Blackthorn Trees and Dryads

[Scornado]

The Bestiary states for Blackthorn Trees that "Each tree has a malignant, tortured dryad trapped inside".   Is it anywhere stated in lore where these Dryads come from?  Do they enter the tree from, presumably, the Spirit world when the rod that will grow into the tree is planted so the Blackthorn is "their tree of birth"?  Alternatively does a dryad from elsewhere have to be captured and forced into the tree by the Dancer in Darkness who plants the rod (sapling)?   Is the DiD what 'tortures' the dryad. making it malignant?  Are Aldrami aware of the dryads in Blackthorns?

Edited July 29 by Scornado

[Scotty]

See:

10.1.1 Blackthorn Dryad Origin in the Q&A

 

Edited September 1 by Scotty
replaced link

[Scornado]

Many thanks Scotty.  I guess the DiD is taking a cutting from the oak.  I am thinking if a cutting is taken from an oak so as to be corrupted with this ritual then maybe an Aldryami may become aware of the action .... as you write, a story hook.

Edited July 29 by Scornado

[Godlearner]

We do some stuff with that in the Hliday Dorstor: Woods of Terror supplement.

Holiday Dorastor: Woods of Terror - Chaosium | Jonstown Compendium | DriveThruRPG

[soltakss]

I would just say that the Dryad is formed normally, as part of the twisted ritual that creates the tree. Instead of being a normal dryad it is a twisted undead dryad.

[Shiningbrow]

15 hours ago, soltakss said:

I would just say that the Dryad is formed normally, as part of the twisted ritual that creates the tree. Instead of being a normal dryad it is a twisted undead dryad.

I can't think of any compelling reason for them being undead.

If the tree is being grown as normal, but the spirit is being tortured (perhaps through the unhealthy waters)), then it wouldn't really make sense for them to have to be killed, and then brought back again.

(It also confuses the idea of what 'undead' is, since it's supposed to be living embodied things which have died, but are still animated by some force. Since the dryad never actually had a body other than the tree, it would mean that the tree died... - and thus, the tree goes through the undead creation ritual, not the dryad itself).

[Bohemond]

In my game, the Blackthorn dryads are the daughters of Horalin, the original dryad from Yellowflower Isle who was forcibly transplanted and corrupted by Delecti. One of their uncorrupted sisters remains as the dryad of Yellowflower Isle. Her deepest goal is to either cleanse or kill her mother. 

[soltakss]

On 9/1/2024 at 12:57 PM, Shiningbrow said:

I can't think of any compelling reason for them being undead.

They are the dryads of the Upland Marsh and it grows partly by new Blackthorn Trees being planted. I interpreted that as them being undead dryads, because undead dryads are a perversion. Your interpretations and perversions may vary.

[Shiningbrow]

10 hours ago, soltakss said:

They are the dryads of the Upland Marsh and it grows partly by new Blackthorn Trees being planted. I interpreted that as them being undead dryads, because undead dryads are a perversion. Your interpretations and perversions may vary.

Yeah, I got your reasoning... But I didn't think it would be automatic. Is Delecti and the DoD obsessed with turning everything into an undead creature??

Also, if it's undead, doesn't that mean - by definition - that it wouldn't grow??? Aren't undead things supposed to remain pretty much as they were (at least physically) when they died?

(are the trees undead as well? Or only the dryad? Can a spirit be undead? Since the definition is supposed to be 'animating bodies after they have died')

[davecake]

My understanding is the dryads are not undead, but are tortured and corrupted. The ritual transforms the oak into a Blackthorn Oak, and the dryad into a malignant dryad that is also able to manifest as a Darkness elemental. It does require the ritual sacrifice of a vampiric victim who is left at the base of the tree. The Dryad may resist, but in the normal situation a group of Dancers in Darkness is hard to resist. 

[Jex]

There's a lot more (semi-canon) information about blackthorn trees (and other plants of the Upland Marsh) in Tales of the Reaching Moon #19.  According to this source, the original Blackthorn was originally an ancient oak tree that grew at the confluence of the River, the Stream, and the Creek, home of the ancient dryad Horalin.  Delicti befriended Horalin under false pretenses, only to betray her and turn her into one of his undead, corrupting her tree into the Blackthorn that now grows near Delicti's Isle.  Cuttings from this tree are carved into stakes and planted by the Dancers of Darkness to expand the Marsh, and these stakes grow into new Blackthorn trees.

None of which, admittedly, addresses the matter of where the dryads inhabiting these trees (which are actually "combination shade/dryad[s]", according to TotRM) come from.  That's a good question.  If the blackthorns grow from stakes cut from the original Blackthorn, then they were never regular, uncorrupted trees to begin with, so there should never have been any regular dryads inhabiting them for Delicti to corrupt.  Just as the blackthorns are cuttings of the original Blackthorn that was once Horalis's oak, are their dryads somehow cloned fragments of Horalin herself?  Or does Delicti somehow import dryads from elsewhere to corrupt and implant in the blackthorn trees?  Hm...  I suppose @Bohemond's idea of their being daughters of Horalin is also a possibility... but then who's the father?

