Plant Powers (FiD)

Starfox's Blades in the Dark fan page

Governs plants and dead plant matter, including fungi.

Plant governs the majority of all life, things that do not act or move but only grow. Plant powers can accelerate and empower normally inanimate plants as barriers, tools, and weapons. Some plants do move, animate plants that act as other creatures do, but these are the exception.

Plant attacks are poison, infiltrating roots, and shooting seeds and barbs. These are effective against living things, but slow to damage objects.

Plant elementals are animated trees or masses of vegetation. Plant creatures are all kinds of plants capable of action. Learning who to summon may require study or be a a score in itself.

Plant Power Effects

Action	Basic No minimum 3 Stress	Advanced Minimum 2 Dice 5 Stress	Master Minimum 4 Dice 7 Stress	Apex Minimum 6 Dice 13 Stress
Attune	Sense Sprout Detect plants and plant powers.	Banish Bud Dismiss a plant creature. End a plant power.	Fecundity Summon a plant creature.	Gateway of Growth Create a portal to a plane of plants.
Command	Petal Proclamation Command plant creatures. You don't understand them.	Leafy Language You and allies can talk to plant creatures.	Leafy Leadership Command to plant creatures as a superior.	Petal Potentate Permanently bind plant creatures to service.
Consort	Floral Fashion Change clothes and accessories by adding plants.	Verdant Visage Assume the form of a plant creature.	Plant Polymorphism Verdant Visage a willing or helpless creature.	Chlorophyll Command Turn mooks into plant servants.
Finesse	Green Gallop You can ride any plant mount or vehicle.	Thorn of the Rose Fine and potent close-range attack.	Precise Prickle Fine control of plants at range.	Bowery's Barrage A storm of thorns, suppressing scale.
Hunt	Plant Pursuer Track using plants.	Petal Projectile Attack similar to a fine and potent rifle.	Plant Palisade Control and grow plants to change the terrain.	Vine Volley Plants attack similar to a fine and potent grenade.
Prowl	Stealthy Stalk Hide in overgrowth.	Plant Pathway Move on and through plants.	Foliage Ferry Crew Stealthy Stalk or Plant Pathway.	Plant Portal Crew teleport between overgrown areas.
Skirmish	Thorn Titan Absorb plant damage.	Thorn Thrust Fine and potent close-range attack.	Thorn Thicket Fine control of vegetation.	Thorny Tempest Attack all enemies in area.
Study	Leafy Learning Identify plant powers, objects, and creatures.	Leaf Lore Learn the abilities plant powers, objects, and creatures.	Root Revelation Read the past events of a plant or vegetal object.	Wisdom of the Wood Leaf Lore within sight then three times Root Revelation.
Survey	Sense Stem Sense powers, objects, and creatures.	Plant Perception Choose a plant that you know of, perceive from there.	Verdant Vigilance Choose a location or creature. Gain sensor at nearest plant.	Woodland Watch Perceive from all plants at once over a wide area.
Sway	Petal Patter Understand plant creature speech and objective. They cannot understand you.	Verdant Vocabulary You and allies can talk to plant creatures. You can also make folk more stoic.	Rose's Rhetoric Post suggestions in the mind of a plant creature.	Orchid Order Permanently change the personality and motivations of a plant creature.
Tinker	Leafy Loom Handle vegetal matter as if you had appropriate tools and protective devices.	Floral Forge Shape plants and vegetal matter as if they were of clay.	Thorny Transformation Create vegetal matter out of nothing. Transform vegetal matter into another power.	Botanical Build Floral Forge mass produce or make something large, such as a vehicle or building.
Wreck	Vandal Vines Noisily bash like a wooden hammer.	Stem Slam Smash vegetal matter as if it was brittle.	Quick Compost Stem Slam but silent and no traces.	Thicket Torrent Stem Slam over a large area.

Expanded Plant Powers

Attune

Perceive and manipulate supernatural energies, allowing you to detect and interact with beings and phenomena from other planes of existence.

The consequences usually depends on what happens around you when you do it. Having helpers and bodyguards reduces the consequences, and sometimes a creature wants to be dismissed and the consequence might be that it loses control of itself, or that other creatures appear to intervene.

Sense Sprout Detect plants creatures and plant powers.

