Magical, medicinal, and culinary herbs & ingredients

You know it occurs to me.. someone is going to have to model all this stuff.

 

I've been wondering about this for awhile now.. what would the range of climates be in the first continent? Not everything is going to grow in the same places. I imgaine we'll have the full range from tropical to frozen wastes by EP5.. but what about EP1?

 

I'm not sure anyone here can answer this yet. I'd like to hope that there will be some climatic variation, but not too much.

 

I THINK there was seasons in the stretch goals and there was a huge weather threat the devs started awhile back.. That that all will work is something we'll just have to see for now.

 

Its been a while, but I just added a couple of magical reagents after being reacquainted with the Medieval bestiary.

* PERIDEXION: This referred to a type of tree with a sweet fruit that attracted doves, but dragons were afraid of its shadow and would avoid it, hoping for a dove to leave. Some have connected the legend to another tree, the upas-tree, where sleeping in the shadow would cause one to never awaken. * SERPENT'S HORN: This is from the cerastes, now known to refer to the horned viper, but which was mythologized into a "dragon snake" with ram-like horns. The horns were said to detect poison, so substances claimed to be snake horn were fashioned into knife handles. It was also believed useful in treating snakebites. * PHOENIX FEATHER: The phoenix was known to give its feather as a gift to protect someone from sorcery. * HERCINIA FEATHER: From the hercinia, a bird said to be in the Hercynian forest in Germany, and whose feathers would glow brightly during the night and provide a path for travelers. * CALADRIUS DUNG: The dung of a pure white seabird known as the caladrius, who was reputed to be able to detect and remove sickness, and for that reason was kept in the houses of kings. Its dung was said to cure blindness.

 

Redfish -- great research but how much of a good thing is too much? Digging in the swamps for Mandrake by moonlight in Ultima was a fun little quest. I'll lost my mind if I have to scour the Vale for days collecting twigs and cabbage and seabird dung from clifftop nests to cast a basic healing spell...

 

Its just all for reference In no way am I demanding the devs include everything on the list, and some on the list may be better than others. Some of it (cabbage) is just a reference for culinary uses, not magic. I don't know that having a lot of reagents would necessarily be a bad thing, though, for making alchemy interesting, with the right selection... it would all be optional in the end.

 

Not to mention that typically everything would be available for purchase also. Even if it's so rare you have to go collect it.. that just means that merchants will go harvest as much as they can and then sell it to you. Let their be such variety if the devs so choose. There will be no need for anyone to harvest anything in the long term except for those who enjoy such things.

 

I added a couple of items to this list. ROSE OF JERICHO, which I also named by the genus Anastatica, and also called the "resurrection plant," is a plant that curls up and hibernates, and if put into water, revives itself. It was collected by pilgrims to the Holy Land, believed to have magical properties, and used as an aid in childbirth. LUCKY HAND ROOT, or SAHLEB ROOT, is taken from a type of orchid called the salep, and is used a lot in voodoo and witchcraft because it appears like a small shriveled hand. However, it was used historically as a restorative and to create a drink called sahlab. To the medicinal herbs list, I added ISNGLASS, which is a gelatinous substance derived from dried fish bladder. This was also used in the process of making beer, to clarify the beer, by attracting all the yeast and other particles to the bottom of the tank.

I also was able to add more information both on spidersilk and pearls. Apparently, "cobweb pills" were used as a remedy for ague. This was just cobwebs rolled up into a tiny ball and swallowed.

As for pearls, it was believed they formed when the oyster opened at night and took in the rays of the stars, moon and sun, and swallowed the heavenly dew which floated over the sea. The heavenly dew would then form the pearl. I read a bit about Galen, and it also seems that in human digestion, chyle was described as a type of dew (ros) that nourished the body, so this has a deeper meaning and context to it. Heavenly dew was also said to fall on flowers, and this is what would be gathered by bees, taking the form of honey. According to Greek poets, in the golden age, it dripped from trees. It was believed the source of all moisture, a life-giving substance given by God. I assume if this is incorporated into game lore, the black color of the black pearl could signify it absorbed ether with the dew (as analogued in obsidian/blackrock).

The explanation for coloration was often the state of the heavens, as in this poetic interpretation of Pliny by Sir William Drummond,

"With open shells in seas, on heavenly dew,
A shining oyster lusciously doth feed ;
And then the birth of that ethereal seed
Shows, when conceived if skies look dark or blue :
Pearls, then, are orient framed and fair in form,
If heavens in their conception do look clear ;
But if they thunder, or do threat a storm,
They sadly dark and cloudy do appear."

