Botanist
The Botanist is responsible for recording details about plant life in the Spirit World. This plant life could be new species unique to the area or recognizable plant life from Taranel.
From what The Writer has recorded in The Field Guide, there are many new species in The Spirit World worthy of being documented.
Perception
Purpose
The purpose of botany is to study plant life. They do research through tests while creating theories and generating predictions about them, how they interract with the environment, and how the environment might interract with them.
The research that goes into studying plants in this way can help determine how a plant could be medicinal, poisonous, or consumed as food. With this in mind, along with the environmental interractions, efforts can be put towards cultivating more of the plant in botanical gardens, monasteries, farms, or alchemical groves.
Determining the usefulness of a plant on the road during an expedition provides not only valuable research towards the benefactor, but it also can provide new resources for the expedition team to utilize. Finding a plant that provides more energy, heals wounds, cures diseases and so on are all possibilities. This research is then combined with the efforts of the Apothacarist and Culinarian to create potions, poisons, drinks and meals that will help the expedition on their journey.
Operations
Tools
The Botanist supplies are used for harvesting and studying plants. The tools involved are clippers, mortar and pestle, and pouches and vials.
Provided Services
Botanists provide insight into what plants are capable of being utilized for medicine, poisons or even as food.
While some plants may not be viable for any of those things, these plants may still be useful for certain theraputic or spiritual things like aromatherapy (incense, candles, essential oils), for creating alcoholic beverages, setting traps, making talisman, or for certain animals to eat and to help domesticate them.
Identify Plants
The Botanist can either identify a known plant using the knowledge they have available to them, or they can identify the property of a new plant by spending some time running experiments and other tests. To identify a known plant the botanist simply must utilize Nature to see if they are familiar with the species. Regardless of what is rolled some knowledge might be known, especially when the Botanist is involved. If they don't roll high enough to get details about the plant they can spend some time doing research to see if they can find the information they knew existed, or they could spend time identifying its properties as though it were a new plant. To identify the properties of a new plant, the botanist needs to spend time running experiments and tests to find these properties. Their botanism kit has the necessary "chemicals" to run these tests, though some may require more direct approaches like consuming the plant. Regardless of the approach taken, the effects of the plant will take time to reveal themselves. Each new plant usually requires a minimum of a day's worth of study. Some plants may require more, and the botanist's travel or downtime can easily be spent learning new plants along the way. A botanist could easily study multiple plants: up to three at a time. The identified plants and fungi from the group's botanist can be found on the Discovered Plants and Fungi document.Hypothesize
Experimentation, hypotheses, tests, theories and so on are all a part of botany, and while this might be fun as a scientist in the real world studying a plant in front of them, it can be kinda confusing for a player at a table. The Botanist could hypothesize what a plant will do based on the way it looks, interracts with the environment, and drawing comparisons between other plants that might be similar. These hypotheses would act as a way for the player to be creative and come up with fun things that a plant might do from a description. Depending on a Nature check rolled, this hypothesis may prove correct or it could prove to be incorrect with negative effects depending on how the player proceeds with the information.Dangers & Hazards
A big danger involved with botany is encountering plants that fight back. The Spirit World is bound to have plants that move, aggressive plants that fight back, carnivorous plants that eat people, and so on.
Another threat is consuming the wrong plant in an experiment and finding that it DOES have some poisonous properties. Worry not though, if an apothacarist is nearby they could heal that botanist right up.
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