Veidmoss

Description:

is a tenacious moss found in the borderlands between thirst and memory—where ocean mist dies on stone and desert winds remember long-lost rivers. Named for its uncanny knack for finding hidden moisture, it is favored by wanderers, scouts, and seers who walk the edges of wild places. Veidmoss clings where life should fail: dry cliff walls, salt-stung ruins, and sun-beaten bones. To those who listen, it is said to whisper the direction of water or shelter, humming faintly when moonlight strikes its salt-laced veins.

Structure & Growth:

• Spreads in tight, low mats resembling worn velvet across stone, sand, or driftwood


• Rootlike tendrils burrow into cracks, excreting a fine, crystalline frost at dawn


• Grows near tidal ruins, salt plains, desert springs, and half-buried ancient roads


• Slow to spread, but long-lived—often found on standing stones and cairns marking forgotten paths

Color & Reaction:

• Ranges from sun-bleached green to grey-brown, crisscrossed by pale salt-veins


• Glints faintly blue at sunrise or in mist-heavy air


• When touched, it releases a dry tingling and leaves a bitter-salt residue on the skin


• Crushed moss reacts to breath or fog by hissing faintly and dampening—revealing hidden water trails

Scent & Use:

• Smells of dry sage, sea spray, and scorched driftwood


• Placed in flasks to cool and cleanse water—though it adds a sharp mineral bite


• Used in rites to bind the spirit to the body during long journeys or soul-quenching rituals


• Healers wrap it in cloth to draw fever, venom, or the "wandering dryness" from the limbs

Folklore:

"Where Veidmoss grows, water is not far—if you know how to ask. In coastal and desert clans, patches of Veidmoss are never trodden or cut in haste, but greeted with tokens: a drop of water, a breath, a coin. It is said to have been a gift from the weather-spirits to wandering god-hunters—those who sought omens across dead lands. Children wear dried Veidmoss charms to prevent thirst-dreams, and wayfinders burn it in small clay bowls to reveal mirages that lead true. When it hums beneath a full moon, the old ones say: “Someone is being called home.”