Root speaker

A Root speaker is one of the Wanderers. It let its core go in some earlier Unsealing, and a heart demon took the empty place. A foundation with a demon in it can never take a shard again. Root speakers say the demon knows it, misses having a shard, and talks to every shard it meets.

It serves in Bloom, the affinity of growth, beasts and living ground. Virenna, the Greenmother holds that affinity, and the First Seal, which the Greenmother set, holds back barrenness so that things may grow. Treefolk are among the affinity-born peoples, native life that grows where an affinity runs strong.

It strikes with magic from a distance, and it grows stronger and harder to kill the longer it serves. In time the treefolk in its employer's army strike and strike back harder beside it. Later it draws more mana into the kingdom. Root speakers explain this with their oldest saying: shards reach down to the Wellsprings, the thin places in the Covenant where a Node gathers mana, and a speaker who listens to shards hears where the Covenant is thin. Last, before battle, it tangles one enemy company, selected by chance, in poisoned thorns that slow its first move. The card shows what each stage does.

It costs geld and mana to keep, more as it grows, and it leaves when the pay stops. Kill one, and its service ends for the Turning, but its soul goes on, and so does its kind.

Whether a root speaker can be freed of the demon is not known.

Player-visible facts