#Drawlloween #Inktober 6 - Pumpkin

Pumpkins exist in the Darkhive. No-one knows which of the survivor races brought them, but as one of the few flowering plants in the hive they certainly can't have developed here naturally. In a fertile patch of ground, pumpkins grow like weeds, spreading their tendrils, ravenously consuming nutrients and producing their bulbous fruits.

A few herbivorous creatures seek out pumpkins, and it is through the digestion of pumpkin seeds by nomadic creatures that the plants have spread widely across the hive.

Unlike most things in the Darkhive, there isn't anything particularly ominous about pumpkins. They aren't toxic, they don't lure maleficent creatures, they aren't a source of magical energy, and they don't create psychic effects. The only thing that could be said about pumpkins is the fact that many settlements near a pumpkin patch have a ready source of food, and a valuable trade commodity with other nearby settlements. Pumpkins are probably one of the more nutritious forms of vegetation.

While some cultures across the Darkhive eat pumpkins, others feed them to their pigs and livestock. Tended patches are commonly marked with a single pumpkin carved in some way to indicate the presence of a farmer. Thus, when a pumpkin patch is encountered it is considered good etiquette to examine the pumpkins, and if any are carved into grotesque faces or with artistic interpretations of monsters, a wise wanderer knows that this was done to scare off potential thieves. Unmarked patches are considered fair game, but such patches may be regularly harvested by wandering goblins and other less civilized races, they are often short on fruit.

There was a period a few decades ago when an insidious cult used pumpkin as a flavouring in everything. Exorcists combined with zealots, inquisitors, and many varieties of heretics, in cooperation unseen in recorded history, the cult was obliterated. Attempts were made to remove all pumpkins from the hive to ensure such a cult would not have the resources to start their perversion again. Complete removal of pumpkins from the hive proved impossible, and within a few years new patches were identified.

Despite this, the pumpkin heretics have not become public again and to this day "Pumpkin Spice" is only ever mentioned in hushed tones as it draws stern stares from law enforcement officials, and righteous fury from the religious.