Deep in the southeast of the Seeping Waste rises a half-sunk ziggurat, its blackened steps slick with swamp moss and coiled roots. Strange pale flowers—Ghost Pipe—grow in thick clusters around its base, their ghostly stems glowing faintly in moonlight.

The Ashen Knollsmen say Ghost Pipe is unlike any other herb: parasitic, it feeds upon the magically infused soil that seeps from the ziggurat’s buried stones. To gather it is no simple task—it can only be harvested at night, with a ritual of whispers and smoke, else the plants wilt into useless ash.

Legends claim Ghost Pipe blooms wherever friends quarrel and blood is spilled, and that is why it thrives here, around a shrine raised long ago to the efreeti lord Khalitharius.

Now, the Knollsmen warn that something stirs within the swamp. Pilgrims vanish, shadows move in the mist, and the Ghost Pipe lies unharvested. Without it, the Knollsmen cannot brew their healing poultices.

🗣 Rumors of the Ziggurat of Khalitharius

1. “The Ghost Pipe only drinks sorrow.” Wherever kin have quarreled or comrades shed blood, the pale stems rise overnight. That’s why it thrives at the ziggurat—too much blood spilled there to count.

2. “The ziggurat hums at night.” Some Knollsmen claim they hear a forge’s thrum, like bellows and hammers, echoing under the swamp when the moon is high.

3. “No torch burns long within the steps.” Fires sputter and die inside, as though the stones themselves drink the flame.

4. “The gnomes built it, not men.” Long ago, the Craggwhistle gnomes made a shrine here to their fiery patron. Some say their bones are still chained in the lower halls.

5. “Ghost Pipe taken without the rite turns black and writhes.” The Knollsmen say those who try to snatch it by daylight wake screaming, their tongues blistered as if by fire.

6. “The swamp has a new master.” Travelers whisper that slick-skinned worshippers—frog-men or worse—chant praises in the muck, guarding the ziggurat as though it were their temple.

   
   

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