Bracers of the Verdant Weave 34

From: Hive 42 of the Bloom

These bracers are not static objects but are composed of living, flowering vines that actively weave themselves through the swarms that make up the avatar’s arms. The vines are constantly growing and adjusting, providing a flexible, reinforcing structure. This allows the Bloom to interact with physical objects with more cohesion and to better form its “Consensus Strike” without dispersing. The small, white flowers on the vines occasionally release puffs of calming pollen when the Bloom is damaged.

Lore The Bracers of the Verdant Weave are not a separate item acquired by the Bloom, but a direct, living extension of the Heartwood Core itself. Shortly after the avatar Murmur-in-the-Pollen first formed around the ancient core, the dormant life-essence within the petrified wood stirred. In response to the Bloom’s need to interact with the physical world, the Heartwood sprouted two living, pliable vines. These vines grew and wove themselves into the swarms that would become the avatar’s arms, forming a symbiotic, skeletal structure. They are, in essence, the will of the Great-Tree made manifest, a bridge between the Heartwood’s stability and the Bloom’s fluid form.

The small, pearlescent white flowers that dot the vines are a unique species that has not been seen in Saṃsāra since the Firstwood fell into its slumber millennia ago. The “calming pollen” they release is not merely a sedative; it is the concentrated essence of the Firstwood’s peaceful, nurturing spirit. It is a selfless gift, an offering of peace given in response to violence against the avatar. The designation “34” is believed to refer to the 34 silent, vibrational verses of the “Song of Growth” that the Heartwood perpetually “sings” to the vines, guiding their growth and infusing them with its ancient magic.

The Use In their passive state, the Bracers of the Verdant Weave provide constant structural integrity to the Bloom’s arms. The living vines act as a flexible endoskeleton, allowing a being made of thousands of tiny insects to hold a distinct shape, lift objects, and even perform tasks requiring fine manipulation. The vines instinctively adjust their rigidity based on the avatar’s needs; they can become soft and pliable for a gentle touch or as hard as ironwood to block an incoming blow.

The bracers are crucial for the Bloom’s “Consensus Strike.” When the avatar chooses to attack, the vines rapidly tighten and interlock, compressing the swarm of Flitters in that limb into a solidified, incredibly dense mass. This allows the Bloom to deliver a meaningful, forceful impact without its form simply dissolving around the target. When the Bloom takes a significant physical hit, the shock causes the small, white flowers to release their pollen in a defensive puff. Actively, the Bloom can also will the flowers to open and release a larger cloud of this pollen, attempting to pacify an opponent and de-escalate a conflict without further violence. As a living part of the Heartwood Core, if a vine is severed or damaged, a new one will slowly grow to replace it over the course of several days.

Item Values

• Tier one stats:
  • Defense Bonus: +1 to base defense.
  • Strike Enhancement: The avatar’s “Consensus Strike” gains the ‘Push’ property. On a successful hit, the target can be pushed back 10 feet in addition to any other effects.
  • Pollen Burst: Once per combat encounter, as an action, the Bloom can release a 10-foot cloud of calming pollen that lingers for one minute. Any creature that enters the cloud or starts its turn there must make a Willpower saving throw. On a failure, the creature becomes pacified and cannot take hostile actions for its next turn.
• Skills Gained:
  • Grants a +1 bonus to all Athletics checks made to grapple, shove, or resist being moved.
• Specific Slot: Arms / Bracers.
• Cost: Priceless. The bracers are an integral, living part of the Heartwood Core artifact system. They cannot be removed, replaced, or acquired separately. Their existence is wholly dependent on the Heartwood Core.
• Tags: Armor, Bracers, Artifact Component, Living, Symbiotic, Botanical, Regenerative, Defensive, Unique, Integrated, Structural, Woven, Flowering, Pacifying, Self-Repairing, Synergistic, Vines
• Appearance: The bracers are composed of two thick, deep-green vines that weave through the swarms making up the avatar’s arms, from shoulder to wrist. The vines have a woody, bark-like texture but are warm and flexible to the touch. They are dotted with small, pearlescent white, star-shaped flowers which emit their own soft, internal glow, distinct from the pink-and-yellow light of the Flitters. The flowers will occasionally open to release visible puffs of fine, silvery pollen.

