Flora

Origins

Okay, class, who would like to–

Oh, me! Me! A looong, loong time ago, the Rose Queens came to Seln, but the island stunk. It was full of nothing but bullies that never shared! They spent all their time fighting and fighting ‘til the island was ready to sink!

But the Rose Queens are different! They saw how pretty Seln can be! They started weaving the Garden, calling lots of people to Seln, and together we all kicked the bully butts! Once they were gone, they planted a seed that became us!

We’re the Rose Queen flowers, and the Roses love us very much, and we’re going to grow the Garden until its pretty as a jewel! Can I have a cookie?

No, sweetie. I was going to ask who would like to clean the dishes. Thank you for volunteering, though.

Stature (Auspices)

Your Lineage displays great variance based on your Auspice. Only Florans display such wild divergence from the standards of the other Lineages, and your Auspice may mark you as heavily as any of the Lineages. Outside Flora, the Auspices can generate confusion; many outsiders do not realize that a Dryad is a Floran, and most have never seen a Firstpetal!

What makes a person

To Florans, all the Auspices represent a single family. Men and women are different; children and adults are different; why should not the Lineage itself come in many shapes and forms? In fact, the Floran conception of folk is so broad it includes the local Fae! Pixies, naiads, and other Garden dwellers are honorary Florans!

The Rose Queens understand the political difficulties behind the Fae, however, and gently suppress mentions of such things. No reason to worry the other Lineages, after all.

Reproduction

Many of the sub-lineages are either rare or incapable of reproduction. Then how do these Auspices maintain viable populations?

One source is known: Gardener mothers can give birth to any of the other auspice.

Another is rumored: There are whispers that the Rose Queens know how to “evoke” the sub-lineages within their children. Be on your best behavior, or the Rose Queens might turn you into a dryad and plant you in the woods! Or, worse, into a Firstpetal and force you to hold an adult’s hand in the market for the rest of your life!

Gardeners

First, the default. Most of your brethren are Gardeners.

  • Height: 150 to 160 cm average, with men and women the same height
  • Build: Petite. Your Lineage is smallest of the Kingdom
  • Hair: Your hair comes in every color under the sun, intermingled with living greenery
    • Men often grow shards of bark that resemble small horns
    • Women usually grow flowers or budding vines
  • Gender: Your lineage skews towards women over men, 3:1

Flower signs

  • The greenery that grows on your head will change over your life
  • Children, both male and female, commonly have rings of small dandelions or daisies
  • At puberty most boys shed their flowers for vines and bark; most girls grow more complex flowers like orchids or sunflowers

These flower signs reflect your mood and spirit.

  • Pregnant women often sprout roses as the first sign of conception
  • Martial artists and body builders often see their hair turn entirely to living bark during training
  • The sick and depressed wilt, greenery turning sickly
  • Baldness only occurs due to life-threatening illness and recovers if you survive

Dryads

Dryads are feral, rejecting civilization for the peace of the woods. Many Dryads take this one step further, living among the spirits in Realms apart.

  • Rarity: 1 in 100
  • Height, build, and hair as Gardeners
  • Skin: Your skin gradually turns into a soft, flexible bark as you age
  • Being particularly plant-like, you can photosynthesize by sunbathing!

Flower signs

  • Your hair can sprout small seeding fruits.
    • You have control over this process and can choose the fruit and its rate of bud.
    • You cannot feel the fruit itself; it is painless to pluck Time
  • You age much slower than others, potentially living for hundreds of years
  • Your thoughts tend to the slow and contemplative

Crystal Swans

The handmaidens of the Rose Queens, the Crystal Swans are the princesses of the Garden. Each is accompanied by a pixie advisor!

  • Height: 150 to 160 cm
  • Build: Your lineage reflects your Rose Queen, as though you were her child
    • Liliana: Youthful and cute
    • Kassandra: Skinny and gaunt
    • Clover: Voluptuous and warm
  • Gender: Male Swans are known as Phoenix Lords and renowned for flamboyance to match

Flower markings

  • Rather than flower markings, you sprout brilliant plumage around your shoulders and head Some Crystal Swans are cultivators on the Path of the same name. Rose Thorns Rose Thorns are Florans grown stronger, fiercer, and bolder. Known as the knights of the Rose Queens, these guardians hunt down villains in the Garden.
  • Rarity: 1 in 1000
  • Height: 180 to 210 cm, towering over smaller kin!
  • Build: Powerful
  • Hair: True to the lineage name, your hair blooms roses nestled into tiny beds of thorns
  • Gender: All known Rose Thorns are female

Rose Thorns are notable for being both a Path and a Auspice. All members of this Auspice come from that Path.

As powerful protectors, the Rose Thorns guard the safety of the Rose Queens, the Crown, and other important persons. An honor guard of six travel with the Queen, and the princess has one as well.

