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[✗] Soul Tree Clarification & Rework


Sky
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Many years ago there was an elder druid who often walked the woods with his gnarled staff, giving long speeches of wisdom to those who sought him out. With each step upon the soft soil, his energies encouraged the flora surrounding him to flourish and grow strongly. A true soul of the forest, with a great longing to avoid the city-life and instead choose to spend an eternity living and serving the Aspects in any way that he was able to.

 

The elder was intelligent, his mind was sharp and he truly believed that the body he harboured was simply a vessel for his soul which, like all, was connected to nature. With this in mind he took off on an adventure, traveling through the many forests, across the vast plains and over the grassy knolls, with every place the druid came into contact soon sprouted a grove due to his time spent within. After sometime he came across a sacred grove which was filled with natural energies from across the world and within the center an ancient elder tree sat, and from it the druid plucked a sapling.

 

With sapling in hand and harnessing the power blessed upon him by the Aspects, the elder began to grow it. First binding his hands to one another to make sure he was unable to release the precious sapling, next he binded both legs and arms to disallow him from hesitating any further and slowly he wrapped the branches around him as if some sort of spindly gnarled oaken rope. The sapling continued to grow from within the druid’s grasp, and soon after, the elder let out a final gasp, a cry to the Aspects themselves. His body, pierced through with the roots of the tree and with his last efforts, roots driven into the ground to suck at the nutrients of the ground.

 

What once was a scene of a sapling covered in blood with the remnants of the elder’s corpse,, was now a great tree, gnarled and beautiful.

 

For quite sometime the tree stood tall, resilient and silent, even druids of old were unable to make sense of the quietness that seemed to echo the trees being. Until one quiet morning with the raise of the morning sun, it’s giant branch began to bow outward, and similar to a candle dripping wax onto the floor, something began to take shape. The nearby wildlife stopped in their daily business, walking towards the scene but staying at a safe space, to bear witness to such a momentous event, simply a miracle of nature.

 

The wax-like substance begin to bubble and boil as it hung from the branch, loosely it began to take shape of what would seem to be a humanoid, elf creature. After sometime it would begin to harden, slowly the crust would take upon a colour and shortly after, it falls from the branch and lands upon the ground. Standing under the tree was the ancient elder, his complexion that of bark yet his eyes seeming very alive. This, is the ancient secret of the Soul Tree.

 

~The Druii’ithirn, Arcanum of Ancient Secrets.

 

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Soul Trees

 

Soul Trees are an ancient secret of the druids, that as of late became a little common but simply due to dynamic role-play. This blessing existed before the time of shapeshifting, it being a powerful gift given to elder druid to maintain their commitments to the aspects without the worry of the risks that may come to it. The tree effectively maintained the life of the druid until such a time they willfully forfeited it, or the tree is found out and destroyed entirely. However the creation of such a tree is in no way an easy task, and many druids who were unprepared have perished in the attempt.

 

Creation

 

A druid who endeavors to perform the ritual needed for this blessing accepts both in character and out of character, the risks of the potential permanent death that comes with it because the process involves killing the original body of the druid with a sapling thus capturing the soul within the plant before it escapes to Aerials domain. In theory there is a one hundred percent success rate that can be achieved through the use of two druids assisting the one attempting the ritual, but the knowledge on such is rare enough that those who would understand the risk and the weight upon those with such a gift, it’s uncommon to have such occur.

 

One must have gained an extensive experience over communion and control in order to perform this technique, and it is advised that they find a safe spot to place the tree as it would be unlucky to have a lumberjack find it. The way the rate of success is decided depends purely upon their level of experience, meaning that a tier one in communion and control is much less likely to even get close than that of tier five. Once the emotes have occurred one would roll and see if they have failed. Tier one has a 5% chance at passing, tier two has a 10% chance, tier three has a 20% chance, a tier four has a 35% chance and a tier five has a 55% chance. The roll is out of one hundred, so if a tier three rolls anything from one to thirty-five then they have succeeded.