Enchantments

The Bracers of the Verdant Weave are not merely enchanted; they are a living, symbiotic component of the Bloom avatar, grown directly from the life-essence of the Heartwood Core. Their magical properties are inherent to their existence.

• Symbiotic Cohesion: The vines are more than a physical skeleton. They exude a subtle telekinetic field that harmonizes with the hive-mind, allowing the thousands of individual Flitters to hold a stable, cohesive form. This enchantment is what grants the avatar the ability to manipulate physical objects, as the vines provide the necessary structure and focused force for the swarm to act as a single limb.
• Pacifying Pollen: The small, white, star-shaped flowers are not mundane. They are magical constructs whose pollen is a potent pacifying agent. The pollen is not a toxin or a sedative; it is a vector for the Heartwood’s own ancient, calming energy. When inhaled, this energy temporarily disrupts a creature’s aggressive impulses at their source, suffusing their mind with a sensation of profound tranquility that overrides feelings of fear or rage.
• Life’s Echo: The vines are directly and perpetually linked to the regenerative power of the Heartwood Core. They are not separate organisms but extensions of the core’s will to grow and endure. If a vine is cut or damaged, this enchantment allows the core to simply grow a new one to replace it, ensuring the avatar’s means of interaction with the world are always self-repairing.

Protective Aura

The bracers emanate a localized aura that primarily affects the senses of smell and empathy. The air around the Bloom’s arms carries the fresh, clean scent of living plants, damp earth, and a hint of sweet, floral perfume from the ever-present blossoms. This aura feels vibrant and alive. Its primary protective function is passive de-escalation; the faint, calming scent of the pollen makes non-hostile creatures feel safe and at ease in the Bloom’s presence. It can soothe nervous animals and may cause sentient beings to subconsciously favor diplomacy and conversation over a hasty resort to violence.

Significance

To the avatar Murmur-in-the-Pollen, the Bracers of the Verdant Weave represent its agency and its ability to enact its will upon the world. While the Heartwood is its soul and the River-Stones are its perception, the Bracers are its hands. They are the means by which it can touch, hold, build, mend, and, when necessary, physically defend its domain. To be without them would be to be rendered a passive observer, able to perceive and exist but unable to interact directly with the physical realm.

To an outside observer, their significance lies in their unique bio-magical nature. An alchemist would consider the constantly-producing pacifying pollen to be a priceless, infinitely renewable resource. A magical horticulturalist or biomancer would see the living, self-repairing vines as the key to creating a new generation of living tools and armor. They are a perfect, unattainable example of a seamless symbiosis between creature, plant, and magic.

Symbolism

The Bracers of the Verdant Weave are a powerful symbol of agency, gentle strength, and the avatar’s core nature.

• Agency and Action: They represent the will to act and the hands that perform the work. They are a symbol that peace is not a passive state, but an active pursuit that requires the strength to build, protect, and interact with the world.
• Gentle Strength: The bracers embody the philosophy of strength without aggression. The vines are strong enough to deliver a forceful blow, yet their ultimate expression is a delicate flower that produces calming pollen. This symbolizes that the highest purpose of strength is not to win conflicts, but to create the peace where conflict is no longer necessary.
• Symbiosis: As the most visible link between the swarm and the Heartwood, the bracers are a constant symbol of the avatar’s dual nature. They represent two different forms of life—the ancient, singular tree-spirit and the young, collective insect-swarm—weaving together to create a functional, unified whole.

