Dire Potato

The 'Dire Potato' was an attempt by House Abraxas to ease the food shortages in the wake of the reign of the Cult of Orcus.

History

In 205 IC, to ease the food shortages after the deposing of the Cult of Orcus as the ruling group of Bal-Morath, House Abraxas (one of the lesser noble houses) began a project to 'engineer' an extremely hardy, extremely efficient, crop. One that they could control the supply of in order to increase their wealth and status (oh, and to feed people with, naturally).

The experiments took a common potato plant and, by blending it with the essences of a number of supernatural beasts, it was hoped that they could produce a staple crop that would be easy to grow (even in toxic, tainted soil) and highly nutritious. Traditional botany may well have provided an answer to this but it would take multiple growing seasons to test this and a solution was required far faster for the starving Morathians and so the architect of this plan, Makara Abraxas, decided that 'mystical' shortcuts had to be taken.

Amongst the essences spliced into the plant were vampire dust (to drain nutrients from the soil with great efficiency) and troll blood (for health and bulk). The result was a large blood red variant of the potato that grew fast, grew big, was a filling meal on its own and extraordinarily resistant to pests and disease. The only downside was that, prior to harvesting, they exhibited carnivorous tendencies and were unusually aggressive (for root vegetables).

Thankfully while they were larger that a regular spud, the animate potatoes weren't particularly strong or fast. Still, the existence of such an unnatural abomination of a plant caused much alarm among the local druids, especially when House Abraxas revealed their plans to export them across Bal-Morath. What followed was several years of escalating raids on the farms growing the potatoes until eventually the two parties met to negotiate a treaty. The deal struck required that the potatoes not be exported without being thoroughly dead and sterile (with all shipments requiring inspection to ensure this was the case), could only be grown on the farms they were already present in, and that House Abraxas would assist the druids in maintaining the land (including the removal of feral potatoes). In exchange the druids would calm the waters along the coast and encourage local sea monsters to avoid shipping lanes.

The end result was that the 'Dire Potato', as it had become known, became a fairly common sight in House Abraxas' land; an expensive delicacy for those of an adventurous disposition elsewhere in Bal-Morath; and practically unheard of elsewhere.

Since the end of the last war, much of the crop of the 'Dire Potato' is grown in the "Bone Orchard". This has led to the Druids to the treaty between House Abraxas and the Druids becoming very strained.