Darkforrest

Its broken up into a shit ton of smaller spaces with messy amd gradienty jurisdiction that gets clearer the more central and densly populated it gets. the small local governments vary in economy and generally politics yiu can kind of think of them like greek polis but no one knows what a border is. While internally its messy when big scale external action is needed they do all work together to call one government the one government is called also for some internal infrastructure if you manage to wrassle.all theese disparate entities into wanting it which is rare but does happem with things like the underground railway or connecting them to the wider internet being recent examples

The darkforrest herits are considerably more simmilar to eachother than most herrit groups, and this is due to an act of genetic engineering why ? not known. it was basicallg ancient and whike theres some theories this is something respected scientists argue about. while you can tell thst this was not a natural adaptation and something done deliberately it is. generally unclear why. The resukt of this however is pretty striking. whatever they mimic theybalways reproduce it in darker, less saturated shades and with strongly bioluminescent accents. What the accents land on is sort of random but things like horns ornother things thay break up the way the rest of the bodu looks are common but theyre also not the only kind with just as many having patterns that look like blaschko lines all over their body. The style lf these is wholly indepndent of ehat they choose to mimic. even if the thing they are mimicking has bioluminescence they arent capable of mimcking it and indeed will have different bio luminescence. also while most are dark and grayish and desaturated occasionally they get white external coats but this is somewhat rare

They mostly do barter But they also do take currency if tbey have a couple trades lined up like. Oh i cant trade x for y but i can trade x for currency which I can trade for

As for what do they make, some biotech base materials yeah they make for example bacteria thats used to be able to effectively modify other things but thats not the biggedt export bcs its cold and most of the thingd i think would be used for biotech would not grow well. So what do thry make various modified plant resources. they keep their modifications a secret so theyre the only peoplr thst know how to makr them, like theres the darkwood thst makes the forests that give life up However its not often chopped down. but in some emptier areas theres tree nurseries that grow like blackwood which is darkwood modified in secret proprietary ways thst grows faster, is jet black on the insidr and is an excellent hardwood like . Almost unnaturally strong. Its expensive but very valued as a building material. You could build skyscrapers with it, if youre made of money.