Magical, medicinal, and culinary herbs & ingredients

This actually got me into an interesting digression...

My first thought was, what type of substance is moon-salt? I know that salt in alchemy represents the mineral substance, or body, of something, but that doesn't still answer the question. What is the mineral substance? Is it anything like moon-stone? The moon-stone of Ultima lore is by the way influenced by real lore around it, in that it was said to be affected by the changing phases of the moon. I also found a stone referenced called orite, a small black and round stone, which was said to have fallen from the heavens, but its a completely different material than moonstone.

So on a lark I did I search for "moon salt" on Google Books for any books published before 1800. Eventually I found a 17th century book about cosmology which linked the moon to humidity and coolness, by its effects at night on the Earth, and that fits into Starr Long's cosmology. You can see my comment on that in the thread on the dev's chat on magic.

But on the way there, I ran into some 18th century commentary on Shakespeare, in particular on a particular excerpt from Timon of Athens,

The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction,
Robs the vast sea. The moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears.
Act IV, Scene 3.

This description baffled the commentators, who thought Shakespare was describing the sea literally turning the moon to salt, and resigned it to poetic license. I think I get it though, although it has nothing to do with turning the moon into salt. The moon causes the ocean waves, and the roughness of waves were said to create the salt from the Earth.

 

The idea of moon salt originated in my Moon Dust (Dev+) thread.. the basic idea was that moon dust would be everywhere after the cataclysm.. and would be imbued with a small amount of magical energy. The dust eventually settled and in the case of moon salts.. the salt would have absorbed some of that energy.. or perhaps bonded with finer dust particles.. just like different types of salt have other minerals mixed in. (Himalyan Pink salt for example).

A further thought might extend to gardening. If you fertilized your soil with moon dust you might get some interesting variations in your crops. Say.. if you were growing sugar.. as varieties of crops often depend on the native soil they're grown in.

 

I was going to add Moldavite to this list - it is a mineral created by a meteor fall, basically brought to Earth. It is a powerful stone and has sacred use and meaning in many traditions. I didn't add it because it's unique to Earth, but I thought there would be a similar stone or mineral unique to New Britannia. Great posts guys. I really enjoyed your post on cosmology Redfish, and I have some things to add but my mind is too abuzz over the Telethon to properly form sentences.

Interestingly, its appearance and (some say) properties varies depending on whether it fell on dry land or in the water after the impact.

 

Yes, I thought you were referring to the dust from the catastrophe... but I was wondering what type of material it was because I was wondering what type of magical qualities it would possess. Would it possess the qualities of moonstone? Or the elemental powers associated with the moon in cosmology?

As a note, somehow a large bunch of the magical reagents were deleted from the linked document, so I reinserted them.

 

I'm perfectly content to let the devs decide what kind of effects moon dust would have.. but as to what kind of material it is there are two primary options. Actual moon rock or dust collected on the moon's surface. Though technically, neither material is particularly unique to the moon so I'm not particularly hung up on what it is.

Given the graphic displayed though I'd find it appropriate to place it within the realms of illusion/stealth/darkness, healing or spells specific to the moon.. ie opening or changing a lunar rift.

 

Hey, you could have told me that Himalayan pink salt was called "moon salt" and used for moon bathing. I was looking up pictures and came across information on moon bathing. I just wanted to add some lore to the document. Anyway, I added moon-stone and also moon-salt to the list.

Cabbage and lettuce were added too, earlier; I forgot.

 

What? Is it? lol I had no idea. I was just trying to come up with an 'edible' version of moon dust for use in cooking.

 

http://www.mypinkmountain.com/HIMALAYAN_PINK_SALT/Moon_Bathing.html

I gathered it from other links, too, and it was sometimes advertised specifically as "moon salt." Also got some other unrelated reference to a product called "moon salt" that was said to be harvested at night under the moonlight. I put all this information in the lore in the document.

 

I finished adding some more.

Magical ingredients: chameleon's skin, basilisk's blood
Medicinal ingredients: hawthorn, elder
Culinary vegatables: mustard, marsh samphire
Culinary herbs: violet
Culinary fruits, berries: strawberry tree or arbutus, quince, medlar

Chameleons were believed to gain nourshiment solely from air, and Pliny describes them as having no entrails except their lungs. Basilisk's blood, the way it was described, likely referred to a real product, some type of gum or pitch and not blood, just like dragon's blood. Quince and medlar were two common fruits in the Middle Ages. So were hawthorn berries and elderberries, although the flowers were eaten too, and I put them in the medicinal category because they were largely valued as medicines. Violet petals, like rose petals, were candied and eaten. Marsh samphire ash was used by glassmakers.

 

Oi.. what about cocoa. We're going to have a lot of upset avatars if there's no cocoa.

 

Witch Hazel, not only does the name sound cool, but it is also still widely used for medicinal purposes as a strong anti-oxidant and astringent.

 

I'm adding a bunch of fruit to the list.

So far, strawberry, mulberry, damson, sloe, bullace, plum, rowan, sorb, chequer, blackberry, raspberry. I have a bunch more lined up that I'll complete today, then I'll move back to other types of ingredients.

Sorbs are a type of domesticated fruit, from the wild serviceberry, that were common in the Middle Ages but are uncommon today. They were used to make wines and ciders, and the wild berry was usde to flavor beer. Sloes are the fruits from the blackthorn tree, related to plums, they were used to flavor cordials.

 

huckleberries.. (both blue and red varieties)

 

Great point with glassmaker's ash. Saltwort or sea beans also applicable- this a very important and realistic piece in developing glass.

I've posted a few times about the relationship between different substances and their ash, and their use in creating acids for alchemy and metallurgy. In Peru and the surrounding region, seashells are burned to make lipta, which is alkaloid lime for activating coca leaves.

It would be cool to see players able to create heirloom strains of crops over time. There used to be thousands of apple varieties in the US, grown by different families as a staple crop.

 

It would probably also be useful for crafting, if the devs want to actually go that far, to make pitch, tars, resins, and gums from wood through heating. Also charcoal. Its something an alchemist would be able to do.

 

Alright, I just added these: myrtle, arctic bramble, blueberry, bilberry, cloudberry, gooseberry, dewberry, grape, grocer's currant, blackcurrant, redcurrant, white currant, lingonberry, cranberry, crowberry, sea-buckthorn.

 

Now. Pics of what each one looks like in real life! Get on it!

 

They're there. Go to the links in the first post.. they get you to some documents on my Google Drive.

 

Nice! This is an excellent resource! I've considered dabbling a little with the content they give us to hack together a simple game myself.

 

I finished adding the rest of the fruits and nuts I penciled in, though I might have a few more later. These were added: cherry, sour cherry, cornel cherry, peach, apricot, apple, pear, warden, citron, lemon, lime, orange, pomegranate, fig, date, almond, chestnut, hazelnut, walnut.

I also added an "exotic herbs and ingredients" section: mangrove, banana, water-melon, coconut. These would have been extremely rare in Europe during the Middle Ages, and would have been known only because of contacts with the Arab world. There were many fruits that were commonly brought in from trade, like pomegranates, figs, and dates. But others were less sought out or harder to find.