A bright mid­sum­mer moon lit the clear­ing. Shad­owed fir arms, sag­gy with cones, swayed over the dewy grass. Soft, twist­ed mush­rooms poked above the blades. A lone weed with heavy chard-like stems grew alone in the clear­ing’s cen­ter.

A rustling. Beneath the low firs, two heads poked into the clear­ing, dragged by dirty, flan­nel elbows. One head, pos­sessed of a griz­zled beard, turned to the oth­er: The round face of a young boy.

“There, Tim” whis­pered the beard, point­ing with a dirty, cal­loused fin­ger. 

The boy’s brown eyes went wide. “That’s it, Pa?”

“Aye. See the dirt piled ’round the stem? That’s how ye can tell” said Pa. 

“How long’s it been growin’ here?”

“Did­n’t grow here, son. Bug­gers move. Plant ’emselves anew every night. This’n’s been roam­ing the hol­low for a month. It’s a luck I found it” said Pa. 

“Ol’ nan says they’re ter­ri­ble dan­ger­ous.”

“Aye, they are.” He looked to his lad. “Got nary a choice, though, son. Need that root to help yer mum, for her pain.”

He gri­maced, watched the weed close­ly, eyes asquint. “Just keep a sharp eye on and hold qui­et.”

For a long while, they lay in the silence and the damp. Dew gath­ered on their backs. The smell of mush­rooms stuck in their throats. A night­jar called, broke the silence just once.

A moth cir­cled the clear­ing, bobbed drunk­en­ly in the air. It dipped, alit on the weed’s waxy stem. A leaf twitched. The moth dart­ed away.

Pa shift­ed. His eyes grew wild. “Gimme the axe, Tim. S’about to move.”

Tim jerked awake from a half doze. He stared, frozen. “Does it know we’re here?” he said, pan­icked. 

“Shh, lad. Put yer wax in yer ears and gimme the axe!” whis­pered pa, hoarse.

Tim shift­ed on the wet grass, put the han­dle of a split­ting axe to his father’s rough palm. “I’m scared, Pa.”

“Aye, so am I” said Pa, ris­ing to stand at the clear­ing’s edge.

The weed twitched, began to rise atop a dome of shift­ing soil. Dirt drib­bled to the grass, reveal­ing first a skew-jawed skull, ver­te­brae, clav­i­cles.

A skele­tal thing straight­ened in the moon­light. Soil sloughed from its frame, equal parts twined root and ragged flesh. The weed wob­bled atop its cracked skull. Spongy, red­dish root-flesh filled the cra­ni­um, bulged from emp­ty, bro­ken eye sock­ets. 

Pa hoist­ed his axe, set a quick pace towards the thing. Boots thumped into soft earth. Teeth grit­ted under griz­zled mus­tache. Moon­light flashed in the sharp­ened split­ting blade’s edge. 

The thing jerked, turned to face the charg­ing man. Its jaw dropped, jut­ted as if to roar. 

A click broke the night air, sharp and painful as an icepick to the back of the skull. Pa tum­bled, dropped the axe. He clutched his head, bel­low­ing. Run­ny blood trick­led from his eyes and nose. 

The skele­tal thing stepped over Pa and stooped. It motion was stilt­ed, con­tract­ed. It knelt over him, head-weed droop­ing. Feel­ers like the pale out­growths of an over-ripe pota­to snaked from the slack-slung jaw. Twitch­ing, they felt for his eyes and mouth. Pa moaned, dul­ly, bloody face screwed up and deliri­ous.

There was a sharp crunch. The thing jerked up and whipped its head about, feel­ers writhing furi­ous­ly. A sec­ond swing sent its plant­ed skull rolling to the grass.

Pa peered up and saw his son, axe in hand, sil­hou­et­ted against the moon. 

Mandragora abulates

In the light, they are innocu­ous weeds; no more inter­est­ing than a sprout of bur­dock. In dark, they are hideous night­walk­ers; dan­ger­ous as any grue.

They are man­drakes: Human bod­ies com­man­deered by a species of pro­to­car­niv­o­rous plants.