This is usually done to spot a disguised summoned creature. However, it can also help identify a creature's connection to powers, providing valuable insights into their nature. Limited outcome suffices against a creature you can clearly see. You need greater outcome against against a creature that is hidden (standard outcome) or behind a wall (great outcome).

Banish Bud Dismiss a plant creature. End a plant power.

You can dismiss creatures linked to the Plant power. Many plant creatures are spirits possessing plants, when dismissed such Plant creatures revert to mundane, non-animate plants. Dismissing a creature is hard and usually requires great outcome. A creature that has been wounded or otherwise weakened only needs standard outcome. A creature that wants to be dismissed requires only limited outcome.

You can dispel any Plant outcome and any outcome that affects plants or Plant creatures. Dispelling is often used as a setup action to help another character in a situation when the opposition is using powers. This improves the position of the supported action.

It can also be used to break the continuing outcomes of powers. When used directly, the outcome is usually limited unless the opponent is relying on powers for their safety. Against an opponent that uses an animated plant as a prosthetic leg you can have a better outcome.

When dramatically appropriate that a power is hard to dispel, often because it is the crux of the situation, this will not negate the power but instead give you a clue to what you need to do to resolve the situation.

Fecundity Summon a plant creature.

Summoning can bring you allies to fight or labor for you, giving you scale. They can also give advice and information related to their power. Summons can use simple outcomes of their power and maintain power outcomes you have created. For a description of the planes Plant powers summon from, see Gateway of Growth.

Summoned creatures generally come in three types, animated plants, plant elementals, and plant spirits.

Animated Plants are mundane plants animated by Plant powers, making small plants grow, giving them the ability to move, and often exaggerated versions of what that plant can normally do. An animated pine tree shoots its pine cones, an animated Lavender have a scent that causes sleep, an animated belladonna has a poison that causes hallucinations, delirium, and death. Animated Plants are usually simple creatures with animal intelligence. Their main trait is stoicism, they accept fate as it comes, but are violent in defense of other plants.

Plant elementals are animate plants. They often have outlandish forms with certain traits of mundane plants or a mix of plants, combined with traits typical of animals and humans, such as claws, jaws, feet, or wings. Plant elementals can be more intelligent than most other elementals and include such things as dryads, female manifestations of plant fertility. They are stoic, but also generous, vivacious, and whimsical.

Spirits are immaterial, ephemeral, less physically oriented, instead manifesting the emotional and mental manifestations of plants, being generous, vivacious, and whimsical, but rarely have an agenda beyond having fun.

There are plant creatures that are natural to this world and not summonable or dismissible and have no special vulnerability to Attune powers.

You can summon generic creatures without having to do a flashback. Such a creature is similar to a gang member in ability and are often summoned in groups to add scale. To summon a particular creature, similar to a cohort, you need its unique identity, often called true name in the mystical power traditions. For a technomancer this would be a type id number or suitable seeds. Learning about the right creature to summon is a task in its own right, often requiring a flashback or downtime activity to use Command, Consort, Study, or Sway to gain information.

It might be worth the extra effort to summon a creature of higher tier, but this is also much more demanding, using the usual rules for tiers.

Depending on your degree of outcome the creature is willing to do different things. Limited outcome allows you to ask questions of an intelligent creature or demand a short period of physical labor from a simple creature. The creature will not fight for you. If forced into a fight due to circumstances, it will resent it.

Standard outcome allows you to ask for any service appropriate to the type of creature. An animated plant will toil or fight, an elemental or spirit fight or frolic.

Great outcome allows actions outside the creature's comfort zone, but not things it directly opposes. Plant creatures are only really opposed to self-harm, and even that might be negotiable. Lengthy service also requires great outcome, like summoning the creature to guard a treasure for as long as it can.

Typical consequences include:

• A bargain of payment in things the creature prizes such as prime soil or fertilizer.
• The creature strikes out at you once.
• A tightwire struggle to keep the creature under control.
• You need to concentrate to keep the creature under control.
• The creature breaks things made by craft around you.
• Overly literal interpretations of your commands.
• Demanding not to be summoned again until some time or event has passed.
• General sulkiness.

Offering a creature gifts or services appropriate to its nature can help. This is essentially a devil's bargain, accepting a price in advance.

