Sounds good...
I hope they're very happy.
The next generation should be interesting, the seeds or shoots of a really fun story!
One Man Went To Mow:
Would this be safe with a dryad around?
And, trees that grow chocolate, say as coins, you need those.
And, the bacon trees. Smoked and unsmoked.
And the chocolate bacon trees. [grin]
Got to give reasons for people to sneak into those woods...
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"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Rakhasa Wrote:I certainly would -up to and including burning down the entire forest. It is one thing to know than your trees may eat anyone stupid enough to wander inside the forest anf fall asleep -that's what the walls around the forrest are for. If someone goes in anyway and dies, well, so sad, circle of life, etc, etc.
But allowing someone to remain prisioner in one of your creations is an order of magnitude worse. The driad idea souds cool, but only as something a fen would be willing to do.
An idea: Druid A, some girl obsessed with trees/flowers/whatever, gets accidentally biomoded into a driad. Scientists in Marduk try to get herout, but have no luck (eventually they manage to turn the tree and the soil were it grows into a miniature Unreal State than moves floating). Meanwhile, Druid B, her boyfriend/husband, decides to join her, and tries to biomod himself into another driad.
The end result is the Ent. Yes, the dryad as a biomod sounds like a much better idea. Even if this "floating tree" doesn't work (a floating tree sounds "unnatural" for a dryad), maybe her dependency on the tree can be relaxed so she can leave it for a few hours...
Ace Dreamer Wrote:Sounds good...
I hope they're very happy. Not sure if her Ent friend will be that happy. 
Quote:And, trees that grow chocolate, say as coins, you need those.
And, the bacon trees. Smoked and unsmoked.
And the chocolate bacon trees. [grin]
Got to give reasons for people to sneak into those woods...
I wonder if the bacon/chocolate trees will bear seeds. If yes they might become a common sight in larger settlements to add more variance to the locally produce food (as long as the 'fruits' are reasonable Handwavium free).
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The Jason created beefsteak-tomato plants that breed true and produce beefsteak; why wouldn't the bacon trees and ham-bushes/lambushes also breed true and produce meat?
As for the dryads... let me think on that. The idea that somebody's caught kicks up against the idea that somebody might want to be caught - and the Fen "live and let live" mentality is strong.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
robkelk Wrote:The Jason created beefsteak-tomato plants that breed true and produce beefsteak; why wouldn't the bacon trees and ham-bushes/lambushes also breed true and produce meat? Will make a good addition to the "Bio Globes" *G*
Bacon trees - letting you be a vegetarian and still have bacon sandwiches. Maybe with marmite. [grin]
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The problem is that the Marmite will be coming from cows...
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:The problem is that the Marmite will be coming from cows... Vegetarians won't have much of a problem with that. It's the vegans that would shudder.
Oh crap. Can you imagine Scot Pilgrim type vegans in Fenspace? Sure, it would be a little too much, but you gotta admit that having to subsist on a vegan diet is a pretty good quirk for having super powers.
More on topic...
The whole thing about Dryads is giving me an idea for a central character amongst the HARDES. A botonist from the HARDES goes to Marduk specifically to get herself turned into a dryad. Ben later grumbles about how he has to send a C-130 over with a group of arborists to retrieve her. Her tree winds up being setup in one of the biodomes on 37 Fides and the entire dome becomes her workspace. Later, the HARDES acquire a World-Tree ship as the flagship for the expeditions department, and the dryad-botanist is made the captain of the ship. 
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The driads are taking over fenspace...
Let's see if we can get some basic driad biomod rules:
-There are no "driad trees" than eat people; it is an acutal biomod with noth a person and a tree (usually oak); those evil tree than started the idea do not actually exist (but they may -wait, it is Marduk, they will- appear in every tale told to tourists)
-Driads are female. Males which try that procedure become Ents (either sex can turn into the opposite, but it comes with a sex change, in standard fen tradition)
-The driad tree can move its limbs (not as fast as an animal) but cannot walk; it must remain uprooted. It may be able to crawl in soft ground, like sand or mud, but that has not been tried yet.
