Animism
The Animism tradition opens a dialogue between you and the spirits found in the natural world, wherever you happen to be. Engaging these entities enables you to befriend them and recruit them to aid you in your endeavors. Since these spirits are bound to the trees, dunes, the rocks, the combers crashing against the shore, and nature itself, their aid often comes in the form of awakening the landscape, calling forth vines to ensnare and strangle enemies, or uprooting trees to march forth and smash through the enemy lines.
Animism Talents
ARMOR OF THE ANCIENT OAK (Magical): You can perform a ritual to armor yourself with the bark of a tree. When you finish, brown, woody knobs and patches appear and spread across your entire body until you are covered in bark. The cover increases your natural Defense to 15 and flakes away after you rest.
BEAST TONGUE (Magical): You can make yourself understood by any ordinary animal that can see and hear you, and you can understand the gist of what an ordinary animal would convey through the sounds and gestures it makes. If you make the animal friendly, it might perform services for you at the Sage’s discretion.
CORNUCOPIA (Magical): You can perform a ritual while outdoors to gain provisions for you and your allies. When you finish, animals deliver berries, nuts, roots, and other edible foodstuffs enough to feed up to five creatures for 1 day. Once you use this talent, you lose access to it for 24 hours.
WHIP VINE (Magical): You can use an action to cause a long vine to erupt from the ground and lash a creature before the vine withers away. Target one creature within 5 yards. Make a Will roll against the target’s Agility. On a success, the target takes 1d6 damage and you can move the target up to 5 yards. At level 3, the target takes 3d6 damage. At level 7, the target takes 7d6 damage. On a critical success, the target also becomes held until the end of your next turn.
Novice Animism Spells
Clear A PAth
Castings: 3
Target: One space, 3 yards wide and 10 yards long, originating from a point you can reach
Duration: Instant
The spirits pull aside all creatures and obstacles to give you a clear path. Each creature in the target space is pushed to the nearest empty space to the one it leaves. If there are two possible spaces, you choose. A creature moved in this way makes an Agility roll. On a failure, it falls prone. Each unsecured object in the target space moves to the nearest empty space to the one it leaves, with you choosing if there are multiple eligible destination spaces. Then, you increase your Speed by 3 until the end of your turn.
Fire Seeds
Castings: 3
Target: You
Duration: 1 minute
You kindle the spirit of flame in a handful of seeds, nuts, and pinecones. When you cast this spell and when you use an action to do so, you can throw a seed at a creature or object within 10 yards. Make a Will roll against the target’s Agility. On a success, the target takes 4d6 damage. On a critical success, the target also catches fire (luck ends).
Grasping Growth
Castings: 1
Target: The ground inside a Size 5 space within 15 yards
Duration: 1 minute
EffecA profusion of animated grasses, vines, and shrubbery spreads across the target surface turning it into challenging terrain. Each creature within 1 yard of the ground when you cast this spell or that moves to such a position makes an Agility roll. On a failure, the target becomes held (luck ends). A target can overcome this effect with a success on a Strength roll. If a target gets a failure on the roll to end the affliction, it falls prone and cannot stand up until the affliction ends. If the target is already prone, it takes 2d6 damage.t
Plant the Seed
Castings: 1
Target: One creature within 10 yards
Duration: Instant
You awaken the spirit of the oak in an acorn you hold. Make a Will roll against the target’s Agility. On a success, the acorn disappears inside the target’s body and roots grow from it to anchor it in place. The target loses 1d6 Health and becomes held. The target can overcome this affliction with a success on a Strength roll with 1 bane. At the end of each round the target is held in this way, the target takes 2d6 damage. If the target becomes incapacitated, it dies and an oak tree grows out of its remains.
Protection From The Elements
Castings: 1
Target: You
Duration: 24 hours
You beseech the spirits to protect you. You impose 1 bane on rolls to attack you, become immune to exposure, hunger, and thirst. You take half damage from cold, fire, and lightning. Finally, you ignore the harmful effects of wind.
