Skills and Strengths
Mae | Mona | Gemma

One of Mae's strongest skills is her familiarity with herbalism, foraging, and plantlore. As a Woodwalker, these skills would have been necessary to treat wounds or illnesses, supplement camp meals, and navigate the pathless mountain slopes.  The journey she and her companions undertake tests every bit of her competency. Here are some of the plants and fungi she encounters or makes use of to fulfill the quest of ​Woodwalker.

DISCLAIMER: Mae is highly adept at identifying edible and medicinal plants. You and I are not (probably). If you are interested in foraging, medicinal herbs, or wildcrafting, look for classes in your area, or seek out an expert to learn from. Do not attempt to use any of the items here based on this listing alone---particularly not wild mushrooms, which can be poisonous if misidentified or prepared incorrectly, and Queen Anne's Lace, which closely resembles the highly toxic water hemlock. -​Emily

Medicinals

JEWELWEED
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​The juice from this plant’s stalk can be used to treat all kinds of skin irritants, but is especially useful in combating the spread of poison ivy. Mae has trouble finding some when she needs it because it’s not blooming season for the speckled orange flowers, making the plant harder to spot.

SWEET BIRCH
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When the twigs are boiled into a tea, sweet birch produces a compound very similar to aspirin. Mae uses it, along with tisanes of spicebush and black willow, to bring down a fever.

LAVENDER
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While not native to the Silverwood, lavender oil is used a few times throughout Woodwalker. It’s one of the few necessities Mae purchases before their journey, knowing she won’t be able to access it in the mountains. Colm uses it to treat yellow jacket stings that Arlen sustains after whacking a jessamine bush with his atlatl.

JOINT-PINE
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This plant is better known by its more recognizable name, ephedra, and has been used for millennia to treat the symptoms of asthma. Joint-pine is another non-native plant in the Silverwood; it grows out west in the more arid climate of Alcoro. As a Woodwalker, Mae would have carried it in her medical kit to combat potential allergic reactions to insect stings or poison ivy. 

Edibles

WILD CARROT
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More commonly known as Queen Anne’s Lace, Mae forages for the tender young roots of this plant to supplement a camp meal. The seeds of this plant also provide the most common form of birth control throughout the Eastern World.

FRUIT LEATHERS
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Fruit leather is just another name for dried fruit. Often it refers to fruit being cooked down, mashed, and spread out to dry in leathery sheets. Though not something Mae forages, it is a staple of long-distance travel. The protagonists receive a bundle of apple leathers from some Hill-folk they encounter in Winder.

CHANTERELLES
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These golden forest mushrooms are highly-prized edible fungi. Mae comes across some to use in the same meal as the wild carrots, above, along with dandelion greens, nodding onion, and fresh rock bass. Seriously, that was a good meal.

WOODLAND STRAWBERRIES
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As the name suggests, these small, strongly-flavored strawberries can be found in the woods, especially along trails and clearings. Mae and the others come across a well-timed patch of these after a mishap costs them their packs and supplies.

Troublemakers

POISON IVY
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Leaves of three, let them be! Depending on a person’s sensitivity, poison ivy can cause a virulent, itchy rash. When Mae and the others run afoul of some, she hurriedly brings them to a creek to scrub their skin with wet sand to remove the oil.

GREENBRIER
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Hardy and tenacious, these plants have hooked thorns and can form impenetrable barriers when growing in tangled thickets.  Though beneficial to many animals, there’s no denying it’s a troublesome plant for a person to run into. Mona and her brothers learn this the hard way when Mae fails to warn them about a patch.

RHODODENDRON
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Rhododendron gets labeled a “troublemaker” only because of the obstacle it presents to Mae and her companions. Much of the Silverwood Mountains are covered with dense, damp rhododendron thickets, their twisting branches hindering swift travel. Arlen especially gets fed up with them after a particularly tedious slog through a rhodie-choked ravine.

Sacred

The spiritual entity of the Eastern World is the Light. Every culture interprets it differently—some folk think it’s an external guiding force, others, an internal divinity. Either way, every country has its own distinct place it sees the Light (such as in the sunrise or phases of the moon) and its own distinct way of revering it (such as always rising with the sun or fasting during a new moon).

MOSS
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In Silverwood folklore, moss was the first plant to respond to the call of the Light and cover the mountains. Mae shares her folk’s creation story while camping in a stand of boulders covered with thick moss. A derogatory name used by many outsiders to describe the Wood-folk is mossgrubber.

FOXFIRE
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Foxfire refers to any number of bioluminescent fungi, often glowing with a blue or green cast. Combined with the Silverwood’s native fireflies, it is where the Wood-folk see the Light. Mae is uplifted one evening to find they have camped in a ring of foxfire, though Mona and Arlen are not nearly as taken with it as she is.