This account by Silverius was originally posted to to Sergio's longstanding forum in GoKrida, told from the point of view of the people of Red Catastrophe, minor souls who think of major souls as gods. The narrative discusses the environment, culture, and government of this imagined planet, including stories and rules for games. Some of the details were inspired by events and discoveries in GoKrida, while others must have been inspired by Silverius' other interests. The GoKridan planet Red Catastrophe Earth, commonly known as Legendary Red Catastrophe, was named in honor of this tale.
Goblin Moss
Goblin Moss is probably one of the most controversial substances in our society. It has a whole range of effects on the human mind and body. It's used by our doctors to heal people, but can also make people sick. Every year lot's of people die due to the use of Goblin Moss.
The most harmless form of Moss is Moss Tea. Moss Tea doesn't have any serious effects, it only causes the drinker to become somewhat more relaxed and spreads a mild feeling of wellness. Moss Tea is made by letting water flow through patches of Goblin Moss and through various filters. After that the water is boiled, leaving an extract behind. This extract is mixed with some herbs, put in a bag and sold. The consumer only has to pour the contents of a bag of extract into hot water to get a nice tea.
A somewhat less harmless form is Goblin Nectar. Goblin Nectar is basically Moss Tea with Violet Nectar instead of water. The Nectar increases the fairly unnoticeable hallucination inducing effects of the Tea by a large factor. Making Goblin Nectar has been forbidden by law and there's a constant campaign going on to make people aware of the risks.
Fact is however that Goblin Nectar is not nearly as dangerous as people make it seem. The effects are mostly due to the subject expecting them, the Goblin Nectar only seems to cause the subjects to strongly relax making halucination effects easier to produce. The reason for the strong campaign against Goblin Nectar is therefore more political. Our Lord and the assembly believe that people, especially the young ones, have the urge to rebel and cross the line.
By making Goblin Nectar illegal we have something that's both forbidden and easily accessible, the idea is that most youngsters will stick to Goblin Nectar for their naughty adventures and not use the actually dangerous stuff. Goblin Nectar also makes for quite a few free community helpers as the courts will just about always use a community work sentence as punishment for braking the Goblin Nectar law, giving those that might commit a serious crime later experience with how fun crimes really are.
When Goblin Moss is more directly used it's effects are far more dangerous and stronger. Chewing moss is used by some minor but old religions to come into contact with the gods or the universe or the Three Legged Goat of Mayhem or whatever. Basically chewing enough moss creates a trance like coma that is very hard to wake up from when you're not prepared for it. There's even a well known story about a Lord that in his trance flew up and up all over the lands but couldn't come down and eventually had to be "helped".
Punishment for posessing chewing moss varies greatly depending on the situation. For the sake of religious peace the guard will usually accidentally overlook chewing moss in religous buildings, as long as there's no sign of it being used by anyone else than trained adults. The posession of chewing moss in a place that's accessible by children on the other hand is considered distributing poison to minors which is legally attempted homicide of minors (a far stretch, but it allows an appropriate punishment for those that put the lives of children at risk).
The most dangerous form of moss are the so called concentrates. Concentrates are mostly a combination of highly concentrated moss extract mixed with nectar and a few other substances to make little blocks that disolve when one puts them in ones mouth. The danger lies in the high concentration and the unknown composition of the blocks, often producers add some special herbs to make the trance even better or to save on moss. The best known variant of this type is Fantasy.
Anyone caught with moss concentrates in his or her posession faces a very long time doing community work (for minors) or working in the quarry (for adults). Anyone caught distributing moss concentrates faces a trip to an unpleasant place. I guess I should explain that. There's a large cave system deep underneath the planets surface, it's a horrid place with lava streams all over and creatures that no man should see, there are sources of food and water there however so it's possible to survive. Once every tempos our Lord uses his magic to send the worst criminals down there, knowing very well that it's highly unlikely they'll ever escape.
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