Botanicists

Those who use magical plants.

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Botanomicalist

Alignment: Unaligned

Botanomicalists use the True Names of plants to help them grow, alter them, empower or enrich them, or otherwise affect them. They learn to do this by seeing their True Names, then altering them with special materials. To gain this ability, the botanomicalist must have an awareness of their own True Name. This require five rituals of profound magic:

• Journey to the Center of the Mind: this ritual requires meditation and an understanding of one’s own thoughts. The end result of the meditative practice is that their thoughts will be externally visualized, allowing them to know the shape of them. The ritual varies by person, but usually requires extensive journaling of their thoughts, study of neurology, and minor psionic abilities.

• Psychoanalytic Web: this ritual requires therapeutic discussions and an understanding of one’s own emotions. The end result of the analytic ritual is that their emotions are made visually manifest, usually as bright, colorful auras around them. The ritual varies by person, but usually requires guidance by a psychoanalyst, study of psychology, and minor empathic abilities.

• Self-Vivisection: this ritual requires self-surgical investigation of the botanomicalist’s body such that they can understand every part of themselves. This requires extreme body magic, usually provided by someone else, as well as surgical skill.

• Metaphysical Innerlogue: this ritual requires a vision-quest into one’s own soul and interrogation of their entire past and all their metaphysical being, usually guided by their mentor.

• Nommic Profusion: this ritual requires combining everything learned from the previous four rituals to look into a mirror and see one’s full true self. If successful, the botanomicalist will gain the power to see the True Name of anything.

The power to see True Names is not absolute. Every time they view a True Name, their own True Name is put at risk. They must expose a part of themself, something vulnerable, when they do it, and they rarely have the capacity to understand fully what they see. Every time it is used, therefore, they must roll STR (body), AWA (mind), PRS (heart), and WIL (soul) against the target’s same stats. Any normal or special failure means that that aspect of the target is occluded to their sight, and an exceptional or critical failure means permanent loss of the relevant stat (-1 for exceptional, -3 for critical).

Then the botanomicalist must roll AWA to understand what they see fully. For every successful roll, the difficulty goes up - normal success +1, special +2, exceptional +3, critical +4. If they get a tie on this roll, they understand basic information about the target. If they get a normal success, they can view relevant stats to any aspect they succeeded on. If they get a special success, they can view any relevant stats, abilities, powers, or skills to any aspect they succeeded on. If they get an exceptional success, they can read any relevant motivations to any aspect they succeeded on. If they get a critical success, they can view the full character sheet and ask the GM any questions they like. However, for every question past three, they must roll PRS against a +3 each time or risk believing they are the target.

However, they can alleviate this by making a tea of special plants - chamomile of the core, chalcedony cycad, forget-me-knot, and strong grain - and drinking it. Drinking this before looking at True Names allows them to wield the power without the precautionary rolls of body, mind, heart, and soul, but only to use it for plants.

Botanomicalists use this power to create incredible gardens, altering mundane plants to make them magical, fundamentally changing their being. They can do almost anything to the plants, but only if they cultivate them carefully.

PRO / ATH / STR +1 AWA +2 WIL +2 PRS +1 STH /

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Goldviner

Alignment: Celestial

Goldviners use ancient gardening techniques from distant lands to keep these plants growing. These arts are carefully kept secrets, but to tend the plants, the goldviners must have no ill will in their hearts and have a belief in the restorative properties of the plants. They must not abuse the potency of what they make nor profit from it. Goldviners' souls are attuned to their plants, and if the goldviner betrays the plants, the people, or the greater good, the plants will wither and die. They must not only respect the plants, but the work of tending them. If they engage in enslavement, abuse, torture, murder, oppression, exploitation, or other acts that violate their attachment to the plants, the plants will die.

They grow these plants either on the Green Moon, in special greenhouses on the Grey or White Moons, or they find plants that somehow grow on the Grey Moon.

Some common celestial plants include the following:

• Goldvine: the namesake for goldviners, goldvines produce small fruits that can be eaten, made into juice or wine, dried and eaten, or baked into pastries; they give nourishment, healing, and soothing.
• Celeste plums: plums that restore souls when eaten, protect from infernal powers, and make the innocent immune to all forms of harm.
• Black lilacs: lilacs that give hope to those who smell them.
• Fulvous chrysanthemums: chrysanthemums that empower those who resist tyranny.
• Singing trees: trees that sing and harmonize with those who sing near them.
• Wise willows: willows that give dreams of guidance if one sleeps under them.
• Sapphire lindens: linden trees whose blue leaves glow when people love one another walk under their branches.
• Balm shrub: a shrub that produces six kinds of balms - one that heals wounds, one that soothes burns, one that soothes itches, one that soothes aches, one that disinfects, and one that mends pulled muscles.
• Kindroot: plant whose root tastes sweet to people who are kind and bitter to those who are not.
• Crystal fruit: prismatic fruit that gives inspiration to those who eat it.

Players would choose up to four of these to have grown in their garden, green house, orchard, or other green space.

PRO / ATH +1 STR +2 AWA +1 WIL +1 PRS +1 STH -2

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Green Thumb

Alignment: Fey

Those who use the lore to grow fey plants. Fey plants tend to have an hallucinatory edge to them. so while anyone can work with fey plants, those that do so consistently end up being deeply affected by the plants and the powers of the fey, gaining strange abilities and the occasional affliction. Fey plants only grow on the Green Moon or in greenhouses on the Grey Moon.