Through The Hedge
Castings: 1, reaction when you move at least 1 yard
Target: You
Duration: 1 minute
You can move from tree to tree, plant to plant. When you move, you can enter a space occupied by a plant and gain awareness of each other plant of the same size or larger within 10 yards. You can exit from any space occupied by one of these plants.
Expert Animism Spells
Biting Brambles
Castings: 1
Target: One Size 5 space within 15 yards
Duration: Instant
Brambles with long thorns grow suddenly from the ground in the target space until they reach a height of 2 yards. Each creature in the space, when the brambles appear, takes 3d6 damage and makes an Agility roll with 1 bane. On a failure, the creature becomes held. The creature can choose to take 1d6 damage to end this affliction or overcome it by getting a success on an Agility roll with 1 bane.
The brambles grant total cover to anything behind them and cover the ground with challenging terrain. When a creature enters the space or moves to a different space inside it, the creature makes an Agility roll with 1 bane. On a failure, the creature takes 1d6 damage and becomes held as described above.
Call Steeds
Castings: 1
Target: One Size 5 space within 15 yards
Duration: 8 hours
The spirits produce one magical steed for you and up to six of your allies. The steeds are friendly to you. They use the rules of horses (see Chapter 3). If a steed becomes incapacitated, it disappears.
Counsel of the Land
Castings: 1, perform a ritual
Target: You
Duration: Instant
You call for the spirits of nature to advise you. When you finish, strange, translucent figures appear all around you. You can ask these spirits up to six questions regarding creatures, objects, and places in the lands around you, out to a range of 10 miles. You could ask where to locate a particular animal, where a temple might be, or the way back to the river, if you happen to be lost. Once you ask the last question, the spirits bestow their blessings on you and up to six of your allies that you choose. Each heals 3d6 damage.
On Feathery Wings
Castings: 1, reaction when you are harmed
Target: You
Duration: 1 minute
A giant eagle or owl swoops down and snatches you up so you can ride upon its back. The bird grants you a Speed of 7 and the Fly trait. The bird ignores all harm and can harm no creature or object. When the spell ends, the bird descends, deposits you on a surface that can bear your weight, and then disappears.
Slithering Sticks
Castings: 3
Target: The ground in one Size 5 space within 5 yards
Duration: 1 minute
You toss a handful of sticks on the ground, where they become serpents. When you cast this spell and again at the start of each of your turns, each enemy in the space makes an Agility roll with 1 bane. On a failure, the enemy takes 3d6 damage and becomes poisoned (luck ends). You can use an action to move the serpents to a different Size 5 space within 10 yards of you. When the spell ends, the serpents become sticks once more.
Trample of Hooves
Castings: 1
Target: One space, 5 yards wide and 30 yards long, originating from you
Duration: Instant
You throw wide your arms and between them, there appears a shimmering portal. Out from this portal come thundering hooves of spectral steeds that trample everything in their path. Each creature and object in the target space takes 3d6 damage. A creature makes a Strength roll. On a failure, the creature takes an extra 3d6 damage and falls prone.
Master Animism Spells
Awaken Genius Loci
Castings: 1
Target: One Size 15 space centered on you
Duration: 1 minute
You awaken the spirit of the place who turns its environs against your enemies. The ground in the target space becomes challenging terrain and you and your allies in it have partial cover from all enemies thanks to the spirit’s efforts to protect you. At the end of each round, each enemy in the target space takes 3d6 damage and then makes a luck roll. On a failure, you roll a d6 to see what happens to them.
