This crimson red relative of knotweed is native to the Blood Swamps, far to the east, where it covers vast acres, choking out all other plant life until the ground grows too wet to support it. Recently, though, the full extent of its healing powers have become known in the Diarchy and collecting it is the reason that the majority of ships who brave the dangerous sail there choose to do so.
It has long been known that packing a wound with Bloodweed facilitates healing while also reducing the chances of infection. Although it performs this function better than similar herbs native to the Diarchy it was not so much better as to make the long trip worthwhile. Until the events of last year, when Pietr Tomason - the ship's carpenter on board the
Patriarch of the East - lost a finger to a saw while anchored off the Blood Swamps.
By the most reliable accounts - sailors being what they are the story has been exagerrated and warped many times in the telling - Tomason packed the wound with the local Bloodweed, knowing its healing properties and then on little more than a whim splinted the severed finger to the stump. Over the course of the next day or so the finger regrew to the stump, eventually becoming reattached to the extent that the splint was no longer necessary. He lost some dexterity in the process and - as he told the countless strangers anxious to buy him an ale and hear his story - it "hurts like a bitch" in damp weather but the funger was reattached and functional.
The Patriarch's Captain was an entrepreneuring spirit and ordered the gathering of a few barrels to bring back to the healers of Dus A Thanal.
Experiments in the various houses of healing in the city discovered the full extent of the weed's powers. If a body part is severed and the wound on both sides is packed with Bloodweed quickly enough - within half an hour at least, the sooner the better - the blood weed will form a bond between the two parts sufficient to allow some basic control of the formerly missing limb. The join is clearly visible as a layer of deep red between the two sections of flesh. Fine control is likely impossible and the ache in damp weather seems to be a constant but basic tasks can be performed by a severed arm and a reattched leg allows walking and even running, albeit at a reduced speed and in a comically lopsided manner.
The weed is not capable of resurrection or similar, experiments on condemned prisoners have confirmed that it is perfectly capable of reattaching a decapitated head but the corpse reamins a corpse, simply one with a reattched head.
The weed enters the patients bloodstream, or has some effect on it at least, and leaves anyone with a reattched limb's blood darker and with a strong smell which many people have described as "spinach-y". Further, bloodweed cannot bond to bloodweed, only to flesh, so if another cut is made in the same place then further reattachment is impossible. Having too many reattachments seems to be fatal, causing a variety of symptoms before liver failure and death - likely as a result of the number of contaminants in the bloodstream.
The climate of the Darchy is a little too cold and dry for cultivation of Bloodweed although attempts are ongoing. Clerics of the Church have managed to manipulate local conditions sufficiently to allow its growth but maintaining them takes a large amount of energy and it is rare for the Church to sanction such a plantation. On the other hand, the unfavourable conditions mean that Bloodweeds tendancy to overtake all other plants is curtailed and it is not (yet, at least) an invasive species.
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