Vine
To work with our partners to heal all those who would stand against the Vallorn.
Common vine oathOverview
Vines are dedicated healers who have sworn an oath to give their life in service to healing the wounds caused by the vallorn. The movement to create the vines begin in Anvil after the death of Britta. The Navarr have always possessed some of the most skilled apothecaries in the Empire, but before Britta few saw the need to swear specific oaths to use their skills against the vallorn. All Navarr are oath sworn to oppose the vallorn. But as more information about the vallorn surfaced the idea of the vallorn might one day be "healed" took hold.
One of the things tat makes Vines unique is the oath they swear swear to heal anyone who is fighting the vallorn. Even sworn enemies of the Empire like the Druj or the Grendel must be saved if they would raise a weapon against the enemy of all civilisation. Such efforts could easily be illegal - it is treason to help an enemy of the Empire - but the Navarr examplar Isaella demonstrated the fundamental importance of doing what is right and then accepting the consequences. Vines are utterly committed to doing whatever is neccessary to defeat the vallorn whatever the cost.
Vines don't wait for the fight to come to them, they go where the forest is thickest. Some vines interpret that to mean they should seek out the fiercest battles, to go where the cuts are the deepest. But many interpret it more figuratively - rather than than seek out the places where the need is greatest, they look to go where they can do the most good actively pursuing the political battles that must be won before the vallorn can finally be defeated.
History
All the Navarr are oath sworn to fight the vallorn and for centuries their healer's have been content to swear the same oaths as other members of the nation. An oath to fight the vallorn, to do everything you can to defeat the great enemy. After the death of Britta, some Navarr felt it was important to raise the profile of the nation's healers and focus their efforts. The vates, the brands, the thorns, all these groups swear their own oath and are defined by it. Why not the healers?
These healers took the name vines, perhaps a counterpoint to the thorns who form the backbone of the nation's warriors. But it was easier to choose a name than it was to define a purpose. A guide is much more than a priest, a vate is more than just a magician, what would make a vine more than just a healer?
As they worked to define a clear purpose their numbers at Anvil slowly grew under the leadership of influential healers like Gawain Splitroot. People pushed to know more about the vines, after Enis Splinterspear acknowledged the oath the vines had taken to heal the maladies of the world. Still the movement failed to catch on without an obvious guiding ambition beyond healing the wounded and something to force people to see the pressing need for this new oath.
That all changed when the Navarr published their their great work detailing exactly how the vallorn might actually be defeated. The revelation that victory might come not in a thousand years time, but in our lifetimes has transformed the Navarr. For a thousand years the war with the vallorn was a commitment to a lifestyle, walking the trods or building the steadings, all to weaken the vallorn. Victory was something for the Navarr's descendants, not something any living individual might hope to see.
Now that has all changed. The discovery that the vallorn can be defeated in their life time has created a fierce urgency. Now that the final battle with the vallorn is soon to become a reality, more healers are embracing the purpose of a life dedicated to healing the greatest wound the world has ever known.
The Nature of Vines
Who bears the costs?
We do – in blood, in sweat and in tears. There is no price we will not meet. We bare the costs of our oath, and pay with our lives where we must.
Who do you heal?
We heal the body and spirit of all those who stand against the vallorn. No matter what banner they march beneath, we offer our aid freely to any who fight the great enemy.
How do you heal?
We go where the need is greatest. We go where the forest is thickest. We go where the vines touch.
Partnership
It is all too easy for the life of a healer to be a solitary one. Where vates need to band together to perform powerful rituals, healers need only their own hands to close the patient's wounds. Where thorns must stand shoulder to shoulder to throw back the enemy, a healer can stand alone against death's long shadow. From the beginning the vines have insisted that this approach was wrong, requiring their members to find a partner in the great dance, a fellow vine that they would swear to always work alongside.
For a long time, this insistence on having a single partner held back acceptance of the vines. What worked at Anvil where hundreds of Navarr come together at once to fight in the great skirmishes and battles through the Sentinel Gate made less sense to those who rarely or never made that journey. A small striding might only have a single healer - what use to them was an oath to always work with another healer? A large steading might have three or five healers. What was the odd one out to do?
The revelations of the Great Library of Hacynian changed that because they proved the power of partnership beyond any argument. The Navarr have always understood the value of cooperation with others. One of the reasons they helped the Highborn form the Empire was the sure and certain knowledge that collaborating with other nations was the best way to defeat the vallorn and restore civilisation. The Great Library reminded everyone of that central truth - that the best way to achieve your goals is to work with like-minded people. The results achieved by the researchers at Hacynian seemed to offer almost miraculous proof of what healers who prepared and worked together could achieve.
