Vinefolk

• Bipedal form of woven vines, thick stalks, and sinuous branches. Limbs often split into multiple prehensile tendrils that can manipulate tools or delicately cradle insects.
• No true “bones” — flexible lignin cords provide structural integrity.
• Internal transport of fluids acts as both circulatory and metabolic system, with small leaf clusters functioning almost like auxiliary lungs.
• Eyes typically resemble clusters of bioluminescent pods or gem-like growths, capable of perceiving light spectra beyond humanoids (including magical auras and slow energy flows).

• Photosynthesis: Can sustain themselves entirely on sunlight, water, and rich soil, though they enjoy consuming minerals or organic matter.
• Root Sleep: In times of need, can plant themselves, drawing deeply on the soil’s magic to heal wounds or survive lean years.
• Seasonal Adaptation: Bodies thicken and slow in winter, flowering profusely in spring, and becoming most vibrant in late summer.
• Communal Pollen Memory: Release pheromonal pollens that transmit simple feelings, memories, or even warnings to nearby kin.

• Reproduce by seeding or grafting.
• Seeding occurs when flowers mature and release drifting pods — these may take root miles away and grow new Vinefolk with faint echoes of ancestral memories.
• Grafting is a sacred ritual where elders and chosen partners intertwine tendrils, merging tissue to create a sapling that carries both lines.

• Sapling: Until ~30 years; smaller, flexible, with rapidly shifting colors and blooms.
• Branching: ~30–100, grow into adult form, develop signature flower pattern.
• Mature: ~100–500, steady growth, assume important community roles.
• Rootmind: ~500+, gain deeper mental ties to the land, able to enter long communion trances.
• When nearing the end of life, they often root permanently, becoming sacred groves or ancient standing vines.

• Thrive in humid, magic-rich forests, by streams, or on ley lines.
• Often grow small personal gardens of mosses and fungi on their bodies, which aid in mutual health.

• Draw energy from sunlight and water.
• Absorb nutrients by coiling tendrils into soil or around decomposing matter.
• Will sometimes “taste” stones or bones to draw trace minerals.
• During festivals, they share rich mulch teas and nectar brews, more as bonding than necessity.

• Respond to seasonal changes by altering pigmentation, flowering, or dropping leaves.
• In deep winter, many slow to near dormancy, entering shared dreamstates beneath snow-laden boughs.

• Patient, deliberate, often silent for long stretches, thinking in terms of decades or centuries.
• Slow to anger but can act with devastating force if the Vale is threatened, calling on creeping roots or strangling vines.

• Live in Thickets, loose networks of interconnected Vinefolk linked by shallow root tunnels and pollen trails.
• Decisions made by Bloom Councils, gatherings of elders who extend tendrils into circle groves, sharing thoughts directly.

• “Faces” often just arrangements of leaf clusters, knots, or blossom rosettes.
• Expressions show through color shifts, small tremors, or the opening/closing of buds.

• Spread across all the fertile lowlands and forest hearts of the Vale.
• Form natural barriers around sacred ley pools, shaping paths with living arches and entanglements.

• Deeply intelligent, with prodigious memories extending back through genetic lines.
• Think in loops and spirals rather than linear cause-effect.

• Sense moisture, subtle vibrations, and magical currents in the ground.
• Can detect sickness or discord in nearby plants, sometimes miles away through root whispers.

• Leylume Spores (Symbiotic)
• Tiny bioluminescent fungi that grow on Vinefolk, feeding on excess sugars while channeling ambient ley energy back into their hosts. Often cultivated into intricate living patterns or exchanged as symbols of deep trust.
• Soulrot Creepers (Parasitic)
• Dark, corrupted vines originating from old Blight scars. They attach to Vinefolk and other creatures, draining vitality and magic, sometimes turning hosts into hollow thralls. Carefully culled to preserve the Vale’s balance.

• Names are musical, formed of humming syllables. Often unpronounceable to non-Vinefolk, who are given approximate translations.
• Examples: Sshaenul (Gentle-Moss), Verrathyl (Bloom-At-Dawn), Thossuriel (Deep-Rooted).

• Value lush growths, symmetrical bloom patterns, and rare pigments.
• Some cultivate unusual fungi or parasitic orchids as living jewelry.

Essentially nonbinary — take on masculine, feminine, or entirely alien presentations depending on season, bloom phase, or grafting cycle.

• Love expressed through entwining vines, grafting ceremonies, or by merging gardens.
• Can have multiple intertwined relationships simultaneously, bound by overlapping root pacts.

• No metallurgy, but unmatched in living architecture.
• Grow bridges, spiral towers, woven halls of singing vines that resonate with ley energy.

• Speak Floravine, a complex mix of vibrations, pheromones, rustling leaves, and humming chords.
• Use Sylvanelle for trade or diplomacy.

• Exchange small cuttings or seed packets on greeting.
• To turn away during conversation is very rude — they reorient entire bodies to show respect.

• Wear natural adornments: strings of carved seeds, draped moss capes, fungal coronets.
• Sometimes place small luminescent insects in their flowers for night brilliance.

• Maintain vast root archives — living clusters that store genetic memories of wars, blights, or great loves.
• Hold Bloom Festivals in spring, where they open all flowers in synchrony, flooding the air with song-like pheromones.

• Seed Exchanges: Trade small seed pouches to mark alliances or affection.
• Root Joining: Commune by literally tangling lower tendrils to share warmth and memory.
• Mourning Rings: Circle dying kin with linked vines, chanting low notes that carry grief into the soil.
• Bloom Festivals: Synchronize flowering across entire thickets, scenting the air so powerfully it stuns insects and small beasts.
• Ley Tending: Gather seasonally to direct slow-growing roots into lines that nourish weakened areas of the forest.

• Severing another’s vine or tendril without consent is a horrific crime.
• Burning any plant life unnecessarily is deeply taboo.