Desperate position usually comes from trading position for outcome, but it might come from a difference in ethos. If you are a fire sorcerer, or if the summon is three or more tiers above you the position will be desperate. Consequences include the spirit demanding you sell your soul, become its agent in the world, that you come to its home plane to serve it there for a time (usually three scores), that you defeat the creature in a duel or similar dramatic story events.

Gateway of Growth Create a portal to a plane of plants.

Plants may have their own plane, or share a plane of nature with Animal powers. Such a place is wild and overgrown, with ancient forests and endless plains of grass and flowers. A gate lasts for a while, enough for a quick score. If things take a lot of time it might require a separate use of the power to return home again.

There are things that are possible to do on these planes that are not allowed in the regular world, most Plant abilities are reduced one step in difficulty, from advanced to basic, master to advanced, and apex to master. This opens the possibility of new super-apex powers that have to be negotiated with the game master. Such results rarely reach outside the plane where you perform them, but if they affect creatures on that plane, the result may remain when you return to the mundane world.

Gating can allow access to creatures too powerful to summon, so you instead ask for an audience. The creature may then use the gate to come to you, call you into its presence, or just communicate with you.

The first-time you gate to a certain place the position is at least risky and becomes desperate if there is any kind of disturbance.

Command

Command and intimidate Plant creatures, projecting authority. Position and initial effect depend on the situation and your relationship with the listeners.

Petal Proclamation Command plant creatures. You don't understand them.

This is useful for commanding and intimidating Plant creatures. You do nto understand them in return. Combined with Sway: Petal Patter, it allows two-way communication.

Leafy Letters You and allies can talk to plant creatures.

You can communicate with Plant creatures over any distance as long as you know the target, and a line-of-sight even if you do not. You can communicate with the most powerful Plant creature in a vehicle or installation as long as you can see the exterior. The communication is simple and direct, suitable for the Command skill. You can have a continuous chain of plants to deliver messages to places you know.

Leafy Leadership Command plant creatures as a superior.

Plant creatures will see you as an leader type type outranking them. This does not remove existing loyalties, which can lead to conflicts. Understanding the social order of your targets helps avoid conflicting with their established loyalties. Ordering

Limited outcome might result in a creature not doing what it might not have done anyway, like forgetting to report you or give you a ticket. Standard outcome makes the creature do what it should, but in a way you decide, like a police officer escorting you to safety or doing you a quick favor. Great outcome means targets will ignore their normal routine and go out of their way to please you, like neutral faction warriors fighting for you, or enemies ignoring or fleeing from you.

The position depends on the creatures' actual relationship to you—ordering a creature that sees itself as your superior is a desperate position. A controlled position comes from a creature that agrees you are superior, usually just making retrying harder. A risky position is typical against a creature that sees itself as your equal and not your enemy, possibly leading to heat, misunderstood orders, or small rebellions.

Petal Potentate Permanently bind Plant creatures to service.

This won’t work unless you are already in a position of power. This is similar to Authority but permanent. Strong emotions can break your control, but otherwise, it lasts until dispelled.

Consort

Consort powers changes your form and later that of other creatures. These powers might also be used as a set-up action. This may give a bonus to effect or improved position, make success automatic, or even allow an action that a human could not do.

A common consequences is that you are mistaken for someone, or that your assumed form is somehow a hindrance. You might be obnoxiously attractive, trigger prejudices, or have unexpected handicaps.

Floral Fashion Change clothes and accessories by adding plants.

You do not physically change yourself, you change your accessorize and outfit. As an advanced ability, you can do this for another.

Verdant Visage Assume the form of a plant creature.

This is a true physical transmutation. You need not assume the form of an existing creature, as long as the gamemaster agrees your new form matches the power you use.

Verdant Visage can work as a set-up action for a number of other actions but may penalize other things, as appropriate to your new form. When appropriate, your new form can use Basic and Advanced powers inherently without risking stress.

With limited outcome you can transform into yourself like you would have been, had you grown up as the creature whose form you assume. Those familiar with you will recognize you. Standard outcome can make you a generic creature, very hard to recognize as yourself. Great outcome allows you to assume the shape and some of the personality of a specific creature you have studied.

Plant Polymorphism Verdant Visage a willing or helpless creature.

