The Arboreans of Aetolia
Arboreans are tree-folk. Bark for skin, fused roots for limbs, lichen and small ecosystems living between their inner and outer layers. They were created by Yanai in an age beyond memory, vanished from the world for so long that no living race remembered them, and returned in the Year 501 of the Midnight Age when Yanai herself returned. If you want a race that wakes up genuinely out of time, with no shared history with anyone else on the continent and a body that runs on sunlight, the Arboreans fit.
At a glance
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Native region | The Greenwood (lost to memory); now the Cantor’s Copse in the Kalydian |
| Cultural home | Cantor’s Copse (forest settlement, Duiran-aligned) |
| Spiritual frame | Yanai (Earthmother, Font of Life), reverence for Life and the natural cycle |
| Distinctive trait | Tree-folk created by Yanai; only race that runs on chlorophyll; can be living, undead, or rarely vampiric |
| Suits play styles | Out-of-time newcomer roleplay, nature-reverent characters, slow-burn pacifism, isolation from continental history |
| Gender lock | Genderless. Arboreans have no gender and no hair, with bark covering the whole body. |
Arborean lore and origin
The Arboreans were created by Yanai, called variously the Earthmother, the Font of Life, and the Evergiving. They lived in a forest called the Greenwood, a sprawling woodland where Yanai worked her wonders of Life. Then they were gone. For so long that no region called the Greenwood exists today and no other race on the continent remembers them. The Arboreans themselves only know fragments. Even the Elder of the Copse, gifted some minor recollections when brought back, can describe the Greenwood only as a lush and far-reaching place.
The race came back into the world in the Year 501 of the Midnight Age, when Yanai returned and her Eternal Song was recomposed. Modern Arboreans are unique because they share no heritage and no history with any other Sapient race. They are an old people made new, walking into a continent that has forgotten them and that they do not yet understand.
Religion sits at the centre of Arborean life. The reverence for Life is not abstract: it is owed directly to Yanai, who made them. Children and saplings are sacred, the future of a race that almost did not have one. Death is treated with the same weight as Life, accepted as inevitable, and aging Arboreans return home to die so their deadwood can be used in acts of creation by those who still live. If you want religious roleplay grounded in a real, named creator and a culture that has thought hard about the meaning of every living thing, the Arboreans give you that.
Not every Arborean stays on the benevolent path. Some have struggled with the weight of being lost out of time, deprived of memory, and without Elder Life to guide them. A few have taken drastic measures to anchor themselves. Undead Arboreans exist. Vampiric Arboreans, while rare, exist too. Both are minority arcs, but the lore supports them: a tree that has turned away from the seasons and refuses to die.
Arborean appearance
Arboreans are bipedal humanoids made of wood, with arms and limbs of fused roots and a thick slab of bark covering the whole body. Bark colour ranges widely: the ruddy shade of redwood, the dark umber of mahogany and blackwood, the pale hues and green tones of young oak, or the green of an Arborean carrying excessive chlorophyll. Eyes are small, shiny, and brown, black, amber, green, or hazel. Never blue. Ears are boreholes or small divots. The torso is the shortest part of the body, and the gait is heavy and lumbering because Arboreans have no joints.
Living Arboreans can be flower-bearing, fruit-laden, or utilitarian, depending on the individual. Older Arboreans accumulate lichen, mosses, and fungi on their bark, and small ecosystems thrive in the gap between inner and outer layers. Undead Arboreans look different: bare, ossified, almost petrified, stripped of the life and foliage that grows on their living counterparts. Sizes range from 2 to 9 feet, an enormous spread that reflects the variety of trees the race draws from.
Arboreans are genderless and hairless. There is no he or she in Arborean biology, and roleplay should use “they” or another non-gendered pronoun in keeping with character preference.
Arborean racial abilities
Arboreans have three racial abilities, unlocked at character creation, level 31, and level 61. The set is themed around being a tree: drawing from sunlight, resisting damage from a body that runs on wood, and rooting in place.
- Photosynth (available at character creation). Passive. If you are outdoors and in sunlight, your natural hunger drain runs at half the rate. Arboreans literally photosynthesise.
