THE
RED
GRAIN
("MARGERT
STALK",
"BEERLEY",
"BARLAY") |
Red Grain
(Thergerim, “Margert Stalk”)
is a long, slender plant that is native to the cold plains of
Northern Sarvonia. It stands about
the height of man’s waist, and is very useful as a food product. The seeds of
this plant are ground up into flour, and used in baking by peoples all over the
north. It also is used as a source of fermentation for beer and as an ingredient
in other malt beverages by several tribes. A bright shade of red, this plant
blooms with flowers every spring in colours of orange, white, and yellow. Its
seeds, which are referred to as "Beerlay", are an off-white colour.
Strangely enough, this plant has managed to find its way into Southern
Sarvonia by trade, and grows there also.
However, it appears that the change in climate results in a dramatic change in
the appearance of the plant. There it grows nearly three times as high, and is a
very dark shade of purple. It sports red, pink, and green flowers while growing
in Southern Sarvonia, and the seeds it
produces are an orange colour. It has been found that the seeds grown in
Southern Sarvonia are incredibly bitter,
and unusable for flour, though they are still usable as a fermentation source.
In Southern Sarvonia, the plant is more
commonly called by the name of its seed, Beerlay.
Appearance. There are two varieties of Red Grain, a northern one and a southern one:
The
Northern
Sarvonian variety
Red Grain, on average, grows to about a
ped tall, give or take a
palmspan. The majority of
the plant is made up of a thin, narrow stalk. This stalk, which is coloured a
pale shade of red, is circular in shape, and has a velvety texture to it. It is
covered in tiny little hair-like fibers. At the base of the stalk are several
leaves, which are about a fore
long, and about half a palmspan
across. They are shaped like large blades of grass, and have a peculiar pattern
of veins running through them. Instead of the straight, parallel pattern of
grass, these leaves have an intricately intertwining pattern that looks very
much like a lace lattice. These leaves are also a rusty red in color, but the
veins in the leaves are an aquamarine colour. Because this causes an effect much
like a heavily latticed window, these leaves are commonly used for decorations.
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Picture description. The strong colour of Red Grain, also called "Barlay" or "Beerlay". Image drawn by Bard Judith. |
The roots of the Red Grain all grow from one thick main root, which grows
straight down into the ground, for at least a
ped and a half. From this
grow many smaller roots, all of which end in a small bulbous structure. These
bulbs are about a half a
palmspan in diameter, green in colour, and hold a lot of juice within them.
Also, covering the main root are various black “eyes”, rough round spots with a
raised bump in the center. All of these structures aid the plant in growing in
the cold, hard soil of Northern
Sarvonia.
The last two palmspans of
the Red Grain are covered in flowers throughout the spring and summer. There are
usually several dozen rows of the tiny flowers clustered together in this small
space. These flowers can be orange, white, or yellow in colour. A particular
stalk of Red Grain will only grow one colour of these flowers. Furthermore, it
is said that a stalk of Red Grain only grows red flowers upon the Heaths of
Wilderon, the site of a great battle among the peoples of
Northern Sarvonia. Each flower,
only a few grains in diameter, has five delicate petals. Upon very close
inspection, children of Northern
Sarvonia have found three different patterns formed by the veins in these
petals, though each petal contains only one design. Easily distinguished by
their dark blue colour, these are an arrow, a square, and circle, and they occur
with a completely random degree of frequency on these petals.
The seeds of this plant, called “Beerlay”, appear on the plant in the late
summer and early fall. They are small, about the same size as the flowers of the
plant, and they are a somewhat yellowish-white colour. These seeds have an
elliptical shape to them, being thicker around the center than at the ends. They
are very hard, and have a rough outer skin with many small niches and holes in
it. Around the center of this covering is a groove that encircles the seed, and
secretes a transparent, oily substance. When broken open, it has been found that
the Beerlay contain a creamy-white coloured, malleable substance that surrounds
a hard miniscule rusty orange sphere.
Southern Sarvonian
variety
Due to the warmer climate of Southern Sarvonia,
Red Grain changes in several ways when planted in that region. This was
discovered through the trade of the plant between the peoples of both
continents. The stalk of this variety is about twice as thick as the northern
version, and it grows to an impressive height of just under two peds. Its colour
is a very dark shade of purple, in contrast to the bright red of the northern
plant, and the stalk loses its velvety texture to a rough, nearly bark-like
exterior. The leaves no longer grow from the base of the plant, but branch off
of the stalk. These leaves are circular in shape, but still have the same
interweaving pattern in their veins. However, the colour of these veins also
changes, in this case to a mellow golden colour.
While the root structure of these southern plants remains unaltered, their
flowers do not. Firstly, they are fewer of them and they are much larger. They
are about one and a half
palmspans on diameter, and cover an area at the top of the plant twice the
amount of the northern flowers. These flowers grow in colours of red, pink, and
green. Unlike the northern variety, each stalk does not produce only a single
color of flowers. Each plant has flowers that are a mixture of these three
colours. In rare cases, even the petals on a flower are different colours from
one another. The usual arrangement of colours is two petals of one colour with
the third one being different. These flowers have only three petals as opposed
to five, and though are no visible veins or designs on them.
