The Tree of Sacrifice
The spirits of the land protect the people who live alongside them, but they only have an obligation to do so when their stipulations are met. In many places, these stipulations and spirits have been forgotten. Since the fall of the Empire, the people of Tamardam have been returning to their old ways, respecting the dangerous lands they live in. In some places, however, the old ways were not forgotten. In some places, the spirits of the land are too dangerous to neglect. The Tree of Sacrifice is the home of and altar to one of these spirits.Crooked branches scrape the sky,
Silent the corpses cannot cry.
They hangle and dangle swaying free
Ruby red drops giving life to the tree.-- A Falsyth nursery rhyme.
The Tree sits on the crest of Mount Ibanoff, a mountain in the Karsarov Range, overlooking the town of Mosca. The spirit of the tree, by whim, can choose to visit ruin upon the town and its surroundings. From the Tree dangles a number of chains, from which the headman of the village must hang a corpse when demanded through oneiric visions. The spirit's desires shift with the season, and woe to the headman who does not fulfill the spirit's wishes. The Tree's grizzly history is known to few outside Mosca. Instead, its imposing, twisting branches are a landmark upon which travelers can set their eyes. Who can say; maybe the spirit of the Tree of Sacrifice beckons them.
In return for sacrifice, the spirit is said to ensure the safety of Mosca and its people. This pact was made long ago, and the villagers have largely forgotten it. The few villagers who can read may discover it in the time-damaged pages of the village annals that this pact was annulled by an Imperial general leading the soldiers occupying the backwater Tamard settlement. In an attempt to prove the shamanistic practices of the village mere superstition, he desecrated the tree. He commanded his magician to sear away every leaf before urinating on the tree. Over the course of weeks, the commander developed a rash that would not be abated, and from the pus-filled lumps of flesh burst writhing roots that bloomed into leafy trees. This condition spread to every member of the Imperial army occupying the town, and any villager who had aided them even once. The spirit was wrathful, and demanded increasing sacrifice on threat of destruction. This relationship continues to the present.
Type
Tree
Wow! Absolutely love that there is a nursery rhyme for this location, and that it is so steeped in myth. Does the spirit of the tree offer any benefit (beside not being destroyed) for making sacrifices to it?
Ah! Thank you so much!! ♥ This really made my morning. c: I added another paragraph to respond to your prompting question, but to expand on the in-world information, there are some spirits that are benevolent and kind, and will provide benefits such as fertility, bounteous harvests, favourable hunting conditions for people who give them offerings. Others are more neutral, and are happy to provide a bit of protection to people who show them respect, but are otherwise disinterested in people. Others, like the spirit in the tree, are malevolent and demanding. These dispositions are not static, and the spirits do have the ability to reason, and have some degree of emotion. Their patterns of thinking do tend toward what we would call emotion-driven. They are part of nature and nature is part of them.