The pnepthenes is a rare and unusual plant grows in calm places in the Nightmare Lands. It grows as a hollow, green gourd, with a long, green root. The lip of the opening is decorated with sharp, red, ornate thorns that deter animals from investigating it. These living containers hold very dangerous, yet delicious nectar. Those who would imbibe the pnepthenes’ sweet nectar collapse into a stupor, and find their spirits temporarily cast into the Border Ethereal. An herbalist suspects that this sinister plant feeds by luring insects into tasting its nectar, then feeds on them as they drown in the fluid.
The pnepthenes actively resists cultivation. If the plant is grown in an undesirable area (its second most common ailment), it will pull up its root, and crawl away to a more desirable area. His Majesties, King Azalin[1], found to his sorrow that these plants find well water and even river water to be deadly poisonous, and can only accept rainwater, or bog water. If watered with well or river water, the pnepthenes wilts, and dies within minutes. However, he did find that they do appreciate light shade, and a diet of cockroaches.
Very few people have had privy to King Azalin’s gardens. Apparently, both Alxa and I are among these privileged few. My otherwise pleasant memories of that odious place were marred by the numerous attempts on my life by His Majesties’ climbing roses.
- Stanton Fink, Excerpts from the Register, Undead Sea Scrolls 2002
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