-The tree has no eyes or ears. But it somehow still sees and hears everything in her surroundings -the distance is about the same as when it was human.
-The tree will grow one special fruit. It will look like a greenish and willowy (and usually beautiful) version of the original biomod. It can walk, speak and other human actions, but can only move about one mile form the tree.
-There is a ritual, in wich the driad creates an amulet with handwavium, pure water, soil and a seed from the driad tree. It lets the driad walk further than this one mile -about twenty miles or so- but the amulet only lasts a few hours (maybe one day?), and it can onle be made under the tree; this lets the driad walk around the forest/station where her tree is.
-In both cases, when the driad goes further then the limit (she will know when she approaches the limit) the driad tuns into a statue, but she does not die: the conscience returns to the tree. She will need to gow a new fruit before she can walk out again.
-The driadification can only be done in fertile soil, with a tree big enough to hide the woman inside; outside Earth, there are only a handful of places, like Marduk and Kandor, or some of the biggest Unreal State (Ravenmoon in L5 had the second Driad biomond, soon after they news of the first spread)
-The tree can be moved, but only as you would transplant a real tree, so the soil around its roots needs to turn into unreal state, and will need a source of water and light while it is moving (unles it is for short periods)
-After Oscar Vykos and The Jason (he was called as soon as the acidental biomod happened) spent hours examining the first driad and her husband, they have decided than a driad and an Ent may have children. They have not given details of the procedure, but the one time someone dared to ask the first driad (who needs a name) about it, they were told than her marital life with her husband was perfectly satisfactory. No one has been brave enough to ask for further details yet.
We should not forget than driads will be incredibly rare biomods: Only three, and one ent, have been confirmed in the discusion: The original accident and her husband, the HARDES botanist, and the one I just pulled from my hat for Ravenmoon (because let's face it, if driads appear the wiccans would be the first to go for it). And the one place were there is plenty of huge forests and enviromentalists is old Earth, so who knows what may be found there?
Until Driads start producing little saplings, each driad is an individual biomod, so there are differences in abilities and quirks. Some of then may be: The ability to reanimate and control normal trees, to merge with the ground or/and a tree, the abikity to "see" form the trees on her forest, needs for a specific soil, being unable to stp touching the ground, and so on.
Seeing as how Marduk works I thought a bit of googling on necromancy and dryads might be interesting... Even though this is for D&D (AD&D 2nd Ed Spelljamming, I think) I wondered if you could usefully recycle any bits from it:
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/frpg/dnd/race/dryad.htm
As usual, breaks lots of conservation laws, but I've not seen 'Space Dryads' anywhere else.
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Quote:Rakhasa wrote:
Well, actually I did not plan to have the trees walk (they do suffle something and change places, but only when no one is looking), they "hunt" moving their branches, so are easy to avoid. They could eat humas or deer, but are unlikely to actually catch then. The vines and the "pretty flowers" of the forest are more dangerous, but to small to really hurt humans
But on second though... I so am adding Old Man Tree somewere lost in the middle, movile (and fast), huge, dark-barked, full of thorns, dripping blood red sap, with fruits than look like human skulls. It may also be the only vegetarian blood tree in the entire forest, not than any of the Park Rangers Heavy Armor division will ever tell the tourists, of course.
Well, in the source where I got the name "Bloodoak" (the "Edge Chronicles" series of YA novels, for any curious folks), the tree is rigid, but in a symbiotic relationship with motile herbaceous vines: the tree feeds the vines, and the vines act as fast-moving limbs for the tree.
HRogge Wrote:Yes, the dryad as a biomod sounds like a much better idea. Even if this "floating tree" doesn't work (a floating tree sounds "unnatural" for a dryad), maybe her dependency on the tree can be relaxed so she can leave it for a few hours... In the same source, cut wood (and presumably the live trees) of Bloodoak and a few other species is actively buoyant. (They become moreso while burning, but that's not an option to a dryad.) If the dryad remains able to digest meat, (in the admittedly remote event that she's a fan of the Edge Chronicles) the correspondence is clear, and it's more a case of boosting her tree's natural buoyancy such that it lifts off. Flying carnivorous 'scurefen dryads!
