I’m just curious, in a broad sense, how one would go about restoring the land, if one doesn’t use magic.
Like, example (A), a patch of defiled ground. I imagine it would be like (without any humor intended) how, in the Martian, Matt Damon turned the Martian dust into adequate soil (fertilizer, plus I’d include mixing in the healthy soil surrounding it to introduce the needed microfauna and flora). Then use earthworms (or equivalent) to stir up the soil.
You’d probably have to dig out all the defiled soil, to whatever depth necessary, and after treatment, replace it and put in some starter plants.
Or example (B), a valley against a mountain; not defiled, but nowhere near its Green Age best. (Long term plan is to eventually revive a dead river.) Start with (not a scientist) moss which can still survive in the cracks. Something that would retain the dew that falls in the morning.
And so on. Anyway, that’s how I kind of imagine it.
I think it’s pretty much exactly that first one. Working compost into the soil is mentioned in Wanderer’s Journal as something preservers do to counter the effects of magic on the land. In Rise and Fall of a Dragon King, Hamanu talks about having defiled soil scraped away and new soil brought in from the Kreegill Mountains.
There seems to be multiple stages of defiling damage. Plants turning to ash is the immediate visible effect, but what really matters in the long term is that the soil’s vitality (presumably soil microbiota, nutrients, etc.) is destroyed. Absolutely nothing will grow for a year, but even after that, the soil is depleted for centuries or indefinitely.
But that very long depletion may partly be because the deserts of Athas aren’t the kind of environment that would produce new soil at any kind of reasonable rate. If you cover the land with compost or manure, you can improve that a lot.
I think a defiled patch of ground in the Forest Ridge would - given the same amount of “tending” - be restored much more quickly than, say, a patch in the Great Alluvial Sand Wastes. It partially has to depend on how absolutely TEEMING with life and biotic materials a place is, IMO.
Defiling doesn’t just kill plants, it also kills bacteria in the soil, and destroys the water, as well. That’s what makes the ground “dead”, and why you can regenerate defiled earth by mixing in healthy dirt… it heals quicker.
Defiling also kills bacteria in the air, and strips it of water.
On this not, however, an Earth cleric could do a lot of good by summoning an earth elemental and telling it to stir the dirt up for a day or so, then go home.
Yeah, I think the long term lifelessness of the soil is at least partially due to killing soil bacteria, nematodes, and other microbiota (that Athasians generally don’t know exist). Nutrients may also be destroyed?
I think there may be an additional factor, though, to get the “absolutely nothing grows for first year” effect - like maybe the black ash is somewhat toxic to plants, but that toxicity fades after a year?
I think nonmagical restoration by mixing in new soil / compost / manure / etc only works after that first year is over; it can speed up the at-least-centuries-maybe-forever to recover, but not remove the initial year of total lifelessness.
I think you can apply earth like restorative farming methods. Which is exactly what you been talking about, rotate fields, introduce manure (particularly from herbivores, carnivore manure not as friendly to the crops); combine crops that work together for nutrient uptake and return (like beans and barely). Farmers have been using methods like this for thousands of years, until recently last 150 years is when we stop and they started suffering soil depletion (loss of nutrients) not as bad as defiling but similar.
IMO it would be brilliant to have players run into a settlement of individuals who were actually using restorative farming techniques in the total absence of magic. Maybe a particular species of sentient creatures still remembers these techniques passed down through generations?
I think it is worth noting regenerative farming has been used off and on throughout history, over-irrigation and soil depletion have been problems for a very long time. It’s definitely more of an arid region problem overall, but it does sometimes affect more temperate and humid climbs (well that and heavy monocrop commodity production like Tobacco and Cotton, which caused soil depletion as early as mid-late 1700s in some areas). This is why we see periodic famine throughout history and is the reason for the adoption of such heavy fertilizer use. In fact fertilizer tech has been essential for the human pop to grow, the 1840s are known as the “Hungry Forties” with good reason and this is when we see Malthusianism become popular in part as a result of these food shortages. Cuba in the 90s and early 2000s (and probably big pressure to again now from the tightened blockade) became the masters of sustainable development and regenerative agriculture so that could be worth studying for ideas applicable on Athas. I think for arid-regenerative practices the Sahel has a lot of awesome work being done, Chinas desert regions are perhaps the most famous reforestation projects around, and just recently I’ve heard of a joint Chinese-Kazakh project to restore the Aral Sea that has been making great strides! Water-efficient drought-resistant modified cotton and other crops tripled output while halving inputs, perhaps a similar approach could be taken through psionics, preserver magic, druidic magic, or ancient Lifeshaping secrets!