| D6 | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | The enemy takes an extra 1d6 damage from being whipped by leaves, grass, and branches. |
| 2 | The enemy falls prone when a vine or root trips it. The enemy cannot stand up until it leaves the target space or until it overcomes the affliction with a successful Strength roll. If the enemy was already prone, it takes an extra 2d6 damage. |
| 3 | The enemy becomes held until it overcomes the affliction with a success on a Strength roll. Weeds wrap around the enemy’s body. If the enemy is held already, it instead takes an extra 3d6 damage. |
| 4 | The enemy takes an extra 4d6 damage when a tree branch catches it. |
| 5 | The enemy takes an extra 4d6 damage and is moved to an empty space of your choice inside the target space, as a vine curls around the enemy and drags it off. |
| 6 | The enemy loses 4d6 Health and becomes poisoned (luck ends). Toxic spores, deadly pollen, or stinging insects ravage the enemy. |
Follow The Ley Line
Castings: 1, perform a ritual
Target: You
Duration: 24 hours
When you finish the ritual, name one place you have visited at least once or that you have seen on a map. You, and you alone, see a path form. If you follow the path for 24 hours without stopping, you and anyone who follows you can see the place you named ahead, no matter how distant the destination or severe the intervening obstacles.
Alternatively, you can expend the casting of this spell to increase your Speed by 5 for the duration.
Garden of Delights
Castings: 1
Target: One Size 5 space within 15 yards
Duration: 1 minute
Flowering plants grow throughout the target space, filling it with riotous colors and intoxicating perfume. Each creature in the space when the plants appear or that enters it becomes confused (luck ends). In addition, each such creature makes a Strength roll. On a failure, the creature becomes cursed, slowed, and vulnerable for as long as it remains con- fused. A creature cursed in this way will not willingly leave the space. At the end of round, each creature in the space loses 1d6 Health.
Standing Stones
Castings: 1, perform a ritual
Target: A Size 10 space on the ground and centered on you
Duration: Instant
EffectThe ground rumbles as eight large stones, each 4 yards tall, 3 yards wide, and 1 yard thick, rise from the ground to form a circle around you. Each stone weighs 33 tons. The stones shed dim or faint light in a color you choose, or shed no light at all. If you cast this spell to produce this effect again, the stones sink back into the earth and rise from the ground where you cast the spell.
Any creature other than your enemies that rests inside the circle heals 1d6 damage after each hour of resting. If such a creature rests continuously for 8 hours, it also regains 4d6 Health.
If you cast an Aeromancy, Animism, Cryomancy, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Primal, or Pyromancy spell inside the circle, and the spell produces an effect that lasts at least 1 minute, that effect lasts twice as long as normal. You make any roll for casting that spell with 1 boon and impose 1 bane on any roll to resist the casting.
Finally, if you are in the same world as the stones, you can use an action to expend a casting of this spell to teleport yourself, along with any allies you choose within 5 yards, into the circle.
Voracious Swarm
Castings: 1
Target: One Size 5 space within 15 yards
Duration: 1 minute
A boiling cloud of stinging, biting insects fills the target space with heavy obscurement and challenging terrain. At the end of each round, every creature in the space takes 3d6 damage and makes a Strength roll with 1 bane. On a failure, the creature takes an extra 3d6 damage. When a creature in the target space attempts to leave it, the creature makes a Will roll. On a failure, the creature is pulled 5 yards into the space and becomes held until the start of its next turn. Finally, if you are within 15 yards of the space, you can use an action to move the insects to a different space of the same Size within 15 yards of you.
Walking Tree
Castings: 1
Target: One living tree within 5 yards
Duration: 1 hour
The target rocks back and forth and it rips its roots up from the ground to become your controlled companion. If the target becomes incapacitated, the effect ends early. Otherwise, when the spell ends and if the tree is still alive, it sinks its roots into the ground where it stands, becoming an ordinary tree once more.
| WALKING TREE |
DEFENSE: 7, HEALTH: 60
ATTRIBUTES: Strength 13 (+3), Agility 10 (+0), Intellect -, Will –
SIZE: 3, SPEED: 5
IMMUNE: asleep, blinded, deafened, impaired, weakened
CRUSHING FALL: When the tree falls prone, each creature in a Size 3 space next to it makes an Agility roll with 1 bane. On a failure, the creature takes 5d6 damage, and falls prone.
FLAMMABLE: The tree takes double damage from fire and rolls with 1 bane to overcome being on fire.
MELEE ATTACK – LIMBS AND ROOTS: Strength (+3) with 1 boon (5d6)