Author Topic: the rise of the cult of Bloodmoon...  (Read 6757 times)

Chenier

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Re: the rise of the cult of Bloodmoon...
« Topic Start: November 01, 2018, 06:23:15 PM »
IIRC, since this stuff is about 10 years old...

Bloodmoon Palm was said to be native to Raviel island, in D'Hara/Shadovar. Colonists from there brought it with them to the north, in Thulsoma, where they adopted religious beliefs around its psychedelic effects. When this cult gained attention in D'Hara, interest grew in how to best handle the matter. Eventually, a delirious and near-dead priestess of the cult came to D'Hara, where she was executed as a form of mercy killing. From then on, D'Hara considered the fruit to be a dangerous life-destroying drug, ignoble and a threat to the nation. Wild populations were destroyed. However, before such radical measures were adopted, a breeding program had also begun work on the species, and had managed to develop cultivars that lacked psychedelic effects. These were grown in Qubel, namely, in royal orchards. They were reserved for the royalty, and served to fabricate a rare and high-quality wine-like beverage. Their flowers were also better adapted to pollination by colonial honey bees, bred by Machiavel Chénier that was looking to improve crop yields on the isles.

http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Bloodmoon

Actually, rereading that, I think the royal strains were "less psychadelic", and not "non-psychadelic", hence the regulations maintained on them, and why they were transformed instead of consumed raw.

I don't think anybody's RPed bloodmoon palm in D'Hara in many, many years. So what happened to those royal orchards...? Was there any interest in them after the death of Dragon King Machiavel? I doubt it.

Likewise, bloodmoon palm was RPed to have been imported into Asylon. Those lands have been untouched in ages. What happened to their orchards?

Questions that remain to be answered by those willing to RP them.

The species is likely endangered, however. You could probably expect 3 genotypes (cultivars) to exist, at most, in D'Hara. Only 1 is RPed to have survived in Avernus. So you got 4 specimens at most from settled lands. Then you have Asylon... were those cuttings brought in from the colonists? Or planted from seeds? Perennials are rarely planted from seeds, so odds are the genetic diversity in those lands is poor at best, if not non-existant (do monsters eat bloodmoon palm?).

All this said, my theoretical model is the apple tree. I know pretty much nothing about palm trees... and how they grow. But I've been told that almost all bananas grown belong to the same cultivar, or at most a handful of cultivars, so if that's true, then probably the model is close enough.
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