Archived GM Notes: This page is unsealed GM-notes pertaining to PRPG2. It is not canonical to PRPG2. It main contain contradictions (even with itself), and preliminary ideas that were merely written down as I thought of them, for later consideration. The absence of something mentioned here from the canon does not necessarily mean that the party "missed" it, it could have been mooted for other reasons or simply discarded by me.
After his initial failure (with his Shadow) to eliminate the Changelings, En-Netsusep (now better informed about them) attacked them with a memetic virus affecting their hive mind. This was telepathically injected by him on their next encounter, spreading through the normal routes of changeling communication, except where some fragments of the hive found out about it through other means first and were able to isolate themselves, or were cut off by other means.
Properties: 1. deprives the changelings of any will but to contemplate the curse. 2. changes them into a sessile crystalline form
The crystal forest form still has a "vegetable soul" so to speak; it grows and expands. This was part of the backup plan. The crystal forest can convert sunlight to love. This was also part of the plan. The love is tightly bound, though, and requires alicorn magic to separate it from the crystal - it's a sort of love sequestering sieeve. This is so it would take over the world and destroy other Equine life.
Growth and expansion of the crystal forest is a direct and intentional consequence of the contemplation of the curse; the vegetable soul of the changelings expands to autonomically acquire additional processing power.