Little girl's tallow

Little girl's tallow is a rare and enigmatic substance found in very small quantiities in the Eleven Cities which surround the Sea of Jars. It is associated with the worship of at least two of the cults active in the pre-Wesmodian era and therefore of interest to thaumatologists investigating the magic of that time, though genuine samples are difficult to come by. The method of its manufacture is not known, at least publically.  

Description

  The long-standing supposition about little girl's tallow is that it is rendered human fat, specifically that of young girls. Although this story is still fairly common among the general populace, those who have been able to examine samples of the substance are unanimous in their assertion that it is not fat at all, human or otherwise, but something which might be mistaken for it at first glance. It is a dense white material, roughly the texture of beeswax, but of a virutally colourless translucency. Like wax it can be moulded with the fingers, an undertaking that becomes much easier if the substance is heated, whcih will cause it to soften and eventually melt. Once melted it can be poured into moulds; although it will take substantally longer than wax to harden, it will eventually set in its new shape.   When heated, this substance gives off a very distinctive aroma. Those who have smelled it variously descibe it as floral, sweet or spicy. Some suggest it has an effect akin to wine, though it is exceedingly rare for anyone to smell enough of it at once to become genuinely intoxicated. All, however, are unted in their assertion that it is pervasive and evocative, describing it as something they smelled in their childhood but cannot precisely place - an impression they suggest is very calming. It has been suggested that smelling this substance might have some sort of theraputic effect on mood, though it is so rare that nobody has yet secured a large enough supply to test this idea.  

Provenance

  It is generally agreed that little girl's tallow is an artificial, manufactured substance, or at least something very highly refined, like high-grade steel or gold smelted out of ore, though what it might be refined from is unclear. The most likely guess is that it is a vegetable product, a botanical oil from an unknown and possbly extinct plant.   Whatever it actually is, little girl's tallow is not known to be manufactured openly by anybody. Given how valuable the substance is to those who wish to study (or sample) it, this would indicate that the method by whch it is made has somehow been lost. Given its association with pre-Wesmodian cults, it is theorised that this method was among the information lost in the Wesmodian Reformation.    Despite the fact that nobody knows how to make it, tiny caches of little girl's tallow are occasionally found and seep out onto the open market, where discoverers can (assumng they can prove they have the genuine article) can all but name their price. These caches are almost invariably found in either Elpaloz or Adymalon. Since these caches tend to be found by accident, seldom contain as much as a handful of the stuff, and tha moons or even years typically elapse between finds, the combined output of little girl's tallow from both cities is seldom as much as a pound a year on average.  

Thaumatological significance

  It is wdely believed that the substance known as little girl's tallow is an insence of some descrption which was moulded into candles and used to charge the atmosphere of relgious services in the pre-Wesmodan era. The controversy among thaumatologists is over which religious cult used the substance. Two pre-Wesmodian cults are generally agreed to have made use of insence in their observances, those of Hayan and Maryas. Both these goddesses might have given the substance its ghoulish name - Hayan because she was traditionally depicted as a little girl, and Maryas because her assocation with violence and murder make it at least vaguely apropo for her worship to include something which at least purports to be human remains.    The suggestion that little girl's tallow was used in the worhship of Hayan springs from the well-attested use of candles by her cult. Those interested in the purported apotropaic effects of such rituals theorise that the substance was moulded into candles, or possibly simply used to perfume them, and that the smell given off as the candles burned contributed to the protective effect of the rituals. The notion is fundamentally sound and supported by the fact that some of the candles used in these rituals are known to have been perfumed. Conversely, the worship of Hayan typically took place in open, collonaded buildings where any such scent would quickly dissapate, so the idea has problems. It is also difficult for any thaumatologist to test the matter as those with the resources to acquire any of the perfume are loathe to adulterate it with conventional wax. If any experiments related to this matter have ever been conducted, the results have never been disseminated.   Insofar as anything is known for sure about the cult of Maryas, it may be an equally likely candidate. Maryas was worshipped mostly in private, enclosed spaces which would need artificial lighting and where the scent of burning insence would concentrate and linger. This, combined with the prominent mention of candles and smoke in the various (admittedly mutually contradictory) grimoires associated with the cult, makes many thaumatologists suspect the substance is related to these groups. Again, however, it is difficult to make any partcular progress on any testing of this matter because the chaotic nature of Maryan literature turns any attempt to systematise it into a set of actual ritual procedures a matter of guesswork. The overlap between those who can afford the substance and those who can make any such guesses is very small.   All told little girl's tallow is one of the more intractable mysteres left behind by the Wesmodian Reformation. Whether this makes fools of those who pay high prices for the often only knuckle-sized nodules of the substance that find their way out of Elpaloz and Andymalon is hard to say; some people are willing to buy it simply to smell its unique aroma for themselves.