Many of the original vines still cling to the absolute view that each vine must adopt a single partner to work with. But increasingly those who have taken the oath in more recent times argue that the true essence of the vine is partnership. Just because you can heal alone does not mean you should. It is partnership that is the real purpose of the vines they say - finding like-minded allies and working with them to allow a healer to achieve more than they ever could alone. Only by working with other vines, preparing together, healing together, do they believe they can achieve their ultimate goal - to remove the poison of the vallorn from the world and close the wound for good.
The vallorn is a wound in the world. A gash torn in the fabric of the earth from which the poison spills. I swear there is no price I will not pay to close that wound forever.
Common vine oathCreating a Vine
There are plenty of healers in the Navarr who are not vines. The vine archetype gives you a chance to make being a healer the defining attribute of your character. Being a vine is about much more than just your character's skills, Most vines believe going where the need is greatest means proactively seeking out opportunities to heal the wounded. But going where you can do the most good is just as important if not more. That means never passing up an opportunity plan and prepare, to work relentlessly to acquire the herbs, potions and mana that you need to use your skills. Most of all it means actively seeking out conflicts that will further your goal to take the fight to the enemy so that the vallorn can finally be defeated.
Almost all vines are healers of one kind or another. There are many different ways to heal in Empire however. There are magicians who cast spells like heal, purify and mend limb but there are also low-magnitude Spring rituals that you could learn instead. The simplest healer might only have the chirurgeon skill - you can still heal people even if you're only binding the wounds of the dying. If you want to do more, you can take the physick skill which lets you treat traumatic wounds and use herbs to get the wounded back on their feet. You could even be an apothecary, who mixes potions that you use to heal the injured. You don't have to take all the healing skills, or just take all healing skills. Remember that partnership is key to being a vine. The more you work with other vines, the more you can achieve, so it doesn't matter if there are things you can't do - provided you can contribute something to the efforts.
Herb gardens are used for the Tally of the Votes in Navarr so this is usually the best resource to take as a vine. It will give you access to precious herbs that you can use, while also giving you a degree of political influence in the nation which is always useful. If you are playing a magician who heals people with magic, you could also consider a mana site. Other than that, any resource that provides a source of wealth that you can use to buy herbs or mana crystals could be useful. Bear in mind you will almost certainly always be poor as a vine, as healing is expensive and most vines are personally committed to bearing that cost themselves.
If you're playing a magician, you can also start play as a member of one of the Conclave orders. The Silver Chalice is an obvious one; the order is focused around healing and working with other healers. All of the orders are - as part of a political body - inherently political, but the Celestial Arch is historically the most focused towards politics, encouraging unity between the Conclave and Senate. Any order could work, but those two would allow you to get involved straight away with people also interested in healing and politics.
If you're creating a vine as part of a group then it's a great idea to try and find a friend in the group who is also interested in playing a vine and then you can be partners. If more than two of you want to play vines, then you can all work together. Traditionalists encourage each other to have a single partner, but the archetype has only been around for a few years, so you don't need to pay much heed to tradition. The more committed you all are to treating the wounds caused by the vallorn, the more you'll be able to achieve. Don't worry if you are on your own however, a lone vine character or a lone vine in a group is fine - it gives you a great reason to be going to Anvil so that you can find one or more partners to work with.
Always remember that your character has sworn an oath to become a vine. Oaths have power in Empire, so it's not something anyone would ever take lightly. The Navarr often mark vows with a tattoo, so your character might have received one when they became a vine. Either way, it represents a powerful commitment that your character has made. Every oath is different, there are some common oaths of the vines that you might have sworn detailed in the quotes on the page, but like wedding vows, your character may have written their own. As a Navarr character it's always worth thinking about the exact wording of the oaths you've sworn, as it can help you to define your character and give them direction. A vow is not something you'd ever want to break, even by accident, so you could even write it down and keep a copy of it on your person to remind you of it and emphasize its importance.
In blood, in sweat and in tears, I swear there is no price too high, no cost too great, that I will not pay to defeat my enemy.
Common vine oathPlaying a Vine
The overriding goal of a vine is to eradicate the vallorn. Most Navarr characters want to defeat the vallorn of course, but vines don't want to just defeat it in battle, they want to completely remove every last trace of it from the world. Your character is a healer and the vallorn is the infection that it is making the patient sicken. Your character's goal should be to draw the poison from the wound - the ambition is nothing less than to make the world whole again.
