Glumpumpkins

"It’s not food if it screams at you. It’s a curse with crust!" -Valden Rem, Opulence-born noble, after being served Plumpumpkin Pie.

The Glumpumpkin is a squat, sorrow-faced gourd native to the fertile ruin fields of central Everwealth, most commonly found in the Amber Plains, the farmlands fringing Ashwood, and the mossy clearings of lost roadside shrines. A magickally-altered pumpkin variant rumored to have originated as a cruel jest by a forgotten hedge-witch, the Glumpumpkin has since become a culinary staple among common folk, nutritious, flavorful, and unsettling. Its most infamous feature is the naturally grown face: a sunken, mournful visage shaped by the outer skin and warped ridges of the fruit. Deep grooves form drooping eyes, sagging cheeks, and a frowning mouth, behind which can be seen the raw pulp and seeds of the fruit's interior, exposed through what looks like naturally grown cracks. Despite this, it remains unspoiled and perfectly edible. Though entirely cosmetic, the fruit will emit soft weeping at night, and let out horrific wails when cut open, a magically sustained performance that has earned it a reputation somewhere between haunted crop and beloved tragedy. And yet, despite, or perhaps because of its bizarre nature, the Glumpumpkin has found permanent status in Everwealth’s cuisine, often featured in autumn harvest pies, spiced broths, and roasted root medleys. It is a staple of peasant kitchens, its dramatic quirks seen less as horror, and more as humble pageantry.

Basic Information

Anatomy

The Glumpumpkin grows to about the size of a man’s head, though flatter and slightly lobed. Its skin is a pale copper-orange, with olive discoloration around the “face” and ridged edges. The natural face shape is thought to form due to residual magickal memory, with grooves patterned in such a way that most fruits display similar sad expressions, often with slightly different frown depths or eye placements, no two are quite identical. The interior is thick with pale yellow pulp, hearty seeds, and stringy flesh, slightly denser than standard pumpkins. It exudes a faint, sweet-spice scent, even before roasting. When punctured or cut, the fruit lets out a high, drawn-out cry, similar to a child’s scream filtered through a pumpkin’s gurgling innards. This sound is non-physical, generated by the fruit’s magickal echo-chamber at the base of the stem, an organ-like hollow that channels sound as an illusion rather than a breath-based emission.

Genetics and Reproduction

The Glumpumpkin grows from hardy vines that thrive in cursed, magickally-drenched, or grief-soaked soil. It self-pollinates and requires little water once rooted. Attempts to trace its ancestry have yielded conflicting results, some claim it is an offshoot of frostvine gourds, others insist it was a hybridized farmfruit warped by a sorrowful spell. While most fruit-bearing plants require manual care or pest defense, Glumpumpkins appear to fend off insects and birds naturally through their constant weeping and occasional vocal wails. Some farmers report that their vines even creep slowly at night, repositioning toward moonlight or gathering in clusters near grave markers or abandoned scarecrows.

Growth Rate & Stages

• Sprout (0-2 weeks): Thick vine with dense, sticky leaves and unusually sharp thorns.

• Budling (2-6 weeks): Face pattern begins forming, eyes appear as darkening grooves.

• Full Maturity (6-10 weeks): Face forms fully, wailing ability activates. Ready for harvest.

Each vine produces 4-6 fruits per cycle. Older vines may sprout malformed Glumpumpkins with smiling faces or warped multiple eyes, these are considered bad omens and are rarely eaten.

Ecology and Habitats

Glumpumpkins flourish in soil touched by grief, battle, or long neglect, thriving particularly well in:

• Abandoned farmsteads.

• Ashwood’s outer treelines.

• The blood-fallowed rows of old campaign fields.

• The outskirts of ghost-villages and forgotten shrines.

• They spread quickly but only where the land is emotionally resonant, a trait that baffles botanists and entertains hedge-witches.

Despite their appearance, Glumpumpkins enrich soil and often restore fertility to dying land, making them a paradoxical blessing. However, fields full of them tend to be avoided by nobility or the pious, who see them as vulgar or cursed.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Glumpumpkin flesh is dense, slightly sweet, and rich in:

• Nutrient-heavy starch.

• Trace arcane minerals (often used in ritual sustenance).

• Mood-stabilizing alkaloids (believed to soften grief).

The fruit is known for its starring role in:

• Glumpumpkin Pie: A rich custard-style pie spiced with nut-root and glazed with burnt honey.

• Weeping Broth: A soup made with Glumpumpkin pulp, onion clay, and smoked eel, rumored to ease heartbreak.

• Fleshrolls: Savory wraps of meat and Glumpumpkin baked in lichen crust.

• Some taverns serve the raw pulp with salt and fermented root paste, accompanied by folk songs mimicking the cries of the fruit as a kind of grim table game.

Biological Cycle

Glumpumpkins are planted in late spring and harvested mid-autumn. During harvest, their cries can echo across entire fields. This phenomenon, known as the Harvest Chorus, is both feared and cherished in rural Everwealth. Some villages accompany the harvest with chanted lullabies or blindfolded reapers to “spare the fruit’s shame.” Though its sounds disturb outsiders, most farmers find the cycle oddly comforting, like a seasonal ritual. The fruit itself, once cooked, no longer makes any sound. Notably, there have been multiple reports of city guards or wandering goodfolk breaking into homes or campgrounds, drawn by the piercing cries of Glumpumpkins being prepared; Mistaking the wails for live torture or murder, these concerned interlopers have sometimes burst in with drawn weapons, only to find a flustered cook apologizing over a half-gutted gourd. In some towns, a Glumpumpkin harvest is now preceded by signs that read, “No one’s dying. Just baking.. A common practice born of common courtesy that has also unfortunately been commonly used to conceal actual murders.”

Behaviour

The fruit exhibits the following non-sentient but animated behavior:

• Weeping: Emits soft sobbing from dusk until dawn, especially in moonlight or cold air.

• Screaming: Wails when cut, gutted, or roasted. Pitch and tone vary by region.

• Wilting: Appears to sag more noticeably in times of local sorrow or illness outbreaks.

Despite its dramatic traits, the Glumpumpkin is not sentient, and its behavior is purely reflexive, sustained by minor necromantic residue and an internal enchantment long outlasting its creator.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

The Glumpumpkin has no true senses, but reacts reflexively to emotional and environmental stimuli through residual magick woven into its seedstock. It emits weeping sounds in the presence of sorrow or under moonlight, and screams when carved, an illusion triggered by touch and temperature. Though eerily lifelike, these behaviors are purely cosmetic, sustained by an ancient enchantment with no sentience behind it.

Scientific Name

Cucurbita lamenta.

Origin/Ancestry

Said to be the result of a cruel, bored hedge-witch who fused grief magic with common pumpkin seed to “cheer herself up”, it instead spread like a creeping tragedy, and then embedded itself into the very soil of central Everwealth.

Conservation Status

Abundant and self-sustaining. While it grows mostly where the elite refuse to tread, it is protected informally by common folk, druids, and village cooks alike. Some temples bless Glumpumpkin fields simply to mute their cries, but few dare try to eradicate them, especially when winter mouths grow hungry.