The Path Of Growing Wood

 

• Verdant Understanding

Cost: 5 motes

Duration: One scene

Type: Simple

This power grants the Dragon King the ability to communicate with the small god associated with each individual plant. The Dragon King’s player gains a number of dice equal to his character’s score in this Path to all Lore rolls to understand the properties of a plant, to all Survival rolls where the Dragon King is attempting to gather edible plants and to all Craft rolls to work with plants or plant products, whether the character is compounding poison or medicine, carving wood or gardening.

When using this power, the Dragon King can identify the basic properties and potential uses of a plant he has never seen before by his player making a successful Perception + Lore roll with a difficulty of 2. Add 1 to this difficulty if this plant comes from the Wyld. When working with wood and living plants, this power removes the +1 difficulty that players of Anklok and Mosok suffer when making normal Craft rolls. Also, the Dragon King does not require tools beyond his natural claws when working such substances.

 

•• Empower Cultivation

Cost: 3 motes

Duration: Instant

Type: Simple

This power allows the Dragon King to cause even the most exotic plants to sprout and grow. While they grow no faster than normal and require normal care, this power allows the character to grow exotic plants such as life flowers, coca or swordstick bushes anywhere in Creation, so long as the plant receives approximately the correct amounts of warmth, light soil and water. The Dragon King can even use this power to keep plants alive that otherwise only grow in the Wyld. Once this power has been used, the plant will continue to grow and thrive so long as it receives regular care.

 

••• Empower Plants

Cost: 3 motes, 1 Willpower

Duration: Indefinite

Type: Simple

The character learns the secrets of creating the various pieces of vegetative technology that the Dragon Kings use. She requires no tools and suffers no penalties when creating such items. This power adds a number of automatic successes equal to the Dragon King’s level with this Path to all rolls to create such artifacts. This power can only be used to create the vegetative artifacts used by the Dragon Kings. Without this power, only the mighty Solar Exalted can create vegetative items. This power even allows the Dragon King to produce plants such as the swordstick bush that actually grow new swordsticks. However, none of these plants can produce more than one or two new artifacts each year.

 

•••• Shape Plants

Cost: 5 motes

Duration: One scene

Type: Simple

For the duration of this power, the Dragon King can touch any living plant and shape it to her desires. She can cause a tree to reshape itself into a comfortable shelter, cause vines to become easy to use bridges and ladders through the jungle, turn a bent branch into an exceptional club or spear or transform a piece of bamboo into an exceptional blowgun. The character can only use this power to create weapons and other item than can normally be made of wood. It can be used to create an exceptional javelin, but it cannot be used to create a chakram or an axe because both of these weapons require other materials to make.

Creating any weapon or other useful item using this power requires a complete turn and a successful Intelligence + Craft (Vegetation) roll. The affects of all changes produced using this power are permanent unless the Dragon King later decides to reverse them. The Dragon King can also use this power to move swiftly and easily through any forest or field. The plants both move out of her way and aid her progress, allowing her to safely sprint through a dense jungle. In any location with thick vegetation, pursuers are at +2 difficulty to track her. In addition, the Dragon King’s player gains a number of dice equal to her character’s level in this Path to any Athletics roll involving climbing, jumping or balancing on trees, vines or other large plants while this power is active.

 

••••• Alter Plants

Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower

Duration: One scene

Type: Simple

The Dragon King must spend several hours touching a living plant. During this time, he contacts the spirit of the plant and causes profound changes to the plant. He can cause the plant to undergo a year’s growth in this time or to bloom or to produce ripe and delicious fruit at the end of the scene. The Dragon King can also touch a plant and cause it to be animate for the next day. Although the plant cannot uproot itself, trees, bushes or vines can attack anyone within reach. Using this power to animate a plant is a reflexive action requiring only a brief touch and can be performed once a turn for the duration of this power. Animate plants remain animate until the sun next crosses the horizon.

The attack pool of all animate plants equals the Dragon King’s Wits + Craft (Vegetation). Animate plants can clinch or hold an opponent with a Strength equal to the Dragon King’s Willpower. Alternately, they can perform hand-to-hand attacks that do damage equal to the Dragon King’s Willpower + Craft (Vegetation). Trees and woody plants do lethal damage. Vines and softer plants do only bashing damage. However, animate plants are extremely slow. Their initiative is equal to the Dragon King’s Wits + the results of a 10-sided die roll. Each turn, animate plants must be commanded to attack their targets. Controlling these plants is a reflexive action. However, Dragon Kings can only control a number of plants equal to their permanent Essence. Attacking and damaging an animate plant is handled just like attacking any other animate target. Most trees and woody plants have a soak of 3L/5B. Plants that take more than 10 levels of damage cannot attack anymore.

Regardless of how it is used, this power cannot be used more often than once a month on any plant. Using this power more often on a single plant causes the plant to die before it can complete the desired changes. Also, Dragon Kings cannot use this power on any enchanted plants, such as those found in the Wyld or those that grow artifacts such as swordsticks.

 

••••• • Plant Walk

Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower

Duration: Scene

Type: Simple

The Dragon King can move into and through both living and dead wood as easily as a wood elemental. The Dragon King attunes her body to the nature of wood and other plant material. She can then move through it freely, and it cannot harm her. She can walk through a tree or a wooden wall as easily as a mortal can move through air. She can even see through a yard or two of solid wood so that she can easily navigate when walking through unusually thick trees. Also, because all trees in a dense forest have roots that come quite close to one another, she can walk in one tree and emerge from a neighboring one during the same turn, so long as they are within the distance that she can move within a turn.

Unless she wishes for them to harm her, wooden weapons pass through her body without harm, and so long as she lands on a tree branch, even the highest fall cannot hurt her. In addition to being able to run or sprint through plant material, the Dragon King can also move up and down as easily as forward or backward. Also, if she stands near a tree during a battle, she can instantly retreat within it every turn after she strikes her blow, thus adding the tree’s soak to her own against all attacks delivered after her initiative. This power does not protect the Dragon King from enchanted  wooden weapons such as swordsticks.