- Hardy (unlocks at Level 31). Passive. Your bark is tough enough that any blunt or cutting attack which would deal less than 30 damage is blocked completely. Small hits glance off.
- Enroot (unlocks at Level 61). Syntax: `ENROOT` and `UPROOT`. While in a forested location, you can put down your roots and settle into a state of low activity. This hides you from view, and from heatsight and lifevision. A direct search will still find you, and you cannot walk until you uproot, but you sit invisible to most ways of being spotted. The best place to hide a tree is in the forest.
The package rewards staying in your element. Photosynth wants you outside in the sun. Enroot wants you in a forest. The race plays best for someone who is comfortable choosing terrain rather than fighting from open ground.
Arborean base statistics
Aetolia uses statpacks, a separate choice from race that sets your five base stats. The values below are the racial baseline before statpacks apply.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Strength | 12 |
| Dexterity | 12 |
| Intelligence | 9 |
| Constitution | 15 |
| Wisdom | 11 |
Arboreans lean hard into Constitution, with average Strength and Dexterity and below-average Intelligence. That profile reads as a durable, slow-moving frame that absorbs punishment, which fits the wooden body. Your final stats depend on your statpack, so Arboreans built for casting or for nimble combat are entirely valid.
How to roleplay an Arborean in Aetolia
- Cultural anchor. The Cantor’s Copse, a region of the Kalydian that once lay in ruin until it was healed and transformed. The settlement is built entirely from natural materials, with no iron or stone, around a natural spring at the centre. Most Arboreans either grew up there since the return in Year 501, or remember the Greenwood in fragments and orient toward the Copse as the closest thing to home that still exists.
- Faction-cultural alignment. Forest-aligned, with the strongest natural pull toward Duiran and Spirit. Duiran’s reverence for the wilds matches Arborean reverence for Life. That said, the lore explicitly supports Arboreans who anchor themselves through darker means, including undeath and vampirism. A vampiric Arborean in Bloodloch is rare but canonical.
- Religious texture. Worship of Yanai, the Earthmother who made the race and whose return brought them back. The Eternal Song is the cosmological frame; Life and Death are both sacred parts of it. Children and saplings are treated as gifts to be protected without exception. A character who has lost faith in Yanai, or who has watched too many of their kin die after being remade, has somewhere interesting to go.
- Common archetypes. Other players will read an Arborean as nature-reverent, slow to anger, pacifistic in disposition, and likely to be aligned with Duiran or unaligned. Playing into that gives you a coherent character. Playing against it (an Arborean who has embraced undeath, who refuses to return home to die, who has joined Bloodloch) gives you a character with a real arc.
A note on roleplay tools: Arboreans have a sound palette other races do not. Rustling and crunching leaves, groaning and splintering wood, heavy footfalls, the slow creak of a body that does not move quickly. Lean into it. The ambient texture of being a tree is half the character.
Which Aetolia classes fit an Arborean
Any race in Aetolia can play any class. Race never locks you out. Some class archetypes share a thematic resonance with Arborean lore, which can make for a naturally cohesive character.
Shaman
Duiran’s nature-bound priest class, working with Dia’ruis and the Guardians, bending nature gently. The match is direct: an Arborean Shaman is a tree-person who reveres Life, calling on nature to defend life, in the city that holds Life as a Spirit value. As close to a thematic centre of gravity as the race gets.
Sentinel
Wilderness mastery and beast-bonded combat out of Duiran. Sentinels live in and fight from the forest, which is also where Enroot works and where an Arborean is most at home. The reverence for the wilds maps onto Arborean reverence for the natural cycle.
Monk
Duiran’s untethered class, contemplative and disciplined. The Arborean body is patient and slow, the culture is reflective, and the long view that comes with being almost-immortal trees fits a monastic frame. A Monk Arborean reads as someone who has used the centuries to find stillness.
Bard
Yanai’s gift to the Arboreans included her Eternal Song. Bards work in weaving and song. An Arborean Bard pulls a direct line back to creation: every performance is, in some sense, a fragment of the music that brought their race back into the world.