Yellow Jacket

Origins

The Moss Mothers are not bound by bloodline or region. They are old women who take up a practice of tending moss as though it were a child, a shrine, or a prayer. The exact origin is contested, but the most enduring tale speaks of a widow in the southern marshes. After losing all three of her sons in a campaign, she wandered into the bog barefoot, weeping until her tears soaked into the earth. She collapsed on a bed of moss, ready to give herself to the marsh. When she rose at dawn, the moss beneath her had grown thicker, brighter, softer than the rest. She took this as a command: if her sons could not be saved, she could at least save others.

From this story comes the first truth of the Moss Mothers: they do not fight wars, but they grow what wars destroy.

Habitats & Gardens

Moss Mothers keep gardens where most see only filth or ruin. They coax moss into deliberate growth, cultivating it like farmers:

Stone Beds: cracks in old fortifications, carefully watered, layered with broken shells and ash to thicken the green mats.

Bog Patches: sections of swamp nurtured with bone meal, producing moss dense enough to serve as bedding or bandages.

Wall-Crawls: abandoned towers and shattered walls, climbed daily so moss can be tended at height, left to drape down like banners of green velvet.

The mosses they raise are practical. Thick mats are used as compresses to staunch bleeding. Certain strains steep into teas that soothe fever or calm an anxious heart. Dried and ground, moss can be pressed into poultices to keep wounds from rotting. A Moss Mother's satchel is never empty of these supplies.

Beliefs

Though they share no central doctrine, Moss Mothers live by a handful of common truths whispered from one to another:

Every wound can be covered. No matter how deep, moss can be pressed into it.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

No child is left untreated. Even the poorest, the dirtiest, the enemy's child, none are refused.

Moss remembers the hand that tends it. To abandon moss is to abandon hope.

They believe moss is not merely plant, but memory made soft. It grows strongest in places where grief has been wept. Thus, tending moss is a way of healing both the living and the land itself.

Traditions

Villages touched by Moss Mothers adopt traditions of their own, some solemn, others almost celebratory:

The Green Cradle: Infants have their brows touched with moss before their first steps, a blessing of softness for a hard world.

The Mourning Bed: A corpse is laid on moss overnight, the belief being that grief seeps into the green and eases the weight on the living.

Moss Feast: Once a year, whole villages stew moss into broth with meat and root vegetables. Eating it together is said to "keep the bones from breaking" and the heart from bitterness.

Gift of the Patch: When a Moss Mother passes away, her tended moss is cut and divided among villagers. Pieces are dried and carried as charms, or replanted so her work continues.

Symbolism & Perception

To many, Moss Mothers are living contradictions: women of the margins who wield no blades, carry no banners, yet are honored as fiercely as warriors. Some soldiers mock them as "bog witches," but just as many carry moss charms into battle. It is said that to have moss tied beneath your armor is to return alive, even if broken.

Children adore Moss Mothers. They tell stories of them whispering to moss in secret languages, or carrying baskets so heavy with green that whole roofs vanish beneath it. To a child, they are soft places in a hard world.

Travelers, too, find relief in their presence. No road is so cruel, no ruin so cursed, that a Moss Mother's garden cannot find purchase. Entire routes across the marshlands are marked not with stone cairns or signposts but with glowing green beds of moss nurtured by unseen hands.

For all their kindness, Moss Mothers are not naive. They refuse coin but will not waste their work on those who scorn it. To trample a moss patch is to be banished from a village. In rare cases, Moss Mothers have even refused to tend lords and captains, leaving them to bleed out while treating the lowest of soldiers at their side.

To those who live in Hemera's harsher places, the Moss Mothers are more than healers. They are proof that not all softness dies in war. They are persistence in green, whispering that even after fire, ruin, and grief, something can grow again.