The Green Man

The being now known as “The Green Man” began life as Dr. Nathan Grovemont, a botanist and research scientist who studied the evolution and development of plant life. Nathan became convinced humanity’s harmful effects on the environment were something evolution could not overcome quickly enough, and it was only a matter of time before the human race rendered the Earth uninhabitable for all life.
He experimented with new strains of plant life that could survive the ecological disasters he saw coming. Since plants did not adapt to environmental changes quickly enough, he needed to make them more aware and capable of molding their environments to suit them. In time, he developed his “morphological stimulator,” a device that used a plant’s morphic energy field to grant it animation and movement without true intelligence. When his funding was cut and his project scrapped, his protests went unheard, so he took his prototype stimulator and used it himself.
The following week, trees from Liberty Park robbed a local Freedom City bank, ignoring gunfire and overturning a police car that tried to stop them. Several other crimes occurred as the mysterious “Green Man” used his vegetable minions to steal for him. Eventually, Dr. Grovemont was caught and sentenced to time in Providence Asylum. He escaped with the aid of a makeshift device and some ivy growing on the walls. This time, he pursued his experiments to their “logical conclusion.” He used his equipment and a series of chemical treatments to alter his own morphic field, turning himself from a human being into an animate, intelligent plant. Dr. Grovemont left his old life behind and began his career as an eco-terrorist and self-proclaimed savior of the Earth, teaching the trees and other plants to fight back against their killers.
The Green Man regularly caused trouble for the heroes of Freedom City and other areas, transforming green zones like parks or forests into places dangerous for human life until he and his influence were driven from them. Occasionally, he has resorted to theft, to get necessary supplies or resources for his “work,” and kidnapping, either for ransom or to drive a point home against the poisoners destroying the ecosystem and the plants making up the majority of it.
The Green Man has recruited three women he refers to as his “Brides of the Green”—Flora, Maxima, and Venus—and given them plant-based powers as well. They have served as his agents and minions and are fanatically devoted to him, although he does not always show the same dedication.
On one occasion, the Green Man tapped into the elemental powers of Dr. Metropolis to transform Freedom City into a true “urban jungle” under his influence, but heroes freed Metropolis from the effects of the “seed” the Green Man used to control him and restored the city to normal.

Physical Description

Special abilities

The Green Man is a living, mobile, intelligent humanoid plant with the ability to control other plants and impart tremendous growth and mobility to them. His body is made up of a substance similar to dense wood, giving him great strength and resistance to injury. His plant-body heals quickly from any injuries and he needs only sunlight, water, and some carbon dioxide to survive, immune to many human biological needs.
He usually operates in areas where plants can be found in abundance: forests, wetlands, and even large parks. His usual subjects are trees, but all types of plants have their uses. The Green Man often carries a bag of seeds with him; his power can cause them to sprout even on city streets or sidewalks and grow unbelievably fast, and he’s used mutated vines to crack solid concrete in the past.
The Green Man can animate plants, granting them mobility and a kind of crude intelligence under his guidance. Note that he can only animate one plant per use of his power, so it can take some time for him to “awaken” an entire plant army of hundreds without a power stunt or some kind of outside aid. He commonly uses his power to turn trees into foot-soldiers or grow masses of clinging vines to restrain his foes. He can also emit a cloud of pollen around him that causes an intense allergic reaction in animal life.
The Green Man has a psychic link to vegetation, able to see and hear what happens around it when he focuses his attention there, which helps to direct his plant allies. Plants simply part, shift, and otherwise move aside for him, allowing him to pass through the densest vegetation as if it were not even present.
Virtually any of the effects given in Plant Powers chapter of Power Profiles are potential power stunts for the Green Man’s Plant Control array or his Green Visions power. Feel free to expand upon these as suits the adventure.

Mental characteristics

Intellectual Characteristics

Dr. Grovemont was an unbalanced personality even before he turned himself into a walking plant. It’s now difficult to say whether the Green Man is completely insane or simply has a perspective completely alien to human experience. In either case, he has little or no regard for human life, considering it a pestilence on the face of the Earth, ranting against humanity and its myriad crimes against the natural world.
Still, the Green Man does not want to destroy the world, or even humanity, so long as they learn their proper place in the scheme of things. He wants to “liberate” the plant kingdom to better defend itself and exert its proper place as the controlling influence in the world. He considers himself superior to humanity, both intellectually and physically, and points this out at nearly every opportunity.
Although he sometimes employs human agents to do his dirty work—fanatical eco-terrorists and petty criminals along with his Brides—the Green Man has no real ties to humanity; there is only his kinship with the plant kingdom. Any attempt to remind him of his former human life is met with angry retorts that Nathan Grovemont is dead, and only the Green Man lives.