Other Information

• Floral Communication: The soft, pearlescent glow of the star-shaped flowers is not static. The flowers brighten and dim in a soft, rhythmic pulse that is synchronized with the avatar’s telepathic “voice,” providing a visual component to its otherworldly communication.
• Adaptive Form: The vines are not fixed in one configuration. Guided by the hive-mind, they can subtly change their weave. For tasks requiring fine manipulation, they can help form the swarm into delicate, multi-fingered hands. For defense, they can rapidly flatten and interlock to create a solid, shield-like surface along the forearm.
• Health Indicator: The physical state of the vines is a direct and immediate indicator of the Heartwood Core’s health. If the core were to be damaged or afflicted by a powerful corrupting magic, the vines would be the first part of the avatar to show it, their vibrant green sickening to a mottled brown and their flowers wilting.

Red Dust and Hands That Weave Life

It is known from the time of the faded words that a sickness came to the Elderwood. It was not a sickness of fever or of wounds. It was a creeping of rust-color, a silent decay that moved like a slow tide upon the forest floor. Where it touched, the green things did forget their life. Great trees, which had known a thousand seasons, sighed and crumbled into red powder. The soft moss became a brittle stain. It ate the green things and left behind a silence of dust. It had no mind to hate, no mouth to hunger, only a great and tireless ending.

The One-Who-Is-Many-Petals, the avatar Murmur-in-the-Pollen, felt this sadness as a coldness in its Heartwood Core. It went to the edge of the decay, to the place where the living green met the dying red. Its river-stones, the Six Smooth Whispers, could not help, for the dust made no attack to be deflected. Its purifying stone, the geode that drank poison, was a small cup for a great and endless river of sickness. The Bloom understood. This was not a wound to be cleansed, but a tide to be stopped. It required not just a still heart, but acting hands.

So it looked to its arm-vines, the living gift of the Great-Tree, the Bracers of the Verdant Weave. The red dust sensed the pure life of the avatar and surged forward, a hungry wave of nothingness. The Bloom did not retreat. It raised one of its arms, and the green vines upon it did twist and tighten, becoming a hard thing, like iron-wood. It made a strike. Not upon the red dust, for to strike a cloud is a fool’s work. It struck the earth itself, a great and forceful blow just before the edge of the decay.

A line was drawn in the dirt. A trench. A small wall of nothing. The red dust, being mindless, flowed into the trench, its advance paused for a moment.

Then the Bloom did a new thing. From a pouch made of a great lily, it took a handful of the sleeping lives, the small, hard seeds from the time of the Firstwood. It reached down with its vine-woven hand and placed the seeds into the bottom of the trench, into the path of the waiting sickness.

And as the first touch of the red dust reached the seeds, the small, white flowers upon the Bracers of the Verdant Weave gave a soft breath. A cloud of fine, silvery pollen was released. This pollen-dust did not make the sickness sleep. It fell upon the seeds and made the seeds awake with a great and sudden life.

From the trench, a wall of green did rise up. Thick, thorny vines, filled with the pure, untainted life of the Firstwood, erupted from the earth. They grew with the speed of a thought, twisting and weaving into a barrier of living wood and leaves. The red dust washed against this wall of green, but it could find no purchase. It could not eat a life so strong, so new, so full of the world’s first magic. The sickness was stopped by a great growing.

The avatar, Murmur-in-the-Pollen, then began the slow work of healing. Behind the new wall, it used its vine-hands to plant more seeds, to coax the green back into the red, to weave life where there had only been decay. The bracers that could make a hard strike had shown that their truest purpose was to make a soft place for new things to grow.

Moral: A wall of swords can be broken, but a wall of roots will only grow stronger.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu

The Verdant Coils

These are not bracers but a form of symbiotic infestation—living, flowering vines that grow from a central artifact and weave through the investigator’s arms. The coils are warm and pulse with a slow, living rhythm. They are a constant, visible reminder of the investigator’s connection to an alien, non-human consciousness.