This is Verdant Visage applied to another creature. The duration depends of the outcome, limited outcome is very temporary. Standard outcome lasts for the duration of a score. Great outcome lasts a long time and potentially become permanent, depending on the the story. If you also want to make the target unrecognizable, that requires additional outcome, see Shapechange.

This is sometimes used as a kind of poetic justice, transforming the target as a punishment, a curse that is very hard to break.

Chlorophyll Command Turn mooks into plant servants.

This is where Consort becomes a combination of the Plant Polymorphism and Command: Leafy Leadership power abilities. You transform a number of existing creatures and give them a task that they will perform with gusto, turning them into single-minded minions. Targets must be willing, non-sentient like animals, or just very minor figures in the plot, many tiers below you.

This is usually used to create a host of goons that will fight and chase for you. Such goons are more interested in chasing and cornering targets than in actual combat. Or they can be given bit parts, like the horror plants in The Little Shop of Horrors" (1986).

Finesse

Exercise finesse with your power, manipulating and attacking with precision.

Green Gallop You can ride any plant mount or vehicle.

This allows you to use Finesse with Plant mounts and Plant vehicles you are not familiar with. You can bypass simple locks on vehicles, but not more serious security. You can ride beasts even if they are not trained to carry a rider. They must still be physically able to carry you. A plant vehicle is usually made of wood.

Thorn of the Rose Fine and potent close-range attack.

Besides variety, this only substitutes for equipment, fine and potent finesse weapon is just as powerful. In a fight, using this does not take any more time, activating your attack power is equivalent to drawing a weapon.

Precise Prickle Fine control of plants at range.

This allows you to manipulate small plants and small amounts of plant matter, allowing you to directly open wooden doors, windows, and trapdoors. If you have some wood to work with you can push buttons, and perform legerdemain. This can substitute for simple Tinker actions, but nothing complicated.

Bowery's Barrage A storm of thorns, suppressing scale.

As Thorn of the Rose above, and you also create distractions. This is like having a number of trusty but entirely defensive allies in the fight and negates any scale advantage an enemy gets for having allies of their own.

Hunt

Track, attack, and unleash devastating barrages with the power of Hunt.

Plant Pursuer Track using plants.

You can track plant creatures and anyone moving through overgrown terrain. This works even if the quarry does not leave any mundane trail or clues. Consequences here are mainly to lose the trail, but depending on the environment and targets, it might lead you to get lost, into traps, or even into an ambush.

Petal Projectile Attack similar to a fine and potent rifle.

This serves as a replacement for traditional equipment; a fine and potent ranged weapon would be equally powerful in combat. While some targets may exhibit more or less vulnerability to specific types of attacks, this is the exception rather than the rule.

Plant Palisade Control and grow plants to change the terrain.

You can cause plants over an hectare to wither or grow. You can instantly grow or wither plants up to man height. This is usually to create favorable terrain in combat, but can be used to grow cultivated plants, but in this case you need to grow them much slower to give them vitality. This is usually used as a setup, but may also change how people act in reaction to the environment—withering woods and sudden brush may make people want to get away. This does not inflict any direct damage.

Vine Volley Plants attack similar to a fine and potent grenade.

An escalation of Petal Projectile. Less precise, this affects all creatures at a location, with a risk of collateral damage. Targets in trenches, behind walls, or otherwise shielded are not in direct danger, but tend to keep their heads down, which gives your side the initiative.

Prowl

Sneak and move with stealth and agility.

Stealthy Stalk Hide in overgrowth.

Conceal yourself among plants, even if they are not large enough to cover you. This allows you to hide in impossible places as long as the environment is covered in plants. It otherwise works just like any other attempt to use Prowl to avoid notice. Note that only you can use this ability, your friends and allies cannot unless you use Travel, below.

Plant Pathway Move on and through plants.

You can walk on plants and wood even if the material is slick, vertical, or to weak to carry your weight. This also allows you to walk through wooden walls. Your friends and allies cannot use this unless you employ Travel, below.

Foliage Ferry Crew Stealthy Stalk or Plant Pathway.

Now you and your allies can Prowl using Stealthy Stalk or Plant Pathway. They still use their own Prowl action.

Plant Portal Crew teleport between overgrown areas.