Man­drago­ra ambu­lates. A root that nests in human skulls. * It eats up the brain, con­nects to the spine, and takes con­trol. Por­tions of the body need­ed to ambu­late and dig are pre­served. Every­thing else is allowed to rot, become fer­til­iz­er.

The root and its host is know as a man­drake. Most man­drakes resem­ble human car­cass­es with broadleaf weeds pro­trud­ing from their bro­ken skulls. 

Dur­ing the day, man­drakes stay hid­den. Buried, save for their leaves. At night, the plant unearths itself, looks for a new loca­tion. This habit of relo­ca­tion is pro­ce­dur­al. Its occur­rence depends on the man­drake’s cur­rent state.

If a man­drake is lack­ing in sun, it will move to a new loca­tion. If its lack­ing in food, it will, as well. Wan­der­ing increas­es a man­drake’s chances at encoun­ter­ing an ani­mal or human. If it encoun­ters the for­mer, it will sim­ple kill it, enjoy­ing the rot­ting car­cass for a week or so. If a human is encoun­tered, the man­drake will attack. ** 

Assum­ing it makes a kill of the unfor­tu­nate human, the plant enacts one of two vio­la­tions upon their body: If it wants for a new host (nec­es­sary, as man­drake host bod­ies become weak and rot­ten, in time) it dis­cards the husk of the old and takes up in the bro­ken head of the new. If not, it will repro­duce, crack­ing the skull and insert­ing seeds. † These ger­mi­nate with­in a sea­son, giv­ing rise to a new man­drake. Both des­e­cra­tions require the skull be breached. While capa­ble of bone-break­ing blows (and of tool use, in rocks) man­drakes are unco­or­di­nat­ed and may take many whacks at a head before gain­ing entry. For this rea­son, the sound of repet­i­tive, unknown strikes in the woods is an ill omen.

The Mandrake’s cry

Man­drakes uti­lize a unique son­ic attack. The root, when con­joined with a human body, can project a pow­er­ful ultra­son­ic attack so pow­er­ful as to inca­pac­i­tate any human. The attack, col­lo­qui­al­ly known as the man­drake’s “cry,” is noth­ing like an actu­al cry. It is per­ceived as a sin­gle, ter­ri­ble pierc­ing of the skull. A acute, shat­ter­ing note describ­able as a “click.” At the mer­est, it induces pain and dis­ori­en­ta­tion. At close range—at its strongest—it spells death by the ener­getic burst­ing of vital organs. If a tar­get is not total­ly inca­pac­i­tat­ed by the cry, it may be eas­i­ly dis­patched by the crea­ture in melee with bru­tal blows.

Mandragora Root

Lit­torans have con­coct­ed a broad range of uses for man­drake root. ††  When extract­ed as a serum, it is known as an effec­tive painkiller, seda­tive, poi­son, or aphro­disi­ac, depend­ing on prepa­ra­tion and dose. The root (knot­ty, red, stuck in a skull) is worth upwards of 10 crowns per kg. Man­drago­ra roots tend towards 1–2 kg each.

As a result of this use­ful­ness, folk have devised meth­ods of hunt­ing man­drakes. Lit­tle can be done to reduce the effi­ca­cy of the cry (save for spe­cial­ized head­gear.) Thus, oth­er plots are con­coct­ed.

The tra­di­tion­al means of man­drake hunt­ing involves creep­ing up on the plant dur­ing the day, tying a goat to its stem, and slow­ly walk­ing away. The goat (as its a goat) will even­tu­al­ly graze the area and wan­der away, tug­ging the man­drake. The­o­ret­i­cal­ly, this caus­es the mon­ster to emerge and cry at the goat, who will serve as a dis­trac­tion while the hunters swoop in.

Tradition

Some indi­vid­u­als, out of con­cern for tra­di­tion, refuse to hunt man­drakes. It is believed ælves keep man­drakes as gar­den pets, and to kill one would be to incite the wrath of the Oth­er (an idea many North­ern­ers dread.)

Though few know it, ælves are attract­ed to the scent of Man­drago­ra serum. Through­out his­to­ry, many a patient, an addict, or a lover has com­plained of visions of ælves. To ease their suf­fer­ing, they con­sume more root. Unbe­knownst to them, the man­drake’s milk only wors­ens their plight.

note

Stats for man­drakes can be found here.