• Game Mechanics: The Verdant Coils are a permanent part of the investigator, a physical manifestation of a Mythos connection.
  • Hardened Grasp: The vines reinforce the investigator’s limbs. The investigator’s Brawl attacks deal +1 damage, and they gain a bonus die on any Fighting (Brawl) roll made to grapple or hold an opponent.
  • Pacifying Spores: Once per day, the investigator can force the flowers on the coils to release a cloud of pollen. This requires a POW x 5 roll from the investigator. If successful, all other living creatures within close range must make a POW vs POW roll against the investigator. Those who fail are overcome with a profound sense of calm and cannot take any violent action for 1d3 rounds. Using this unnatural ability costs the investigator 0/1d2 Sanity points.
  • Symbiotic Will (Negative): The vines have a will of their own, tied to their peaceful, natural origin. The Keeper may require the investigator to make a POW roll when attempting to operate complex machinery or use a firearm, representing the vines subtly resisting the unnatural act.

Blades in the Dark

Bloom-Weave Bracers

A pair of living, root-like vines that are bound to the user’s arms, fed by a strange power within. They are a sign of a deep connection to the forgotten life-magic that preceded the cataclysm. They are a Worn or Magical item.

• Game Mechanics:
  • Reinforced Strike: When you lead a group action to create a forceful, physical diversion, you can suffer 1 Stress to grant the entire group +1d to their roll. When you Skirmish or Wreck using brute force, you get potent results, as if you had used a heavy tool.
  • Calming Pollen: The bracers have a special feature. You can check a box labeled “Pollen Burst” to release a cloud of pacifying spores. Choose a few NPCs in your vicinity. They are overwhelmed by a sense of calm and will not act violently for a few moments unless provoked. The “Pollen Burst” box can only be cleared by indulging your vice or through a relevant downtime activity.
  • Grasping Vines: You do not need to use a load-out slot for Burglary Gear. You can use your vines to perform similar tasks, such as climbing or manipulating a small object at a short distance. When you do so, you must make an action roll (likely Prowl or Finesse) and take 1 Stress.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)

Bracers of the Verdant Grasp Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement by a creature of the fey or plant type)

These bracers are made of living, flowering vines that gently wrap around your arms from wrist to elbow. The vines move and adjust with your thoughts, and the small, star-shaped white flowers on them emit a soft, pearlescent glow.

• Game Mechanics: While attuned to these bracers, you gain the following benefits:
  • Symbiotic Strike: Your unarmed strikes are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. When you hit with an unarmed strike, you can use your bonus action to attempt to shove the target. The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw (DC 15) or be pushed 10 feet away from you.
  • Living Structure: You have advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks made to grapple another creature.
  • Pollen Burst (Recharges after a Long Rest): As an action, you can cause the flowers on the bracers to release a cloud of calming pollen in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be affected by the calm emotions spell for 1 minute. The effect does not require your concentration.

Knave (2nd Edition)

Verdant-Weave Gauntlets Armor (Arms), 1 Slot

These are not true gauntlets but living, tough vines that weave around your hands and forearms, reinforcing them. Small, glowing white flowers grow from the vines.

• Game Mechanics:
  • Defense: Your Defense is improved by 1 (max 19) against melee attacks, as the vines instinctively move to parry blows.
  • Mighty Grip: Your unarmed attacks deal 1d6 damage. Additionally, you are considered to always have a “Grappling Hook & 50ft of Rope” in your inventory, as you can use the vines for this purpose.
  • Special Abilities:
    • Forceful Shove: When you hit a creature with an unarmed attack, you can choose to deal no damage to automatically push them 10 feet away.
    • Pollen Cloud (Once per day): As an action, you can release a cloud of calming pollen. All creatures within melee range must make a Willpower save. On a failure, they are pacified and cannot make any attacks for one round.

Fate Core System

The Firstwood’s Grasp

This item is not a simple possession but is represented as a core Character Aspect, reflecting the avatar’s arms being interwoven with living, symbiotic vines from the Heartwood Core.

