Cerod II, Elector of the Yotigrate, had a notorious sweet tooth. While many nobles of his rank had a court chef or even a court confectioner, Cerod insisted on performing experiments himself with a small staff to perfect delightful sweets and sugared dandies. Chronicles still record the dancing sugar straws he created for the Holy Emperor’s birthday, and the cupcakes with candy butterflies that took to the air with the first bite that were offered on the confirmation of the Archbishop of the Yotigrate.

The long-held dream of Cerod, though, was a confection that could dance and sing, as he had a vision of a multi-layered cake with tiny gaiety on every tier. This proved most troublesome, as magickal means were often sufficient for recording a song but not dancing, or recording movement but not singing. The first batch that could do both was rejected for being stiff and unconvincing, and it was at this time Cerod apparently turned to darker sorceries to achieve his whimsical end.

It is not known from whence the Elector acquired a few flecks of the Sugar of Life, but it appears that he intended to use them to make a mother dough from which he could mold and train as many living cookies as he wished. And, indeed, his creation proved capable of speech, learning, and song. But Cerod had erred in assuming that it was the natural desire of any cookie to be baked and eaten–rather, as a living being, the cookie dough desired to preserve itself and avoid the pain of the oven at all costs. Once it learned, through a casual slip of the tongue, what its fate was to be, Cerod’s cookie rebelled.

Since the initial design had always intended for more dough to be added, so that additional cookies could be split from the mother, the cookie found it could absorb all other baking material in the kitchen-laboratory to increase its mass. It also found that sugar and caramel, properly tempered, could make effective weapons. In the space of one night, the cookie slaughtered Cerod and his staff and took over the kitchen-laboratory for its own purposes. Unable to contain the scourage, for fire simply baked it and blades had no effect, it was feared that the cookie might spread into Yotig itself, which was well-known for its breadmaking and had vast stores of gluten.

The new Elector, Cerod’s nephew Untipater IV, instead elected to seal the kitchen-laboratory with bodies of his uncle and the baking staff still inside, and to post guards and sugar-seeking dogs nearby. It is hoped that, with time, the Sugar of Life will wane and Carod’s cookie will grow weak and stale. The consequence of its escape might otherwise be too terrible to bear.

High Inquisitor’s Note:
The Holy Emperor was reportedly most disappointed by the whole imbroglio, not because of the death of his loyal vassal, but because it meant no further sweets. He had apparently promised his mistress a singing, dancing cookie cake once Cerod had perfected one, and she reportedly found the substitute–a four-layer Humming Fondant from Thuyhof, with the bottom-most layer made of Luneanzean Jigglebread–very unconvincing.

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