The Rootstone Keeper

Character Class · OSRIC 3.0 / OSE Advanced · Base: Druid (Player Guide §1.3.3)

The Rootstone Keeper Player Character

Mechanically a druid. Use OSRIC Tables 1.3.3.4a–c without modification.

Requirements & Chassis

• Minimum Scores: STR 6, CON 6, INT 6, WIS 12, CHA 15 (as druid).
• Prime Requisites: WIS & CHA. +10% XP if both 16+.
• Hit Die: d8 (max 14). House rule reminder: weapon damage die is never lower than the character's hit die.
• Alignment: Neutral only. This is not a compromise position. The Keepers hold Light and Shadow to be structural forces, not moral ones; a Keeper who takes a side in that axis stops being able to tend the seam between worlds. Enforce it exactly as druid Neutrality.
• Armour/Shield: Leather and wooden shields only. In practice: boiled hide, bone-scale, felt-and-lacquer.
• Weapons: club, dagger, dart, hammer, scimitar, sling, spear, staff, torch. Reskin freely — the "scimitar" is the highland ritual knife (phurba-style curved blade), the "hammer" a stone-headed maul, the "staff" a Keeper's marked walking-stave. Same stats.
• Weapon Proficiencies: 2 (more at 4, 7, 10, 13). Non-proficiency −4.
• Starting gold: 3d6 × 10.

Focus & Components — charm, not mistletoe

Where a druid needs mistletoe/holly/oak harvested by moon-light, the Keeper needs highland spirit-matter, gathered under the same conditions and with the same diminishment penalty if gathered wrong:

• Full-moon / new-moon harvest of shingkun flower, juniper, or bone-thread taken at a standing stone, way-marker, or forest node.
• Charm-box contents (see Velkari custom) serve as the personal reliquary. A Keeper stripped of their charm-box casts as if all components were improperly harvested (diminished spells) until they re-provision at a ley site.
• Oak-leaf equivalent (always-diminished): dried grass, common juniper — usable in a pinch, never as good.

Keepers' Cant

Replaces Druids' Cant. A silent hand-and-stone sign-language used at markers; also a spoken cant among circles. Function identical.

Saving Throws

Druid table. +2 vs. fire and lightning (the Current's own elements).

Higher-Level Abilities — reskinned, mechanically unchanged

• 3rd — The Land Remembers (= Druid's Knowledge). Identifies plants, animals, tracks, safe water and food. Framed as reading what the ground holds, not botanical training.
• 3rd — Trackless Step (= Wilderness Movement). Full speed through undergrowth; leave no trace.
• 7th — Unclaimed by the Fair Folk (= Immune to Fey Charm). Spirits of glamour cannot charm a Keeper who tends the boundary.
• 7th — Spirit-Borrowing (= Shapeshift). Three changes per day, healing on change, all as printed. Reflavour: the Keeper does not transform — they borrow the form of an animal spirit that consents, becoming a composite of their mind and its body. Same size limits, same combat rules, same no-spellcasting-while-changed. A Green Circle Keeper borrows beasts; a Spirit-Guide is more often loaned a carrion-bird.
• 7th — Keeper's Craft (= Druidic Craft): potions and scrolls as printed.
• 13th — Rootstone Working (= Druidic Power): permanent items, referee-gated, as printed.

Hierarchy & "Strongholds"

Use the druid hierarchy limits (High Druid at 12, Archdruid at 13, Supreme at 14, with the challenge-for-vacancy rule) reflavoured as the High Councils on the summits — the eldest Keepers above the cloud layer. A Keeper does not build a stronghold; they may tend a grove or a stone, but it is never "theirs." Straight from both the druid rules and the setting doc.

The Four Circles — roleplay, near-zero mechanics

Circles are vocation, not subclass. They carry no stat changes — this keeps balance untouched. Each grants one trivial, non-combat signature knack (all Keepers, like all Velkari, can already spark fire from a fingertip; these are of that order) and a recommended spell emphasis the player leans into when petitioning. The referee may reskin, not empower.

• Warder (Ley Boundary). Knack: always knows true north and whether a standing stone or marker within sight is intact or "running wrong." Emphasis: detect magic, locate object, obscuring mist, stone-based spells.
• Green Circle (Living World). Knack: can tell at a touch whether a plant or beast is sick, pregnant, or poisoned. Emphasis: entangle, plant/animal spells, cure, weather.
• Threshold Warden (Storm & Trespass). Knack: senses corrupted ground or a spirit that "does not belong on this side" within 30 ft (direction only, no detail). This is the only knack that touches combat utility — if you want it airtight against the druid baseline, make it a conscious act (a round's concentration) rather than passive, or fold it into a once-per-turn check. Emphasis: call lightning, protection, faerie fire, spells that hold or repel.
• Spirit-Guide (Death & the Unquiet Dead). Knack: knows which of the five elements a corpse or lingering spirit belongs to (informs the burial rite). Emphasis: the death-adjacent end of the list; speak with dead as it becomes available.

Favour and Taboo optional, no dice

This replaces the invented "spirit subsystem" you don't want to build. It is entirely referee-adjudicated roleplay riding on the RAW "out of favour" clause. No tracking, no points. A Keeper who commits a grave imbalance loses favour; at the next spell-preparation the referee may grant altered spells, diminished spells, or none, until amends are made. Restore favour through a rite, a pilgrimage (prostration-style if grave), or simply by ceasing the offence.

Suggested Keeper taboos (pick what fits your table; ignore the rest):

• Wasting an animal — using no part of a kill. (Velkari core taboo.)
• Passing a standing stone the wrong way, or leaving a marker "running wrong" untended when able to mend it.
• Denying shelter to a genuine traveller in need. ("Motion keeps the Knot alive.")
• Letting a death go un-walked — a corpse left through the forty-nine days with no rite when the Keeper could have given one.
• Taking a side in the Light/Shadow axis as if it were moral (breaks Neutral; treat as a druid alignment violation).

This gives the "shaman bargain" its teeth without a single new mechanic: the spirits simply withhold.

The Rootstone Keeper as NPC GM only — unbalanced

Because an NPC never needs to be balanced against a party, the Spirit-Guide's spirit-work can be as strong and situational as the story wants. Do not give these to PCs. Build the NPC on the druid chassis above, then bolt on whatever the scene requires:

• Walking the Forty-Nine Days. The Spirit-Guide's central rite. Guides a soul through the forty-nine days so it settles into its correct element (air/earth/fire/water/wood). Narratively decisive: a community whose Keeper died has a growing problem with every subsequent death — an un-walked spirit becomes "something no one wants to meet" (a wandering undead of the referee's choosing).
• Oracular Possession. Like the Tibetan village oracle: the Keeper opens themselves to be ridden by a spirit and speaks its knowledge. Adjudicate as commune / speak with dead / augury with no slot cost, on a schedule that suits the plot. High Council figures manifest greater protectors.
• Spirit-Traps. Binding hostile spirits into a torma / thread-cross / glud effigy (setting: torma spirit-trap, santi-torma pacification vessel). Treat as a ritual trap the soul / dismissal / magic circle effect keyed to the object; the object becomes an adventure McGuffin, not a PC power.
• Reading the Invisible. Most spirit-harm in this world is invisible — a string of misfortune could be a curse, an offended house-deity, an infestation, or resurfacing karma. An NPC Keeper is the party's diagnostic: they tell the players which it is. That is a plot function, not a stat.
• Binding the Boundary. Threshold Wardens can seal or open a ley boundary for a scene. Pure referee fiat; scale to the encounter.

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