Sigh. I think you're really looking too deep into it. The Sapling comes from tree. It's untainted. PERIOD. The Taint is benign. Over long periods of exposure, the plant MIGHT become Tainted. MIGHT. But it comes from can untainted Nature Spirit, thus it is, GASP, untainted.

WHAT'S SO HARD TO GRASP ABOUT THIS?

Reposted from edit: Actually, this is unbelievably pointless. I make a statement, then we spend twenty posts arguing about things I haven't said before coming back to accept it.

I don't need to put up with your abrasive nature, and you don't have to contemplate why I feel the way I do. Move on and berate your next victim for speaking.

Very well. Ceeerees, I got cookies.

Personally, I think this problem only comes up if you assume "tainted" is a completely binary state, all or nothing, and immediately perceptible. Which is both somewhat boring and not particularly consistent with the high mythic fantasy genre. I don't see any problem in having a tree that's dark and twisted, malignant and poisonous, growing in tainted soil, having a spiritual connection with dark magics and infestation and evil deeds, but still not having all the hallmarks of being itself tainted. And that's just what the Blacktalon trees look like to me.

Hence, I see in the ambiguity room for exploration of concepts (what are the boundaries of "healthy" and "tainted" and how precise are they? what about the moral imperatives we associate with those boundaries?) and for a more variegated and complex set of relationships between nations that result from the complexities of these ideologies.

But that's exactly the way the majority of anti-taint players see the taint. It's either tainted or not, there are no shades of gray and once it is tainted it is your enemy till you have extinguished it.

Maybe a good term for it would be the Taint Flag Syndrome *smirk*

Unfortunately, only very, very few players not in Magnagora or Glomdoring don't suffer from TFS.

And, yes, I completely agree with what you say.

Well, I was raising that concern on the OOC level. Characters can certainly froth about whether they're tainted or not, but I think it's better to be suggestive but ambiguous.

Me too. Of course characters can have whatever POV they want. Some Glommies flat out refusing to see the taint is a good example.

I'm talking about players. Maybe I'm wrong but it's my perception that quite a number of players, in their OOC posts, have a TFS POV.

They're not really twisted, and not quite dark. Poisonous, yes, growing in tainted soil, yes. But if they're planted in Faethorn or Serenwilde, they're just normal trees, that wouldn't absorb any of the taint or become twisted or anything. Serenwilde actually has a whole thicket of blackthorn trees, perfectly normal.

I bet the subtle indications of a darker tone will be more evident when they're mature.

Which is why I plan to ask for another tour of Glomdoring in 2 years to see how they're evolving.

Actually, we know for certain they are identical to Serenwilde's trees. Until they possibly 'grow into' a more twisted form, at least.

In what sense of "identical"? They're not even the same kinds of trees.

I believe the example used was blackthorns. Which happen to be in both Serenwilde and Glomdoring in normal/tainted form already.

Yeah, we have a blackthorn thicket in Serenwilde. Actual room name, not just in the description.

Yes, I know that there are blackthorns in Serenwilde. That's the whole point.

Not to use the chestnut about not seeing the forest for the trees or anything, but c'mon, figure out what you're asking for. What precisely would be a better demonstration of Glomdoring's trees being influenced by taint than if the same kind of tree grows in both places, but looks very different in one than the other? Yet here you guys seem to be insisting that because they're the same kind of tree they must perforce be identical -- and insisting that even before they've grown and you could see that they aren't. Well, that they're the same kind of tree is the whole bloody point. That they're the same kind of tree but do not grow up to look the same is exactly the effect you're asking for, the influence of tainted soil on the tree.