Also note the reference to the ethereal seed.

 

Some of these could work for smuggling quests. I read through a couple times but missed any Opiates. I'm a little ADHD so I probably just missed it wondering if squirrels could be used to gather with

 

I think I added poppy heads, or maybe not.. but I was working on it at some time. But there's hemlock, which is considered an opiate I think, and hellebore was considered an opiate by alchemists... I'd have to go through them.

At any rate, I'm starting in the process of adding some gemstones, and going back to ancient and Medieval sources. The reason is because in ancient times, gem names referred to genuses of gems rather than the individual types we know today. These categories were kept through the Middle Ages, and the gems only got differentiated some time around then, I think through advances in gemology.

For example, smarag, or smaragd. (You see the form without a d in some more modern sources) This comes from the Greek smaragdus, and today has a specific meaning of emerald, but originally meant a category of greenish stones with an emerald-like color, including the green glass (probably meteoritic) you find in ancient Egyptian art. It was used as an amulet, and also in a lot of magical recipes, for instance, applied to a poultice or swallowed. All gemstones were understood to have magical properties, and smarag was known for its ability to communicate its color to a pool of water in which it was placed, and create rainbows. There was a legend that said the first smaragdine stone came from Satan's crown, and was later carved into the Holy Grail.

Other stones coming up, carbuncle (anthrax), sardius, etc...

 

Shilajit - an Ayurvedic herb known as mineral oil or 'rock sweat', is an oily to tar-like substance gathered when it oozes from the cracks in mountains. High mineral concentrations and known for its extraordinary health benefits. Some holy men have been known to live on this rare and mysterious reagent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shilajit

 

That will help us with our low T.

 

Cannabis usage dates back to 3000 BC or so. It would make a nice farm style plant and has multiple uses.

 

Annatto, sometimes called roucou or achiote, is derived from the seeds of the achiote trees of tropical and subtropical regions around the world. The seeds are sourced to produce a carotenoid-based yellow to orange food coloring and flavor. Its scent is described as "slightly peppery with a hint of nutmeg" and flavor as "slightly nutty, sweet and peppery".[1]

Annatto is commonly used in Latin American and Caribbean cuisines as both a coloring and flavoring agent. Central and South American natives use the seeds to make body paint and lipstick.

 

I'm reading about some of the history of this.. the wiki article needs to be expanded a bit; its not complete, and whats left out is interesting.

The words mumijo, momia and moomiyo ultimately seem to derive from 'mumia', which meant mummy. The original momiai only referred to the tar from burnt mummies, which was a heavily trafficked medicinal substance, even in Medieval Europe. The similarity between mummy tar and this type of mineral tar is what lent the name to the mineral tar. Its from a group of tar-like substances that were used for medicinal purposes, including creosote, animal tar, and so on. I was actually in the middle of writing a Wikipedia article on this: History of medicinal creosote, but got sidetracked for a while. That's a draft article on my user page, I earlier wrote the wiki article on creosote, which has some information I didn't get around to include yet. I never heard of shilajit, though! It's a good connection. I'll add it to the wiki page I'm writing.

 

Alright.

So I separated most of the gems and stones into a new document listed in the first post under "magical gems and stones" and added a bunch. There are some obvious elemental stones. Carbuncle is associated with fire, Hyacinth with air, and Beryl with water. Earth would probably be Adamant, or Diamond. Smarag with light and the sun. Possibly Topaz with the moon since its powers increase in moonlight.

I also added a few items without updating. Silphion, which was heavily used by Romans, possibly as a contraceptive, but is now believed to be extinct. Balaustine, which is the name for the blossoms from the double-flowers produced by a wild pomegranate tree. It was used medicinally, Black snail. which was used curatively.

 

continued excellence, thanks again. i gotta reconnect with this work

 

Inspired by RG's talk on alchemy and food crafting, I added honey and corpse-wax to the list. I actually have a decent sized list somewhere with items to add, and white honey was already on.. white honey considered an especially pure form. It was in a Chinese immortality recipe. I also added entries for honey-dew and may-dew (dew in general was thought to have magic in it), and serpent's bile. I wasn't able to add pics for them yet, I'll get back to this later.

 

I'd like to present two suggestions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooibos
This is what I drink instead of tea and/or coffee.

and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agathosma

When I was a child my mother use to make an infusion of this in hot water that I had to breath in to help with colds, flu, bronchitis and the like.