Item Seed: Empathic Potatoes.

Empathic Potatoes – Google Docs

Empathic Potatoes

It is honestly by the purest accident that these vegetables look like Earth potatoes. Or that they can grow in Earthlike environments.  Or that, yes, they taste more or less like potatoes and that humans can gain nutrition from them — oh, why lie?  It is starkly incomprehensive how so many coincidences necessary for the existence of the Empathic Potato could have piled up. Which is why the Empathic Potato has been the official symbol of the Intergalactic Teleological Research Association since 2247.  

The ‘power’ of an Empathic Potato is in its ability to absorb the current emotional state of any sentient entity who holds one and concentrates for a few moments. Once the emotions are ‘absorbed,’ anyone who later eats the Potato will gain an intimate and complete understanding of that emotional state.  The effects are more or less permanent.

Of course, simply comprehensively knowing someone else’s emotional state is not necessarily enough to ensure full empathy; and certainly eaters of Empathic Potatoes are not compelled to act on the understanding that they’ve been gifted with.  Still, these vegetables are incredibly popular with trade negotiators and diplomats.  And, of course, the members of the ITRA. Many of its members even grow Empathic Potatoes in their personal gardens.  Smugly.