Tree Huggers

The Mycelium influences the world through the Mycelium networks between trees in forests. Their influence is what helps forests flourish, which is one of the reasons that clear planting trees hardly ever takes root, unless the Tree Huggers intervene.

The Mycelium wants to preserve forests, especially old growth forests. It wants to let nature take back control of the land, spreading its influence. They’re not against newly planted forests, and will commission the Tree Huggers to connect them into the Mycelium network. They’re not against parks, especially creating new ones where it’s currently blighted concrete jungle. But parks are not forests, and shouldn’t replace them. And golf courses are worthless.

The Tree Huggers aren’t trying to revert society back to living in the trees or something (though Mycelium would probably love that, even though they’ve never asked for it). They just want humanity to use the space they’ve already claimed, instead of continuing to take more and more needlessly. Endless new suburban sprawl. New buildings sprung up by tearing down nature, and then abandoned 10 years later. Rapidly increasing pollution for the purpose of producing things no one needs and barely even want. So much land has been claimed to replace with concrete and drywall, and then left to rot. Which is exactly what the Blue Blight wants.

If you encounter a gathering of Tree Huggers, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve arrived at a tailgate for Woodstock. Tree Huggers look like they’re all members of a nature commune, given they sort of are. They wear loose breathable clothing with earthy tones, vests cobbled together from thrifted fabric over tie dye shirts, homemade jewelry made of seeds and feathers. Their hair is often tangled with moss and leaves, with some threading theirs with wooden beads, or wearing mossy cloaks or hats with mushroom sprouts on them. In the woods more than a few go barefoot so they can “feel the roots”.

Common Tree Hugger methods outside of missions include:

  • Throwing Seed bombs on grass or empty lots
  • Sugar in wet concrete foundations
  • Sabotaging logging or construction equipment
  • Activism for preserving natural spaces
  • Support for Ecoterrorist groups
  • Building networks of activists and leftists
  • Supporting and growing leftist communities

Tree Huggers usually make primary contact with the Mycelium in old growth forests. They’re largely mushroom foragers, park rangers, park cleanup crews. They make direct contact with the Mycelium by sticking their hand in the ground near a tree in the network. Through that connection they have a clearer path to speak to their Mycos, and also have a view from any tree connected to that forest, including speaking to other connected Sporebound.

Tree Huggers can be recognized from their glowing green eyes by other Sporebound and Consumed Blighted.

Ash was a Scout growing up, and loved spending time in nature. To the point where, to their parent’s chagrin, they skipped going to college, looking for regular jobs, and joined the Peace Corps, followed by becoming a Park Ranger. What they didn’t expect is having to spend so much time fending off companies trying to get the county to sell off park land for logging and development. As Ash delved deeper into environmental activism to stop the encroachment of golf courses and suburban sprawl on the land they were trying to protect, they caught the attention of Mycelium during one of their checkups on the forest, and were recruited to the Sporebound.

Backup: Environmentalists 3, Nature Lovers 2
Skills: Survival 4, Bureaucracy 3, Firearms 2, Drive 2, Inconspicuous 3, Investigation 1

Grocery used to work at a factory, until the factories started closing down. Now they work in a grocery store, which pays the bills but not much else. They started foraging for mushrooms and truffles, which is where they encountered Mycelium. Reed does want to protect nature for their Mycos, but was much more incentivized to fight against the Blight that destroyed the livelihood of them and their friends.

Backup: Environmentalists 2, Union buddies 3
Skills: Survival 2, Mechanics 3, Firearms 3, Inconspicuous 3, Persuasion 2

Remember that part about how it’s not like the Tree Huggers aren’t trying to revert society back to living in the trees or something? So, about that …

While the Tree Huggers fight to stop further deforestation, the Root Wardens fight a more aggressive war – one of restoration. They see themselves as more of a threat to the Blight than the Tree Huggers, because they’re not held back by a fondness for a society the Blight can so easily corrupt. Their aim is to reclaim the abandoned urban areas, of which there are many. First on the chopping block are all the Blighted areas, followed by the abandoned. What others see as failed cities, Root Wardens see as forests waiting to be replanted. Concrete buildings to be claimed by vines, paved roads to be shattered and seeded with plants and lichen. The green will renew what was stolen.