The Beerlay seeds of this plant are slightly larger, and fewer in number, than
the northern stalks. They are similar in structure, but their inside is black in
their colour. These seeds, when ground into flour, have been found to have a
terribly bitter taste that destroys any thought of eating it. When left to
ferment, however, beers and ales can be produced.
Territory.
Red Grain grows on practically any relatively flat area on the entire continent
of Sarvonia. This
plant (due to its dual nature), can survive in many different climates, and so
the only limitation to its growth is its need for flat terrain. A particularly
heavy concentration of this plant can be found on the Heaths of Wilderon. The
reason for its spread across the continent is the fact that it has been used in
trade very much through the ages, and nowadays it is rarely seen growing in the
wild. The vast majority of this plant is grown by farmers.
Usages.
The northern variety of Red Grain can be ground into a rusty orange colored
flour, which is used by the Kuglimz men,
Kanapan Men, northern
dwarves, and Evathonrhim for their baking
needs. This flour is very good for cakes and pastries, since it produces a rich
flavor. However, this flavour is too rich for bread, and the products produced
from this plant do not keep fresh for more than a few days, which means it is
not practical for rations. The Kanapan
women are especially renowned for their skill in using this flour for a variety
of excellent sweets. The Susilgerim
dwarves, who conduct regular trade with the
Kanapans, have copied this skill in
some degree with their Moonlight Pie (made with the fruit of the
cavernfire bush). The
Kuglim mix the flour with dried
lythien moss, which keeps the good flavor of the flour
but also acts as a preservative, making it usable for more practical needs. The
Kaaer'dár'shín half-orcs also
use this grain for baking, though they use a small amount of the extract of the
althz'onn ("bean plant") to help preserve it. The
breads they bake are usually eaten with many of their meals, as a balance to
their largely carnivorous diet.
The orcs find the baked goods made with this
flour to be absolutely vile, and burn the plant whenever they can. A common
method of torture used by humans and
dwarves upon their
orcish prisoners is to forcefully feed them
bread baked with this flour. Due to the sharp teeth and claws of most
orcs, this is accomplished through the use of a
wooden pole.
Another important usage of Red Grain is as a fermentation source for many of the
beers and ales produced in Sarvonia. In the
north, the Beerlay seeds ferment to make very strong beverages used by many
different tribes. Several of the techniques used by these peoples are worth
mentioning. The Susilgerim dwarves
dig out small caves specifically for this purpose. These caves usually have a
pit in their center, into which is poured sugar,
water, and Beerlay. This pit is then carefully sealed by a stone cap. The
stone masonry skills of the
Susilgerim allows them to create a cap that will fit perfectly over the pit,
sitting over the ledge carved out by the dwarves
for this purpose. The mixture is then allowed to ferment for several months. The
Kuglimz men construct clay pots to
put a similar mixture in, which they bury underground during fermentation. The
Kanapan men use the hide of a
furno to make a pouch in which
to place the Beerlay and other ingredients. These are hung in a shack specially
built for this purpose, and most villages share one such shack.
The southern variety of the Red Grain is not usable for flour, but the Beerlay
it produces is still fermentable. It does, however, produce a beer much weaker
than the northern version. It makes superb malt, and is one of the ingredients
of the hobbits’ malt-coffee. It is said
that several malt beverages made from this plant have been a favorite of the
Santharian king and his court for many
generations.
Reproduction.
The Red Grain reproduces solely by flower pollination, and the production of its
seeds, the Beerlay. Therefore it is always necessary for a farmer to save a
portion of the crop of this plant to use to grow next year’s crop. This plant
blooms every spring, and keeps its flowers through out the summer. These flowers
are not pollinated by other creatures, but by a peculiar process the plant uses.
Three times over the summer this plant produces sacs of pollen which burst,
spewing their contents into the air. These
then pollinate other flowers, and seeds are produced. In this way, the plant
actually can produce three crops within a growing season. The Red Grain withers
and dies in as the first frost of winter begin, leaving its many seeds behind to
grow next year's crop. However, this is usually accomplished by farmers and not
by the forces of nature.
Myth/Lore.
The flowers of the northern variety of Red Grain have designs on them, formed by
the veins in their petals. These designs are an arrow, a square, and a circle.
Finding a flower that has all five of the same symbol on it is considering to be
extremely good luck and is quite rare. Each symbol gives the luck a different
meaning. Five arrows means a time of plentiful food is coming, squares
(representing an anvil) is said to portend great wealth in the future, and
circles mean a long life for the finder of the flower. It has become a custom
among both the human and
dwarven children of the continent to search
through the fields of Red Grain for flowers of these kinds.
The flowers of the Southern version of this plant are viewed by
humans in a similar way. It is rare to find a
multi-coloured flower, but even more difficult to find one on which all three
petals are the same colour. Red is said to mean that the finder will discover
their true love soon, pink is said to be an omen of having many children, and
green means that food will be in abundance. A flower with all three colours is
even rarer, and it portends several important things. First, a person who
manages to find such a flower is considered to be smiled upon by the Gods, and
to be a source of good luck. It is said that only a person of noble heart can
find this flower, and they are usually given a position of leadership in the
community. Called the “King’s Flower”, for the first to find this rare sight was
indeed a king of Santharia, the flower has
only been found six times in known history. All those who found the flower,
excepting the king, went on to become nobility. All six were renowned for their
kindness, courage, and leadership in their time.
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