Common fey plants include the following:

• Bridewort: strewn on the ground at weddings, it makes the bride impervious to disease for the night.
• Cloggorm: a bluebell (see above) that calls fairies when rung.
• Dris: blackberry brambles create sweet drinks that instill a sense of mischief in the drinker.
• Fairy apple: fairy apples are used in the making of cider, creating a pleasant, cinnamony warmth and contentment.
• Feithleann: a honeysuckle used to repel magic and give dreams of love. It cannot be used in alcohol, but its nectar is a sweet drink.
• Fey elder: the elder tree is the most potent fey tree for protection from infernal powers.
• Fey pansy: a pansy added to cider to make it aromatic and grant the drinker mild dreams.
• Fuinseog: the ash tree prevents the fey from stealing your children.
• Gort: an ivy that leads those who follow it to safety, to love, or away from death.
• Meadowsweet: a pain killer and cleansing flower.
• Neanntog: nettles that can be used to form a painful bed that saps the body of all toxins.
• Sabhaircín: a primrose that love, good luck, and inspiration.
• Saileach: the willow tree is a painkiller, but also enhances all witchcraft powers, and its branches can be used to find water.
• Sceach gheal: the fairy tree, the hawthorn, with many, many powers. This tree will open a gate to other realms, cause bad luck to those who harm it, banish evil with its sprigs (if you ask nicely), grant protection to a newborn if the afterbirth is hung from its branches, repel unwanted men with its sprigs, grant beauty with its morning dew, repel lightning when growing near a fey home, grant wishes on Beltane if ribbons are hung from it, medicinal leaves or berries, and more. Consult the GM.
• Sionlamh: a foxglove used to cause wines to burn, mildly poisoning the drinker, and giving them an intense energy.
• Straif: a blackthorn tree that keeps secrets and contains magic of witchcraft. Harming it will cause the person to be cursed.

As they use these plants, they sometimes gain the following powers:

• Green thumb: their thumb literally turns green and gives them the ability to encourage plants to grow by touching them.
• Olfactory reading: they can smell disease or problems with a plant.
• Plandagairt: the invocation of the mystical power of plants, they can invoke the magic inside a plant by breaking one of their seeds.
• Plant speech: they can speak to any fey or mundane plants, and some elemental and celestial plants, but never infernal plants.
• Taste of power: they can know the powers of a plant by tasting it. This can have consequences when the plant is poisonous.

And they are often afflicted with one of these:

• Bubbling consciousness: the aptik sees hallucinatory images in bubbles floating in their vision at all times. These bubbles sometimes speak to them with information from their deep subconscious.
• Fearful whispering: the aptik hears whispers that terrify them when they roll below a 3 on any roll.
• Insectoid delusion: the aptik thinks insects are crawling on them, though the sensation is mild, and they are used to insects due to their work with plants. Any time they roll triple 3s, they insects become real.

PRO / ATH +1 STR -1 AWA +2 WIL -1 PRS +2 STH +1

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Verdurist

Alignment: Elemental

Wielders of elemental plant magic.

To be a verdurist, one must commune with the greenery around them. There must be a sufficient amount of plants nearby, a certain density and a great variety of plantlife, for there to be enough to be communed with. A forest, grassland, or wetlands will work. Greenhouses, gardens, orchards, and farms will likely also work. Green hills and mountains, underground forests, and the plant life of other worlds also works. But a few houseplants or the nearby potted sapling don't generate enough to work. A rare collection of trees within a desert or an oasis may be enough, but it will vary by location.

Communion requires mindfulness of all plantlife around the verdurist and a deep meditation. The aromas of plants, the feel of grass beneath them, the way the canopy alters the light, the sound of leaves crunched underfoot or the swish of branches in the breeze, and above all, the significant variety of plant life, these must all be taken in as the mind slips into the collective consciousness of the green. Once meditating, the verdurist must be accepted by the plants of every vareity present. This requires they not be involved in, for instance, industrial pollution, logging, or serial littering. In other words, you must be a friend to the plants. Once this is done (a series of AWA and WIL rolls), the verdurist will be able to sense the energies around them when they are near enough greenery. To draw these energies to oneself to use, one must have a plant of the type they seek to wield near enough to touch and, using the power to sense these elemental energies gained from green communion, focus on the breathe of the plants and synch with it, focus on it, and will it inward.

Different kinds of plants give a verdurist different powers:

• Bush: bushes (not a scientific category) give the verdurist the power of augury.
• Club moss: lycophytes give the verdurist the power to create greenfire explosions.
• Conifer: conifers give the verdurist longevity and the power to resist the cold.
• Crop: crops (not a scientific category) are any intentionally planted plant used for food - they grant the verdurist the power to strengthen and nourish.
• Cycad: cycads grant the verdurist the power to soothe and calm.
• Deciduous tree: deciduous trees grant the verdurist the power to withstand.
• Decorative plants: decorative plants (not a scientific category) grant PRS bonuses to the verdurist.
• Fern: ferns grant the verdurist the power to connect with others magically.
• Flowering plant: flowering plants give the verdurist the power of renewal.
• Fruit: fruit plants give the verdurist the power to refresh.
• Ginkgo: ginkgo plants give the verdurist clarity of mind.
• Gnetophyte: gnetophytes give the verdurist the power of alternation of generations.
• Green algae: green algae give the verdurist waterbrething.
• Herb: herbs (not a scientific category) give the verdurist healing magic.
• Moss, hornwort, liverwort: mosses give the verdurist cooling and soothing magic.
• Tuber: tubers (not a scientific category) give the verdurist the power to absorb nourishment from the ground.
• Vine and lianas: vines (not a scientific category) and lianas give the verdurist the power to entangle.

Some plants meet multiple categories. All individual species come with their own powers that can be granted as well.

Verdurists begin with four different plant magicks to use with as many categories as that provides them. The player must choose four specific species of plant, with GM's approval.

PRO / ATH -1 STR +2 AWA +2 WIL +2 PRS -1 STH +1