Finally completed the charicter sheet, whent slightly beyond reasonable length.
Name: Gruum-da (or Gid(GD) for short, will also answer to "You there!")
Appearance: While most dryads are closer to human than tree this one is far more like a plant than a person. Gruum-da is reminiscent of a conical bush covered with leaves (a bit like maple or oak) like scales on a fish or leaves in a leaf skirt. As such e is entirely unrelated to the concept of gender and uses pronouns derived from e(got the idea from Orion’s arm, I don't like “they” because I like having 3rd person singular.) but doesn't really care about pronouns so use whatever. Gid's head is es core despite it being in the top of the cone and in theory can regrow from just it, like a tuber, but e would rather not test. The face is the only part not covered by the leaves and looks like a very simple unvarnished carved wood mask, the face has two eyes that consist of two shallow circular indentations with with the inside being slightly convex, there are two thick deeper horizontal slits that go between both sides of each eye, another larger slit is below them like a mouth. With es slow movement the whole effect is that Gruum-da seems to always be asleep, while e acts it too this is simply because es attention is spread almost evenly over es area of effect(see nature skillset) and pays no more attention to what's directly in front of em than some bugs and rocks near es edge of perception. Gruum-da is actually quite intelligent and this even spread of attention is not out of disinterest but is simply how e is. Despite all this or perhaps because of it e is in many ways one of the most sociable dryads, es natural mysteriousness makes it easy to idealise em, In short e is more likely than most to start a cult. Beneath the cone there is a fractal rootlike structure that e uses for walking, it first branches from the head then a bit further down branches again and so on, although they bend only slightly and slowly the movements add up and allows slow, constant movement. If e was tipped over(as occasionally but rarely happens) it would look as if the bottom was made of hundreds of millipede legs, also it takes ages for Gid to get back upright so e would prefer that not to happen either, it’s sort of sad to watch honestly, like a turtle trying to get upright or an RC car tipped on it’s side. If e has an alignment to a season it would be spring.
Skillset (Nature): Growth.
The words constant change and growth defines Gruum-da’s every aspect in one way or another, constant movement with constant speed for example. But the most palpable manifestation is the area of effect or area of influence. Within the surrounding area e causes things to change and grow at a constant rate in the manner that e desires. At the start this only exstends a meter or so but fades evenly rather having an absolute border, it is also quite slow at the start, things only change at around the speed of a fastish plant(the fastest bamboo can grow almost a meter a day.) This is also es only sense, at least at first it lacks the precision of many other senses but it can detect small scale patterns if they are repeated over a large enough area so e can tell the chemical makeup of rocks but not the shape of very small pebbles, it also means e can “hear”(badly), “smell” but not see because photons don't stick around, as a consequence of that Gid’s awareness of things outside of e’s area of influence is mostly memory based. As Gruum-da grows this becomes more precise, faster, more complex, the nessesary scale of patterns to be detected shrinks and how complex they can be grows. Also e must use this and cannot leave something unchanged in e’s area, if nothing’s specified this defaults to complex etchings on non-living substances such as rock and faster and more aesthetically pleasing growing plants, animate things don’t change at all as is normal. Gameplay wise this means that instead of dividing power to tasks instead Gruum-da splits up area dedicated to tasks with the max effect across the whole area being the same as the max power of a dryad with normal mechanics, possibly a bit higher as it is almost never applicable.
Skillset (Combat): Indirect
Or to put it another way, no. Gid is pretty useless in direct combat, perhaps as a club for someone? A spiky stick would probably be better and would be vastly preferred by Gid. But e still has some slight use, particularly triggering premade traps more reliably than tripwires and the like.
Skillset (Non Combat): Logistics/fungi
Although less obvious than plants and often thought of as just a subset of them fungi are perhaps the most interesting of the flora fauna fungi trifica (Sereusly they are amazing, do yourself a favour and look up the wikipedia page). The dryad tree has like any respectable tree has many fungal symbiotes and Gruum-da is among other things in charge of managing them, alone they just do what is directly nessesary for the Tree and themselves but beyond that they just sort of sit there without ambition, Gruum-da can fix that.
Beyond that this skillset covers the various small scale changes that don't really add or change anything but instead support, improve, supply and reinforce what’s already there.
Skillset (Locked): will PM
Abilities:
-Build: The most straightforward use of Gruum-da’s power. This ability simply moves mass around building houses or digging trenches. It can also alter plants but not into any structure alien to the plant, this means with trees and such e can make almost any shape but with for instance dandelions e can’t do much at all due to their very definite and unvarying forms. This ability can’t work in such a way as to exert pressure but can remove the obstruction as it’s working. Dead materials grow slower than plants do. The materials need to be common in the general area.
-Annoy: While Gid is pretty useless in combat there’s a great deal that can be done by adjusting the texture of surfaces, this can cause enemies to slip on recently reliable terrain and stick to once smooth surfaces. In addition while e cannot affect creatures physically to any noticeable degree e can affect movement slightly, the net effect is that while Gid is using Annoy any monsters within es area of effect have a penalty to dexterity and luck.
-Spread mycelium: Gruum-da can cause the mycelium to spread in es AoE, it is necessary to use this at least once in a tile before any changes more than a few centimetres in scale as Gid relies on the mycelium to move mass around, probably more than once at the start Because the tiles are probably larger than a meter or so. The exceptions to this are around the tree as the mycelium is already there and large plants already have ways to move mass around and internal stores. Even though it's only necessary once if it’s used longer in an area there’ll be other changes such as simple foundations, denser mycelium and pre-prepared material stores.
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Topic: Dryad Rage: A game about growing a tree. OOC Thread. (Read 25133 times)