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If they could move, that'd be a lot like Nalwood from the Gaunt's Ghosts series.
Although, I would feel somewhat sympathetic a Dryad-mod. Especially if there're any dogs nearby. Not being able to move around, or being restricted to a small area sounds like a unique kind of hell really.
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Dartz Wrote:If they could move, that'd be a lot like Nalwood from the Gaunt's Ghosts series.
Although, I would feel somewhat sympathetic a Dryad-mod. Especially if there're any dogs nearby. Not being able to move around, or being restricted to a small area sounds like a unique kind of hell really.
The fruit/remote-controlled-wood-robot can move. ^^
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Cool. I'm liking this more and more.
...And now I have another character I have to do a writeup for. :p
So, can you cyber enhance "fruit/remote-controlled-wood-robots"?
And, do you use woodworking instead of surgery skill? [grin]
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Rakhasa Wrote:The driads are taking over fenspace...
Let's see if we can get some basic driad biomod rules:
-There are no "driad trees" than eat people; it is an acutal biomod with noth a person and a tree (usually oak); those evil tree than started the idea do not actually exist (but they may -wait, it is Marduk, they will- appear in every tale told to tourists)
-Driads are female. Males which try that procedure become Ents (either sex can turn into the opposite, but it comes with a sex change, in standard fen tradition)
-The driad tree can move its limbs (not as fast as an animal) but cannot walk; it must remain uprooted. It may be able to crawl in soft ground, like sand or mud, but that has not been tried yet.
-The tree has no eyes or ears. But it somehow still sees and hears everything in her surroundings -the distance is about the same as when it was human.
-The tree will grow one special fruit. It will look like a greenish and willowy (and usually beautiful) version of the original biomod. It can walk, speak and other human actions, but can only move about one mile form the tree.
-There is a ritual, in wich the driad creates an amulet with handwavium, pure water, soil and a seed from the driad tree. It lets the driad walk further than this one mile -about twenty miles or so- but the amulet only lasts a few hours (maybe one day?), and it can onle be made under the tree; this lets the driad walk around the forest/station where her tree is.
-In both cases, when the driad goes further then the limit (she will know when she approaches the limit) the driad tuns into a statue, but she does not die: the conscience returns to the tree. She will need to gow a new fruit before she can walk out again.
-The driadification can only be done in fertile soil, with a tree big enough to hide the woman inside; outside Earth, there are only a handful of places, like Marduk and Kandor, or some of the biggest Unreal State (Ravenmoon in L5 had the second Driad biomond, soon after they news of the first spread)
-The tree can be moved, but only as you would transplant a real tree, so the soil around its roots needs to turn into unreal state, and will need a source of water and light while it is moving (unles it is for short periods)
-After Oscar Vykos and The Jason (he was called as soon as the acidental biomod happened) spent hours examining the first driad and her husband, they have decided than a driad and an Ent may have children. They have not given details of the procedure, but the one time someone dared to ask the first driad (who needs a name) about it, they were told than her marital life with her husband was perfectly satisfactory. No one has been brave enough to ask for further details yet.
We should not forget than driads will be incredibly rare biomods: Only three, and one ent, have been confirmed in the discusion: The original accident and her husband, the HARDES botanist, and the one I just pulled from my hat for Ravenmoon (because let's face it, if driads appear the wiccans would be the first to go for it). And the one place were there is plenty of huge forests and enviromentalists is old Earth, so who knows what may be found there?
Until Driads start producing little saplings, each driad is an individual biomod, so there are differences in abilities and quirks. Some of then may be: The ability to reanimate and control normal trees, to merge with the ground or/and a tree, the abikity to "see" form the trees on her forest, needs for a specific soil, being unable to stp touching the ground, and so on.
![[Image: approved-stamp.png]](http://imulus.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/approved-stamp.png)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Necromancer dryads - beware of their woodworking skills! [grin]
Might bring a new meaning to the term "sap-sucker"...
