Lichen Creep

How it works

Lichen Creep is a static elemental & nature text effect rendered entirely in CSS. Each character is wrapped in its own span so it can animate independently — the HTML and JSX exports include that per-letter markup. It relies on an inline SVG <defs> block (filters, gradients or clip-paths), which the HTML export carries alongside the CSS.

Controls

Lichen Creep exposes 5 dedicated controls — Coverage Height, Moss Hue, Speck Density, Crust Amount and Unevenness — on top of the shared type controls (font, weight, letter-spacing and case). Open it in the generator to tune every value live, then copy the updated CSS.

CSS

/* Lichen Creep — made with TEXT-FX · https://text-fx.app
 * HTML: each character is wrapped in a <span> — see the HTML export; requires the inline <svg> filter defs — see the HTML export.
 * Font: 'Syne', sans-serif (load from Google Fonts).
 */

.text-effect {
  font-family: 'Syne', sans-serif;
  font-weight: 700;
  letter-spacing: -1px;
  text-transform: none;
}

.text-effect {
  position: relative;
  white-space: pre;
  filter: url(#text-effect-grain);
}
.text-effect .fx-ch {
  position: relative;
  display: inline-block;
  background: radial-gradient(circle at 30% 22%, hsl(0 0% 100% / 0.12) 0%, transparent 42%),
    radial-gradient(circle at 68% 80%, hsl(0 0% 0% / 0.3) 0%, transparent 46%),
    linear-gradient(155deg, hsl(210 6% 56%) 0%, hsl(210 5% 42%) 45%, hsl(212 6% 30%) 100%);
  -webkit-background-clip: text;
  background-clip: text;
  -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent;
  color: transparent;
  -webkit-text-stroke: 0.5px hsl(210 8% 12% / 0.6);
}
.text-effect .fx-ch.fx-sp {
  -webkit-text-stroke: 0;
}
.text-effect .fx-moss {
  position: absolute;
  inset: 0;
  display: block;
  pointer-events: none;
  background-image:
    radial-gradient(circle at calc(26% + var(--fj, 0%) * 1) 32%, hsl(68 53% 52% / 0.84) 0% 2.4%, transparent 3.4%),
    radial-gradient(circle at calc(60% + var(--fj, 0%) * -1) 22%, hsl(120 35% 62% / 0.84) 0% 1.9%, transparent 2.9%),
    radial-gradient(26% calc(var(--cover, 35%) * 0.6) at calc(50% + var(--bx, 0%) * 2) calc(100% - var(--cover, 35%) * 0.85), hsl(106 39% 50%) 0% 55%, transparent 68%),
    radial-gradient(15% calc(var(--cover, 35%) * 0.55) at calc(13% - var(--bx, 0%)) calc(100% - var(--cover, 35%) * 0.45), hsl(92 43% 36%) 0% 55%, transparent 70%),
    radial-gradient(40% calc(var(--cover, 35%) * 1.2) at calc(28% + var(--bx, 0%)) 103%, hsl(92 43% 36%) 0% 60%, transparent 72%),
    radial-gradient(34% calc(var(--cover, 35%) * 0.9) at calc(72% - var(--bx, 0%)) 102%, hsl(78 49% 24%) 0% 58%, transparent 71%),
    linear-gradient(to top, hsl(78 49% 24%) 0% 7%, transparent 14%);
  -webkit-background-clip: text;
  background-clip: text;
  color: transparent;
}

HTML

This effect needs the markup below (per-letter spans, SVG defs, or a data-text attribute).

<!-- Made with TEXT-FX · https://text-fx.app -->

<style>
.text-effect {
  font-family: 'Syne', sans-serif;
  font-weight: 700;
  letter-spacing: -1px;
  text-transform: none;
}

