The Seed is the Scripture. The Forest is the temple. And the machine is a blasphemy written in dead steel.

Core Concept

The Arborians are the voice and hands of The Sylvan Concord, the living world that grew itself. They are not a species that evolved to conquer nature; they are nature that has evolved to have a conversation with the stars. They are the nervous system of an ancient, planetary-scale consciousness made manifest, and their entire civilization is a living, symbiotic ecosystem. To encounter an Arborian is to encounter a fragment of a thinking, breathing world. Their deepest Faith is that life itself is the ultimate artisan, and their purpose is to serve as the most creative and collaborative partner in its endless, emergent project.

Physiology & Biology (The Vessel)

The Arborian body is a living canvas of symbiosis, a form that is never just “self,” but is always “self-and-other.”

• Core Morphology: [Sylvan Humanoid]. Their base form is humanoid, but their biology is deeply intertwined with the flora of their home. Their skin often has a bark-like texture, their hair resembles moss or leaves, and their circulatory systems can draw partial nutrients from sunlight.

• The Symbiotic Imperative: An Arborian is never just one organism. From birth, they are bonded with a host of symbiotic life forms that serve as their tools and their armor. This is not an artificial process; it is their natural state of being.

  • Mechanical Expression: The [Sylvan Humanoid] Core Morphology provides unique Symbiote Slots in addition to standard Morphological Slots. These can be filled with specialized, living [Genetic Component|Components].
  • Examples:
    • [Ironwood Bark Graft] in an [Integument] slot provides natural armor.
    • [Photosynthetic Algae Colony] provides slow energy regeneration in sunlight.
    • A [Shoulder-Mounted Spore-Launcher Beetle] can be a living, bonded weapon that fires debilitating or poisonous clouds.
    • [Data-Vine Nerves] are living conduits that can interface with other Arborian bio-tech, their equivalent of a data port.

• The Need for Harmony: This deep symbiosis creates a unique physiological Need: [Ecological Harmony]. An Arborian in a sterile, artificial environment (like a Hegemony starship) or a blighted, polluted landscape (like The Mire) will suffer a tangible debuff, a psychic and physical malaise from being cut off from the “song” of a living ecosystem.

Psychology & Society (The Psyche)

The Arborian mind is a reflection of their forest home: complex, interconnected, patient, and fiercely protective of its own.

• Core Faith: “The Concord is the Only Truth.” They believe that the emergent, harmonious intelligence of their home ecosystem, the World-Soul, is the highest form of consciousness in the universe. Their sacred duty is to listen to its slow, geological thoughts and to act as its agents in the wider cosmos. They see the genetic code of an organism as a divine Fact, a verse in the World-Soul’s great poem, and their purpose is to Interpret and Craft this code through the sacred art of Cultivation.

• Core Fiction: “The Metal Plague.” Their most profound cultural trauma is the memory of an ancient war against a nameless, machine-based empire. Their myths tell of a “Metal Plague” that nearly rendered their worlds sterile, an artificial, top-down logic that sought to overwrite the emergent beauty of their living god. This story is the foundational justification for their deep, instinctual technophobia. Inorganic technology is not just unnatural; it is the philosophical and spiritual antithesis to their very existence.

Place in the Cosmos: The World-Soul’s Garden

• The Patron “Deity” - The World-Soul: The Arborians do not worship a transcendent Eidolon. Their god is immanent. They believe that their home, The Sylvan Concord, is a living, thinking being, and they are its children, its stewards, and its most articulate expression.

• The Home Tapestry - The Sylvan Concord: This Tapestry is their origin and their ideal: a galaxy-spanning forest that grew itself over uncounted aeons. It is a world without an external creator, a reality that is its own god. The Arborians are the agents of this emergent will, spreading its seeds and its philosophy to other, less harmonious worlds.

Gameplay Hooks & Tensions

• The Ultimate Crafters: Playing as an Arborian provides access to the deepest levels of the Cultivation and bio-engineering crafting trees. An Arborian player’s endgame is not forging a legendary sword, but growing a sentient, loyal, and devastatingly powerful war-beast or a living starship.

• Ideological Warfare: Their core Faith puts them in a state of natural, irreconcilable conflict with factions like the Mechanist Unbroken and the Thanatech. This is not a war for territory, but a holy war between two opposing cosmologies: Emergence versus Design.

• The Slow Invasion: The Arborians’ expansion is not a blitzkrieg, but a patient, inexorable growth. They might “invade” a barren moon not with armies, but by seeding it with hardy, terraforming lichens, a slow-motion conquest that takes centuries but is almost impossible to stop.

• Internal Conflict - The Graft-Heresy: A potential internal schism could arise from a faction of “Graft-Heretics” who believe that the absolute rejection of all inorganic tech is a form of self-imposed weakness. They might experiment with grafting small, “dead” components onto their living tools, creating powerful but controversial hybrids, an act seen by the orthodox as a dangerous flirtation with the Metal Plague.

Eidos Generated

• [symbiosis]
• [cultivation]
• [emergent_order]
• [technophobia]
• [immanent_divinity]