An Arcadian Ceremony - Magnitude 12 - The Ardent Mind
Performing the Ceremony
Performing this Ceremony takes at least 5 minutes of roleplaying. This Ceremony targets the Wilderness investment of a character who must be present throughout, but need not be one of the priests performing the Ceremony.
This Ceremony is an Enchantment. An investment may only be under one Enchantment effect at a time.
Effects
A target Wilderness investment will produce 3 Locks and six measures of herbs in addition to its standard production before the next event.
For the rest of the event, the owner of the Investment experiences a roleplaying effect: You are driven to take care of plants and plantlife, and find it difficult to cause harm to such things - even the food on your plate.
Description
A wilderness investment is not simply some untamed forest that peasants are thrown into to gather herbs and haul them home. It is a well tended, curated area, with cleared paths and desired plants specifically tended and seeded in optimal spots in order to be harvested later. Likewise, this Ceremony is not just a carte blanche explosion of plant and animal growth in an area, but a specific blessing which targets and supports a set of plants and animals that are being trapped or harvested in the area. Other plants around them will receive some of the effect, and some work needs to be done in order to re-establish the paths and order of the investment area, but the majority of the effect will be felt by the parts of the investment that are of most value to the owner.
The extra animal life and other plant growth can be exploited to be sold for coin to those who can benefit off it best, which leaves the owner of the investment with more of what they chose the investment for, as well as a nice stack of cash to offset the cost of the Ceremony.
While the growth is ongoing in the investment, the owner feels a strong compulsion to look after plants and plantlife, even those that are not their own, or would pose a threat to something. Some priests think this is a divine-sent warning not to reap the crop that is being grown for them before its proper time, while others think that it is simply a feedback effect to remind the target’s owner of the blessing they are receiving.
Performing the Ceremony
Drawn from The Ardent Mind, the focus at the heart of this Ceremony is usually, unsurprisingly, a living plant. Some priests choose to tend to the plant through feeding or nurturing it, or pruning off parts of it that are no longer needed. Others take the approach that something must be sacrificed in order for other things to thrive, and may snap or burn the plant in order to call down the blessings from Arcadian. Both cases seem to work as well as each other, so it is possible a plant simply needs to be present as a focus for the best outcome, and what happens to it is irrelevant.
The owner of the investment, who must of course be present for the Ceremony, will usually be informed of the effect that they will be feeling, and have it suggested to them that maybe they consider a mostly carnivorous diet for the next while so as to avoid as much of the unpleasantness of the side effect as possible.