 

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Tree

 

For a tree to be considered legitimate at all, it is required that a mechanical representation is upon the map and that the druid will be ready to show it to a member of staff when asked to prove their legitimacy. The choice of how it’s built is entirely upon the player, whether they wish for a default tree in the middle of a city, to a detailed custom tree within a beautiful grove, however one must pay attention  where it is planted as it may be easily found and other such things, as environmental disasters and what not, but these are role-play variant details rather than out of character controlled events.

 

Whatever is built there are two things that need to be present upon the tree, you are more than welcome to be as creative as you want but it must have signs explaining that all nearby would feel a strong connection to nature when close to the tree, as well as a sign upon the tree itself stating that all interactions with it must contact the person whose tree it is.

 

A druid's tree is able to be made out of any species of tree that can be found upon the world we inhabit. In spite of how the a trees makeup may be, when inhabited by a druid’s soul many properties of the tree are manipulated during growth and by the time it has matured are all on the same setpoint as other soul trees. Where the properties of wood toughness is quite strong and endurable, to the point that it would take a sturdy metal axe to make leeway with it and sap holding a somewhat poisonous property when digested, where those that ingest would find themselves with a migraine and indigestion issues within the minute.

 

With every soul tree is an alpha branch which is not necessarily larger than the rest however is indeed more unique than the others and is aptly referred to as the ‘regeneration branch’ due to it being where the body regenerates from whenever it is the first time, of the fifth time after being destroyed. The way it works is that a sap would begin to build up at the end of the branch, before a large mass starts to accumulate, to which it begins to droop down and morph into the shape of the body, as it begins to dry it’s colour shifts and as that is done, it snaps from the branch and lands upon the ground. A new body. A new life.

 

Ungrowing, Unattunement, Destruction, & Defense Mechanism

 

When a soul tree is ungrown into a sapling, or even past that into a seed, the soul of the druid is still within that tree now sapling and would in no way of let the soul leave it’s plant prison. With this the body would simply be unable to regenerate until the sapling in question was replanted and grown, making the body the druid is in if still alive after ungrown their final one until of course the sapling is replanted.

 

Unattunements of a tree, play a similar role to that of the destruction of a tree, where the soul escapes it’s wooden prison but due to it being taken off the regular path all souls gone, are forever lost. If a tree is unattuned then the soul is released as the druid is then removed from their connection to the aspects thus making it impossible for them to return once the body they inhabit is removed, however if destroyed the soul escapes but may not be lost.

 

A soul tree has no natural defense mechanism other than the body it creates that is you, and if the tree feels it is in danger, you would be unable to stop yourself from rushing back to the tree. The druid would be unable to explain anything as their mind would be flooded with anxiety and fear, as well as extreme anger that would cause them being unable to stop from attacking whoever is causing the pain, be it from a friend or foe. What constitutes pain could be anything from a large branch being removed, to large amounts of void magic being used in a close vicinity, to the tree itself being corrupted, or ungrown, or unattuned.

 

Saplings

 

Like all trees, soul trees may give off saplings to uphold the life of the druid much longer, however there comes a price with such. For starters, the druid with the tree would be careful upon giving one out as they would be unable to take one themselves as it causes the tree pain and thus when a friend removes one, they would be unable to stop themselves from attacking the person if conscious. As stated previously, when a tree is destroyed there is a way for a soul to not be lost and that is the saplings, if there is some then the soul would break off into multiple parts and make their way to the saplings, but once one of the saplings are planted the rest of the pieces immediately dissipate and join the planted one. When the saplings aren’t filled with any parts of a druid’s soul, they give off a strong sensation of natural energies but only a little more than a regular sapling.

 

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Body

 

After regenerated the body is basically that of a real body, with obvious changes and some exceptions. The skin is replaced by a soft bark that takes on the colour that the druid decides during regeneration, the muscle is made up of a sturdy wood, bones made up of a hard wood with the veins a soft wood capsule which allows the sap-like blood to travel through the body which is pumped by the now wooden organs of the body. In spite of the now wooden body and her soul retaining in the tree, the druid still requires to breath and obtain nutrients, however the nutrients are taken through rooting into the ground which is something that must be taught else the druid will find themselves being heavily exhausted and prone to seizures, even the potential of causing a coma.

