The Temple of the Exploding Head

Ethylberry is an odd plant described in numerous texts, stories, mythologies and other such sources. It has been described as the dust of life, the first life on many new worlds, planted there by the gods, and once life has taken hold, the gods harvest it and move on. It has been the stuff of adventures, the object of quests and the prize of the Immortals.

In many tales, the goddess of the Harvest, Anabrax, is the keeper of Ethylberry, tending to hidden fields of it, planting where it is needed and then secreting it away when its use is done. When Anabrax was killed by the Horned God, the task of tending to Ethylberry passed on to another–some tales mention Atha, the goddess of Occasional Chaos, became the caretaker.

Lord Kabyl of Blanchefort wrote of encountering Ethylberry in his memoirs.

“I came upon an iron fountain tended to by the goddess Atha, at least she claimed to be a goddess, and there, growing around the base of the fountain in hard-packed earth under a purple sky, was a bed of mangy weeds. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is Ethylberry.’ With a simple clay pot and my bare hands, I was to pick a plant. The plants were compact and fibrous, dingy in appearance, with dark green leaves twisting about a central stalk. It sported a host of small yellow flowers that exuded a small but continual amount of lilting golden dust that took flight with the slightest of provocation. The plants were studded with savage thorns which penetrated my skin without resistance. The thorns were poisoned, and I felt my heart struggling to beat as my blood boiled. I felt my death coming …”

The dust from the Ethylberry plant has many properties. It encourages the beginnings of life, complete with rapid changes and evolution. It can nullify poisons, repair grievous wounds, enable magic spells, give everlasting vitality and return life to the dead.

The old Xaphan ruler Queen Ghome of Trimble was said to possess an overflowing urn of Ethylberry, or a lesser version of it, allowing her to change her appearance with ease.

copyright 2020, Ren Garcia