You and allies can teleport from one location in surrounded by plants to another. This can be something like a bowery, a deep forest, or the inside of a hollow tree, but both starting and endpoint must be similar. This is regional travel, you stay within the same city or region, but it is generally sufficient to escape just about any situation or location.

This takes you to places you are familiar with. Both effect and position is worse unless you know where you are going, which means it is great for escapes but less so for intrusion into an enemy's territory that you are likely to be much less familiar with.

Skirmish

Prosper in the chaos of battle.

Thorn Titan Absorb plant damage.

Absorb energies related to Plant. This includes Plant powers, the natural attacks of Plant creatures, and wooden weapons. This allows you to ignore most harm from a dangerous environment such as thorns, Roll Skirmish when taking harm from such energies. This is your inherent resistance, it does not require any activity on your part. Reduce the level of harm inflicted based on the level of success. 1-3: Nothing. 4-5: Reduce level of harm by one. 6: Reduce level of harm by two. Crit: Negate all harm and recover 1 stress.

Thorn Thrust Fine and potent close-range attack.

Besides variety in the type of damage, this only substitutes for equipment, mundane weapons are just as powerful. Certain targets may be more or less vulnerable to certain attacks, but this is the exception.

Thorn Thicket Fine control of vegetation.

Grow thorny bushes around you, creating a garden maze. The usual result is to deny the advantage of numbers.

Thorny Tempest Attack all enemies in area.

Turns thorns into a small army for you. Not only do you negate the advantage your enemy may get from numbers, you also spread your damage to hurt all your enemies in the skirmish.

Study

Study and analyze objects and creatures imbued with Plant power to gain insight and knowledge. The outcome required depends on range, limited outcome for touch, standard outcome for line-of-sight, and great outcome to reach a target you know of or have some link to, but which is out of line-of-sight.

Position depends on the situation. Safely in your base the position is controlled. In the middle of a fight or when pinned down the position is desperate. Sometimes thing you are researching it dangerous in itself, worsening position, consequences may give you knowledge that lacks crucial details.

Leafy Learning Identify plant powers, objects, and creatures.

This gives the name and very basic information in narrative terms, but not details or actual rules.

Leaf Lore Learn the abilities of plant powers, objects, and creatures.

You learn of any powers or special abilities the target has. This includes actual rules and game result.

Root Revelation Read the past events of a plant or vegetal object.

This includes previous owners and how the object has been moved around as well as significant scenes from its history. The power zooms in on events of interest to you.

Wisdom of the Wood Leaf Lore within sight then three times Root Revelation.

Provides a detailed view of events involving Plant powers, items, and creatures as far as you can see, pinpointing locations of interest like bases and power nodes. You can then use Root Revelation to learn the history of up to three such locations.

Survey

Perceive and locate manifestations of your power. The outcome you need depends on the target's concealment. Limited outcome finds targets in concealment. Standard outcome finds those hiding behind cover and in far places you can only barely see. Great outcome can look behind walls and into hard cover.

Sense Stem Sense powers, objects, and creatures.

This is a basic spotting power, selectively sensing things related to Plant.

Plant Perception Choose a plant that you know of, perceive from there.

You move your perception to a plant and sense as if you were at that spot as long as you maintain concentration. You still sense things at your actual location, but only very dimly.

Verdant Vigilance Choose a location or creature. Gain sensor at nearest plant.

Similar to Sensor but allows you to focus on a specific creature or position. Automatically directs your senses to towards the best vantage point for Verdant Vigilance, typically close enough to observe the target. Fails if no suitable viewpoint is available.

Woodland Watch Perceive from all plants at once over a wide area.

Enhances your senses impossibly, akin to being multiple individuals spread across the scene. Creates a comprehensive mental image of the area, revealing numerous details simultaneously. It's challenging for targets to hide unless they are aware of how to conceal themselves.

Sway

Communicate, mesmerize, and manipulate Plant creatures. Position is determined normally, depending on the situation and your relation to listeners.

Limited outcome works if it follows the target's existing impulses, just overcoming fragile self-restraint. Standard outcome can convince a target with no particular stake in the matter. Great outcome will convince a reluctant target, but not a passionate one.

Petal Patter Understand plant creature speech and objective. They cannot understand you.

