Hortimancy

Hortimancy is a magical school that entails the breeding and imbuing of herb strains in order to create medicines and concoctions that will affect their consumer. Hortimancers tend to their plants through generations in order to create

Hortimantic herbs are extremely useful for adventurers out in the field. They are most effective if smoked, so that the imbued effects can enter the bloodstream quickly and spread across the body.

But how does it work though?
Even though flora is relatively simple compared to beasts and men, it is still very complex and difficult to mutate. The only viable time in a plant's life that it can be tweaked is in the very early stages of its life, when it is just growing out of its seed and sprouting. This brief window allows for hortimancers to barely imbue the plant through conceptualization. However, transmutation of a sprout is much more effective when you have a separate plant that has the trait you want to imbue in your sprout. Salt drawn from the plant will still contain the plant's concept - a skilled hortimancer can isolate the concept of the trait they want and then imbue it into the sprout. This method will not immediately give the sprout the desired trait, but it is much more effective than imbuing it with your idea instead.

However, some plants will not take to certain traits, and even incorrect imbuing of a trait can sour the plant, nullify its existing effects or even kill it. Many things can go wrong in the cultivation of new strains, making reckless experimentation a very real risk.

Because of this, professional hortimancers will grow many plants at a time, tweaking and strengthening herbs through generations. By mixing and experimenting with different breeds and strains, they can develop new plants with varying effects. Proper hortimancy requires careful tracking of traits on certain plants, plant strength, and experimentation with new strains. Many things can go wrong, and a careless hortimancer can ruin even the most impressive of strains by trying to improve it just a little more. The best hortimancers will tend to keep a strong stable crop of their most prized strains and only use expendable plants in experimentation.