Achieving this goal is going to take years. The vallorn has been around for a millenia - the Navarr finally have the means to defeat it, but nobody imagines that it will be quick or easy. Defeating the vallorn is an epic goal that will drive your character's actions for as long as they live. Crucially it is something that has many dimensions that span all aspects of the game, political, magical, economic, spiritual and military. Defeating the vallorn isn't something the Navarr and their allies in other nations can achieve without making huge gains in ever arena in Empire. As this is something your character has committed to achieve, you've got a great reason to be pushing your agenda in every part of the game that interests you.
Preparation is a big part of being a vine. On a personal level, you're meant to bear the costs of healing others yourself as best you can, but you'll quickly run out of the precious herbs or mana crystals you need to heal people when doing that. So when you're not being called on to heal others, it's a great idea to be pursuing any action that might help you acquire more herbs or mana. The more preparation you do, the more resources you can acquire, the more people you will be able heal. You can burn these resources quickly in battle, so you may never have enough - but if you do somehow end up with more than you need then you have every reason to share them with your fellow vines.
Preparation is also about finding allies. Remember that partnership is crucial for a vine. You're not trying to achieve this extraordinary goal by yourself. It is not possible in Empire for one character to defeat the vallorn. You're trying to find partners you can work with to help you get this done. Other vines are the most important partners you can have because the oath should make them as committed to this cause as you are. But you'll need the help of other Navarr who will share this goal and you'll need the help of characters in other nations too. The Navarr cannot defeat the vallorn by themselves, so finding effective partners in other nations should be a constant ambition.
One of the key ideas for the vines is that they go where the need is greatest. That doesn't mean running headlong into every battle, it means looking at every situation to find what is currently stopping you from advancing the war against the vallorn and focussing your efforts to fix that problem. There is a lot to do! Defeating the vallorn means joining the vallornhearts together so that they become active. It requires powerful magic to join the vallornhearts so gaining the support of the Conclave and the various orders will be crucial. It means raising enough armies and fortifications so that the Empire can survive the ensuing apocalypse, so you'll need the help of senators, bourse seat owners and more. The Empire is unlikely to go to war with the Empire unless you can persude the military council that the hour is at hand. All these are causes where the need is greatest!
You are likely to face opposition from characters who will say "now is not the right time to fight the the vallorn". Every nation in the Empire is facing an array of threats and problems all the time, so delaying the war with the vallon is deliberately seductive. It is crucial to understanding Empire that there will never be a war against the vallorn unless the vines and their allies make that war happen. If you don't do everything possible to start the war, if you don't commit everything to that cause and pay any price needed, then you will spend all your time helping other people fight the wars they want to win. That's useful in the short-term, - helping other characters, other groups, other nations is the best way to gain allies, but you should try to make sure that you are giving them your help and support in return for cast-iron guarantees that they will help you next.
Don't forget that your character has sworn an oath to heal anyone who is fighting the vallorn. That includes the enemies of the Empire! In practice that oath is not likely to cause you problems very often - there are very few chances to heal the enemies of the Empire and you're only required to do it when they're fighting the vallorn, which is rarer still. But this is all the more reason to stick to your convictions if the moment ever does come up! If you seize the opportunity to stand firm on your beliefs it will create a powerful moment that puts your character right at the centre of the drama.
Ultimately the goal of the vines is to heal the vallorn itself. Healing the people the vallorn has wounded is important, but it's one battle in a bigger war that you are fighting. There are a lot of things that need to be achieved to reach that goal and there will be a lot of characters who are trying to stop you doing that because they want to advance their goals instead. The more you proactive you are about pushing your agenda, the more it will bring you into conflict with the many vested interests that exist in the Empire, but the closer it will bring you to completely remaking the world of Empire.
Costume
Vines have their own symbol, a fist grasping a vine held aloft. You can try to copy the one depicted, but remember that in the Empire, all these things would be made by individual artists and craftspeople, who each try to produce their own designs. Any fist holding a vine aloft should be recognisable as a symbol of the vines. It should be on a white background if possible, so that it will stand out and be easier to see.
These sashes are usually worn hanging down from the waist with the symbol on show. Partnership is a central theme of the archetype - by working with other vines you can achieve more - so it helps to be able to identify other vines especially if you don't know them. It will also help other characters recognise you as a vine, which may give them a reason to talk to your character.