Briarborn

Briarborn
"From death, she sprung, and sprung us in turn."
Origin	From-Flesh
Titles	The Shredded-and-Renewed, Death-Blossom, The Thorned One, Wild-Walker
Names	Scorched Oak
Aspects
Date of arrival	A few years Post-Breach.
Owner(s)	User:Leah

Description

History

A woman once fled into the woods, some short few years ago, to escape the First Contact War, and all the grief it had brought her. Her family had been taken, her lover burned to ashes before her eyes. She needed to get away to save herself, but that was not the only reason.

A yearning, a need for change had taken her. Perhaps it was the destruction, or perhaps it was there in her before, and she had simply not noticed, or perhaps she had been touched by some power from beyond The Wall.

Regardless of the reason, she left without notice. Her family presumed her dead in the chaos, though they would find out soon that this was not the case, not entirely.

The woman, several days into her trek and nearly dead already, stumbled upon a den of wolves nested deep in the forest, and hid in a crack in the cave to escape them. They soon found her out, and she slid further and further into the nook in a desperate attempt to escape them until there was no space left for her to go, and was torn to shreds by the wolves.

Her pieces, however, remained animate, and calling every ounce of will she had left in her not-quite dead body, she took control of the nearby ivy and briar, forcing them to bind her back together, even as she was still being shredded. The wolves tore and tore at her, but she could not be felled.

They killed themselves choking on her thorns, her old blood mixing with theirs on the cave floor as she watched, silent and still as the flora she had subsumed.

What little of her old body remained hers, she shed in favour of oak and ivy, and deeper into the forest she ventured, becoming one with it along the way.

(In the woods, she split to reach multiple Histories, becoming revered and Ascending to Hourhood thereafter.)

Appearance

Ever-changing as old material decays and she grabs flora anew, but she is usually a semi-humanoid. Her most widely-known form is a tall almost-human, limbs made with coiled branches and ivy, rotting on the left side, blooming on the right, with hollow eyes, from which seeps an a deep red sap.

Principles

A changing form, and shedding what was old and no longer needed, by death, if necessary, thus Moth and Winter, and the creation of new forms and tools, thus Forge.

Worship

Cult

Being focused on the shedding of the old and creation of the new, Briarborn is a rather popular with Frontierspeople, and her and Scorched Oak get invoked a lot to help quicken the construction of new settlements and for projects in The City, but Briarborn herself does have a dedicated cult in the form of The Wildspring Children. They are devoted to her aspects of change and renewal, and nurture shrines of flora to her in unlikely places. Many shrines die off before she notices them, but the ones she does, she sometimes uses for material to remake her body as the old decays, which is considered a high honor by the cult.

When they are ready for their final change, they leave their belongings and their old life behind, and wander into the Contested Zone alone and unarmed, to be destroyed by the Frontier, and remade by The Death-Blossom.

Mark

1. Temptation: Rebirth: This life is missing something. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but I feel stale and bored. I want to be something new.
2. Dedication: Rebirth: I know of The Thorned One’s story, of her death, of her remaking. I will follow in her steps, and I shall become a glorious being of wood and sap.
3. Ascension: Rebirth: My skin has begun to die in patches, my hair has begun to fall out. I know this to be the third mark.
4. Ascension: Rebirth: I have lost the desire to eat, to drink, to sustain myself anymore, though I must continue. My topmost layer of skin has all been shed, as if I were a snake in the season of molting, and my hair is all but gone now. The fourth mark has graced me.
5. Ascension: Rebirth: My cheeks have grown sallow, and you can see my bones faintly through my flesh. I am very close to death now, and yet I feel a strange vitality deep within me. The fifth mark is upon me.
6. Ascension: Rebirth: My skin is paper-thin, and when cut, my blood is too thick to seep out of me. I have not eaten or drunk in nearly a month, but I feel as strong as any other person, or maybe three of them. Plants creep towards me when I pass. This is the sixth mark.
7. Ending: The spark of vitality within me stops one day, and I fall to the ground, my weak former body dead on impact, but I remain. In a short time, vines erupt from my former body, and it is dissolved to nothing, replaced with oak-bones. I watch, with eyes that are not mine, as a body takes form in front of me, wrapped in ivy, bound with crimson sap. I am thrust into it, and given life anew. The Wild-Walker has taken me from death, and I will never falter again.

Servants

Names

The Scorched Oak

Burned, but still standing, The Scorched Oak stands eternal, kept just-alive, but strong as ever, if not, stronger. Made with the ashes of the Wild-Walker's lover from before her Ascension, The Scorched Oak is a monument of the life she has left behind.

Locations

The Mansus

The Grove Eternia

A large garden in one of the quieter corners of The City, maintained with offerings from many denizens of The City, which are then planted by The Wildspring Children. Flora (including flowers, shrubs, and even a few short trees) from all the Histories and Realms may be found here, kept in appropriate conditions to allow their growth and prosperity. There is even a large greenhouse, for those of whom food is a concern, which is free to all, provided they leave something in exchange.

In recent times, it has been converted from a wild yard into a full-on garden, complete with benches, lamps, and even a medium-sized artificial pond, in which swim some strangely animate plant-fish hybrids, and disciples of The Symphony Unending.

Briarborn resides in an organic gazebo-like structure in the center of The Grove, free to access at any time she is present. Sometimes, she speaks, sometimes she does not, but the Death-Blossom hears all in her garden.

Scorched Oak is also present at times, though his appearance in The Grove is not nearly as regular as his Hours'.

Of note is that The Shredded-and-Renewed keeps The Grove Eternia open as neutral place, above the conflict of the Hours, Wild and New. As long as peace is maintained, all are welcome, and will be given comfort. Because of this, the garden is routinely used as a place of negotiation, between mortals, Long, Names and Hours alike.

All will be heard, and none shall raise a hand against another.

Items

Tools

• Oak-Bone
  • Aspects: 5 8 10

Ingredients

• Crimson Sap
  • Aspects: 2 5

Influences

• A Thorny Embrace
  • Aspect: 6

Relationships

Generally amicable to the New Hours, despises the Wild Hours.

• The Boatman: Possibly friends in their past lives, before The First Contact Wars, still on good terms.
• The Merchant-Who-Smiles: Almost-friends, as much as one can be, with him.
• The Anathema Project: Despises with a passion. Refuses to even speak of it if she can.