gut macrobiome than regurgitation would be.

I never knew that bones could be used as a fertilizer, and I like the idea of a two stage digestion. I still don't like this idea of reverse roots; it sounds to me like an excuse to not mention that dryads must vomit what they can't digest given their anatomy, when they've been retconned that they can more or less regurgitate what they've swallowed at will. I think Gamma has given a fair compromise with the idea that slime or cilia form a seal over indigestible matter over time, kind of like how an owl regurgitates the bones and fur of prey in a small pellet.

Shady Knight wrote:

I never knew that bones could be used as a fertilizer

Quote :

and I like the idea of a two stage digestion.  I still don't like this idea of reverse roots; it sounds to me like an excuse to not mention that dryads must vomit what they can't digest given their anatomy

For dryads, I think 'reverse roots' make more sense than regurgitation, given their need for concealment. I also think it's more original and plant-like.

Quote :

I think Gamma has given a fair compromise with the idea that slime or cilia form a seal over indigestible matter over time

... and it ends up in the soil below the dryad. Yes, that could work too.

I argue that having to pass indigestible matter through the mouth is more interesting, because it gives their camouflage a weakness they have to work with, similar to how a fairy's shrinking magic isn't instantaneous, and it plays with the idea that they have remarkable control of their esophagus.  You say that the reverse roots, essentially an anus, is more original, but isn't they fact that dryads must frequently regurgitate stuff that's too hard for their stomach to digest original too, as no other species in Felarya really does that?  And when you really get down to it, doesn't those reverse roots make dryads even less plant-like given the fact that they would essentially be defecating like every other animal? Taking Gamma's idea into consideration, those slime pellets would be not different than feces. The only difference is that the dryad's butthole would be buried several feet underground.

Shady Knight wrote:

And doesn't that really make dryads even less plant-like since they're essentially defecating like every other animals, with the only tangible difference being that their butthole is several feet underground instead?

As you know, I don't see them as having anything like an anus. The way I see it, undigested liquefied matter filters down into the soil beneath them through a root-like system. Many different 'roots', each releasing tiny amounts of liquid into the earth.

But you said yourself that it's indigestible matter. Indigestible means that the stomach wasn't able to liquefy it in the first place. If it was liquefied, first it wouldn't be indigestible, but it would also already have been absorbed by the villi lining the stomach.

Shady Knight wrote:

But you said yourself that it's indigestible matter.  Indigestible means that the stomach wasn't able to liquefy it in the first place.  If it was liquefied, first it wouldn't be indigestible, but it would also already have been absorbed by the villi lining the stomach.

Indigestible means that it can't be absorbed (because it isn't nourishing), not that it can't be liquified to be disposed of discreetly through (and beneath) the dryad's plant-half.

Digestion involves the breaking down of food molecules into smaller water-soluble molecules that can then be absorbed by the body.  i.e. liquefied.  If something can't be digested, it means it can't be broken down into these smaller molecules, meaning it can't be liquefied to be disposed of through these reverse roots of yours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestion

Your idea is that the dryad's stomach somehow breaks down those molecules it shouldn't be able to break down, doesn't absorb them for whatever reason despite being in a state for the body to absorb, so that they can be disposed underground for the roots to absorb and process the way humans process food and water.  I'm sorry, but that's way too many unnecessary steps. At this point, it would be more efficient to go back to your original idea - that dryads simply digest everything they ingest and just axe the concept of reverse roots entirely.

I agree with Shady; the point of this is to deal with stuff the dryad's stomach can't break down. Some of that is going to be things like bones or hair, but it also includes metals, plastics, and all the other fun toys humans like to carry around. If a dryad needs to liquify everything, it's going to find its stomach clogged up sooner or later.

Apologies for having disappeared again for a while, a lot of unexpected things to deal with those last several days ^^;

Oh boy this turned into a really detailed discussion here  

Looking at all your replies and ideas, my own take on the question is : dryads can indeed digest bones ( the idea of having some creature help them in their digestion is clearly interesting and could be further developed I think ) and their stomach, while not very fast acting, is steady and can break down a lot of things. What is not digestible would ends up being regurgitated by the dryad indeed

The reverse root idea is interesting but I admit i have trouble to see how this would work to pass on stuff that can't be digested through it. plus it would start to really change the soil around the dryad and I'm not sure how that would affect her in the long term ( unless she would move of course )

On an interesting note, I looked up how actual pitcher plants get rid of indigestibles–or rather, how they don't. A pitcher plant's "pitcher" is actually a leaf, so it withers and drops off after a while and a new one grows in its place; it's not uncommon to find remains at the bottom of a discarded pitcher. Probably not something a dryad could do.

It couldn't do that after every single meal though, which is where the issue arises.

Yeeeaaah... let's not have dryads throw up their stomachs every once in a while and growing a new one.  Much as I like fictional hybrid races being accurate to the creatures they're based on, even I have my limits.  As far as digestion is concerned, we can probably go with not specifying what they can or can't digest, and simply say that whatever their stomachs can't break down they'll have to regurgitate, and leave it to the writer's discretion.

Beyond that, I think we should implement Gamma's suggestion about ancient Dryads sitting on mounds of buried treasure.  Let's not forget that one of the one of the main reasons adventurers come to Felarya in the first place is ostensibly because there are fabulous treasures to be found there.  It only makes sense that a rumor about millennia-old dryads sitting on top of treasure would have taken root at some point - pun fully intended. Or perhaps it started out as a simple rumor, and as time passed, it mutated into a tale about a singular, incredibly ancient dryad who sits on a treasure hoard whose value is almost unfathomable. I think these kinds of in-universe wild fantasies would be what propel most adventurers to even set foot in Felarya in spite of its many dangers.

If there's nothing left to discuss about the dryad's new digestive system, then I'd like to suggest that maybe we increase the size of dryads in general.  I said it before, but about 150 feet in height for a tree in a world of giants is really unimpressive when there are trees in the real world that dwarf these supposed mammoth.  Plus, since the soil in Felarya is supposedly magical and is part of the reason why the average height of humans is quite tall, it only figures that it would be especially potent to trees and dryads given that they directly feed off of the soil's nutrients constantly, resulting in trees growing to truly monstrous sizes depending on the region.

Incidentally, after going over the Dryad page on the wiki, I've noticed many subspecies for thorns/vines, dark places, wet places, swamps, deserts, snow, and even a specifically anti fairy one (which I still have issues with making a chemical SPECIFIC to fairies, and I thought the wiki said fairies and dryads generally get along, and these live on fairy borders) anyway...

what about fruit/flower related ones. We used to have a floral dryad type somewhere, unless I'm mistaken. Where did those go, because it feels like all the other dryads arent well suited for that sort of look, which I think of as weird. Unless that's like...the base dryad?

Also wouldn't the type of dryad change the interior biology dramatically? Would that affect their bellies?

I actually have an update in mind for the Faebanes. It's nothing concrete, but I think it's worth sharing. I'll post it soon enough.

As for the floral dryad, you might be thinking of Bloom Dryads, which are Elementals.

http://felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Nature_Elementals

I'm admittedly not very fond of the name because of the confusion it causes.

Shady Knight wrote:

I actually have an update in mind for the Faebanes.  It's nothing concrete, but I think it's worth sharing.  I'll post it soon enough.

As for the floral dryad, you might be thinking of Bloom Dryads, which are Elementals.

http://felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Nature_Elementals

I'm admittedly not very fond of the name because of the confusion it causes.

Yeah, that's the one.

Can we just make them Dryads instead? XD