General Prestige Class : Verdant Lord
Saying the verdant lord has a green thumb is like calling a red dragon a creature with a slight affinity for fire. The verdant lord is the final defender of the forest. He has left behind the druid's search for global understanding of nature's secrets to focus all his energies on the world's plant life.
Elven and half-elven druids are the most likely characters to embrace the role of the verdant lord. Druids of other races, rangers, and the occasional priest of Obad-Hai or Ehlonna have also been known to adopt this prestige class. It's almost impossible for characters without such ties to become verdant lords because they have neither the interest in not the required understanding of seeds, saplings, and trees.
Since most verdant lords have little use for civilization, they tend to be loners, watching the years pass by from their groves. Adventuring verdant lords are rare, but those who do exist are marvelous to behold. They tend to take their gardens with them, often bringing several plant creatures, such as animated trees and treants, along on adventures. Verdant lords tend to be soft-spoken, easygoing individuals - right up until someone lights a torch and threatens living plants.
Requirements
To qualify to become a Verdant Lord, a character must fulfill all the following criteria:
- Alignment: Any nonevil.
- Skills: Profession (herbalist) 8 ranks, Survival 8 ranks.
- Feats: Plant Control, Plant Defiance.
- Spells: Able to cast control plants.
Class Skills
The verdant lord's class skills are Climb, Concentration, Craft (any), Diplomacy, Disguise, Handle Animal, Heal, Hide, Knowledge (nature), Listen, Spellcraft, Survival, and Swim.
Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.
Class Features
The following are class features of the verdant lord prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Verdant lords gain no weapon or armor proficiencies.
Spells per Day/Spells Known: At each verdant lord level, the character gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class to which he belonged before adding the prestige class. He does nor, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (additional wild shape options, metamagic or item creation feats, or the like). If the character had more than one spellcasting class before becoming a verdant lord, the player must decide to which class to add each verdant lord level for determining spells per day and spells known.
Create Infusion: At 1st level, the verdant lord gains Create Infusion as a bonus feat.
Expert Infusion: At 2nd level, the character can automatically identify the spell contained in an infusion and the caster level of that spell. He also gains a bonus equal to his verdant lord level on both Profession (herbalist) checks and Survival checks related to plants, including the use of this skill to forage for herbs.
Sun Sustenance (Ex): Also at 2nd level, the verdant lord gains the ability to draw energy from the sun. As long as he spends at least 4 hours of the day outdoors, he can draw sustenance from the sun itself, and thus he requires no food that day. He still thirsts, however, and needs the standard amount of water to survive.
Spontaneity: Beginning at 3rd level, the verdant lord can channel stored spell energy into certain healing spells that he hasn't prepared ahead of time. This works like the cleric's spontaneous casting ability with the following exceptions. He can "lose" a prepared spell to cast any regenerate spell of the same level or lower (a regenerate spell is any one with "regenerate" in its name). For example, a verdant lord who has prepared faerie fire (a 1st-level spell) may lose that spell to cast regenerate light wounds (also a 1st-level spell) instead. Domain spells, if the character has access to them, cannot be converted into regenerate spells.
Plant Facility: At 4th level, the verdant lord can rebuke or command plants with Plant Control as if he were three levels higher than the actual caster level he uses to determine the benefits of that feat. This means that he can also command 3 additional HD of plant creatures.
Fast Healing: At 5th level, the verdant lord gains Fast Healing as a bonus feat.
Treant Wild Shape (Sp): Beginning at 6th level, the verdant lord can use wild shape to take the form of a treant and back again once per day This ability otherwise works like wild shape. Since a treant has a voice and manipulative appendages, the verdant lord can cast spells normally while in treant wild shape.
Animate Tree (Sp): At 8th level, a verdant lord can animate a tree within 180 feet of him once per day. It takes a full round for a tree to uproot itself; thereafter it has a speed of 30 feet and fights as a treant with respect to attacks and damage. The animated tree gains a number of bonus Hit Dice equal to the number of verdant lord levels the character possesses. Though its Intelligence score is only 2 while animated, the tree automatically understands the verdant lord's commands. The character can return the animated tree to its normal stare at will, and it automatically returns to its normal stare if it dies as if the verdant lord who animated it is incapacitated or moves our of range. Once the tree returns to its normal stare by any means, the verdant lord cannot animate another tree for 24 hours.
