[Soulsplosion]

-No longer labeled a "WIP" but still a never-ending work in progress.
Another one of my many species that I come up with when I'm bored, like, but know that I'll never do anything worthwhile with them myself so instead I throw them to the world.
Enjoy, world.

Enjoy the vomit of my thoughts.


-As with most of my editables, I add things depending on how many likes. For every 5 likes, I'll add another type of wings, 5 more and I color them in, 5 more and I add some other lineart, and etc.

TERMS OF CREATION
I WILL be enforcing these!

✪You must unclude some indication that the Mothmo you created is, in fact, a character. That is done by providing something like the name or background story or some sort of confirmation. Sorry if I sound rude when I say this, but I did NOT make this species, and all the special lil tidbits that go with them, just so that you can come along, scribble all over it and call it a day. You must express confirmation that yes, you understand what the species is and didn't color it in just because you felt like it, and that the color-in you create isn't something that you draw one moment and forget about the next.
✪Similarly, you must include its life-plant if it's not specified as undecided. It must be either in the image itself or in the description.
✪ABIDE BY THE SPECIES' RULES. Do NOT make a Threaded Mothmo with a Life Plant just because you like how they look, or a Wilt who's 'kind' and 'loveable'.
✪Tree Mothmos can only be created with permission. Even then, you need to have some sort of reason other than 'hey, this guy looks cool with a tree, so, can he have one?'
✪Creation of your own types of wings, antennae, and life-plants are totes alright, even if the life-plants are fictional species. However they must be rational (like, no doing "giant man-eating flower life-plant")

RULES
I put more thought into these than I put into most of my open-species editables, so sorry, the rules are a little bit more strict.

✪Take off-site
✪Adopt out your own designs (In this case YOU are also required to ensure that the adopter also abides by the terms of creation and knows what the species is)
✪Own as many as you want. I have over 300 flippin' characters and I think I take pretty good care of them, so I'm pretty sure ya'll can be reliable to take care of yours. However this still does not invite you to create them willy-nilly or spam adopt.
✪You can claim your design, but do not claim the species
✪Do not alter the body itself beyond simple things like, tail length/tail size, ear shape/type, claws/fangs, or etc. I'm pretty amiable with linechanges so long as its origin is still obvious and recognizable.

✪Considering the first year of their life is spent as a derpy white fluffball with silk ribbons instead of wings, I will not be making Nursery lines. They look pretty much like smaller versions of the adults, so, regard these as nursery lines as well.

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ARE YOU TOO LAZY TO READ ALL THAT BELOW?
Scroll down for more information on any particular subject (highlighted in blue)
Here are the basic, most imperative things.
Mothmo is short for Moth Monster.
Mothmos have Life-Plants. If their life plant dies so do they because there souls are bonded. Life plants generate magic that Mothmos can use. Mothmos eat flowers and particularly love to eat the flowers off their own life plant. The Gaia Plant is a cup-like flower that collects water that mixes with nectar to become delicious stuff Mothmos love to drink. Gaia Plants are the only natural plant that generates magic.
All Mothmos live in or near a Glade. A Glade is a place with a Guardian and a pool of water. A Guardian is a mothmo whose lifeplant is a tree; Tree lifeplants generate a large sphere of magic that makes it so the Glade is never cold in winter and that purifies the water in the pool. Mothmos love to plant flowers or even their own life-plants in the Glade. Glades are hidden and hard for humans to find. Sometimes Humans build nesting houses for Mothmos to live in their garden or greenhouse because Mothmos will care for the flowers in them. If the human takes care of the Mothmos too, then the Human will be seen as the Guardian and the garden/greenhouse as their Glade.
To humans, Mothmo's voices sound like beautiful songs.
A Mothmo is the size of a housecat. When they have babies a single egg is laid in the fall. It looks like a chrysalis. The tiny white nymph hatches in the spring and looks like a tiny white adult but its wings are long silky Threads. When it hatches the parents give it a life-plant seed depending on what gender it is. The baby cares for it and learns everything it will ever learn that summer. It will hibernate with its life-seed in the fall. When it wakes in the spring its fur has changed to adult color, its wings grown, and its seed made a sprout. When they hibernate with their Seed their souls become bonded, making it their Life-plant. The seed gives the Mothmo magic for its wings to grow. If a Mothmo doesn't hibernate with its seed then it will have no Life-plant and its wings will remain Threads so they will never fly. These are called Threaded Mothmos.
The only other way for a Mothmo to not have a life-plant is if they avoid their Life-Plant for so long that their spiritual bond disappears. The life-plant will die but its caretaker will not come with it because their souls are not entirely bonded. But the life plant will take part of its caretakers soul and whatever remains is a cruel and evil creature.
Mothmos fluffy antennae are fragile. They are crucial because they can detect magic. Without them Mothmos cannot find each other, their glade, tell if a flower is a life-plant, or detect any magical source.
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What is a Mothmo?
The name Mothmo is short for "Moth Monster", which they were once called. Mothmos are fluffy moth-like creatures thought to have originated from the Garden of Eden.