 

Death

 

Upon the death of the body, unlike regular bodies where nature gives the opportunist beasts of the wild a feed, the body is immediately overcome by natural energies and many outcomes may come to it, for example it could dissolve into a mass of fertilized soil, or explode into a cloud of multi-coloured butterflies. Regardless of what happens, back at the tree begins to slowly regenerate the body and after quite sometime, creates another body. However while the tree is regenerating the body, the druid is able to make small changes to their body but are unable to change to the point of no longer being recognisable of their original race.

 

Once reborn the druid has the feeling of the death ingrained upon their memory, though in spite of them never being able to forget the feeling of their death, they are unable to recall how it happened, why it happened, or what lead up to the death. What is recalled is the terrifying pain that came of it, be it the choking sensation of drowning, the burning flare of being burnt alive, or the sharp piercing feeling of a spear through his heart.

 

While it may seem that death becomes a tool that can be utilized by the druid to escape situations, it is in fact looked sourly upon by the aspects and if one willingly commits suicide then they in turn willingly sever their connection from their tree and become incapable of regenerating ever again.

 

Offspring & Spriggan

 

Children are capable of occurring with a biological soul tree parent, due to Cerridwen’s inability to disallow the stopping of life from being given. However, the body is only able to produce children one month out of the year and has a very high chance of failing, regardless of their original race. Going down to a 10% chance of happening, where a roll is needed of at least one to ten. If a child is produced, it takes on the biology of the soul tree’s original race and makeup, though there is a small chance of the child taking on some aesthetic changes, which are limited to the whites of their eyes having a hue of the soul tree’s aura or combined colour if both parents are soul trees, and their skin taking on a rough bark-like complexion.

 

Sprigga are able of being awoken from a soul tree, the ritual in which it happens does not count as harmful to the tree and thus is seen as an interesting blessing from the Aspects. The outcome is an oddity, as the spriggan takes on very cloudy memories of the druid it was grown from and as such have a close connection to the druid, though in spite of such would not hesitate from attacking the druid if it was that way inclined.

 

Strengths & Weaknesses

 

Being made of wood comes with a multitude of bonuses with equal negative effects. When it comes to the environment, they are able to survive in extreme colds and heats, however if caught on fire will immediately become set alight and if cold enough the body is able to be snapped the more easier than if in a normal climate area. If the soul tree is put in a far off location, it may be safe from those that search it out but if it becomes attacked, the travel time to rescue it becomes an issue, the opposite of both can be said about trees planted in the nearby grove. Pain is felt, but at a much lessened degree where it would be a very numbing sensation similar to the regular pain, a sword cut against the arm would feel the same pain but it would be as if the soul tree druid was on some sort of pain killers, causing the pain to be lessened from the numbing sensation.

 

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Blood Magic & Soul Puppeteers

 

Due to the soul tree process of giving up his mortal body of flesh and blood, being granted one by Aspects of complete nature, he no longer has blood in the same aspect that normal individuals would have. The sap-like blood has no genus, therefore it is useless to a blood mage and removes the possibility of enhancing their magic rituals to any sort of extent.

 

Soul puppeteers are indeed able to curse soul trees, however if the blood that has been taken from their body then the connection would be extremely weak and would not last for long and thus the puppeteer would not have access to the extent of curses that he normally would to regular people. This is because the sap-like blood would be much more difficult for the puppeteer to read and draw the soul from, as the soul is not entirely present but is distantly connected by a tether of the soul tree. If the soul puppeteer located the tree and drew sap from that, then the connection would be much stronger as the soul is entirely present and would be almost as strong as a normal individual’s blood, thus allowing the puppeteer almost as much freedom to curse the druid as he could a normal person. However if the tree is regrown into another sapling, after the original is destroyed, the curse is broken.

 

Magic Moderation Input

 

The magic moderators input is put in during four times of a soul trees life time, this is not to say you will only have to talk with a magic moderator, preferably the one overlooking druidism, three times as a soul tree but more so there are four distinct times where you must contact one and either have them bare witness or simply inform to get their approval.