And for now at least, the more extreme Root Wardens are with them. But some of them wonder … how many cities do humans really need anyway? Maybe if they start getting reclaimed, they’ll contract again on their own. But in dimly lit forest groves, sometimes they’re talking about how far they need to go to get humanity to cede back their stolen land. Is all green tech and compact communities enough? Do they need to go to pre industrial era subsistence farming? Do they need to return to hunter gatherer societies? Is even fire too much? Maybe civilization doesn’t just need to collapse. Maybe it needs to forget. Maybe the only solution is a humanity that can live in harmony with nature, at a much reduced population of purely Sporebound. No more fuel for The Blight.

Those discussions are stories, rumors heard among the other Sporebound. For the most part, the Root Wardens can stay in line with the rest of the Tree Huggers. But when the opportunity presents itself to make human industrialization miss a step, they’re there for it.

While still having some of the trappings of their fellow Tree Huggers, Root Wardens have the appearance of more ecoterrorist hippies. They are one with nature, but need to be able to hide among it and retreat back to it after strikes. Some are wearing basically ghillie suits, camouflage clothing with burlap, moss, ivy, and even mushrooms growing on them. Faces streaked with ash and green warpaint. Talismans of seeds, feathers, and small animal bones. They often carry makeshift gardening tools that double as weapons - pruning shears, trowels, even molotovs that double as seed bombs.

Was The Green Man ever a single Sporebound? Or is he like the Mycelium themselves, a continuum; an amalgamation of unanchored Sporebound connected over time and space? The Green Man lives in and is part of the Reclaimed areas. When he appears he forms from a tangled overgrowth of vines, moss, shattered concrete, crumbled bricks. He lives as the embodiment of the places unmade by the green. Even when he doesn’t overtly form, The Root Wardens can see his face hidden in the twists and knots of plantlife all over the greened land. The Root Wardens prefer to gather in Stipes in reforested areas, where trees burst through old factory floors and mushrooms grow from pipes. Where they might see The Green Man’s face.

“No matter where you go, everyone's connected.”

The Mycelium connect tree roots together, providing communication between the trees and the fungi, the children of the trees, and the entire forest. The Mesh want to provide that to the rest of the world, connecting everyone and everything. All information should be free and available at all times. Through connecting the world with itself, including back to nature, they will bring balance. And The Mesh will have all the world’s data at their fingertips.

There are some within The Mesh who believe everything already is connected, Conspiracy Theorists able to draw a dazzling array of connections between seemingly unrelated events. If they can form these connections in a way they can access directly, they’ll be able to predict any action, effectively seeing into the future.

At the moderate end, The Mesh is connecting computers into networks, networks into information webs. They are hijacking company networks to find hoarded secrets. They’re providing Sporebound and nature itself access to this information via fungal interchanges.

At the extreme end, The Mesh believes there should be no secrets, and everything should be connected. They usually stop short of exposing the secrets of the Sporebound (usually) to avoid backlash, but they still end up opening other secrets to the public which are problematic and counterproductive at the least.

Other Sporebound note that information networks are a two way street, and by trying to make so many connections, connecting all the Sporebound, The Mesh risks providing the Blighted backdoor access to all of the Sporebound, and all of their secrets.

Members of The Mesh look like they're members of a hacker collective that meets within the forest commune. Mis-matched layers of tie dye, old military jackets, thrifted cargo pants filled with wires, floppy disks, and cassette tapes. Their sleeves bear equal stains of soil and solder. Around their necks, beaded necklaces are tangled with headphone cords. When they talk, it’s a jumble of forest metaphors and phreaker tech slang, like druids who trade in network packets. Some carry bulky dirt covered laptops in burlap sacks with shoulder straps made of vines. Never enter a Mesh lair unless you’re prepared to be overwhelmed with a computing monstrosity of tangled wires, vines, and fungus as convoluted as their conspiracy theories.

For one so obsessed with connection, They Who Listen strangely never speaks to The Mesh at all. They only listen. Members of The Mesh can only get the feeling that They Who Listen is keeping tabs on the new information flowing into them. When new pathways are opened, The Mesh can feel They Who Listens flowing through them. Once everything is connected, perhaps They Who Listen will finally be able to speak to them.