Palm Dryad

Where to find:

Palm Dryad is a kind of coastal Dryad that can be found on every beaches, or where has tropical climate and a lot of sunlight on Felarya.

They can live even on some tiny deserted island in middle of ocean, but often have smaller size compared to other relatives rooting on other places. Sometimes, travelers may meet them on some oasis in the middle of a desert.

There is a rumour about some rich dudes wanted to have Palm Dryads as watch dogs and scenery, so they... "plantnapped" some Saplings of these Dryads when they'll still inside the fruit and tried to raise them at their mansion. The result is unknown, but there are some deserted mansion with very huge palm tree in the garden that are sold with very cheap prices, and its owner often disappeared in a mysterious way.


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Appearance:

-Height: normally about 30-60 feet. Sometimes 70-75 feet.
-Body size: a little skinny
-Skin colour: light grey.
-Eyes colour: various.
-Hair style: has huge palm leaves as hair.
-Hair colour: depend on the condition of the leaves (green, brown and grey)

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Physicial Body Description:

*The Trunk

The trunk of a Palm Dryad is similar to a palm tree's trunk: high tolerant of salinity, and can grows on sandy soil of most of beaches on Felarya (or some other places)

It has a fibrous root system, which have thin, moderately branching roots growing from the end of the trunk. These roots don't dig very deep into the soils, so the Dryad can uproot pretty quickly from the ground if she wish to move to another place. However, with this kind of roots, she will walk a little clumsily and slowly.

In addition, the trunk is so flexible and strong that the Dryad can even lie down on the ground, or stand with her whole body lean 45 degree for days while still rooting herself into the soil. According to some reports, these Dryads use this kind of flexible body in order to sunbathing, ambush small preys from a pretty good distant by reaching all the way while laying on the ground.

Thanks to this trunk, they can even attack theirs foes with a unique way. Aside from falling down and crushing anything on the way, they can bend their own bodyiesin a arc then release to do a very wide sweep with enough force to knock away a giant naga.




*The Human Torso

-Body:

The human torso is a little skinny and connect to the trunk perfectly. With the same colour as the trunk (light grey), it's pretty difficult to detect a Palm Dryad from afar, though she doesn't often stand mixed with another trees as she likes sunbathing.

-Neck:

On the neck, there is some chains of coconuts, often about 20-30 fruits which is as big as a half size to the full size of a normal human adult. Although it may look like that she is wearing a necklace, actually, these fruit sprout out from her neck. And they have the same traits as a normal coconuts: immature one have green colour and a extremely hard husk, while the ripen ones is brown and have softer husks covered with coir.

Sometimes, people see a necklace of “golden wheat”, instead of“coconut necklace”. These wheat-liked things are her flowers that used to create other coconuts.

Despite of the quantity of coconut, only a very few of them contains their Saplings. The rest is used to lure preys, to trade things, to treat her friends a drink, or to become... her throwing weapon (as the husk of these fruits are extremely hard).

By combining with the “Sweeping Attack” to enchant the impact, a Palm Dryad can easily crush a heavy tank from a good distance with her coconuts

-Eyes:

A Palm Dryad's eyes have three mode:

+Normal: when both of her eyes is opened, and it help her stop using other mode.

+Focus: By closing one of her eyes, she can transfer the vision from the closed eye to the remained one. For instance, let's assume that she have 20/20 vision, when closing the left eye, the vision become 0/40, making the right eyes have double vision

+Far Sight: When entering the Focus Mode, a Palm Dryad can use her connection link with other friends of her and asks to borrow the vision of their eyes. After receiving their permission, she will see more further, while the “lenders” become blind temporary (one or both eyes, depend how generous the “lenders” are) until the “borrower” open both of her eyes

(To make it easier to understand, let's say that a Palm Dryad in Focus mode is currently having 0/40 vision. She asks her friend (also 20/20), then her eye sight will become 0/60 (or 0/80, if the lender gave both their eyes to her)).

What's so special about this trait? That is: the more of her friends become "lenders", the better her vision is. This fact explains why Palm Dryad folks can see very far. Some Felaryan scientists claim that this type of Dryad can observe micro things like electrons or virus without needing a microscope, or even everywhere on Felarya, as long as there are enough "lenders" and nothing hinders her sight

Thanks to it, a Palm Dryad can know when a storm is coming by looking at the sea in "Far Sight" mode so that she can avoid it, or pinpoint for her friend if there is any ship that will come to the land soon to prey them, or just find someone lost on the ocean... "Watcher of the Sea" is one of their nickname

In addition, this trait can be used to explain why this folk have a deadly accuracy and awesome attack range for "Coconut Throwing Attack". This folk's another nickname is "Sharpshooting Dryad", and their favourite battle phrase is "May the Coconut be with you"


-Hair:

On her head, a bunch of huge Palm leaves sprout out in every directions, making her hair style is pretty unique.

Depend on the condition of the leaves, her hair or a part of it can have various colour, range from green (good), brown (a little withered), or grey (very withered)

A young Palm Dryad uses her hair as a mean to express her mood. If she's happy, her leaves raise a little higher and seems longer than normal. But when she is down, her leaves hangs down and covers her face, making her look very gloomy and look very like a normal Palm Tree (Felaryan size though), as if she tries to say “Leave me alone”.

However, an older one will use this trait to camouflage herself in order to prey on smaller creatures who approach her for whatever reason (I.E: fruits, shade...)

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Characteristic:

*Weakness:

-Like other kind of Dryads, A Palm Dryad is very fear of fire. Even if she live near a beach, due to the very slow mobility, she may die before extinguishing the fire with sea water.

