You are a vessel. A hundred seeds sleep within you — a hundred trees, yet to be planted.
This is the second in a series of four player-character classes for use with 5E rules. (The other characters are the Demon’s Ex, Charm Addict, and Wise Serpent.) The Quick Jackfruit is a nascent forest. As they adventure, the party burgeons with their saplings — plant spirits with magic powers.
Download them here:
5E QUICK JACKFRUIT JPG PAGE 1
5E QUICK JACKFRUIT JPG PAGE 2
Zedeck’s Design Notes:
This sprang from three roots:
“Sentient Jackfruit Bard” was how Mun Kao labelled his initial illustration for this character, and I wanted to write something close to the thief / rogue archetype. So the Quick Jackfruit is a skill monkey.
MK loves animals; the first character he ever played in 5E was a Beastmaster. But how the Beastmaster functioned mechanically was a big disappointment for him. The Quick Jackfruit is my attempt to address that: a character class designed around having henchpersons / pets.
I have a jackfruit tree in my front yard. It is endlessly fecund: fruiting year round, feeding not just us but also monkeys and civets cats and birds and squirrels. Sproutlings all about our garden, where the animals have scattered its seeds. wanted some of that spirit, that generosity, that mutuality.
Other considerations:
- Concrete materiality — the Quick Jackfruit’s class features aren’t just abilities you activate; they have weight in imagined space. Seedling spirits are literal plants that need to be potted and lugged around. “You better have extra arms and friends!”
- Concrete emotionality — seedling spirits aren’t just abstractions of HD or spell lists; their mechanical advances are derived from evolutions in their personality. They are your children; they may act out. How will you raise them?
- Community ties — you can have many seedling spirits, but they don’t get very buff; “to grow further they must be planted in the ground.” Which hopefully encourages both players and GMs to consider long-term play / consequences for the places / people they’ve encountered. Where do you plant your child? Will you help it to root, to flourish?
Written by Zedeck Siew.
