February 13^th, 912

I wrote a letter for Cyrus and entrusted it to the Harpies, who assured me they’d pass it along to any travelers heading south. I am unsure if it will reach him; either way, I shall write again when I reach Gravalt. Hopefully there will be a courier there.

I am still traveling the steppe. After another day with the Harpies, I bid them farewell and disembarked from Karrygeus. One of the Harpies carried me back down to the ground, which was only slightly terrifying. They were able to tell me the rough locations of the other behemoths and some other large packs of roaming monsters, as well as all the Ovcharkan villages in my path, so travel since has gone much smoother.

I am currently stopped in an Ovcharkan village approximately two thirds of the way to Gravalt. I have had much time to ponder, but have not encountered much to write about. I have, however, realized an issue in my writing which I wish to correct with this entry.

As I travel, I have written about the nations and peoples I encounter, about their cultures and the races themselves. I realized that I neglected to write at all about my own people, the Dryads, in part because I only began writing after I embarked from Yggdrasil.

My time in Toskila made it quite clear that we are a deeply misunderstood race. Many seemed to revere my people as some sort of saviors or deities; in reality, we are just another race of people, no different than any other. I am quite extensively knowledgeable when it comes to my people, so I apologize if the following entry is long-winded.

I shall start with a description of appearance. We are humanoids, and while most of us have pale green skin, we come in a wide variety of colors. Our most distinctive trait is that, in place of hair, we instead have leaves, flowers, grasses, or other plantlike protrusions. I myself have a head of large, bush-like leaves; there is also a flower embedded in my skull, but that is a separate matter.

A unique trait of Dryads is that we are able to influence our appearance as we mature. We have a rather large degree of control over our skin color, our “hair”, and even the general shape of our body. I actually did quite extensive research on this ability of ours in the past—a passion project to keep me sane throughout the Holy Wars. I found that we retain some control over our appearance throughout our entire lives, but that control greatly decreases after we reach physical maturity; it may take an adult Dryad upwards of 40-50 years to completely alter their appearance through our innate ability alone.

I made another interesting discovery during that research, but I must ask that whoever is reading this approaches the topic with maturity. To put it simply, we Dryads—all of whom are born as biologically female—have developed chests despite not lactating as mammals do. I eventually noticed that those of my kin who identify as male—my son included—lacked this trait. Thus, I determined that this was a result of our innate control over our appearances. We modeled our bodies after those of the Humans and other races around us, and thereby copied a physical trait that serves no function beyond “appearing female”.

With that tangent aside, I shall go on to describe our powers. Aside from our ability to influence our appearance, our racial magic consists of a single ability dubbed “Chlorokinesis”. Within a range of roughly sixty feet, we can

My apologies; I began writing without thinking. This journal is not the appropriate place for such specific details. In any case, Dryads have the ability to create and control plants, or to modify and manipulate existing plants in our surroundings. I used this ability during the hydra hunt in Toskila, manipulating nearby vines and trees to constrict the beast.

This ability uses mana in the place of natural nutrients to stimulate instantaneous growth in plants. We cannot simply create them out of thin air, or attached to any surface, however; the use of Chlorokinesis strictly requires soil capable of supporting plants or an existing plant to use as the “basis” of the spell. The type and quality of the soil does not strictly limit which plants can be conjured from it, but growing plants from soil they are incompatible with requires more effort and mana. For example, one could use Chlorokinesis to grow a tree in a desert or a cactus in a forest, but both processes would be far more strenuous than if they were performed in a more fitting environment.

Plants conjured via Chlorokinesis are inherently different than plants that have grown naturally. They are, in a sense, “not real”; after a short period of time without an active connection to the Dryad that conjured them, they will wither away into nothing. They are facsimiles of real plants constructed with mana, and thus have no substance; the same goes for extensions of existing plants. For the same reason, you will gain no sustenance form eating food conjured with Chlorokinesis.

It is possible for a Dryad to conjure plants that are “real” in that they have substance and can persist indefinitely, but this is more difficult and requires far more energy to achieve. A similar technique is used when modifying existing plants—if you cause them to grow, they will permanently remain in that altered state.

