Cyrum+belwheat

//"Naturally, there's a story behind my people's signature crop, with the usual mix of looming death, innovation, betrayal and eventual triumph -- all wiped out by the calamity that destroyed my homeland. Bringing belwheat back -- grown by free Cyrans -- would be important to the restoration of our culture. Even if we are now technically Brelish."// **~ Governor Oargev ir'Wynarn**

In the early days of Galifar, with the War of the Mark fading into distant memory, the Dragonmarked Houses competed ruthlessly and innovated wildly. Mercenaries underwritten by Orien and Kundarak undercut House Deneith for specific contracts. Sivis couriers, if slower, offered services House Orien couldn't. Cannith constructs vied with Vadalis magebred horses for the favor of elite cavalry units. And in dark alleys would-be Medani spies dueled in deadly earnest with House Phiarlan assassins sent to stop them. It would be many years before the Twelve was fully established to settle disputes between Houses, saving lives and preserving profits for all even as the Houses complied with the Korth Edicts.

While most areas of commerce -- transportation, construction, communications, protection, health care, law enforcement, hospitality, animal husbandry, the fine arts, and so on -- fall directly under the jurisdiction of a specific Dragonmarked house, there is one not so well-defined: Agriculture. The growing of crops to feed Galifar's millions. Sure, call House Lyrandar if you need rain, House Cannith for a new plow (or a harvesting construct if you're rich enough), House Vadalis to tend your animals, House Orien to take your harvest to market, House Kundarak to handle the money, the nearest House Ghallanda inn to buy your eggs and garden vegetables, and you might rely on House Deneith to help keep the bandits and poachers away. But the crops themselves -- wheat, barley, rye, millet, rice, root vegetables, fruit trees, cotton, sorghum and hemp -- were no different than the seeds brought over from Sarlona by Lhazaar, or native Khorvaire plants cultivated by the Goblins and Orcs who survived the collapse of the Dhakaani Empire millennia before.

"But don't farmers pray to Arawai, Sovereign of Life, when they want abundant crops and to ward off blights and pests? Aren't Arawai's priests the experts in this area? My father once introduced me to an elderly //Khoravar// couple at their retirement ceremony. He was a cleric of Arawai, and his wife was a Lyrandar Raincaller. Together they'd traveled a circuit of nearly a hundred farm villages for more than a century, under the protection of five generations of Kembles. They were loved and trusted by all they met. They presided at weddings, midwifed children, even settled disputes that my father might learn about years later. But more than all that, he knew everything about soil, when to plant, when to reap...and she matched his expertise with her knowledge of rain, wind and snow."

"Of course there is that. Cyran farmers also relied on such people, or perhaps on a member of a Ranger order or Druid sect like the Wardens of the Wood. They could tell a farmer what to grow to get the most out of their fields...but it's still the same selection of crops, season after season."