Verdant Bounty of the Twilight Bayou

Rules

Performing the Ritual

Performing this ritual takes at least 2 minutes of roleplaying. This ritual targets a forest. The character who controls the target personal resource must be present throughout.

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

Effects

At the start of the next event, the target forest produces an additional five measures of material. The additional materials are always of the same type as the basic forest, regardless of any improvements.

If the owner of the resource does not attend the next event, then the additional production provided by the resource is still added to that character's inventory.

Additional Targets

This ritual can affect additional forests in the same territory. Each additional forest increases the magnitude by 4. The character who controls each forest must be present throughout the ritual.

Description

The four special materials gathered in the forests of the Empire are mysterious and complex to gather. Iridescent gloaming can be gathered from cocoons, but they must first be located and gathered. The viscous ambergelt must be collected carefully from the natural production of trees which is difficult to predict. While beggar's lye is relatively easy to create, the beggarwood tree from which it is manufactured resists efforts at cultivation. Even more obviously, dragonbone must be carefully sought out where it lies beneath the soil amid the roots of trees.

All of this goes some way to explain why the magic of Night is so useful for enchanting the useful material production of the forest. The magic of Spring is useful for creating uncontrolled and unpredictable growth, but with the magic of Night a forest is not so much persuaded to produce extra materials, as to collaborate with the harvesters and gatherers to help lead them to valuable substances that might otherwise be lost.

The most common feature of this ritual is the manifestation of tiny fist-sized purple or light-blue lights that drift among the trees gathering in small groups around concentrations of the raw materials so valuable to Imperial artisans. By marking the locations of these 'twilight lanterns', foresters can increase their harvest of special materials without risking any damage to the forest's bounty.

This ritual takes its name from Therunin, the waterlogged forest of the Navarr; the residents of that territory had been using this ritual for centuries prior to the rise of the Empire. Around the same time, the mystics of Kallavesa used a similar ritual they called Evocation of the Twilight Fireflies to harvest iridescent gloaming and ambergelt from the hardy trees of the swamps. The ritual is now employed across the Empire, especially in Varushka, to produce large amounts of raw materials for sale to the other nations.

Common Elements

The ritual creates often involves a map of the forest to be enchanted; in the case of the Navarr a map of the trods near the forest may be studied, and the shapes worked into new designs suggesting swirling tendrils extending from the trods to embrace and surround the target forest. Other common features include samples of the raw material most suited to the forests; wood, leaves or flowers taken from the forest; symbols of Prosperity; candles or other small flames reminiscent of the twilight lanterns the ritual often manifests.

Like many Night rituals, performance tends to be subtle and understated. Music and movement suggesting searching and finding is often used, and ritualists often wear long capes or cowls of silk or other valuable materials. The runes Wyr and Diras are sometimes used, and even Sular might not be inappropriate.