Warhammer-ish: Dryad Biotech Update

This mod is a rework/continuation of previous dryad mods, adding bark-skinned xenohumans, heartwood grafts, grove factions, and death that does not always stay final.

Dryads

Dryads are a special plant-touched xenotype. They can be found through a dedicated dryad tribal scenario, friendly grove traders, hostile wild factions, rare player-start rolls, or by transforming ordinary humanlike pawns through the heartwood gland revival path.

They are tough in the way trees are tough: resistant to disease, quick to build immunity, better suited to darkness and plant work, and protected by barkskin and a heartwood frame. They are also sterile, deeply flammable, and vulnerable to fire in a way ordinary pawns are not.

Their blood is a sticky yellow-green sap that slows movement speed of those attempting to walk across it. A dryad’s natural hands and arms can also rake enemies with branch-like cutting attacks.

Dryad colonists, prisoners, and slaves can fruit living seed capsules over time—one per quadrum by default. These seeds are perishable medical ingestibles: useful for dulling pain in a pinch, but much more important when paired with a dormant heartwood gland.

Heartwood Gland Revival

The core transformation path starts with a living adult humanlike pawn. Craft or acquire a heartwood gland, install it in the torso, then have the pawn consume a dryad seed capsule to quicken it.

Once quickened, the gland waits inside the body. If the bearer dies and the corpse remains fresh, the heartwood can hold the body in a short dormancy before regrowing the same pawn as a dryad.

After a successful revival, the spent gland remains as an exhausted heartwood gland. It is an inert mark of the transformation and forbids the heartwood resurrection from being repeated.

Dryadic Grafts

Colonies can also cultivate dryadic replacement parts without jumping straight to bionics. Heartwood scaffolds are grown from wood, herbal medicine, and harvested organs, then shaped into deeper graft work.

Dryadic organs, sensory grafts, hands, feet, arms, and legs can be crafted and installed through familiar surgical methods. These parts generally perform a little better than the natural parts they replace, and dryadic hands or arms can add branch-style melee attacks.

Factions And Encounters

Dryads can enter a colony’s story through trade, raids, prisoners, and strange second chances after battle.

The grove enclave is a friendly tribal-style faction made mostly of humans with rarer dryad escorts. Their grove suppliers can sell dryad seed capsules, heartwood scaffolds, dryadic grafts, medicine, and plant-based supplies.

The wrath of the grove is the hostile side of that world: tribal baseliners, dryad specialists, branch-hunters, branch-wraiths, and seeded zealots. Some hostile humans carry implanted dryad seeds and may reawaken from intact corpses if measures are not taken to destroy them.

Factiongoers may be seen wearing unique dryadic masks as well.

Biotech Integration

Dryads are built around RimWorld Biotech xenotype systems. They use xenotype genes rather than the HAR race framework, and their creation is centered on seeds, heartwood glands, dormancy, and regrowth.

Dryad genes are not spread through ordinary genepacks, gene extraction, or xenogerm shortcuts. The path is stranger and more specific: seed, heartwood, death, and return.

Credits

• Original dryad concept and legacy mod foundation: Warhammer"ish":Dryad (Continued) by Mlie, itself an update of KompadT’s original Warhammer"ish":Dryad.
• Dryad visual retexture assets: TasteOfVanilla-ish Dryad Retexture by IcyCheeseCake.

Credit and thanks to the original dryad mod authors and retexture creator for the concept and visual foundation this version builds from.