Native to the Whisper Marsh, Mara’s Curse, also called the Ghost Vine, is a rare variant of the blood vine. The blood vine is a robust bushy plant with green tendrils. These tendrils can grow as thick as the wrist of a common human man. They mostly slither along the thicket’s ground, covering the earth in a sprawling and unexpected manner. The tendrils are densely covered with red thorns, each as long and spiky as a stiletto.
The blood vine variation, Mara’s Curse, has short segments along the tendrils which are ghostly white. These segments are as hard as steel. The thorns of Mara’s Curse can stab through flesh like butter, rupture arteries, and split bones. Then starts the agony. Women lament violent blisters, which burn and fester over weeks, around the spot where the thorns pierced their skin.
A man who gets stabbed by the Ghost Vine’s thorns will suffer a debilitating infection. Over the following weeks the man will feel an irritating scratch in his throat which eventually turns into a full-blown inflammation. He loses the ability to perceive details as his eyes slowly turn opaque. An unending thirst plagues him and he starts to yearn for the ponds of the Whisper Marsh. Certain, that only the waters of the swamp can quench his thirst, he stops hydrating and starts on the pilgrimage back to the notorious marshland. If he makes it before dying of thirst, he plunges into the first dark pond he can find and never emerges again. This is known as Mara’s blood curse.
The Legend of Mara
This all goes back to a folk legend and has its roots in ancient times. A woman named Mara fled an angry mob. Exhausted from the witch hunt, she ended up in the gloomy swamps of the Whisper Marsh. Mara sought refuge from the relentless growls and barks of the dogs at her heels. She ran until her shoes fell off. She waded through the mud until her socks dissolved. She stumbled through the undergrowth until her feet were bloody. The myth says she escaped, by hiding in a grimy pond, holding her breath until the hunters lost interest.
Over the centuries, another version has gained prominence. In it, Mara was caught, beaten, and left to die. Her body was thrown into the murky pools, and the legend says it was preserved from decay and is still waiting to be found somewhere in the Whisper Marsh. In this version, Mara damned the bog, she cursed the environment which should have been her refuge but ended up as her demise. No man shall ever safely traverse this marsh again. No man shall ever walk this land without fear of ending up in that filthy grave of mine.
The myth mentions the white bony segments of the Ghost Vine. The segments are supposedly the parts of the plant which Mara ran into or stepped on during the hectic chase. The parts which pierced her feet until they were bloody and forced her to slow down. In the aftermath it was a Leviathan who felt the ordeal and it was so ashamed of what was done to the woman in its domain. The Leviathan ordered the blood vine to honour Mara’s last wish, and so it was written in blood, that the blood vine shall never flourish again where Mara had touched it.
Only the waters of the sacred wellsprings in the Murienmar Forest, consecrated by the Priestesses of the Verdant Veil, are said to reverse the affliction of Mara’s Curse. In fact, some early versions of the myth speak of Mara as one of the original Druids who was present when the Verdant Veil was created. In any event, the blood vine has long been a cultural object in this circle, as the Green Cloaks, the elite paramilitary of the Verdant Veil, to this day, use treated tendrils of blood vine, to craft their signature weaponry.