.text-effect {
  position: relative;
  white-space: pre;
  filter: url(#text-effect-grain);
}
.text-effect .fx-ch {
  position: relative;
  display: inline-block;
  background: radial-gradient(circle at 30% 22%, hsl(0 0% 100% / 0.12) 0%, transparent 42%),
    radial-gradient(circle at 68% 80%, hsl(0 0% 0% / 0.3) 0%, transparent 46%),
    linear-gradient(155deg, hsl(210 6% 56%) 0%, hsl(210 5% 42%) 45%, hsl(212 6% 30%) 100%);
  -webkit-background-clip: text;
  background-clip: text;
  -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent;
  color: transparent;
  -webkit-text-stroke: 0.5px hsl(210 8% 12% / 0.6);
}
.text-effect .fx-ch.fx-sp {
  -webkit-text-stroke: 0;
}
.text-effect .fx-moss {
  position: absolute;
  inset: 0;
  display: block;
  pointer-events: none;
  background-image:
    radial-gradient(circle at calc(26% + var(--fj, 0%) * 1) 32%, hsl(68 53% 52% / 0.84) 0% 2.4%, transparent 3.4%),
    radial-gradient(circle at calc(60% + var(--fj, 0%) * -1) 22%, hsl(120 35% 62% / 0.84) 0% 1.9%, transparent 2.9%),
    radial-gradient(26% calc(var(--cover, 35%) * 0.6) at calc(50% + var(--bx, 0%) * 2) calc(100% - var(--cover, 35%) * 0.85), hsl(106 39% 50%) 0% 55%, transparent 68%),
    radial-gradient(15% calc(var(--cover, 35%) * 0.55) at calc(13% - var(--bx, 0%)) calc(100% - var(--cover, 35%) * 0.45), hsl(92 43% 36%) 0% 55%, transparent 70%),
    radial-gradient(40% calc(var(--cover, 35%) * 1.2) at calc(28% + var(--bx, 0%)) 103%, hsl(92 43% 36%) 0% 60%, transparent 72%),
    radial-gradient(34% calc(var(--cover, 35%) * 0.9) at calc(72% - var(--bx, 0%)) 102%, hsl(78 49% 24%) 0% 58%, transparent 71%),
    linear-gradient(to top, hsl(78 49% 24%) 0% 7%, transparent 14%);
  -webkit-background-clip: text;
  background-clip: text;
  color: transparent;
}
</style>

<svg width="0" height="0" style="position:absolute" aria-hidden="true"><defs>
<filter id="text-effect-grain" x="-20%" y="-20%" width="140%" height="140%">
  <feTurbulence type="fractalNoise" baseFrequency="0.55" numOctaves="2" seed="7" result="n"/>
  <feColorMatrix in="n" type="matrix" values="0 0 0 0 0  0 0 0 0 0  0 0 0 0 0  0.76 0 0 0 0" result="na"/>
  <feComposite in="na" in2="SourceGraphic" operator="in" result="g"/>
  <feBlend in="SourceGraphic" in2="g" mode="multiply"/>
</filter>
</defs></svg>

<div class="text-effect"><span class="fx-ch" style="--i:0;--cover:24.6%;--bx:-0.1%;--fj:0.5%">Y<span class="fx-moss" aria-hidden="true">Y</span></span><span class="fx-ch" style="--i:1;--cover:41.2%;--bx:-2.1%;--fj:7%">o<span class="fx-moss" aria-hidden="true">o</span></span><span class="fx-ch" style="--i:2;--cover:52%;--bx:-2.4%;--fj:-3.4%">u<span class="fx-moss" aria-hidden="true">u</span></span><span class="fx-ch" style="--i:3;--cover:48.2%;--bx:3.8%;--fj:1.4%">r<span class="fx-moss" aria-hidden="true">r</span></span><span class="fx-ch fx-sp" style="--i:4"> </span><span class="fx-ch" style="--i:5;--cover:40.3%;--bx:-2.1%;--fj:2%">t<span class="fx-moss" aria-hidden="true">t</span></span><span class="fx-ch" style="--i:6;--cover:42.9%;--bx:5.7%;--fj:3.6%">e<span class="fx-moss" aria-hidden="true">e</span></span><span class="fx-ch" style="--i:7;--cover:35%;--bx:-1.9%;--fj:4.8%">x<span class="fx-moss" aria-hidden="true">x</span></span><span class="fx-ch" style="--i:8;--cover:48.9%;--bx:-5.8%;--fj:0.9%">t<span class="fx-moss" aria-hidden="true">t</span></span></div>

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