-Another weakness of this kind of Dryad is: they has very low tolerant to cold, so people never see them at place that has very low temperature. And Ice magic is what they dislike.

-A Palm Dryad is also afraid of coastal natural disaster (Tsunami, Storm...). By using her "Far Sight", she can predict when a disaster is coming, so she can uproot herself and move to somewhere safer. If people see a Palm Dryad moving slowly (and clumsily) toward inland, it mean some natural disaster is going to hit the coast.

-If they happen to live at a tiny deserted island, or inside an oasis the middle of desert, they tend to focus their nutrient to their roots to make them more stable and high tolerant before natural disasters.

-Palm-eating creatures is her worst enemy. Parasite like Dryad's Guts Worm can be an annoying thing to this folk, and they often try to treat it by drink a lot of sea water. People don't know if this method is effective or not, but they may need to continue to do that until someone give them some coffee.

-Coconut Crab Girls are sneaky fruit thieves to a Palm Dryad, as it's very difficult to remove them once they starts to climb on the trunk in order to steal coconuts. They often attack in silent when the Dryad is sleeping, and sometimes even kill Saplings that is still growing inside the fruit.


*Lifestyle:

-A Palm Dryad love sunbathing, so she don't want to stand somewhere having shade of other tree cast over her. So it isn't strange if she planting herself alone somewhere that the sun can shine directly on her, and often lean 45 degree so that all of her body is coated with sunlight.

-Palm Dryads gains their nutrient mostly from the sandy soil and from photosynthesis, and also catch humans and other small creatures wander into her reach. For some reason, the Dryad is fond of the taste of Coconut Crab Girl (maybe for revenge?), and always ready to give someone a huge Coconut of her in exchange for one of these Palm Thief, and spare his life if that person happen to be humans.

-Though they like to stand alone for sunbathing purpose, it doesn't mean they like living alone, especially if they grows on some deserted island or on an oasis in the middle of desert. They're easy to make friend with, and will very happy if their friends pay them a visit (bring along a Coconut Crab Girl even better).

Note: You can make friend with them even you're their bite-sized food, just catch some Coconut Crab Girls and give them as presents for several times (just hope that these creatures wouldn't cut down your head with their extremely strong pincers before you archive what you want)

Note: Even you have made friend with them, sitting at their trunk is a very bad idea, because huge coconuts can fall down when they are fully ripen. Despite of the softer husk, There were people who had their sense knocked out of their mind, or badly wound on the head after surviving such an impact. If you see someone spend their time laughing all day or some graves at a beach, well, you can be pretty sure that they used to be friends of a Palm Dryad

-A Palm Dryad is always aware of the world around her, thanks to her connection link with other Dryads and her “Far Sight”. She is also an expert at finding lost ship or people in the middle of the ocean (or in desert), or just observe something on other side of the sea.

-Despite of their gentle personality and their friendliness, if someone hurt her friends, watch out her rage. They may not very good at close-combat, but will ready to fight to the end. And if their foes run away, well, “May the Coconut be with them”, then


*Reproduction:

-At first, around the neck of a Palm Dryad appears a necklace made from golden wheat-liked flowers.

-After being pollinated (often by insects), the flowers slowly grow and the necklace changes to a chain of coconuts (about 20-30 fruits). It will take about 2-3 weeks for this process

-Like mentioned above, only a few of these fruit (2-3) can contain Saplings. The rest are used for another purposes. It's easy to know where these special fruits, as a Palm Dryad never give them to other or use them as projectiles.

-The Saplings-fruits will continue to mature until they're all ready fro their new life. Then the Palm Dryad mother will use all of her strength to throw these fruits into the sea.

Note: Other way to spread these fruit is ask their friend to bring to somewhere else, but rarely use because coastal Palm Dryads as they have their belief and pride into their children. However, this method often used by Palm Dryads who live at oasis by entrusting them to travelers, in exchange for sparing their lives and offering some helps. This is a risky move, but they can't let their children overcrowded the oasis.

-The fruits will float on the sea surface until they arrived to other coasts. They may look very tasty to some sea creatures, but these fruit have extremely hard husk to protect the saplings from outside dangers, and there is enough nutrients inside the coconuts to support the children. And what's the point to eat a coconut without breaking their husk, anyway?

-However, some giant sea creatures may accidentally swallow these fruits and kill the Saplings. So to ensure the survive rate, Palm Dryads always throw their children into the sea AT THE SAME TIME, along with some other normal coconuts. So it's not a strange sight to see lots of huge coconut will floating around on the sea in some seasons.

Note:Fishermen know these floating coconuts are offspring of Palm Dryads, and tend to leave them alone (some even help them arrive the coast). For some reasons, they believe that a Palm Dryad can see everything happens on the sea, so they don't want some random flying coconuts bombard at their home after messing with these Saplings.

-Lucky fruits will arrived on some random beaches, and start to germinate. A baby Palm Dryad, with soft leaves (looks a bit similar to banana tree's ones), will first break the husk to let her head out, and later, her main roots will dig into the sandy soil. When the root first contact to the ground, she will immediately connect herself into Palm Dryad's network.

-Start from this moment, other Palm Dryads will teach these child (without knowing they belongs to who) how to survive, how to use their abilities, and other knowledge about the world. If there is a mature Palm Dryad happens to live near a baby ones (maybe two or three, depend how much the fruit arrive the coast), she will become their protector for a short time until the young can live by themselves, then she will leave

-These children will grow into fine adult Palm Dryads, though there are still pretty much lost due to coastal (desert) disaster, palm-eating insects, fire...