Some of the longer-term readers of this blog (two years and counting!) might recall that I decided that My Mars needed a bio-engineered form of bamboo that was used for things like musket barrels that I called Jee-oo.
Having just got my hands on the new production of Space:1889 by Clockwork Publishing* it appears that they have also come up with a bamboo-type plant.:
"... but across the steppes close to the equator grows a plant called ‘Fnuuk’. Known as the bamboo of Mars, it grows as tall as 25 feet and even forms real forests. Whilst the colder steppes of the Northern and the Southern hemispheres are easily accessible by mount or wagon, travelling the Fnuuk groves is true torture as the leaves of the Martian bamboo are as sharp as knifes."
Clearly Hill Martians use Fnuuk for poles and other building materials, and I could also believe it is used to create temporary zarebas such as those seen during the recent unpleasantness in the Sudan. Thankfully Colonel Burnaby was able to rescue Gordon (Hurrah!) without the need for a major rescue expedition which would have been an extremely difficult undertaking due not least to the geography of any route to Khartoum.
I am therefore happy to report that the latest publication of the Royal Martian Geographical Society has confirmed that various strains of Jee-oo appear to be domesticated forms of Fnuuk. I shall therefore be using the names interchangeably in future.
* This is essentially a translation of the Uhrwerk-Verlag production in German, which uses the Ubiquity system from Exile Games. The German release has been out for over a year, I think, and the artwork for their Venus and Mercury sourcebooks looks stunning - I can hardly wait for their publication!
