The parts of Salver that have been explored reveal a hot, wet, and strange world with unique animals and plants unfamiliar to Alverfolk. Some of these animals and plants are the sources of valuable products that make colonising Salver enticing, while others are dangerous and inspire fear and dread.

Salver vegetation is generally adapted to deal with the heavy rainfall of the wet season and the long dry heat of the dry season. Plant leaves are generally small, like pine needles, or are waxy. Some plants have leaves that expand and contract during the day and night cycle.

The general similarity of Alver and Salver foliage has led to a theory of cross-pollination early in the history of the two planets. How this might have occured is unknown.

Pines and ferns are common, as are fig-ish tropical creeping trees with extensive buttress roots. Also common and unique to Salver are the giant mushrooms and fungi, which thrive in the humid undergrowth of the equatorial jungle. The giant fungi emit spores all year around, but especially in the dry season. These spores contribute to the planet's sky plankton.

During the wet season, the equatorial jungle plants of Salver endure constant temperatures above 30°. Plants there have evolved to excrete oils that form films which absorb heat and evaporate to draw it away during the hottest parts of the day. Walking through the jungle during the wet season is intolerable due to the hot air being saturated with dense oil-clouds. Some chemists have expressed hopes that these natural oils may be useful as fuel in the future.

The Breathsucker (Plasmomycoxin) is a very rare and extremely dangerous large fungus, toxic to the touch, found in the dampest and darkest caves of Salver. It is pale white with purplish spots, and leaks a thick yellow sap rich in Plasm when cut. Most of the body of the fungus is underground, while surface emitters periodically die and regrow. These emitters disperse fine spores when disturbed and overnight, which glow faintly. These spores draw out plasm from nearby creatures, and then fall to the ground to be reabsorbed by the fungus.

There are no familiar earth-like animals on Salver, outside of pets or invasive species brought from Alver. Most of the creatures on Salver are considered "primitive" compared to those on Alver, having evolved along an entirely different line that has diversified into various superficially arthropod-like creatures.

On land, creatures are limited in variety and are mostly insectoid, or related to the strange "dragons" branch. However, the shallow and tepid lakes and seas of Salver teem with bizarre and nasty undocumented creatures. For this reason colonists avoid exposure to water where possible.

Salver Dragons

Salver has a number of endemic land creatures that appear to be related as part of the same evolutionary family. They are collectively called dragons.

The smallest of these is the Pako, a small boxy creature that collapses into itself for defence, and flattens itself like a pancake to warm itself in the sun. Pakos are extremely common, forming one of the largest biomasses on Salver, and an important source of food for the carnivores of the planet. They are docile, and eat small bugs, fish, and fruits. However, they have also been seen to be surprisingly intelligent; groups of Pakos will build dams on waterways out of logs and rocks to create ponds to fish in. They prefer to live in open forests or jungle around water, in the regions between the poles and the equatorial jungle.

The hides (beneath their harder armour) of Pakos are valued by Salver colonists for making waterproof leather.

The middle size dragons are mostly large and colourful. They lumber around and opportunistically eat fruits and mushrooms they find on the forest floor. Some are venomous and it appears that the others have evolved to mimic their warning colours as a way to ward off predators. These dragons live in the warmer equatorial jungle where the fruits they eat are located, but they tend to prefer open sunny places over the deep jungle. They are often found in great numbers on shorelines or jungle boundaries.

The largest in this group is the King Dragon, an extremely curious creature and the largest land creature known on Salver. They stand up to 3m high, and can weigh 250kg. They have an armoured core from which three limbs extend at each end: three "legs" at the rear and two "arms" and a head at the front. Their head is bright red and has a bony comb on top, while their bodies are coloured a dark charcoal. They have exceptional eyesight and are wary of humans, who they avoid - unless defending their nests. They build their nests in mushrooms they hollow out, and their main food are giant spiders. King dragons are very rarely seen and are subject to much exaggeration.

