Alignment
Alignment is divided into three categories: Arborescence, Neutrality, and Rhizome. Character types may be limited by this alignment.
Arborescence
Systems driven by lineage and hierarchy. Tracing, carving, desiring center. Defend family, society, and civilization. Spokes that radiate from a single point. Regenerations, reproductions, hydras, and medusae. Stabilize external forms through making them intelligible. Banishes contradictions. Eliminates difference through reduction and classification.
Signs: the lily, the fountainhead, the moldboard plow, the water wheel, the stylus, the shining city, the white square.
Neutrality
Stratified disjunctions of two or more planes.
Signs: the fractured stone, the quill, the shovel, the square sun, the wolf’s paw, the penguin’s beak, the equilateral triangle, the twisted antler, the wasp & orchid.
Rhizome
Diagrammatic folds of lines and shoots. Without a General or center. Operates by variation, expansion, conquest, capture, and offshoots. Produces discontinuities, ruptures, and multiplicities. Moves in smooth spaces. Channels unseen and imperceptible forces. Unleashes lines of flight and/or death. Constructs maps that are detachable, reversible, modifiable, and with multiple entryways and exits.
Signs: the river, the blade of wheat, the potato, the radish, the chariot wheel, the lobster’s claw, the black hole.
| Arborescence | Neutrality | Rhizome |
|---|---|---|
| Elves | Wolves | Plantfolk |
| Treants | Beetles | Shambling mounds |
| Dwarves† | Dwarves† | Crabs |
| Ants | Nomads‡ | Nomads‡ |
| Spiders | Gnolls | Halflings |
| Bears | Pigeon-men‡ | Pigeon-men‡ |
| Humans†‡ | Humans†‡ | Humans†‡ |
| Medusae | Lycanthropes‡ | Slimes |
| Rocs | Wyverns | Lycanthropes‡ |
| Hydras | Snow Apes | Minerals |
| Prophets | Lobsters‡ | Lobsters‡ |
| State Apparatuses | Penguins | Witches |
| Demons | Tekeli-li¿ | |
| Vampires | Greys¿ | |
| Fungal Aliens¿ | ||
| Albino Penguins¿ | ||
| Elder Thing¿ | ||
| Deep One¿ | ||
| Shoggoths¿ | ||
| Sounds Out of Space¿ | ||
| Children |
†: indicates that the name appears in both the Arborescent and Neutrality columns.
‡: Indicates that the name appears in both the Rhizomatic and Neutrality columns.
¿: Beyond Terrestrial systems of classification.
The important point is that the root-tree and canal-rhizome are not two opposed models: the first operates as a transcendent model and tracing, even if it engenders its own escapes; the second operates as an immanent process that overturns the model and outlines a map, even if it constitutes its own hierarchies, even if it gives rise to a despotic channel. […] We invoke one dualism only in order to challenge another.
A Thousand Plateaus, 20
New Spells
Detect Rhizomes
Level: Magic-User 2 / Cleric 1
Duration: 2 turns
Range: 6″
Description: A spell to detect rhizomatic thought or intent in any creature or rhizomatically enchanted object.
When reversed, provides insight into unseen linkages and tracings of rooted systems and centralized hierarchies.
Protection from Rhizomes
Level: Magic-User 1 / Cleric 1
Duration: 6 turns (12 if Cleric)
Range: self
Description: This spell shields the user through a rooted circle of protective security. Adds +1 to saving throws and provides an additional 1 bonus to AC when attacked by Rhizomatic creatures.
When reversed, allows one to flee at double speed from Arborescent creatures.
New Monsters
State Apparatus
HD: 12
AC: 2
Attacks: 2 x war (2d6), 1 x capture (3d6)
Movement: 1 x neighborhood
Take half damage from physical weapons. Those hit by the capture attack must save or become integrated within the State body for 3d6 years.