You can gauge the mood and motivations of Plant creatures and understand what they are saying. This does not allow you to be understood. Used together with Command: Petal Proclamation, this allows full communication.

Verdant Vocabulary You and allies can talk to plant creatures. You can also make folk more stoic.

This allows you and your crew to use the Sway action at full power, overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers. You are persuading, not speaking with authority.

In addition, you can make any creature more stoic, generous, vivacious, or whimsical.

Rose's Rhetoric Post suggestions in the mind of a plant creature.

This is essentially an enhanced Sway attempt, allowing you to implant suggestions that will trigger under conditions you set. The power remains subtle until the suggestion is activated. The target will not remember being swayed.

Suggestions cannot be absurd to the target. A typical use would be to sway a servant to leave a window open or a guard to forget to load their weapon. Suggestions fade over time depending on the level of outcome achieved: limited outcome lasts for the immediate situation, normal outcome lasts for the duration of the score, and great outcome can extend beyond the score if it fits the story.

Orchid Order Permanently change the personality and motivations of a Plant creature.

This is permanent but blatant. It changes the target's mind on a deep level, altering their priorities and loyalties. Target remember their past but considers it unimportant compared to their new motivations. There are limits to this power—you cannot make a Plant creature highly strung or touchy-feely. Exceptional creatures and circumstances can break this power.

Tinker

Manipulate, shape, and create Plant objects to suit your needs. The powerfulness and durability of your constructions depend on the outcome. More powerful devices are harder to sustain and will not last as long. Most creations will endure until the end of a score.

Position depends on the tranquility of your workspace and if you are working on something dangerous in itself.

For long-term projects, Tinker powers can substitute for missing tools, but that is all they do unless you use Botanical Build.

Leafy Loom Handle vegetal matter as if you had appropriate tools and protective devices.

This ability substitutes for tools and protection devices typical of a small workshop.

Floral Forge Shape plants and vegetal matter as if they were of clay.

This surpasses normal crafting, letting you manipulate elements that are not stable, shaping leaves, sap, or green goo and making it stay in the new shape. This can substitute for pipes and containers and facilitate the construction of traps or devices, avoiding the need for extensive equipment.

You can also form parts of a larger object as if it were clay, creating openings in walls, doors, and other massive objects.

Thorny Transformation Create vegetal matter out of nothing. Transform vegetal matter into another power.

You don't need tools to build complex fine and potent items appropriate to your powers.

You can create Plant stuff from nothing. This is like Shaping, above, but needs no raw materials.

With multiple powers you can transform Plant material into material linked to another. This allows intricate transformations where a wooden staff can be transmuted into fire and still work as a staff, or a wooden door can be changed to air so you can walk through and the door then returns to normal.

Botanical Build Floral Forge mass produce or make something large, such as a vehicle or building.

You can mass produce objects or create large structures like ships or buildings that normally require a work force and facilities. In long-term projects involving construction or crafting, Fabricate makes many dozens of items with the same effort as one item, but with a stress cost.

Wreck

Destroy, dismantle, and obliterate objects made of stuff related to your power.

The outcome required depends on the size and structural strength of your target. Standard outcome is a car-sized hole in a brick or mortar wall. Construction significantly weaker than this only demands limited outcome. A smaller hole stil need the same outcome. Something larger and/or stronger requires great outcome.

The position depends on the situation. A quiet workspace is controlled, the general hustle of adventure risky, dealing with a fight, massive crowds, or dangerous construction is desperate.

Vandal Vines Noisily bash like a wooden hammer.

Just as crude as it sounds. You destroy things related to Plants and strike with the force of a wooden great club in combat. As usual, Wreck may be at an advantage or disadvantage compared to Hunt, Finesse and Skirmish, depending on the situation.

Stem Slam Smash vegetal matter as if it was brittle.

This bypasses the strength of Plant materials, allowing you to break even the strongest Plant barrier. You can also use this to smash other things or as a fine, potent sledgehammer.

Quick Compost Stem Slam but silent and no traces.

The real difference here is that wrecking Plant stuff is now silent and leave less traces, as what you wreck disappears. Get rid of evidence, as long as that evidence is Plant matter.

Thicket Torrent Stem Slam over a large area.

Rather straightforward, this just scales things up.