Giant Spiders

Enormous spiders are common across Salver. They are despised by the colonists, and are driven away from places people have settled. Giant Spider spiderlings make up a large part of Salver's Sky Plankton, as they balloon into the atmosphere with parachutes made of silk web.

While universally referred to as spiders, biologists make the distinction that they are not related to ordinary spiders from Alver, having evolved entirely separately in an instance of convergent evolution. Because of this, they are sometimes referred to as Stricklers instead of spiders.

There are four recognised species of Giant Spider:

• Forest -> These common spindly spiders range in size from a rat to a small cat and are found living in gigantic communal webs in forests. They are not afraid of humans and will attempt to move into ruins or even quiet buildings and basements. They are not venomous, but have a nasty bite. They look like Golden Orb Weavers.
• Desert -> An extremely fast and extremely venomous spider that lives in the scattered deserts on Salver. They are not often seen, and avoid humans. Desert spiders have a body the size of a large dog, but have a legspan many times this size. They live in trapdoor webs under the sand and look like huntsman spiders.
• Wandering -> An extremely dangerous species, the wandering spider is the only known type that actively hunts humans. They have a highly venomous bite, and wander the undergrowth looking for prey instead of building a web. Their range is limited to the equatorial jungle. They are the size of a large dog, and they look like funnel web spiders - stocky and with a glossy black exoskeleton.
• Cave -> The rarest and largest species, that has only been seen a handful of times. Appears to be related to the forest spiders, sharing a similar thin body type, but is much, much larger. Reported to grow to the size of a car. They are very pale, and have powerful acidic venom.

Other Insects

Salver is home to colonies of giant ants, in addition to regular tiny ants. These come in two types; the Black Ants live in huge colonies with millions of individuals that may cover an entire hillside. They are each the size of a mouse and eat plants or injured animals that are nearby. They avoid humans. The other species is the Army Ant. These rat sized ants have no colony nest, and instead constantly move around in giant swarms that devour anything in their path. They each have powerful jaws and a stinger, fear nothing, and eat anything. The creatures of Salver have learned to fear them and flee at the signs an Army Ant column is approaching, but thankfully they are restricted to the tropical equator.

As with spiders, despite the obvious similarity, the giant ants of Salver are not related to regular ants on Alver. They are sometimes referred to as "Gants" or "Sants" to avoid ambiguity in biological settings.

The Meech is a large (apple sized) red parasitic tick that especially targets dragons and spiders; Black Ants remove Meeches from each other and from their nearby surroundings when they find them. They live in caves and drop off the ceiling of the cave onto creatures walking below. If they are injured they vomit back up the blood they've been sucking along with their own digestive juices, which are toxic.

Chisxut are large semi-aquatic insectoid ambush predators that lie quietly in isolated ponds and seas during the day and then slowly stalk the deep jungles at night. They are highly intelligent and long lived, with large, flat, armoured bodies, venomous stingers, powerful jaws, and sharp limbs. Chisxut are greatly feared by Salver colonists who have to brave the jungles, but are thankfully rare.

Other Salver insects include Silurocs - armoured insects that decompose dead matter, and Red Weevils that migrate in gigantic swarms looking for blooming flowers and fruits to consume.

Skywhales

The Salver Skywhale is one of the largest creatures known to exist, and a natural wonder in its own right. They are enormous bulbous creatures with a large single horn and dangling tentacles that float around the atmosphere of Salver eating sky plankton. The whales are most active in the dry season, at the height of the sky plankton blooms, and retreat to the poles during the wet season to breed, during which time they are aggressive. They are attracted to lights, and are made aggressive by smoke or air pollution. The Skywhales are hunted extensively for their blubber, which is rendered down into antigravitic Skywhale oil and exported to Alver. Skywhaling is the largest and most important industry on Salver, and occurs in the dry season when the Skywhales are least aggressive.