That is enough about our abilities, I think. I shall save our culture for tomorrow’s writing.

—Kirra

February 14^th, 912

I have gotten used to the steppe, more confident in my ability to outmaneuver the local wildlife. As a result, travel has become much more efficient. I managed to reach yet another Ovcharkan village to rest for the night, and this time, I am not alone.

Another traveler is in the village, a Zombie haling from Sanctuary deep in the wasteland to the west. She arrived before I did; I came upon her tending to some of the village’s crops.

Her name is Alicia. Her body is male, but the soul within is a woman; it seems hers is a very strong personality and managed to survive its journey through the Cycle intact. Similar to me, she is on a journey across the continent, though her goal is a very different one than mine.

I find myself enjoying her company, much as she seems hesitant to tolerate mine. She is rather jumpy, antisocial; I can only assume her previous life did not have a happy ending. I have done my best to show her kindness, though I get the sense that she is wary of me. I cannot say for sure, but it almost seems like the source of her discomfort is my being a Dryad.

The village is more than spacious enough for two people, of course, so we are resting in different buildings. I have no intention of bothering her without reason, though her presence does provide a perfect opportunity for me to write on the Undead.

Undead and Dryads are cut from the same cloth. We were both created by the twin God Zoro-Lione to serve as soldiers in the Holy Wars. Zoro-Lione was one of the few Gods that sided with mortalkind, and their intervention marked a major turning point in the conflict. While the first Dryads were birthed from the great tree Yggdrasil, the Undead are born from a great sustained spell known as the Cycle.

The Cycle collects some of the souls of the deceased and recycles them, constructing new bodies and minds to tether them to. Undead are often comprised of multiple souls, and how much those souls remember of their past lives varies greatly. There are some cases, such as Alicia, where an Undead is comprised of just a single soul with complete memories of its previous life; there are others where an Undead is comprised of multiple incomplete souls and is born as a completely new person, their personality an amalgamation of all the people they were before.

Now, I believe I did promise to write about Dryad culture tonight. As most seem to intuit, we are a people with close ties to nature. Many drastically misinterpret the nature of those ties, however.

We Drayds strongly believe that all life is sacred, and we dedicate ourselves to protecting life. This does not, however, mean we are strictly against killing. Nature cannot exist without death; it is natural. What we oppose is senseless violence.

It is natural to hunt for food, or to slay monsters to protect one’s community. At times, it is even acceptable to kill other people in self-defense. Dryads aim to preserve life by preventing at all costs any killing that falls outside of these boundaries. In our eyes, the poacher, the murderer, and the warmonger are all equivalent evils.

We do not necessarily place the lives of any one form of life above others, either. People have the right to slay monsters in self-defense, but monsters bear that same right against us. All things exist in balance; we only intervene when this balance is broken.

Of course, not all Dryads adhere to this code. Most do, but there is much variance in how strictly we interpret the principles passed down to us by our creator. These beliefs established the Gods, who killed and oppressed for the sake of greed or entertainment, as our natural enemies; that Zoro-Lione gave us such principles was likely just to motivate us to serve our purpose as soldiers well.

Now that the Holy Wars are over, I expect many of my kind will turn to fellow mortals as targets for judgment. Even as the wars raged, there were those among us who viewed themselves as righteous moderators, guiding mortalkind in the “correct” direction. I personally found such individuals to be infuriatingly arrogant, even if I agreed with their ideals.

My faith in my own principles is strong, but I do not believe I am any more righteous than anyone else. That would be a foolish way of thinking, especially for someone my age. Every person has their own sense of right and wrong; as such, everyone is the most righteous person in the world, at least according to their own eyes. I do not believe others should be forced to adhere to my ideals, even if I sometimes try to nudge them in the right direction.

I shall check on Alicia before I go to sleep. I find myself unusually fond of the girl already, despite her obvious disdain for me. I hope she rests well tonight.

—Kirra