Vision Milk Tradition / Ritual in Emdar | World Anvil
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Vision Milk

Vision Milk is an alcoholic beverage created from the fermented milk of the Mullhorn. Since the Mullhorn has never been domesticated and is seen as sacred by most steppenfolk that follow the old faiths, it is singularly rare and precious, a gift from the land itself, and it is only to be drank by initiate shamans to invoke their first vision. The exact recipe is kept a closely guarded secret by elders. It is said to taste transcendently awful, and only the stoutest of stomachs are able to keep it in their bellies long enough to enjoy the actual visions it is said to bestow. From these visions shamans will learn their life's path and singular dedication. It is a solemn, mystical experience, only enjoyed in the company of ones' spiritual mentor, and strictly for transcendental, spiritual purposes.   So of course this means that there's been many wildly successful attempts to create bootlegged versions of this beverage.   The popular drink mostly peddled as Vision Milk is not actually made from the Mullhorn, but from more domesticated cattle, such as cows, horses or goats. It is prepared in similar fashion and the resulting beverage is often sold as the genuine article. Though tourists won't be able to tell it from real Vision Milk, aconnoisseur of curdled spirits will be able to tell it from the genuine article by its taste, which is significantly less awful than the real deal. Wheras with real Vision Milk you have to fight to keep it in your system long enough to enjoy its hallucinogenic effects, bootlegged Vision Milk might almost be called enjoyable once you've developed a taste for it, and the only vision it bestows are imagined.    Crumbled Columns has a few parlors that thread the needle between the mystical and the mundane, both tavern and temple, where one can enjoy "genuine, local" Vision Milk under the guidance of a certified shaman. These bars are known as Drink Yurts, after the tents the nomadic tribes that traditionally brew these beverages sleep in.

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Jul 4, 2022 08:30

I like that you focus on the tourism side and appropriation of the ritual, that are not talked about so much in the fantasy context.

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