Material
A rare hedgewitchery reagent: the powdered, enchantment-prepared remains of a freshwater nymph's bound essence, preserved in the form of a single pearl. Antimei's most celebrated counter to Nemovorti. The recipe became canonical Magelaw anti-undead doctrine after Hedgemage.
The Pearl o' Nymph is a rare hedgewitchery reagent prized by Wilderlands practitioners as a counter to Nemovorti and other undead. The pearl itself is the preserved, enchantment-prepared remains of a freshwater nymph's bound essence; the working method (the pearl is crushed, powdered, sealed inside a duck-egg, and the egg heavily charged with verdant energy before being thrown at the target) is folk-magical rather than thaumaturgical, but it works on creatures that warmagic alone cannot easily touch.
The technique is preserved in the deep-Wilderlands hedgewitch tradition that Antimei the Witch of Tolindir represents. Most Imperial thaumaturges had dismissed it as superstition. Antimei's use of it in Hedgemage — she crushed her own kept Pearl o' Nymph, prepared the duck-egg, and used the resulting projectile to drive a Nemovort and her draugen out of the Inmar streets — established the technique as canonical Magelaw anti-undead doctrine.
A crushed pearl o' nymph, powdered to a fine dust and sealed into a duck's egg after it was heavily enchanted with verdant energy. It took weeks to prepare. But it worked. . . . She vanished like a passing rash.
— Antimei, on driving off a Nemovort
After Pentandra's adoption of Antimei as a Falas-resident hedgewitch-prophetess (post-Hedgemage), Pentandra's laboratory began studying the Pearl o' Nymph mechanic and produced a refined version that magelords could prepare more rapidly. The Magelaw and Alshari Tower Arcane carry stocks of prepared Pearl o' Nymph eggs in their counter-undead arsenals; Rondal's Falas-shadowmage operations used them in the Caramas Nemovort campaign.
Antimei herself attributed the duck-egg vehicle to local convenience: "I live on a lake. We have ducks." Subsequent thaumaturgical study has not identified any irreplaceable property of the duck's egg; chicken or goose eggs serve as well, though the verdant-energy charge holds slightly differently. The duck's-egg form remains the traditional one out of respect for Antimei.
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