Firstpetal

Child-like and clever, the Firstpetal largely play in the boughs of the Garden, ignorant and disinterested in the wider Kingdom.

  • Rarity: 1 in 100
  • Height: 105 to 120 cm. Good luck reaching that cookie jar…
  • Build: You remain youthful, your body never maturing older than early teens
    • You cannot have children
  • Gender: Like Gardeners, your gender skews towards girls

Firstpetal markings

  • Like pixies, you shed glimmers of colorful dust when excited
  • Older (relatively speaking) Firstpetal can incarnate their own pixie wings

Behavior

  • Your Auspice share an epic, centuries long game known as the Trick.
    • The rules are made up and the points don’t matter
    • Winning a Trick is the best thing you can do in a given day
    • Sore losers need not apply
    • Supposedly the original Trick was started by a Senbonzakura kitsune
  • Your Auspice are not allowed out of the Garden without an escort, usually a Rose Thorn

Dawnsingers

Dawnsingers are new to the Garden. Only a few have been spotted, all in the keeping of the Rose Queens. Their purpose is still unclear, but their voices are captivating and beautiful as any Siren.

  • Rarity: Only a handful known. Yet.
  • Height: 150 to 160 cm average, with men and women the same height
  • Build: Lithe and reedy
  • Gender: 50/50 split male and female

Flower markings

  • Your lineage has minimal flower markings
  • Instead, splashes of color adorn your upper body and face
    • These colors dance upon your skin as you sing

Naming conventions

Your clan is easy-going. Any name will do! Common themes emphasize the Garden and growing things.

Examples for girls: Aster, Alyssa, Calanthe, Jasmine, Leilani, Lily, Primrose, Iris, Violet

Examples for boys: Adair, Ash, Basil, Elwood, Laurence, Oliver, Reed, Yarrow, Vernon

Role – Keepers of Joy

As a Floran, you are the youngest sibling of Harmony. Your naysayers might consider you immature, but you understand the importance of joy. Without joy, Harmony would be a cold and demanding song!

You can be proud that:

  • Wherever you go, the Garden blooms brighter in both the soil and the hearts of the folk
  • Your lineage are the best craftsmen and artisans in all the Kingdom

You might admit under pressure:

  • That some Florans interpret joy as permission for them to have fun at any expense, but you understand the deeper meaning is to bring joy.
  • That the baffling chaos of your many Auspices create a society that is perhaps slightly disorganized

Your Song

The Rose Queens

You are the descendent of a Rose Queen. These monarchs dwell unseen in the depths of the wood, the apparently immortal rudder to your society.

Rose Queens do not dictate policy or command armies. They defer to the Aloran Queen in all matters of state.

Instead, your Rose Queens devote themselves to the singular art of tending the Garden. They do not elaborate on its goals but offer healing, advice, and comfort.

The Rose Queens were already ancient in the oldest existing records of the Kingdom, but they hold their secrets close.

These old records disagree on the number of Rose Queens: seven, three, twenty, even a hundred!

Today, three Rose Queens are active.

They are:

Liliana, keeper of spring. Youngest of the Rose Queens, she holds sway over Light and Water. Her children are the Firstpetal and dawnsingers. She knows ancient songs to evoke one’s true heart, and she welcomes new children into the fold – including Crystal Swans and Thorns. Some whisper she alone among the folk knows where to find the Doe.

Kassandra, keeper of mysteries. Somber oracle of Harmony, Kassandra holds sway over Air and Dark. She claims the dryads, whispering her visions through the boughs. She tosses the bones to divine the future, and you ignore her portents at your own peril. She grants those who annoy her a vision of their own demise and delivers quests that reveal their import only once complete.

Clover, keeper of the heart. Crystal warden and mender, Clover holds sway over Earth and Fire. She claims the Gardeners and thus most Florans. She gifted the young Kingdom the ward arts and today sends her artisans across the Kingdom to maintain the network.

You know the Rose Queens as sponsors of festivities, though you have likely never seen them in person.

  • Liliana sponsors sports and games
  • Kassandra blesses gamblers. Good or ill, it will be eventful!
  • Clover favors merchants and craftsmen

The innumerable fairy host

Your home is host to fairies, a million-strong host of small creatures. You grew up leaving milk out for brownies, and the adults warned you to ask the selkies permission to swim in lakes and rivers.

As far as you are concerned, these pixies have no relation to the Grand Fae of the ancient stories. Most are no more dangerous than the beasts of the wilds, and all have their place in the Garden.

By far most common is the lowly pixie. Pixies are tiny humanoids, 15 cm or so tall, with the energetic disposition of a puppy. You shared your childhood with the pixies, pranking and being pranked by them, and know them to be harmless if sometimes annoying.