Mothmos are small fluffy creatures about the size of a housecat when they are an adult.
✪Massive, moth-like wings
✪Rabbit-like head
✪The whites of their eyes are black
✪Wolf or squirrel-like ears
✪Wolf-like tail
✪Fluffy boot-shaped legs
✪5 digits on each paw. Can pick up items.
✪Have a magical plant they share their life-force with (Life-Plant)
✪2 breeds of Mothmo: The common Flower Mothmo, and the rarer Tree Mothmo, whose life plant is a tree (also called Guardians)

Yearly Lifestyle
▣Habitat: In or near forested areas
-Every Mothmo lives in or near a Glade (read more further down), which is basically like the "town square"
▣Dens: Small, protected areas such as hollow logs, small caves, or even abandoned rabbit holes
-Always have their Life-Plant nearby
▣Communication: To humans, Mothmos' voices sound like distant echoes and angel-like music
▣Food: Fruits/berries, flower blossoms
-Also eat the blossoms of their Life-Plant. It is considered extremely rude to eat a flower off of someone else's life-plant.
-In the Winter, they retreat to the Glade. The flowers there and the Guardian Tree's fruit are their only source of winter food, the pool their water.
-Gaia Flowers: A Gaia Plant is a (fictional) flowering plant with tall stalks and purple cup-like blossoms that quite resemble tulips or hollow roses. The flowers collect rain water or dew in their cup-like blossom, which is purified by the Gaia Plants magical properties and becomes mixed with the flower's nectar, creating an ambrosial sugar-water that Mothmos love to drink.
Life Cycle/Growing Up
Mating season takes place in the late spring/beginning of summer. Mothmos acquire mates by singing to each other (though really that may just be thought because their voices sound like music), and only within their breed. Folklore says that the Mothmo's music is what encourages springtime flowers to bloom. Mothmos are loyal to their spouse, and as a show of loyalty, they will often plant the flower of its mate next to its own life-plant. (Ex: A Male Mothmo with a Rose Life-plant is mate to a Female Mothmo with a white tulip life-plant. The male will plant a white tulip next to his rosebush, and the female a rose next to her tulip patch).
A single oval-shaped egg (chrysalis) is laid in the fall. It has a fragile crystal-clear shell that reflects rainbows like a diamond; inside, the developing nymph is visible within a veil of silver thread-like strands.
The egg hatches in the spring, and what looks like a miniature version of the adult (Nymph) emerges. Its fur is usually solid white, but may have soft gradients of other colors, and instead of wings they have long silk-like ribbons (called Threads). The parents will not mate again until 2 years later.
The day it hatches, it is given a seed--if male, the seed will come from the father, and if female, it will come from the mother, from the parent's own life-plant. The Nymph will protect and carry this seed with it everywhere it goes. The first year of life is when they will learn most of what it will ever know. They follow their parents everywhere, learning Mothmo conduct/behavior, how/where to find food, the local geography, etc.
For the first and only time in their life, the baby Mothmo will hibernate that winter in a protected den (usually its parents'). It lays its Threads on either side to give them room to grow into wings and hugs its seed to its chest. As it sleeps, its Threads split apart, grow, and connect. When it wakes in the spring, its fur has changed color, its wings have grown, and its special seed has formed a small green sprout. It is all but mature--its body still needs to grow to adult-size.
The Mothmo must then face the most important choice in its life: where to plant its seed, for there its life-plant will remain forever. Luckily, during the first year the life-plant will not grow very large and can most likely be dug up and safely moved if they change their mind, but once it grows and sets its roots, it sets them for their entire life.

Life Plants
(Almost)Every Mothmo has a Life-Plant, with which it shares it's life-force.
The seed for the life-plant is given to a baby Mothmo the day they hatch by one of their parents, and when Winter comes that year, the baby Mothmo will hibernate with it. As they hibernate, their spirits fuse together, giving life to the seed and allowing it to form a sprout. In return, the seed's spiritual energy allows the Mothmo's Threads to grow into wings.
A Mothmo shares its life with its plant, meaning that if one dies, so does the other. Luckily, Life-plants are virtually immortal, and can only die from being physically destroyed, neglect, or severe undernourishment (often from being neglected).

