Regrow the Land's Heart

Rules

Performing the Ritual

Performing this ritual takes at least 10 minutes of roleplaying. If the ritual is cast using the Imperial Regio it requires at least 5 minutes of roleplaying instead.

During the ritual the casters must be in a strong Spring regio. This ritual targets a territory, and must be performed at a regio in that territory. If the ritual is used to target an Imperial territory, it may instead be performed at the Imperial regio at Anvil.

This ritual is an enchantment. A target may only be under one enchantment effect at a time.

Effects

The ritual targets a single territory. Over the next season, soft rain falls on the territory and new life flourishes. The magic particularly focuses on areas scarred by war or natural disaster, causing new plants to grow wildly. It primarily affects the landscape, but people living in the territory find it easier to let go of pain caused by war or calamity. As new plants grow, old scars fade.

While the enchantment is in place, animals and people find it easier to conceive, and plants grow more healthily. Children born or conceived in the territory under the enchantment are more likely to express the briar lineage.

The ritual will have no effect on the Black Plateau oppression, Druj miasma, or similar effects.

The effect lasts until the start of the next Profound Decisions Empire event.

Description

The codification of Regrow the Land's Heart was completed just in time for the Winter Solstice 383YE by the magicians of Urizen under the guidance of Tenaes, the Doyen of the Spires. It was based on work originally performed by Mercurio Ankarien. Proposed by Tenaes themselves, it entered Imperial lore almost immediately after work was completed.

The original projection had a significantly higher magnitude – six times greater in fact – and was intended to last for an entire year rather than a season. Indeed, the original projection was intended to work specifically on the territory of Spiral, building on early exploration of how a “damaged” area of land might be restored. During the process of formulating the ritual, several changes were proposed to the original projection; that there was no need to restrict it specifically to Spiral – any territory that contained a Spring regio or that could be touched by the Imperial regio at Anvil could be enchanted. Furthermore, it would be relatively simple to adjust the magic so that it would last for a season rather than a year thus reducing the magnitude significantly. While it would ultimately cost more mana to perform it every season for a year, it would also be much easier for a coven to reach the level of mastery required to weave the magic. Even so, codification was expected to take until the start of the Spring Equinox 383YE. Thanks to an enchantment created by the Concordium of Pallas that propagated through the Heliopticon network, however, it was completed a season early.

When cast the ritual infuses an entire territory with Spring magic, improving the growth of plants and animals, and helping to heal some of the scars left by years of war, or by natural calamities. While the enchantment is unfolding, ruins quickly become overgrown with new growth, broken and burned areas of land are covered in grass and flowers, and trees grow tall and healthy.

As the magical rains renew the plants of the territory, they have a positive and subtle effect on the spirits of people living in the territory. The waters help to “wash away” the pain and dark memories that come from war and disaster. Anyone living there is affected, but those who intentionally expose themselves to the rain find the effect heightened. The rain does not actually remove memories – this is not Night magic after all – but it makes it easier for people to move on from the past, and look forward to the future. Physical as well as spiritual scars may be healed by the enchantment. This will not completely restore a ruined limb, for example, but it can help to lessen any lingering pain from old injuries.

Children conceived or born in the territory while the enchantment is in place will be slightly more likely to possess the briar lineage. Indeed, briars living in the territory will feel particularly rejuvenated and renewed by the magic which enhances their naturally boundless vitality.

There is no evidence at the moment for what might happen if the ritual were performed on a territory containing a vallorn. There is some cautious speculation that the gentle, renewing rains will invigorate vallorn creatures just like they do other living things. Like other large-scale Spring magic this could cause the vallorn to become more active; as of the ritual entering Imperial lore however there has (perhaps understandably) been no experimentation in this area.

Common Elements

A map of the target territory serves as a reasonable focus for the ritual, but in keeping with magic of Spring it is somewhat more resonant to build a depiction out of natural material than to use a piece of parchment with a drawing on it. Water sprinkled across the symbolic terrain over the course of the ritual evokes the idea of the healing rain.

Evrom, the Rune of Beginning, resonates strongly with this ritual, as do the astronomantic constellations of the Chalice and the Fountain, the dramaturgical symbols of the Cup and the Garden, the Firebird, and the name of the eternal Ossegrahn, especially under the name Coomarta of the Rains.