 

First off, the creation of the soul tree must have one present, as in the past there have been characters who would not of known of the ritual, or know the way to stop someone from dying, or even teach another, and yet it has happened, even the roll cannot be properly enforced without a staff member present, so it is mandatory to have on present and this is simple to do by planning it with one before the scene happens.

 

When a sapling is handed out, one must inform a magic moderator due to the limitations of them. Soul trees in the past had unlimited saplings, even got to a point where they would hand them out like candy in hopes that they would live forever, however due to that being absolutely ridiculous and somewhat absurd, it has been limited to a total of three living saplings per tree and it is up to the magic moderator being informed if an old one can simply die off for a new one to be taken.

 

If the body dies, then they must not play the character until it regenerates and the person who decides how long the wait is to be is a magic moderator, and all you have to do is inform them of your death, explain how it happened and to what extent, once given how long it would take to regenerate you are not able to play that character in that allotted time due to it regrowing.

 

Finally when it comes to children I will keep this short and sweet to avoid the awkwardness people will get from reading, simply put a magic moderator must be given a screenshot of the emote stating that a ‘fade to black’ happened as well as the roll, to see if successful or not. If one to ten is rolled, it is successful, regardless of if one soul tree parent or two.

 

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Tidbits

 

If a tree is destroyed mechanically and the druid was not contacted, whether there was roleplay prior or not, the tree may be replanted and acted as if the tree was not touched. Communication with the druid is key as they would be aware of any damage to their tree.

 

Soul trees may have a stronger connection to nature, but this is in terms of feeling close to it and communicating, in no way does it make their blessing any stronger than another druid of the same experience.

 

Their blood is a thick sap-like fluid, making it a long endeavour to bleed out from a wound as it would be more likely that the sap hardens and the healing process begins, unless it’s being disrupted throughout.

 

In spite of them being made out of wood, they are unable to manipulate the wood that makes up their body, however if injured the only way a soul tree druid is to be healed is through blight healing and, or nature's healing.

 

Shapeshifting as a soul tree druid is an odd affair, because once changed into their animal form the druid is no longer made up of wood but once more flesh and muscle, specifically that of their spirit animal.

 

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As a note, this is a clarification and a rework in a way because most parts that are being clarified aren’t entirely well known and parts added aren’t exactly the way it has always been. I would also like to state that if accepted, anything that had happened prior to this point that had broken lore will not be up for discussion or any sort of reprimanding, since this is a new clarification-rework. So, nothing to be worried about in that department.


 

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Really well done, Sky, I really enjoyed reading it, clarification needed to be done. 

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21 minutes ago, Sky said:

If a tree is unattuned then the soul is released as the druid is then removed from their connection to the aspects

wait are you telling me that you can unattune someone from their tree

 

like I get it but

 

That means you can unattune someone without them even being present, which isn't cool.

 

Also I am of the opinion that soul tree shapeshifters should still be made out of wood but I'm not a shapeshifter so I guess I don't get much say.

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Just now, TheCritsyBear said:

wait are you telling me that you can unattune someone from their tree

 

like I get it but

 

That means you can unattune someone without them even being present, which isn't cool.

 

Also I am of the opinion that soul tree shapeshifters should still be made out of wood but I'm not a shapeshifter so I guess I don't get much say.

They are present, because their tree is them but it causes the tree pain thus you would know through in-character means of pain and they have to contact you when interacting with it meaning that you have to be smart in where you put your tree. Put it far away, sure no one may find it but if it is found out, then you have a long way to run. Put it close, you don't have far to run but it's right there if found out.

 

As for the shapeshifting, that's not something I personally enjoy, but speaking with Darian, and Freema, they had decided that since you are transforming into another body and it's your spirit animal, your spirit animal wouldn't be a wooden variant of said animal. So I thought just to add it in.

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So how come there's that odd bit where the regeneration occurs from a random branch instead of like the trunk? That seems like it doesn't really matter one way or the other, why would you specify it like that?

