Manitou

Description

In their true forms, manitous manifest as ghostly thickets of thin vines, each covered in thorn and tipped with a fanged maw filled with wood-like teeth.

Personality

Manitous are possessed by the singular desire to consume the souls of nature's defenders, the dryads. They took glee in the corruption of the wilderness, particularly in sylvan regions, and raze nature with terrible wrath

Abilities

Manitous possess the ability to summon a wide array of animals and plant monsters, can change the weather and affect the condition of nearby plants through their spell-like abilities. By inserting their phantasmal vines into the backs of creatures nearby, they possess approximately eight animals, plants, and fey each. The vines can only be seen through truesight and link their hosts together, requiring them to all stay within a mile of each other lest the manitou's connection be severed. Those under their control can be puppeteered, allowed to exercise their free will with the manitou's permission, or horrifically transformed.
The very presence of a manitou is frightening, especially to animals and fey, which tend to cower rather than run when within their supernatural aura. They can unleash their vines to rend the material world asunder by making them physical for brief intervals, with animals, elementals, fey and plants being the most affected.

Naming Traditions

Family names

Manitou typically don't have a name, but accept one being inflicted on them by others. Otherwise, they take on the name of the fey they possess.

Culture

Shared customary codes and values

Manitou corrupt plants and fey, and while they revel in the destruction of animal life they don't actually care about them one way or another.