Wisch Incense

Thin black sticks of brittle plant matter, the incense is made by compressing the crushed welwisch leaves into a clay mold and baked in the sun over several days. The color is a slightly iridescent ebony black, much like the leaves themselves, and give off a faint pleasant scent. This scent is intensified when the incense is burned, creating a thin, pink smoke of unique smells that are different for each individual.

The Bright Temples use dozens of these incense over the course of a day, filling the temple with pleasant smells that help to both encourage visitors, and to keep the priests and acolytes calm during their work.

Funeral pyres are often filled with hundreds of these incense, to offset the smell of the burning body and perhaps offer the slightest bit of ease from the grief loved ones are feeling.
  Wealthy households can also burn incense during special occasions, or when they need to relax. Healers have begun using them more to keep their patients from making their wounds or illnesses worse through stress.

Because the whole stick is made of the same material, even broken or damaged incense can be burned for the same purpose as a full stick. In the bright temples, if at the end of the day there is incense left that is too short to warrant being used the following day, they are given to healers to use as a short term stress relief for more anxious patients.

Temples and priests readily buy out welwisch leaves to make incense sticks, oftentimes leaving what incense has found its way into the market for the citizens to buy. Due to the rarity of materials, and the hazards related to gathering, the incense is fairly expensive for the common citizen, leading to it being particularly desirable for the wealthy families.
  Traders will often deal with the harinae tribes as a common source of raw materials, taking advantage of their culture’s nomadic nature to gather the rare plant material without having to risk going into the desert themselves. In return, they give the tribes large quantities of water, or more refined metal tools and armor that are made in the cities’ stationary forges.

The welwisch leaves only have a limited shelf life, but once they are dried out as sticks, they can be stored indefinitely for future use. Age does not have an apparent effect upon the scented smoke given off.