World: Alfheim
Diet: Brain matter
Height: 1’0″
Lifespan: 2 weeks
Habitat: Any
Activity Cycle: NA
When it comes to artificially created monsters, the realm of Midgard usually comes to mind. However, the magical of ancient fae runs deep, and many gardeners have produced this cruel oddity, perhaps less a monster than a living tool. The mindroot is a favorite of interrogators, thieves, and mages looking for a shortcut to knowledge. Born of a wrinkled, hard seed like a miniature walnut, the mindroot is introduced to a victim through their ear canal or nose, where it spreads root to the brain. For the first week, the victim will suffer from headaches, disorientation, and drowsiness. As the plant devours more and more of their brain, consciousness begins to fade, and those who are not restrained will wander aimlessly, only motor functions remaining.
After two weeks, the subject’s skull splits openĀ and the plant emerges, revealing a pod that glows from within with a purple light. When harvested and eaten, the fruit within releases a flood of knowledge into the user’s mind. Only superhuman minds can properly absorb and sort all the contents of another’s brain, but few are trying to claim everything their victim was (a risky proposition anyway, as taking too much of another’s mind risks becoming them in part). Most sort through the flood and absorb what they want. Military secrets, the location of treasures, magical knowledge. Whatever they need remains deeply embedded in their own mind, the rest easily discarded and forgotten.
Unable to reproduce on their own, there are no wild populations of mindroots, but there have been isolated reports of unharvested mindroots continuing to grow, retaining the personalities of their host as a base as they spread out, seeking out more minds to sate their hunger. Some say these are the origin of the awful roblon, or “mindtrees”, a rare species of plant that feeds on the brains of animals to add to its deep knowledge. Others say the reverse is the case, that mindroots were invented originally from roblon cuttings.
