Dirge moth

Dirge moths are a fairly large species of moths with distinctive colorations: they are black with white markings that can glow when the moths are agitated. The white markings are said to be rather skeletal in appearance, especially when they glow in the dark. They are highly poisonous and only active at night. Though folk superstitions claim they lay their eggs inside corpses of people who die in the forest, they actually lay their eggs inside rotting trees. They spend most of their life (about 23 years) as larvae, feeding on wood pulp and absorbing ambient magic, spending their chrysalis stage within the safety of their wooden home before emerging en masse one night. Dirge moths do not feed, subsisting solely on the mana reserves they stockpiled as larvae, and live for just one day before dying. Within this one day they mate and find a suitable place to lay their eggs. They possess highly developed soul sense, which they use to track down and judge potential mates. It is also useful for avoiding threats, though dirge moths are too poisonous for most things and rarely attacked.

The larvae have very high mana reserves, but have no known use in alchemy – though many magical creatures consider them an absolute delicacy.

Even before the soul perception potions had been developed and become widespread, dirge moths have always had a heavy association with death and necromancy, likely because of their skeletal markings and highly poisonous nature. They were said to flutter about around dying people, waiting for them to breathe their final breath so they could steal their souls as it leaves the body.

Morlock societies, before their destruction at the hand of Ikosian refugees, considered them sacred in some way. This probably only added to their sinister, deathly reputation among surface inhabitants of pre-Ikosian Altazia.

Adult dirge moths and over-ripe chrysalises can be harvested for their poison, though trade in it is illegal.

The most useful part of the dirge moth is the chrysalis, which must be harvested in just the right moment. It is easy to recognize if the harvester picked the right moment for an experienced alchemist, because the contents of a properly harvested chrysalis are a milky white slime as opposed to an orange-tinted chunky contents of a too-soon harvested one, or a black jelly exhibited by a too-late harvested one. The chrysalis can be used for a variety of potions, but is most important as a component for potions that grant soul perception to people.

Although dirge moths are only active for one day every 23 years, they are actually quite numerous in the northern wilderness of Altazia. As such, their chrysalises can he harvested in great numbers when the right time comes.

Dirge moth chrysalises are used in the most affordable and reliable potion for soul perception known yet. This potion was developed and perfected by the Triumvirate Church but eventually leaked out of the Church hierarchy and became wildly employed in necromatic circles.^[2]

The church is very unhappy about this and has tried for quite a while to hunt down these recipes and destroy them, without much success. These days they have mostly given up on this, as it has become obvious that this is a lost cause – too many people know the recipe now to truly suppress it – but they have still made actual usage of the potion illegal in many countries.

The Triumvirate Church uses this potion to create soul perception potions on a mass scale, turning many of its priests into soul mages every 23 years. The resulting abundance of soul mages has done a lot for keeping the Triumvirate Church a powerful and influential force in modern times, despite losing their divinely-granted powers in the Silence.^[3]