 

And to be honest, if a friend started damaging your soul tree and the tree lord were suicidal, and it were acceptable for their character, why would they be forced to fight them off? This seems pointless.

 

Druidism can't sense void magic any more than your average Joe. Keep it simple and leave the activation of this tree lord anxiety to the tree being directly damaged in any way.

 

Rooting into the ground to gain nutrients? What the hell? Why? My tree lord would like to eat food, thank you.

 

The rolling seems pretty harsh, and honestly a lot of the previous lore was in good spirit and faith to the community that people would be allowed to make these modifier decisions based between student and teacher.

 

This suggests you need to talk to a magic team member every time you die? Wow that's inefficient. Sounds like a big pain than anything.

 

Seriously by god why would you even think about making a MT mandatory to watch FTBs with tree lords? What in the ****?

Sorry, some of this just seems so odd and wrong. I don't know how I could support it...

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8 minutes ago, Jaeden said:


That's always been a thing, Sky's just clarifying it. If the tree itself of a soul tree was unattuned, said person would be unattuned and the tree would die.

I'm not entirely sure if their existing body would die off, however. They might still live, but only have one life after that.

Their body would be their last life for eternity, thus causing them to be permanently dead if the body dies off after the unattunement but the tree doesn't die, it just becomes a regular tree.

 

6 minutes ago, Gladuos said:

So how come there's that odd bit where the regeneration occurs from a random branch instead of like the trunk? That seems like it doesn't really matter one way or the other, why would you specify it like that?

Because you drip off from sap and fall to the ground, it would be physically impossible for that to happen directly out of the trunk, besides this has always how it was.

 

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And to be honest, if a friend started damaging your soul tree and the tree lord were suicidal, and it were acceptable for their character, why would they be forced to fight them off? This seems pointless.

Incorrect, the tree has a self defense mechanism where it wants to stay alive, if the character wanted to die then they could have their friend off the body and then off the tree.

 

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Druidism can't sense void magic any more than your average Joe. Keep it simple and leave the activation of this tree lord anxiety to the tree being directly damaged in any way.

Not true, a large amount of void magic being used in a vicinity actually does create an uneasy feeling, and I say a large amount because a small amount is nothing. Thus it would.

 

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Rooting into the ground to gain nutrients? What the ****? Why? My tree lord would like to eat food, thank you.

You can eat food but it wouldn't do much, this has always been the way.

 

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The rolling seems pretty harsh, and honestly a lot of the previous lore was in good spirit and faith to the community that people would be allowed to make these modifier decisions based between student and teacher.

While you may believe in a system of trust, we are at the point where we can no longer trust people to be able to be honest about rolls. Door breakers can't simply modreq saying 'I broke a door, trust me I rolled high enough' and we shouldn't be able to do similiar.

 

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This suggests you need to talk to a magic team member every time you die? Holy **** that's inefficient. Sounds like a big pain in the ass than anything.

That may seem inefficient but the soul tree user dictating how long they take to regenerate is a very big cluster **** as they can easily just say it'll be less than it should be.

 

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Seriously by god why would you even think about making a MT mandatory to watch FTBs with tree lords? What in the ****?

Soul trees have always been able to have kids, never stopped them but it should be a rare occurance. There is no difference between a GM watching over a pick lock roll, and a MT looking over a pregnancy roll. Literally no difference.

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12 minutes ago, Sky said:

Incorrect, the tree has a self defense mechanism where it wants to stay alive, if the character wanted to die then they could have their friend off the body and then off the tree.

Well you say incorrect but it's a fantasy tree resurrection. Nothing's true or false here. It's not necessary.

 

12 minutes ago, Sky said:

Not true, a large amount of void magic being used in a vicinity actually does create an uneasy feeling, and I say a large amount because a small amount is nothing. Thus it would.

No it doesn't.

 

12 minutes ago, Sky said:

That may seem inefficient but the soul tree user dictating how long they take to regenerate is a very big cluster **** as they can easily just say it'll be less than it should be.

