The Lore of Sage Cassius of the Garden

Cassius, the ginger-bearded sage with a softly-wizened presence that speaks of a settled sense of wisdom. He spends his days tending to his gardens with care and welcoming to all who would seek reprieve in its tranquil shade.

All know and speak fondly of Cassius and his gardens, and yet... only a careful few (perhaps even none at all) can upon closer questioning recall any particulars of occasioning his calm oasis, nor even where it resides.

Where suspicions ought to have grown over time, oddly none have ever sprouted, as if the very mention of the sage and his gardens conjurs a powerful kind of sedation, a dampening of doubts.

Despite this strangely unconcerned acceptance of the wizard's cloaked existence within the realm, some had taken notice of his coming as the first known observance of a ginger-haired inhabitant among them, along with the subsequent blossoming of inumeraby more folk with the same fiery tint to their locks.

It is commonly said that gingers have no souls.... in jest amongst all but Cassius himself, who alone amongst all living gingers can recollect the dreadful self-inflicted genesis of his own gingerness. Only Cassius retains the true name of the monstrous organism that grew of his own botanic castings, experimental graftings gone terribly awry, then sprawling uncontrolled into soul-consuming tendrils of alluring flora:

Gard'lien, the green eater of souls.

From its very moment of germination, Gard'lien took to sprout within the vitality of its creator with a thirst so searing that it scorched the poor wizard's bodily vessel down to its very follicles. Its host left gingerly on the verge of complete consumption, Gard'lien was struck with its first cognicanze: a fear of self-cannibalization.

Only then (and only this once) did Gard'lien restrain its appetite, instead cradling the unconsumed leftovers of the wizard's soul within its spreading roots, and nursing Cassius back to a bound state of.... liveness. Sufficient to serve as the sage-yet-nearly-soulless siren of the gardens, a voice to lure others into Gard'lien's foliage.

Those so lured depart melted of their very essence, utterly drained and expelled back into the common realm as physical shells that persist until expiry only as wound-up automaton, marching among their living counterparts in indistinguishable likeness - other than their their sudden gingerness. Gard'lien leaves behind this trail of crimson as the only markings of its monstrous hunger for souls, with only broken remnants of Cassius to bear conscious witness to its sprawl.

Entered by: 0xba29…0345 and preserved on chain (see transaction)