Sadha

While Clan ______ may only claim one island as their home, many nearby islands are also considered part of their territory, if only because there's nobody else around to claim them. Not that the clan uses the islands either; the only things on most of them are Scáthach's travel shelters. However, there is one other island that does get serious use. And that island is the birthplace of Sadha's (soon-to-be) glorious tea enterprise!

Not that an island so close to the Southern Icefield is a good place for her first tea plantation. In fact, it's a downright awful place. Tea needs warm temperatures to grow, and (unless Aeric's in a particularly heated mood) Clan _______'s part of Sornieth could never be described as balmy. It's downright chilly most of the year. But of course, Sadha is a fire dragon, so if there's one thing she's good at, it's making things slightly hotter. Not by much, considering the size of her plantation, but as long as her efforts keep the frost away she's pretty sure that'll be enough. They're just plants, right? Growing is what they do.

Okay, maybe Sadha doesn't really understand plants. It's not like many existed back in the Emberglow Hearth, and the ones that did were hardy to the point of being effectively invincible. They even grew better when you breathed fire on them! (Sadha will not talk about what happened to her first attempt at growing tea.) So it's a good thing that Sadha doesn't have too much draconic pride to ask for help. Clan _______ has a number of nature dragons, and Sadha has recruited some of them to occasionally fly over to the plantation to bless the tea with nature magic. She recruits Arcane dragons too. Any of them that are willing to help. She doesn't really have any idea what arcane magic can do for plants, but many of her clanmates are willing to try casting a few spells, and it's not as if too much love will hurt the crops.

All that magic being cast on Sadha's tea crops has caused rather... unique effects. From a exceedingly literal standpoint, Sadha's requests for magical assistance worked perfectly. The tea on her island grows without anyone needing to take care of it. It also doesn't stop growing. Non-tea plant life is no longer sustainable on her island. Other life might be, if it can be found in the indomitable tea jungle. Is tea supposed to become a jungle? Sadha's not quite sure. It's probably not supposed to glow, or have very sharp edges, or scream, as some of the many, many new varieties of tea she's accidentally created do.

But it is (probably) tea. And provably drinkable. When Sadha sends daring dragons into the tea jungle, they do eventually come back with bundles of tea leaves. Leaves that Sadha eagerly sells to visiting dragons looking for a uniquely arcane beverage experience. After all, what could be more arcane than a tea that explodes if you steep it for too long? If that's not to your taste, try the green tea that turns your scales green – possibly permanently. And for the daring, tea that will let your mind experience the entire lifespan of the tea leaf, from seed to your cup, all in the matter of a few minutes. (Nobody has been capable of drinking two cups of that in a row yet.)

However, Sadha still prefers sharing a cup of mostly normal tea with her clanmates. Let the visitors buy the gimmicky stuff, she doesn't want it. (But she does want their treasure.) She brews it herself, as boiling water is much better suited to her natural talents than growing plants. There's something satisfying about brewing it with her own fire magic, instead of using natural fire. It just tastes better. Unrelatedly, some of the Sadha's favourite tea varieties that she's created can only be boiled by magical fire, which vexes prospective tea leaf buyers to no end.

Of course, one in control of such superb tea production would live in only the most refined of dens. Sadha's is rather deep inside the fortress, and too uncomfortably close to the basement tunnels for most dragons. But for Sadha, it's perfect, as it's connected to some of the ocean caves on the back end of the island. With a bit of piping, some tile mosaics, and a few tasteful sculptures, she's managed to set up her own private hot springs inside the clan's lair. She still has to heat up the water herself, but it's worth the effort.