Pixies claim to outnumber the rest of Seln combined by five to one, and vast flocks of pixies take to the sky when the Rose Queens stir.

When fairies or pixies overstep their bounds, the Crystal Swans intervene. This Path holds authority over all such fairies and herds the rascals out of trouble.

Gambling and Games

You love a good game! Probably too much.

As children, you and your friends joined the Firstpetal the wild Trick. One year the goal might have been to steal the most socks from the laundry; another it might have been to learn the names of the most pixies; a third it might have been to earn the most money.

The largest game of tag ever recorded included 23 taggers and a thousand runners, played across the width of the Garden!

This love of games grows with you, and the adults love to things: sports and gambling!

Today’s sport craze is soccer. Floran soccer embraces cultivation; most teams are Path warriors! If you join a Floran soccer match, expect a soccer ball like a fireball to shoot at your head! Last year’s winning shot was a triple reverse roundhouse kick that shot the ball out one side of the stadium and through the back of the enemy net on the other side!

While some play, the rest bet. Floran casinos accept bets on literally anything under the sun.

Your lineage has a fairly lenient view on cheating that often conflicts with the strict rules of Aloran and Izuno competitions. In Flora, you can win a card game by manipulating puddles of water to catch a reflection of your opponent’s cards – and that’s just clever play! Got a bad hand? Summon a gust of wind to blow the cards away and reset the round!

Some visitors to your lands have wondered if a high stakes game of cards is actually a battle…

The Game of Titles

Floran Teachers have a strange saying for their children: “You are the age you act.” Just the other day, I beheld the strange sight of a teenage boy sulking on the shore with much younger children while his comrades raced the reef! I chanced to ask his Teacher the source of this oddity, and she replied, “I have honored him with a title matching his behavior.”

On my parting, the poor boy was still sitting in the shallows, suffering a song on water safety.

In Flora, titles have power.

Outside the wood, one might consider a title something granted. Perhaps a dispensation from the Crown, a reward from a clan leader, or a recognition of one’s deeds.

In Flora, you know better. Titles in your wood are declarations of intent, and you must act accordingly.

There is an obvious temptation to grab the biggest title one can imagine, and outsiders are often shocked when this appears to work. (See Game of Titles below). However, if you claim a lofty title, you accept the responsibilities of that office.

You can pretend to be a Rose Queen if you’d like. You will soon find villagers asking you to solve their problems!

You admit that your Lineage can be a bit merciless when enforcing these consequences, but can others blame you? A fool that claims a gaudy title should learn to think more!

Your title is also a way to take a break. A Highbranch magistrate that wants a day unbothered by his staff might declare “I am but a lowly fisherman!” and hit the river.

Of course, shirk too many duties, and your staff might take the liberty of extending the game. Perhaps by removing all of your possessions from the your mansion and dumping them in a fisher’s shack.

Outsiders see chaos, but you see a grand and ever-shifting dance. Play long enough, play well enough, and who will be able to tell the difference between a title claimed and a title earned?

Playing The Game of Titles

That’s a bear. You realize that’s a bear, right?

If you must be crude…yes, I see that’s a bear.

Then why-

Because he was introduced as a Duke! Honestly! At least he has the good graces to go along with it.

He’s standing on the table eating the roast.

I see that. So well-mannered compared to our last Duke!

An enduring sport of Flora is the Game of Titles. This game can be played by anyone at any time. It has a well-rehearsed format but no formal rules.

In the Game of Titles, you claim a wild, grandiose title for yourself or a friend. For example, one Game of Titles centered on a hamster introduced as the mayor of New York; it ended only after the hamster’s elaborate funeral two years later!

Once introduced, the goal is simple: play along with the farce the longest!

Those participants that play generously and maintain the façade gain favor; those that twist the premise with pettiness or insults lose favor. The game continues until the novelty has been exhausted, a character sours the playing field with a particularly noxious faux pas, or something more interesting pops up.

Rosethorns are exempt from the Game of Titles. They act as referees for when the game descends into arguments and enforcers when someone takes the game too far.

To outsiders, this game often seems like complete madness. A peasant can declare himself the Crown Princess Selene and receive a royal banquet! What these outsiders miss are the unwritten rules of the game: someone claiming a grand title just to get presents plays a boring game. Claim to be the Princess to fool a spirit? Now this might be interesting enough to indulge…

You can also use the game of titles to help. Imagine a peasant that just lost his entire crop to flooding. You might declare him the Crown Princess and start delivering gifts of foods and replacement tools! Of course, he has his part to play; he had best don the Crown Princess garb (or a hastily assembled approximate) and offer spring’s blessing to the local shrine, but that’s all part of the game!

At the end of the day, he will have enough food for the winter, and everyone will have had a good time.

Dance graciously, embrace the mercurial, and come to know the ever-shifting garden.