Dainivhir Valeport
Thirteenth of His Name
- Intent: To sub a plant (drug) for the planet Confracta explaining their hyperspace navigational capability, medicine, agriculture, culture, and provide a major export. Co-written with [member="Madison M. Maxwell IV"] and [member=Revenant].
- Image Credit: X
- Canon: N/A
- Links:
Confracta - The Second Triumvirate
- The Labyrinthian
- Necropolis
GENERAL INFORMATION
- Name: Mens Putredine | Colloquially known as 'Maze'
- Homeworld: Confracta
- Other Locations: Not Currently
- Classification: Flower
- Average Growth Cycle: 3 Years Wild - 10 Years Cultivated
- Viability: Maze is an excruciatingly difficult crop to cultivate requiring dedication and zeal. Maze demands a steady supply of water, it must be kept in a dark cold place; the plant feeds off of the living Force and requires a truly staggering amount of nutrients, and thus naturally blooms exclusively in corpses - which provide both. Maze starts as a small glowing purple seed with a web of frills upon it, these frills allow the seed to naturally float upon the wind until they find a nice fresh morsel, also known as a festering corpse. Maze quickly begins to spread its roots through the host, after which several months may pass before natural processes reveal the organism within. At which point the exposure to fresh air will cause a bud to form, slowly growing as its host is used up. At which point the plant will anchor itself firmly to the ground. Assuming the crop provided proper care the bud will continue to grow until all provided resources are used up. At this point the bud flowers and reveals the seeds within. The petals of the mature flower are the highly narcotic spice known as Maze, said petals are ground up into a fine black powder which can be consumed in a variety of ways and does not spoil.
- Description: Maze is a small to large flower that is bioluminescent and shades of black or deep purple by coloration, and rarely white. Wild Maze is generally the size of a single, lone, blooming rose.
- Average height: 60cm to 240cm
- Average length: N/A
- Color: Black, Purple, White
- Nutritional Value: Maze has no nutritional value.
- Distinctions: Maze is a flowering bioluminescent narcotic plant. Its petals, before harvesting are noted as to feeling like silk. There are two variations of Maze, the standard bloom, and in excruciatingly rare conditions, the White bloom, which only sprouts from an unusually force sensitive corpse. Maze, like all flowering plants, exists to lure animals to consume it, however, Maze is unique in that it targets sentient creatures. It exerts a mental 'pull' on those nearby through the use of a pheromone cocktail, and one that requires a remarkable will to entirely negate.
- Strengths:
Mind Expansion: Greatly expands the mental capabilities of a subject by temporarily imbuing one’s mind to the force on a deeply profound level, this does not increase one's strength with the force or make a non-force sensitive able to use the force, but provides one with an innate and temporary tie to the galaxy, allowing one to 'sense' large planetary bodies or forces of extreme influence, making navigation in the unknown regions a possible, if still not an occasionally difficult undertaking. - A High Like None Other: A sensation unimaginable overtakes the consumer of the Spice, rendering a state of catharsis unlike any other by comparison. Often compared to, and called “A burnout drug to rival Supernova.”
[*]Weaknesses:
- Insanity: Heavy or repeated use of Maze will result in the user losing a grip on their sanity, as the chemical composition and nature of the narcotic erodes and breaks down neural pathways.
- Life Price: A single Maze Bloom requires an entire corpse to be dedicated to its cultivation, with all due ritual and pomp.
- Mind and body: The consumption of this narcotic renders one’s body into a state of extreme shock. Lacking proper preparation this can be a fatal undertaking, and almost always results in the induction of seizures and other physiological reactions to the sheer stress the narcotic places upon the mind.
- Cannibalistic Intention: Maze brings with it the stigma of being, by nature, an act of cannibalism through indirect means.
- Addictive: A common trait of the narcotically inclined.
- Because of course, it is: After recovering from the use of Maze, people are often left tired and hungry, to such degrees as to collapse from exhaustion, or be ravenous enough to consume more than might thought possible in both food and drink.
- No strings to pull: Force dead cannot be affected by Maze.
- Inherently counterproductive: The narcotic is counter-productive by its very nature, the benefits it offers being most reliable to an entirely lucid mind, which is the very same thing its consumption destroys.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
-Hundreds of years before the formation of the formation of the Second Triumvirate the Maze bloomed. Hundreds of years before the First Triumvirate the Maze Bloomed. It has always been and it shall always be. At least that's the drivel any Scholar from the Labyrinthian will feed you. The truth is, however, in its naked truth, that Maze quite simply, changed everything. The effects of its discovery were polarizing, not only did it spark a movement which would spiral rapidly into religion, but allow the far-flung children of Confracta access to the greater galaxy, to break the comfortable embrace of isolation.
-That isn't the history of Maze, that is its importance, its impact. The history is a much longer, much more boring story.
Long ago on a date forgotten by history half as long ago, Ifradeli explorers discovered in the deepest caves of their ancestors a small black flower growing on the corpse of some poor creature. It was a small thing, and it went ignored for some time. At first, it was merely and symbol of death, soon one of loss, then one of mourning, then acceptance. Finally, rebirth.
-It was here that the first cultivation of it began, soon it would dot graveyards as a way of remembering and honoring the dead. Soon the effects of the narcotic plant would be discovered by some disgustingly inquisitive youths, all of which suffered terribly from the side effects. Cults began to hail it as a form of divine reincarnation, or perhaps as a gift from the world beyond. Others began to cultivate it for the potential applications of the narcotic petals and grappled with the extreme costs and dedication they require. Somewhere along the way, the two merged into one Order, who cultivate the Maze, care for the dead, and exercise the Force. What once was a small graveyard with a strange black flower planted as decoration to honor the dead, became a Necropolis. The finer points are lost to history, or perhaps, they were expunged from it.
-The details remain the same. The Narcotic expands the consciousness to such a degree as to allow a single mind to navigate the maze of Hyperspace lanes in the unknown regions while avoiding dangers and complications. This is accomplished through the accumulated albeit diluted life force harvested by the plant, from a dead thing. The side effects of consuming it are crippling to the body and devastating to the mind, and without proper preparation, even small doses can prove lethal.