• Aspect: Hands of Living Vine
• Game Mechanics:
  • Invoke: A player can spend a Fate Point to invoke this Aspect for a +2 bonus or a reroll. This is most powerful when:
    • Using Physique to Create an Advantage by grappling or entangling an opponent with the vines.
    • Using Physique to Overcome a physical obstacle that requires immense crushing or pulling strength.
    • Using Athletics to Defend by parrying a melee attack with the unnaturally hard vines.
  • Compel: A GM can offer a Fate Point to compel this Aspect. For example, “Your living hands are extensions of the peaceful Firstwood; they recoil from touching that corrupted artifact, causing you to drop it.” or “The vines have a protective mind of their own and reflexively grab your ally who was stumbling near a ledge, which might be misinterpreted as a hostile act.”
  • Stunt – Pacifying Pollen: Once per scene, you can spend a Fate Point to release a cloud of calming pollen. This allows you to automatically Create an Advantage by placing the Situation Aspect Cloud of Serene Confusion on your current zone with one free invocation.

Numenera & Cypher System

Symbiotic Floral Regulators

This artifact is a pair of living, vine-like organisms that bond with the user’s arms. They are a form of sophisticated, bio-organic tool that enhances physical capability and can regulate the emotional state of nearby creatures through a pollen dispersal system.

• Level: 1d6 + 2
• Form: Living, flower-covered vines that wrap around the user’s arms.
• Effect (Passive): The user’s unarmed attacks are treated as medium weapons instead of light weapons. They also gain +1 to their Armor against physical damage that targets their arms.
• Effect (Active): As an action, the user can cause the vines to lash out and grapple a target within immediate range. This task is eased by two steps.
• Effect (Active): As an action, the user can command the flowers to release a cloud of pollen in an immediate area. All creatures in the cloud (excluding the user) have the difficulty of their next hostile action increased by one step as they are overcome by a wave of unnatural calm.
• Depletion: 1 in 1d20. (The GM should have the player roll for depletion each time an active effect is used).

Pathfinder (2nd Edition)

Bracers of the Verdant Weave | Item 5 Rare, Primal, Transmutation, Worn, Wood Price 160 gp Usage worn bracers; Bulk L

These bracers are living, deep-green vines that gently wrap your arms from wrist to elbow. Small, pearlescent white flowers dot the vines, emitting a soft glow. The vines subtly adjust their tension to reinforce your movements.

• Game Mechanics:
  • Passive: The living vines are extensions of your will. You gain a +1 item bonus to Athletics checks to Grapple. Your unarmed attacks deal 1d6 bludgeoning damage and gain the Grapple and Shove traits.
  • Activate [one-action] (concentrate) Frequency once per 10 minutes; Effect You cause one of the flowers on your bracers to release a puff of pacifying pollen. Target one creature within 5 feet. The creature must attempt a DC 20 Will save.
    • Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
    • Success The creature is slowed 1 for its next turn.
    • Failure The creature cannot use hostile actions for its next turn.
    • Critical Failure The creature cannot use hostile actions for 1d4 rounds.

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE)

Bracers of the Bloom

A pair of living, flowering vines that are symbiotically linked to the wearer. They provide surprising strength and a unique, non-lethal defensive capability.

• Game Mechanics:
  • Reinforced Limbs: The wearer’s unarmed attacks are considered Magical and deal Str+d6 damage. The bracers also provide +1 Parry.
  • Grasping Vines: The wearer’s unarmed Fighting attacks have the Grapple weapon quality. On a raise on their Fighting roll, instead of dealing extra damage, they may choose to automatically make the target Entangled.
  • Pollen Burst: The wearer has access to the Stun power, but it is flavored as a cloud of pollen affecting all targets in a Cone Template. This can be used once per encounter by making a Spirit roll as a free action. This does not require Power Points and does not incur multi-action penalties.

Shadowrun, Sixth World

Verdant Wraps

A form of advanced, symbiotic bioware or a powerful magical focus, these living vines are bonded directly to the user’s arms. They are a rare sight, sometimes used by eco-terrorists, high-level corporate shamans, or as guardians of secure magical sites. The small flowers on the vines occasionally release puffs of shimmering pollen.