Life-plants always grow in some sort of clutch (except for a tree), whether it be a bush or a patch of separate flowers interconnected through their roots.

Threaded Mothmos
A Threaded Mothmo is the name for a Mothmo whose wings never developed, hence their wings are permanently Threads. This can be caused by rare birth defects, which usually only partially develop instead of just completely never developing. Usually, it is because that Mothmo didn't hibernate with its Seed, and therefore its wings never grew (though its fur still changed color). These Mothmos will live their entirely lives without a Life-Plant. Though they are freed from the burden of having to constantly care for a flower, they will also never fly, and have no special plant of their own to eat blossoms from. Though some feel sorry for these creatures, others treat them as outcasts.

Wilted Mothmos (Wilts)
Wilted Mothmos, or Wilts, are named so in respect for the fact that their flower has wilted away. These Mothmos are like Threaded Mothmos in the way that they don't have life-plants to rely on, except these Mothmos have already developed wings. Only very evil souls ever become Wilts.
A Mothmo can become Wilted by forsaking its life-plant for death. Though a Mothmo will die if its life-plant dies, there is one way to get around this. A Mothmo's spirit is tied to its Life-plant, which feeds off of its caretaker's spiritual energy. The longer a Mothmo stays away from its life-plant, the weaker the bond between them becomes, and the less spiritual energy the flower can soak up. Eventually, when the bond is practically nonexistent, it will begin to wilt away and die; at this point, since they no longer have a strong bond, the flower may die without its caretaker; but when it does, though it will not take the Mothmo's entire soul with it, it will take part of it. Whatever is left of the flowerless Mothmo is a cruel, destructive creature.
The flower basically dies of loneliness and is too weak to take all of its caretaker with it, so it only brings with the part that had been kind to it.

Glades
Every Mothmo lives in or near a Glade.

What creates a Glade?
A Glade is a patch of land usually in some hidden, remote area, such as a hidden place surrounded by tall boulders. As such, they are usually very hard to find. All Glades must have flowers, a pool of water, at least a single fruit-producing tree, and of course, Mothmos to populate it.
Most Mothmos have flowers for their life-plants, but the rarer kind has a fruit-producing tree for their life-plant, named Guardians. These Mothmos are considered wise leaders, and they are the ones that establish Glades. When a new Guardian comes into being, it is tasked with the responsibility of finding a safe secluded place to plant their life-tree. In the years that follows as their life-tree grows to adulthood, the Mothmo collects flowers from the nearby forests to plant in the glade, creating a flower-filled haven. When other Mothmos find the glade and decide to move into it, they regard that Glade's Guardian as the leader. Unlike normal Mothmos (it's considered rude to eat flowers from another's life-plant), a Glade's Mothmos are welcomed to the fruit dropped by the Guardian Tree.

Flowers and Lifestyle within a Glade
Mothmos plant either wildflowers or even their own life-plants within a Glade. The accumulation of so many life-plants in an area, with the energy created by the Tree dominating it, creates an invisible sphere of energy around the glade. This sphere of energy feeds the life-plants within it, allowing Mothmos to be able to 'neglect' their flowers without Wilting, though many stay within the Glade and care for the plants inside it. When Winter comes, the sphere of energy ensures an eternal summer-like warmth. As such, all Mothmos must live near a glade, at it is their only source of food in winter.
Many Mothmos choose to plant their flowers within the Glade, though some choose to plant it elsewhere. Planting it in the glade ensures that the Mothmo can enjoy its own life-blossoms even in the winter months and brings them closer to the community. Planting it elsewhere, while the Mothmo cannot eat its blossoms in the winter, grants them freedom from the crowded Glade and the ability to plant it closer to their den.

Relationship with Humans
Wherever there's Mothmos, there's bound to be fields of fragrant flowers and beautiful music. Though Mothmos cannot be tamed, they can be befriended, and many humans welcome them happily into their gardens and greenhouses by building nesting houses to encourage them to live there.
Sometimes, the Mothmos may consider a manmade garden or greenhouse to be their Glade--usually greenhouses, as they remain warm in the winter even without a guardian Tree to produce the protective energy sphere. In this scenario, the human who owns it is viewed as the Guardian, though Mothmos cannot communicate with humans. It is considered a great show of trust for a Mothmo to plant its life-plant in a human facility.

Magic
All Mothmos have the ability to use magic, but the kind they use is special. Even though its different from magic other creatures might use, it is still referred to as Magic.

