Lac Beetles and Beezel Trees
From SFWiki
In -82 PR, a great infestation of laq beetles spread across Atlantis, devastating many of the trees the Elves depended on. The outbreak wasn't without some benefits, however, as artisans soon discovered that the ichor of the beetles could be added to the resins used in laminated wooden goods from furniture to armor. The ichor greatly improved the fluidity of the resins while they were being applied, while also increasing the strength of the finished product.
Elven aboriculturists soon discovered that the beetles were repelled by a vile substance found in the leaves, bark, and nuts of the beezel tree. They planted tens of thousands of beezel trees, in close-spaced double rows stretching for miles across the countryside, as barriers. Twenty-five years later, the trees were beginning to produce significant quantities of nuts. The outer walls of the great tree cities date to this time, when they were planted as fences around woodlots of particularly valuable or vulnerable crops.
Beezel nuts are inedible to most humanoids (Kobolds can tolerate them in limited quantity). Raw beezel nut oil is also inedible, nor is it well suited for use in metalworking. Its main use is in caulking the hulls of ships. With a laborious and unpleasant process, however, it can be separated into one part bitter essential oil and about twenty parts fine cooking oil. The elves, of course, leave such work to their slaves.
As the available quantity of nuts has increased, so has the demand for slaves; so too has the availability of meat to feed the slaves, as the few game animals capable of digesting beezel nuts have become ever more abundant. Most non-elvish historians believe that this demand for slaves was one of the causes of the First Elvish War. The main cause was simply that the Elvish troops were now using lacquered armor that could withstand the blows of Orcish and Human weaponry that would have splintered the varnished armor used a generation earlier, and a new generation of tacticians had emerged who would take advantage of that fact, changing from raids on isolated homesteads to a full-scale military campaign in which they would defeat the armies of several Orcish city-states before the rest united against them.
In 819 PR, a raiding expedition brought back a variety of pomegranate that can thrive when planted interspersed with beezel trees, and in the winter of 828-829 hundreds of thousands of beezel trees were planted. Beezel trees are extremely long-lived, even without the sorcery that sustains the walls of the tree-cities, and the trees planted in 828-829 are still increasing their output.
The increased availability of beezel nut oil is also one of the factors that contributed to the development of steam technology. The bitter component of beezel nut oil is an excellent lubricant and metal protectant. Although elves do little metalworking, and ostensibly do not trade with "lesser" species, they have had considerable de facto trade via slaves whose return is guaranteed by the holding of hostages. The trace of bitter essence remaining in the edible oil protects from spoilage, not only giving the oil long shelf life but allowing it to be used to preserve fish. This is particularly useful on long sea voyages, and the availability of large quantities of beezel nut oil has facilitated the growth of shipping.