• Type: Symbiotic Focus (Arms) or Bioware
• Effects: The living vines grant the user enhanced physical capabilities and a unique defensive tool.
  • Reinforced Limbs: The user’s unarmed attacks gain a +1 bonus to their Damage Value and are treated as magical attacks for the purpose of bypassing resistances.
  • Binding Grasp: When making a Clinch or Grapple action, the user gains a +2 dice pool bonus to their attack roll.
  • Pollen Puff: As a Minor Action, the user can release a puff of pacifying pollen at an adjacent target. The target must make a Body + Willpower (2) test. On a failure, the target suffers a -2 dice pool penalty to all attack actions on their next turn as their aggressive instincts are momentarily suppressed. This ability can be used once per combat encounter.

Starfinder

Symbiont-Weave Gauntlets | Level 6 Price 4,200 credits Type Magic Item; Slot Hands

These “gauntlets” are actually a pair of symbiotic, vine-like organisms that wrap around the wearer’s hands and forearms. They are warm to the touch and flex with the user’s muscles, providing a reinforcing structure. Small, pearlescent flowers bloom from the vines when the wearer is in a healthy environment.

• Game Mechanics:
  • Reinforced Fists: The wearer’s unarmed strikes are treated as if they have the operative weapon property, allowing the user to add their Dexterity modifier instead of Strength to attack rolls. These attacks deal 1d6 bludgeoning damage and are treated as magical.
  • Constrictor’s Grip: The wearer gains a +2 circumstance bonus to attack rolls when attempting the grapple combat maneuver.
  • Pollen Burst (1/day): As a standard action, the wearer can command the flowers to release a cloud of calming pollen in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must succeed on a DC 14 Will save or become staggered for 1 round as they are overcome by a wave of unnatural tranquility.

Traveller (Mongoose 2nd Edition)

Aslan Ehlas-Weave Gauntlets

Acquired through complex dealings with a conservative Aslan clan, these are not weapons but ceremonial items worn by certain high-ranking Aslan to signify their connection to their land (ehlas). The ‘gauntlets’ are wraps of living, fibrous vines taken from a sacred plant on an Aslan homeworld. They are a sign of great authority and trust.

• Tech Level: 13 (as alien biotechnology)
• Legality: Restricted (Legality 10). Possession by a non-Aslan without the clan’s explicit permission is a grave insult.
• Effect: The wraps reinforce the wearer’s arms and grip with living, tensile strength.
  • Iron Palm: The wearer gains a +1 bonus to their Melee (unarmed) skill checks.
  • Crushing Grasp: The wearer gains one Boon die on any check made to grapple, restrain, or prevent an opponent from breaking their grip.
  • Pacification Spores: Once per day, the wearer can activate the weave to release a cloud of spores against a single target in melee range. This is resolved as a Melee (unarmed) 8+ check. If successful, the target is overcome with lethargy and suffers one Bane die on all actions for the next 1d6 rounds.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (4th Edition)

Bracers of the Living Thorn

A magical artifact believed to have originated in the deep woods of Athel Loren. These are not metal bracers but are living, thorned vines that wrap around the wearer’s forearms. They are a gift of the Jade College or a Wood Elf Waywatcher, granting the wearer a portion of nature’s relentless strength.

• Type: Magical Artefact
• Effects:
  • Iron-Bark Strike: The wearer’s unarmed attacks gain the Magical, Pummel, and Defensive Qualities.
  • Strangling Grasp: When the wearer succeeds on a Test to Grapple an opponent, they may immediately cause that opponent to gain the Entangled Condition with a Strength rating equal to the wearer’s Strength Bonus. This does not require a separate action.
  • Pollen of Apathy (Once per day): As an Action, the wearer can command the flowers on the bracers to release a cloud of pollen affecting all creatures in a cone originating from the wearer. All targets must make a Challenging (+0) Cool Test. Those who fail their test lose their next Action as they are overcome with a profound sense of listless calm.