Magic: Where does it come from?
Magic is produced from life-plants or from Gaia Plants (like Mothmos, Gaia Plants are thought to be unearthly plants that came from the Garden of Eden). It is sort of like the relationship of carbon dioxide and oxygen: a Mothmo's soul produces energy, but it's not energy that they can turn into magic. Instead, their Life-Plant takes this energy through their spiritual bond and turns it into energy that it can use, and in turn, produces magic that the Mothmo can use. (Unlike Mothmos, Life-plants cannot live without this exchange of energy, hence why Wilted Mothmos are a thing). Gaia plants, though they produce magic, don't get it from any bond with a caretaker; they feed off the life-energy of any creature nearby. That sounds pretty sinister, but they only absorb excess energy that creatures don't need, and actually makes them live longer lives.
Guardian Trees produce the most magic, which is so dense around the tree that it warps the very air around it without need for a spell. It is this magic that produces the sphere of protective energy around a Glade, keeping it warm in the winter.
Gaia Plants and Life-Plants produce relatively the same amounts of magic, and though this is a low amount only useful for very weak spells, the magic around them increases dramatically when they are in a group. Basically, a life-plant or a gaia-plant produce more magic in a group than they can spread out.

How does it work?
If they are near a magic source, Mothmos can use that magic to generate Spells. Unlike most thingamajigs, Spells are not produced from saying words in any 'ancient' language or of the like--they are produced through willpower alone. To create a spell, a Mothmo must focus on what it wants to do, grasp the magic, and make it happen. However, shouting a word or two while they do it can technically help them focus on it. Depending on just how focused they are, they can technically do anything. Low-level spells are things like making a ball of light appear, or making something levitate off the ground. High-level spells would be something like reversing or speeding up age, complicated healing spells (like for internal wounds), or of the like. The thing is that when you cast a spell, you must know exactly what you want to do, which is why things like healing aren't so simple. You can't think "grow, seed" or "heal, wound". You have to imagine the entire process, and everything that happens during that process, and urge it to suddenly occur all at once.
To create a spell a Mothmo must have a magic source nearby, which is either a life-plant or a gaia plant. They must be careful with it though--if all the magic is sucked out of the air at once, then any magic-producing plant within that area could die. The Glade is safely full of so much magic that none could ever create a spell powerful enough to drain it. However, no matter where they are, a Mothmo can always use magic from their Life-plant provided that their spiritual bond is still strong. A Mothmo can sense when someone uses magic from their life plant (though not if its in the Glade, as there's so much magic in the air that it probably wouldn't make a difference). As for Gaia plants, their free for use if there's one in the vicinity.
The only real downside is that magic-producing plants like to be surrounded with a steady field of magic at all times. Taking magic out of the air puts a magical gap that the plant(s) automatically want(s) to fix, and they do so by sucking spiritual energy from whoever took the magic. Therefore, even though magic comes from the plants, using it still takes a temporarily tiring toll on the caster. If the plant is in the Glade, a toll is still taken, though much smaller.

How do they know about/find it?(/antennae)

Mothmos' fluffy antennae are a crucial part of their body, as they contain special glands that can detect nearby magical sources. It is sort of like a 6th sense, and is no different than how a wolf uses their nose to scent where others are.
Without their antennae, a Mothmo cannot detect the location of their Glade, and can often get lost on their own. This can be fatal if left Glade-less in winter or in crisis. Though they can still detect their own life-plant through their spiritual bond, they cannot tell if a flower is someone's life-plant or not, which can lead to the mistake of eating a flower from someone else's life-plant (seen as incredibly rude, like an extreme invasion of privacy). They also can't find Gaia plants as easily, though that's not fatal since all wild creatures have to do that to find food anyways.
Perhaps the most lifesaving quality of this sense is the ability to sense future spells. Even though Mothmos are generally peaceful, just like any species fights can arise. Because spells are produced from willpower and thought instead of spoken language or physical hint, there is no warning for when a magic attack is coming. A Mothmo could come along and make your brain explode and you never saw it coming. With antannae, thankfully, Mothmos can detect when a spell is coming, usually in time to create a counter-spell or to dodge. Without this ability, Mothmos could be shooting spells to and fro and there's no way to tell when a fireball can appear suddenly out of midair.

Minimod all you want. If someone's being suspicious and you feel I should know just feel free to PM me.
If they actually become a thing that requires more people to help regulate, then I'll start hiring helpers.

Good God you have really got to push me far if you've done enough to break those rules.

[spooks.]

Adorable!!!

[Soulsplosion]

I made the thing more fladoopley.

[butchazurite]

Mark<3333

[Toxic Nightshade]

great job!

[consumptivefawn]

mark <33

[dg_hotelbreakfast]

mark