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I had to check the OP to remind myself than I only wanted to ask about what kind of dangerous critters I could put in the crater... and we ended up designing a new biomod species.
Now I uderstand how Fenspace got so populated, so fast. People went to have once in a lifetime space trip before returning to an excting life of filing forms, and the next thing they know is than they are tweny light years form earth, wearing a Federation unifom and helping build a deep space station.
And Ace, for the Necromancer Space Driads... dear lord, you can find anything in the 'net... thanks for the link. I have not considered living separate form a tree, because, well, driad. They and trees come and to hand. I think any space driad should need a ship with its own arboretum were her tree can grow.
Or a full sized Unreal State forest, now than I think on it, with plenty of places for her driad sisters, and lots and lots of carnivore tree pets. Because I saw this in your link:
Dryad Raiders
One way in which space dryads could be used in a campaign is to have them be a group such as the 'Dryad Raiders'. These could be considered to be a variety of buccaneer, in that they raid for supplies and prisoners to ransom, not for general looting and murder, or slave taking. Good looking men (16+ Charisma) may be at some risk of being charmed and taken off by them, though they have some chance of being released some years later, maybe with their memories tampered with, so as to preserve the dryad secrets.
They probably are not real. But I suspect many, many male fen ocasionally (like, every time they leave port...) daydream with their ship being raided by those, ahem, dreaded pirates.
I bet The Jason could find jobs for Space Dryads...
Isn't it fortunate that your variety of dryad doesn't have any Charm ability. [grin]
BTW, I'd suggest the name "Helen" for the first dryad, for, you know, traditional reasons. [grin]
Incidentally, do you think the statues that dryads leave behind when they go too far from their tree have a resale value? All proceeds going to the dryad, of course!
(I bet some Marduk necromancers would love to experiment on them... Or, they'd make a nice conversation piece for somewhere posh.)
Terraform an asteroid into a Unreal State forest for a dryad ship?
For novelty they could run a Tiki Bar club there...
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"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
You know, if Dryadism becomes a repeatable Biomod, I could see a few people signing up for it, be it like a form of life support, druids and such or even some who just want to be a hot tree girl 
dark seraph Wrote:You know, if Dryadism becomes a repeatable Biomod, I could see a few people signing up for it, be it like a form of life support, druids and such or even some who just want to be a hot tree girl Hot tree girl, yes, probably extended lifespan, yes, made of wood - some might not like that bit. [grin]
No, I really don't want to think about wood fetishists - Rule 34, and all that.
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We don't even know if the wood robot fruit is anatomically correct...
We could ask then girls, though. With all that wantom crosspollinating everywere (in public!), we all know every trees is a raging pervert, so they may not mind.
On the subject of 'wood fetishists'...
Do you think some who explore the Marduk forest might sign a "do not attempt to rescue for a year and a day" disclaimer? On the hope that a dryad might take a fancy to them? [grin]
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Ace Dreamer Wrote:dark seraph Wrote:You know, if Dryadism becomes a repeatable Biomod, I could see a few people signing up for it, be it like a form of life support, druids and such or even some who just want to be a hot tree girl Hot tree girl, yes, probably extended lifespan, yes, made of wood - some might not like that bit. [grin] But with Wavium being what it is....
J random guy: Woot, gona be a hot ass Tree chick!
*one mod later*
JRG: awwww, an Ent?
dark seraph Wrote:Ace Dreamer Wrote:dark seraph Wrote:You know, if Dryadism becomes a repeatable Biomod, I could see a few people signing up for it, be it like a form of life support, druids and such or even some who just want to be a hot tree girl Hot tree girl, yes, probably extended lifespan, yes, made of wood - some might not like that bit. [grin] But with Wavium being what it is....
J random guy: Woot, gona be a hot ass Tree chick!
*one mod later*
JRG: awwww, an Ent? Ents are pretty cool. [grin]
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And driads dig ents, you know. This may have a happy ending, after all.
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