Tree Soul (Oracle Archetype)
Normally, one thinks of oracles as drawing from a similar divine source as clerics, even if they don’t necessarily draw from a single deity.
However, sometimes, be they servants of nature deities or to the divine source that is nature itself, some oracles have a deep connection to plant life, particularly trees.
Many of these oracles are of the wood mystery, though nature, lore, and ancestors are also common occurrences as well, and they draw divine power from the land itself through their connection to specific trees, not unlike a dryad.
Such oracles might have the blood of such fey in them, shaping their divine powers, or they might merely have been blessed in a special way by the forces that rule over things that grow.
Due to their link to nature and naturalism, tree souls are more adept at physical locomotive skills and mastering their environment than other oracles. What’s more, their connection is similar to a druid’s, preventing them from wearing metal armor.
This variation also replaces some of the naturally-granted spells of their mystery as well, namely allowing them to twist wooden objects, travel far through trees, harden wood to metallic firmness, transform a staff into a wooden guardian (at a lower level than the wood mystery would allow), repel mineral objects, and even command trees to fling boulders like catapults.
Tree souls use trees as a conduit for their power, which manifests as a unique oracle curse, requiring them to bond to a tree like a dryad. Unfortunately, this does mean they are bound to the tree’s fate. If the tree is harmed, so are they, and they outright lose their magical abilities if the tree is destroyed, restored only by bonding with a new tree. Thankfully they don’t need to stay within a certain distance, though.
At certain levels of mastery, these oracles learn special revelations tied to their power over trees. The first allows them to temporarily alter wood into rare varieties, granting special properties. At first, they can turn wood into darkwood, lightening a shield they carry or other objects. Later on, they can transmute wood temporarily into the rare living steel. While this does not last long enough to make use of the self-repairing properties of the metal, they do benefit from its tendency to break lesser metal weapons that fail to pierce it.
The second allows the mystic to animate objects with a spell, but not only that, any wooden objects so animated as also hardened into living steel as well, though this is again temporary.
The most powerful of these oracles become very much like the trees they so emulate, their flesh hardening, and regrowing severed limbs. They can even transform into a mighty treant-like form as well.
How exactly this archetype will be used depends on what mystery you pair it with, but for the most part, it provides some additional tree-themed powers as well as mechanics for buffing up wooden items in your arsenal. Note that while their first revelation power grants the qualities and properties of darkwood and living steel, it does not actually turn them into those materials, just in case some rules lawyer tries to say you lose your spellcasting because you used your abilities on your armor or shield. The unique curse that these oracles possess does not grant any special abilities, but this is because depending on the campaign, the weakness the tree represents could be an entire non-issue.
From a GM perspective, I would avoid pulling the “Somebody is cutting down your tree half a continent away” thing more than once as a plot-relevant moment unless they keep bonding with trees in areas where logging and forestry take place. That being said, assuming that your character isn’t hopping their sacred tree around every month, (Which they might have to if their foes are proficient enough in magic to figure out how to target their source of power) then it can be interesting to develop an air of sacred awe around the tree, particularly if the tree is already beloved by others.
Legend has it that long ago the mystic Amrivatti wed the dryad Enovana beneath the boughs of the sacred oak tree that they were both bound to. Together they were happy, and though she has passed on, Enovana still watches over the forest as her wife did. Those seeking the wisdom once possessed by Amrivatti would do well to visit Enovana.
They say that certain subspecies of gargoyles take on forms similar to rotten old trees. Some with mystic talent become druids or oracles of the forest, able to bend branch to their will and turn a sturdy branch into a deadly weapon.
Through a planar accident, an elemental serpent known as an agrawgh has found its way into the soil beneath Velkend Forest. Normally such a beast would likely burrow deep underground into more familiar territory, but something is keeping the beast near the surface, wrecking havoc on the root system. The prophet of the forest has sent for aid in response to this subterranean invader, and whatever is causing its rampage.