Battle Born

A variety of Elven Dryad for joyful stick jocks. We value work ethic, and time spent on the field.

Intro

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there was a woodcutter, in a forest. He delved too deep, and hit upon a twisted patch of magic from a bygone age. His axe bit sharp, into the trunk of the wrong tree.

And the tree responded. Some trees are gentle. Some are dark, and vicious. This one, was pragmatic. It woke. And grew.

It grew to encircle the axe head. Stopping it mid-swing. No more harm would be done.

But it didn't stop there. It needed to repair itself. The wound had made it hungry. So it fed. So the haft was next, covered and consumed by new growth. Finally the woodcutter. Buried and consumed by living wood.

This response was fast. So fast, that the woodcutter's horror seemed to occur in slow motion. It was over in the blink of an eye.

The woodcutter was no more. The forest was safe. But that twisted patch of magic had captured the woodcutter's soul. Such was the beginning of dryads, in a world far far away.

Fast forward many, many years. Mother earth isn't a tree. Rather it's a collection of trees. The spirit of the forest. A hive mind.

And when it needs solders, it births the Battle born.

Life Cycle

Their life cycle is considerably different than that of a meatsack. Battle born are plants, rather than meat, after all.

Birthed from the womb of a tree, they spend the first hundred or so years of life linked to their mother, as one of her blossoms- a dryad. It's an idyllic existence- a dryad's needs are simple, and most exit this period of life with a childlike nature.

The next phase in life is as a drone. It is in this second phase of their life, that they interact most with the other races. Tasked with tending their tree, promoting their forest, and defending the shade, they do so to the fullness of their ability. Their childlike joy remains. But what changes is the source- most find that their greatest joy comes from training, and the ebb and flow of battle. It is a good life.

As they age, they are able to go further and further from their tree. And with it comes 'the call'. The call to rest. To sleep. To lay down, and plant themselves, in the largest pile of freshly slaughtered fertilizer they can muster. A nice balanced battle is key to this- it makes the body count as high as possible. This too is a good life.

If successful, in a year or so's time, a new sproutling, a new mother tree will begin to grow, starting the cycle, once again.

Death and rebirth

But the story doesn't end there. So long as a tree stands, the battle born will re-incarnate.

This is because a battle born's 'soul' isn't as attached to it's body as other races. As part of the hive mind, it moves from body to body, animating the most convenient shell for the task at hand, and abandoning it when it's not.

Death is merely switching horses.

Their unique perspective means that they care little for any given shell. There's always next life. It's their soul that needs to last.

Relations with other races

Battle born seek to cooperate wherever possible. It gets things done, and focuses the meatsacks on something other than polluting the forest. Because let's face it- they all harm the forest, just in different ways and amounts.

There's no need to be rude about it, but Battle Born see little inherent difference between the various types of meatsack. The exact details of a body's layout/climate optimizations just isn't that important to a plant.

Battle born's lack of attachment to their shells, leads to interracial behavior that would otherwise be inconceivable. For instance, battle born have been known to gift their own ears to monsters that have won their respect, since for whatever bizarre reason monsters seem to value them.

Battle Born do make ethical distinctions based on diet. Plants are family. One plant eater is the same as another- parasites upon the land. Clearly, the only ethical diet is carnivorous fruitarianism. Straight up carnivores are also recorded respect- after all, they prune the plant eaters. Also, steak is delicious.

Offering them dead plants to eat is sort of like offering you the mutilated corpse of your sister. Not cool. That said, 'the mutilated corpse of your sister' doesn't mean quite the same thing to a battle born: she's probably fine in some other body. If they are hungry enough they'll recycle it, but it's better to not be weird.

Battle Born also make distinctions based on trash collection. Dirty camps(Especially trash left at camp after an event) is to be avoided by those wishing to be friends.

On the battlefield

Battle born spend all the time they can on the field, rather than off. They take and hold a childlike joy of fighting. A curiosity and enjoyment of learning. They tend to 'get gud', because fighting's fun and because it would be boring not to. Joyful Stick jocks welcome.

That said, there is a code to how they fight: Since all meatsacks all harm the forest, and it's been long established that eliminating them all is infeasible, the best that can be done is passively maximizing casualties.

Passively, because Trees play the long game. Behavior like breaking alliances in a fight, or sabotaging comrades could lead to aggression against the forest, and that's bad for business. Instead, this consists of:

• Unbalanced fights have fewer casualties. If possible, join the 'loosing' side to help the balance.
• If your side is winning, making sure that the newbies on your side are able to actively participate in the engagement.
• Other elves at least try to help the forest(though most are lousy about it), so hanging with them is probably good.
• Also, Occupy/Protect the shade if possible.

Author: P.Socrates