[Glorantha] First Digestive Symposium: A Plunder Item

GUJURRULUB'S MOLDWHISKERS Description:
A great, damp, shaggy matt of fungal mold and moss, purple-black tinged with brown and green growths, bound in ancient rings of tarnished copper and lead, sprouting with occasional mushrooms and home to worms.

Cults:
Associated - Mee Vorala
Enemy - Mostal
Friendly - Aldrya, Darkness cults
Hostile - Fire/Sky cults

Knowledge:
Famous (however see below); One of a Kind; (Current) Owner Only

History:
Gujurrulub Mildewsson was a voralan hero of the Second Age, a mushroom-herder who was -- in a perhaps unique occurrence -- chosen over the group mind to serve as vizier of the fungus forests; who learned the ways of war from other races and battled the enemies that beset its kind. It was famed for its great mossy beard, beautiful in its decay, coiled with writhing worms and scented with a dank perfume. In legend, said beard was the source of Gujurrulub's power, and grew with each enemy slain and fed to the compost.

With its keen intelligence Mildewsson was an incisive strategist, whose telepathic link with its kin served the voralan cause well. Each time it was killed it was reborn in its own fertile decay, always learning, never forgetting. Gujurrulub led a great army of Darkness to assault dwarven citadels, mustering dark troll legions; voralan doctors that could 'heal' any wound or disease; and huge rotting catapults that launched foetid bombs and parasitic spores, or clumps of moss that ate the very walls themselves.

The great Marshal of the Moldmarches was finally brought to ruin when betrayed by a broken dwarf apostate who had offered a secret entrance to a great Mostali keep, but instead led Gujurrulub into an ambush. It fought well, but was overcome, its beard cut from its face and cast from the walls, and its body burned in the dwarven forges. Mildewsson's whiskers were recovered as a great relic by the voralans and trolls, and over the years have resided in many of the dank temple grottos to Mee Vorala.

Powers:
The Moldwhiskers are inert until placed against one's chin (although rumours suggest that they can be successfully attached elsewhere). If such a site is suitable they will fuse with the flesh and form a great fungal beard; they will only attach and grow upon patches of dead, decaying or unhealthy flesh, such as that that is frostbitten, infested with a foul disease, or simply quite unclean. A suitable contest (agility or a magical relationship, ability or keyword) versus the Moldwhiskers' rating (13W2) might avoid attachment.

Moldwhiskers instantly attune the bearer to the local voralan group mind (an unsettling experience, perhaps, for some) and grant the ability to communicate with and understand such. They also make the bearer intimately familiar with the fungal processes of life from decay, granting a base Fungus Lore ability of 1W3 (or such as an augment to any existing ability). The Moldwhiskers also allow the bearer to camouflage him or herself in fungal terrain, giving the rating's numerical value as an automatic augment to any hide contest in a voralan forest; or +5 to +10 in any appropriate wood or cave.

The bearer of the Moldwhiskers is held in great regard by the voralans, and gains a +20 on any social interactions with such kind; he or she also gains a +5 with trolls and other Darkness entities that respect Mee Vorala. However, carrying a pungent growth of damp moss and worms as one's beard is frowned upon in some societies, particularly those dedicated to some Fire/Sky cults, and brings a -5 to -15 reaction penalty. One need not highlight the reactions of dwarves.

The Moldwhiskers grow upon decay. If nourished and combed with the rotted flesh of an enemy personally slain by the bearer, then buried for six weeks in dedication and sacrifice to Mee Vorala, they will increase in length and add one point to their base rating.

The growth cannot be removed unless it shaved off with iron, and may only be trimmed likewise. The magical rating of the Moldwhiskers can be used as an active ability (or augment) to defend against any magical attack, but the bearer does gain the elf and troll vulnerability to iron. Also the Moldwhiskers are resistant to any non-voralan life-giving or healing magics used upon their bearer, providing a negative augment from their base rating.

This is because they themselves feed off such decay on the bearer: their aura and thriving biosphere keeping wounds clean and eating disease, so that the Moldwhiskers possess a Heal Self ability of 18W2. However, wounds and malaises cleaned and healed by the Moldwhiskers develop mossy growths and strange textures that gradually turn the healed into a voralan. Indeed, if the bearer of the Moldwhiskers is slain, and not resurrected in one day, he or she will be reborn as a black elf.

When vigorously shaken, the Moldwhiskers casts noxious spores over a semi-circular arc ten feet in front of the bearer. These spores affect any beings other than the bearer and black elves, with a potency of 6W2, and if successful render them incapacitated, with hallucinations, sickness and/or sleep.

Moldwhiskers base rating 13W2 (Communicate with Group Mind 1W4, Fungus Lore 1W3, Heal Self 18W2, Noxious Spores 6W2)

Value:
200,000 L (to friends of Darkness, and based upon a somewhat earlier and expansive economic model). Received on Tue 18 Apr 2006 - 10:05:42 EEST