EDIT: Ah, okay, never mind; I guess the Q&A @Scotty linked to settles the matter.  It does seem to contradict the account in Tales of the Reaching Moon, but that was a fanzine anyway (albeit one made by people who went on to make many other contributions to Glorantha) and never fully canonical.

Edited September 22 by Jex

[davecake]

On 9/23/2024 at 6:06 AM, Jex said:

which are actually "combination shade/dryad[s]", according to TotRM) come from

Also according to the Bestiary 

Quote

She is a combination Darkness elemental/dryad, with all the abilities of both.

I generally take this to mean that they have the normal abilities of a dryad, and a shade, but that gets confusing quick. In RQ3 Dryads were clearly indicated as types of Nymph, as possessing the usual abilities of nymphs, and the Glorantha Bestiary does not make this clear. It also does not say that their  bodies are not permanent but created at will (which was explicitly stated in RQ3 though not in RQ2), so it now unclear whether this is an intended change, or an unintended one due to changing back to largely RQ2 text without editing - but as the dryads are generally not shamans, and the Dryads generally have skills only useful to Discorporate beings (Spirit Travel, Spirit Dance), it seems assumed but not stated. And it seems stated more clearly 150+ pages away in a not clearly linked place - on page 176, it says, under Embodied Spirits 

Quote

However, some spirits (such as elementals, dryads, nymphs and other genius loci) can incorporate in the Material World, taking physical substance from their chosen matter.

suggesting that dryads are able to form, and presumably dissolve, bodies, thus becoming discorporate - but also confusingly, that sentence also indicates they are not nymphs, just a lot like them, so we can't presume they are like nymphs generally. 

So it is unclear if they are able to form a separate physical body at will or dissipate one, because it's unclear if dryads can, but they probably can. But presuming they can, its also unclear how - RQ3 said they could form or dissolve their bodies only by stepping in or out of their tree, and cannot leave their grove (if forced out of it, their body dissolves - yes, seems to contradict the bit about having to step into their tree, but perhaps they cannot willingly do so, and may suffer some harm), and said that they always remain alive as long as their tree remains alive (the general nymph description implies that the nymphs body will eventually regenerate if killed and the tree remains alive. The RQG Aldrya cult description (in the part about the Elder Sister sub-cult), on the other hand, implies that a dryad can die, and then a non-dryad member of the Aldrya cult can inherit the tree to keep it alive (presumably an elf, but probably also a member of the Children of the Forest lay members of the cult, which could be a runner or a pixie, or perhaps even a human, beastman, duck or dragonnewt if it is NOT the case that all non-Aldryami initiates to Aldrya must go through the nasty transformation ritual required for non-elves to become a member of High King Elf). its not really clear how a non-dryad joins Elder Sister in any case, as adopting a tree isn't necessary. The cult description also implies that dryads can leave their groves, but that most do not do so, only a minority who have received an allied spirit and leave the allied spirit in their tree to guard it. Also, it says that if the tree remains alive the dryad remains alive, so raising the question of how the statement about a dryad dying but the tree remaining alive comes into effect if the dryad can only be killed if the tree is killed. Perhaps the tree must temporarily die but adoption by a new Elder Sister initiate revives it. 

OK, that was a big sidetrack. I'd assume dryads in general, and Blackthorn twisted dryads included, can form a physical body by stepping in and out of their tree, that they can act as a discorporate spirit if they have dissolved their body, and that in either case they seldom leave their grove as it is unprotected if they leave. They are able to control incomplete creatures born in their grove, including animals, regardless of whether they are embodied. That is probably literally the only clear sentence of what powers they have. 

As to having the abilities of a shade/Darkness elemental - it is unclear what this means too, because Darkness elementals only abilities take effect if they entirely engulf someone, and a humanoid body with normal SIZ like a dryad cannot engulf anyone. Their abilities are too block the sense of those engulfed, and to Fearshock them the first round they are engulfed, and extinguish flames brought within them. You could say that they are able to exercise some of these abilities (maybe Fearshock and extinguish on touch. Or you could say that, like some RQ3 nymphs (and maybe RQG ones, who knows) they are able to form themselves an elemental body (eg naiads could do this for 1 magic point per m^3. Confusingly (yes, I've used that word a lot) the closest to a Darkness nymph in RQ3, a hag, instead formed a *separate* shade rather than a body of Darkness). I'd probably go for the 'forms an elemental body' option rather than the 'Darkness touch' option, but either forms fine. And there is no need to be consistent, or even not to use both. 

 

 

Edited October 1 by davecake

[Scornado]

Having posed the original question in this thread, I'd like to thank everyone for their input.  While there is a canon explanation now added to the Q&A I am not sure I'll adopt it as written - others have contributed some interesting ideas and for some MGF I may well tweak what is canon - but I am not going to say how just in case one of the players reads this!  Thanks.

Edited October 1 by Scornado