I don't see how it's any bit of an issue. I've not found it to ever be. How is it any different from regular players being able to come back 30 minutes later? This is really really not needed.

 

12 minutes ago, Sky said:

Soul trees have always been able to have kids, never stopped them but it should be a rare occurance. There is no difference between a GM watching over a pick lock roll, and a MT looking over a pregnancy roll. Literally no difference.

Well you say there's no difference except it's awkward as **** and would really just kind of ruin any of the roleplay about it.

 

12 minutes ago, Sky said:

You can eat food but it wouldn't do much, this has always been the way.

Never heard of this. You can easily just say 'this has always been the way' towards half the **** I'm pointing out here but it has never been written down and it can easily just be you making stuff up. I've never seen a tree lord anchor themselves into the ground. That's actually pretty dumb if you ask me.

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Just now, Gladuos said:

Well you say incorrect but it's a fantasy tree resurrection. Nothing's true or false here. It's not necessary.

Yeah I get what you say here, though it doesn't matter one way or the other, so it's sort of a moot point unless you believe this is something that would hold the piece back.

 

Just now, Gladuos said:

No it doesn't.

I ran this past several lore team members and a couple magic team members, even showed them that part specifically and they were more than fine with it. I assumed that was the reasoning, I'm not a big void person.

 

Just now, Gladuos said:

I don't see how it's any bit of an issue. I've not found it to ever be. How is it any different from regular players being able to come back 30 minutes later? This is really really not needed.

Because we take longer than thirty minutes, I don't think you quite understand what I mean. A normal death, should take you ten minutes alone at minimum to regenerate from your tree if it was something small, and go upwards to a couple days to regenerate, but without the staff member to tell you which makes more sense, a druid could just shrug it off and walk off with a five minute regeneration when it should of been an hour or more.

 

Just now, Gladuos said:

Well you say there's no difference except it's awkward as **** and would really just kind of ruin any of the roleplay about it.

Except it isn't awkward, nor does it ruin any roleplay at all. If anything I can change it to a screenshot, because overlooking may be too much, but having another person see the emote that states a 'fade to black' moment has happened with a roll, is not exactly the most awkard situation a staff member can be put into.

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Even more reason to put him on the MT

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Ok but so why not just have it so the tree people can't have kids. That seems like it would remove a good chunk of awkwardness from this. Like all of the peripherals of that are just...weird.

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3 minutes ago, Ciaran said:

Ok but so why not just have it so the tree people can't have kids. That seems like it would remove a good chunk of awkwardness from this. Like all of the peripherals of that are just...weird.

Soul tree druids in the past had kids, a couple current have kids currently, and it would make no sense for the Aspect of life to disallow one of their druid's to become infertile. Besides previously when this argument came up in a chat where the lore director allowed us to discuss as a community (the soul tree users) we all understood that it would make sense for them to be infertile, however while that may be true it would invalidate a lot of role-play and it truly doesn't harm anything in the long run.

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Here I am again, back to debate the semantics of our mineman reproductive biology, unfortunately.

Magically conceived children, the sorcery of the Aspects or whoever popping new souls and babies out of nowhere, is just about out of the question-- so with that being said, if Soul Tree users are made of wood, where's their """"sap"""" coming from, so to speak?


 

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I don't like the fact a barkman can reproduce with someone, it sounds awfully awkward for Woodman to get his bark wang excited enough to shoot his goo; come to think about it, the act itself shouldn't be allowed (Because the treelord is a tree no matter how you slice it).

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But fertility like that isn't something you can just 'install' into a fake body or artificial descendant.

Every other comparable 'endgame' cannot have children. Keepers are actually VERY similar in that their body is made by a deific figure like an Aengul but they're infertile themselves for this reason.

The miraculous gift of having children and allowing a soul to be born from nothing isn't something easily replicated.

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I for one hate the "it's been allowed in the past" precedent because former iterations of the team have had much more irrational and slackened standards about how the laws of the world we RP in function.

It's already something that'll be brought into discussion when voting happens, regardless, so if the writers of the lore are adamant about keeping it that way it'll be taken into consideration accordingly.

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