Planar Bestiary
Some people refer to thorn dancers as "sprigs," though usually never in their hearing.
A thorn dancer may set their own missions, work with several other thorn dancers (in a group known as a quercetum), or serve as a lieutenant or close ally of a more powerful viridian entity and merely do what is asked of them.
Thorn dancers protect plants. They monitor untouched forests, safeguard dryads, and sometimes do the bidding of treants (ancient animate trees) and powerful Feywild creatures. Though they hold plants in high regard, they think little of destroying other types of creatures, especially if those creatures threaten what thorn dancers hold dear.
A little-known group of spellcasters—the mysterious Circle of Bone and Thorn—guided the growth of seedlings magically bathed in their combined spellcraft hundreds of years ago. This ritual produced the first thorn dancers. Since their inception, thorn dancers have taken over their own propagation, each producing a few seeds a year, which they plant in secret or store against future need. Of the Circle of Bone and Thorn, little has been heard lately.
Every thorn dancer is different, but most take on the role of protection that their kind is known for. Despite having apparently renounced their progenitors, thorn dancers accept the aid of—and sometimes actively seek out help from—spellcasters that are not themselves plants. But they usually do so only to obtain information about a new forest or woodland that is facing incursions by hatchet, axe, or saw.
Thorn dancers occasionally make a pilgrimage to a secret wood where they meet others of their kind. There, they spend the night beneath a full moon doing as their name demands: they dance. This ritual binds thorn dancers, renews them, and gives them the fortitude to continue as protectors of those without voice.
Each successful protection mission earns a thorn dancer a self-carved symbol in their bark-like flesh, memorializing the event. Some thorn dancers are covered in such carvings. Thorn dancers are almost always happy to relate the larger story of each carving, if asked. In fact, doing so may be a way to begin a conversation with one before the dancer puts a thorn in the stranger's eye.
Motive: Protecting plants
Environment: Forests and jungles across the multiverse
Health: 12
Damage Inflicted: Minor wound (3 points)
Armor: 2
Movement: Short
Modifications: Stealth as level 4
Combat: A thorn dancer attacks twice each round, slamming with their wooden fists or hurling dart-like short-range thorns, in any combination.
Thorn dancers can innately use nature magic, with options for shaping and healing wood, animating a branch or vine (level 1) to attack foes for a minute, befuddling a creature's mind for a minute, creating short areas of fog, increasing their movement to a long distance for a few minutes, animating a tree (level 2) for a day, and creating damaging blasts of moonlight up to short range.
Interaction: Thorn dancers speak the elven language and several languages related to nature. They dislike intruders to their realm, especially those who harm plants, but might ask for help from others that revere nature.
Use: Talking plant creatures have been attacking loggers. A thorn dancer seeks out a sympathetic human or elf to help with a greater threat.
Loot: A group of thorn dancers might have a magical cypher or two, such as a twig of farsight or a leaf of instant shelter.
GM Intrusion: The dancer's attack embeds tiny animate thorns in a character's body, which crawl toward the character's heart, inflicting 2 points of damage (ignores Armor) each round. Four rounds later they reach the character's heart, moving them one step down the damage track. Magical healing or abilities that remove disease destroy the thorns.