Gaea's Embrace: At 10th level, the verdant lord permanently becomes a plant creature, though all forms of wild shape that the character could previously use remain available to him. His type changes to plant, and as a result he gains low-light vision, is immune to poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, and polymorphing, and is not subject to critical hits or mind-influencing effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, or morale effects). He no longer suffers penalties for aging and cannot be magically aged. Any aging penalties he may already have suffered, however, remain in place. Bonuses still accrue, and the verdant lord still dies of old age when his time is up.
| Verdant Lord | Hit Die: d8 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CL | BAB | Fort | Ref | Will | Special | Spells per Day/Spells Known |
| 1st | +1 | +2 | +0 | +2 | Create Infusion | +1 level of existing class |
| 2nd | +2 | +3 | +0 | +3 | Expert infusion, sun sustenance | +1 level of existing class |
| 3rd | +3 | +3 | +1 | +3 | Spontaneity | +1 level of existing class |
| 4th | +4 | +4 | +1 | +4 | Plant facility | +1 level of existing class |
| 5th | +5 | +4 | +1 | +4 | Fast healing | +1 level of existing class |
| 6th | +6 | +5 | +2 | +5 | Treant wild shape | +1 level of existing class |
| 7th | +7 | +5 | +2 | +5 | - | +1 level of existing class |
| 8th | +8 | +6 | +2 | +6 | Animate tree | +1 level of existing class |
| 9th | +9 | +6 | +3 | +6 | - | +1 level of existing class |
| 10th | +10 | +7 | +3 | +7 | Gaea's embrace | +1 level of existing class |
Organized Druids:
The Order of the Verdant Grove
"You cannot decide to be pure, novice."
- An elder of the Order, to a young Vadansa
The Order of the Verdant Grove is a loose organization of about one hundred seventy druids and verdant lords who share certain interests and are committed to gaining and disseminating information about nature. The organization doesn't have much of a hierarchy, and the typical member also owes allegiance to some other druid circle in his or her local area. Many druids have heard of the Order of the Verdant Grove, but they often assume it is the name of some regional druid circle.
An applicant for membership must be invited and sponsored by a current member, and all available members periodically vote on whether to admit the current applicants. Once accepted, the new member (called an initiate) undergoes a rite of acceptance during which he or she receives a hoop earring bearing a green orb. Not only does this allow members to identify one another, but it is also a pearl of power (1st-level). The initiate is expected to make a donation that covers the cost of creating this talisman.
What makes the order different from other organizations is that its members intentionally spread themselves out over the world. A few are just as tied to a single sacred grove or woodland as any other druid or verdant lord would be, but most are travelers. They may be active adventurers our to address wrongs in the world or scholars in search of information that they can share with fellow members.
In this sense, the Order of the Verdant Grove is the closest thing druids have to a ring of spies. Of course, most of the information that its members acquire and disseminate within the organization would bore a typical spy to tears. They share information about their explorations of distant lands, discoveries of new creatures (animals and beasts), and of previously unknown wonders of the natural world. They also share knowledge of new spells and magic items that have come into use. Members of the Order of the Verdant Grove are encouraged to share whatever information they discover, but they are required to report on new druid communities, standing stones, or druid circles that they find. The Order of the Verdant Grove must occasionally act as a messenger service between independent druid circles in times of regional or greater crisis, so it's important for its members to know where the druids of the world can be found.
The origins of the order hearken back to a day when a druid circle broke apart following a war against a wizard cabal and its demonic servants. Many members of the original group became verdant lords - perhaps from a desire to form a deeper and more personal bond with nature after being dragged into a fight against outsiders. Thus, they tended to be somewhat reclusive. Now verdant lords have become rare, and they are found only among the older members of the organization. The druids and the verdant lords in the order do not compete - they share too much to become embroiled in petty rivalries.
Source: Masters of the Wild