Circle of the Living Bloom

Lore Overview

The Living Bloom teaches that abundance must leave something for the next season. A healing garden is not complete merely because its flowers open; those who tend it must also have water, food, rest, and seed enough to begin again. Keepers serve communal kitchens, pilgrim orchards, recovery sanctuaries, and the quiet households in which care is too easily taken for granted.

Aeloryn Petalveil’s teachings of measured renewal offer an established model for this work. She holds the Third Returning Seat, Returnward, within Talyss’ Circle of the Petal and stewards the Returning Garden. The Circle of the Petal remains a religious order, distinct from this player subclass: a Living Bloom Keeper may study there without assuming Aeloryn’s office or making membership compulsory.

The Petal Concord’s gardeners, midwives, cooks, seed-keepers, and shrine attendants show how restoration survives beyond a single spell. Living Bloom practitioners can work alongside them, borrowing the Second Table’s principle that every feast should leave nourishment behind and the Quiet Basket’s practice of giving only what can be sustained.

A nurturing support Circle. Choose it to cultivate a mobile refuge, distribute restoration, and guide rising resonance toward deliberate renewal. Its desire identity is cultivation: Arousal strengthens care, Libido carries that care farther, and Rebirth scatters vitality among companions.

A Verdant Keeper Circle for Second Bloom Edition. Features arrive at Verdant Keeper levels 2, 6, 10, and 14. PB means proficiency bonus. Your Circle save DC equals 8 + PB + your Wisdom modifier. References to Wisdom modifiers have a minimum value of 1.

You are a tender of community gardens, a keeper of convalescent spaces, and a mediator who makes room for recovery. Listening does not reveal hidden thoughts or compel trust.

Circle of the Living Bloom Features

Standard: Use each feature’s ordinary rules. Veiled: Add its Veiled rules if your table tracks Arousal. Unveiled: Add its Unveiled rules if your table uses Libido. Optional effects never replace an ordinary feature unless expressly stated. You cannot spend more Libido than you possess; at 0 Libido you cannot benefit from Advanced effects until a long rest, even if another effect later restores Libido.

Rebirth and recovery: Rebirth is this class’s name for Climax, not a separate event. At 6 Arousal, resolve the canonical event: reset Arousal to 0, regain 1d6 hit points, gain one level of exhaustion, and lose 1 Libido, to a minimum of 0. Circle effects occur after that resolution unless expressly stated otherwise. They do not remove its costs. Ordinary exhaustion rules govern recovery; these Circles introduce no separate Spent condition.

Seeds: A Seed is the living focus of these rites. Carrying or planting an ordinary seed is narrative expression, not an additional currency. These features grant no undefined Seed enhancements or additional Seed supply. Their listed Libido costs are their complete Advanced costs. Use the base class’s separate Seed rules only where those rules are fully defined.

Agency: Arousal and Rebirth may represent mystical resonance, seasonal instinct, or emotional release. No feature establishes attraction, sexual consent, fertility, or a reproductive obligation. Willing creatures may decline optional effects. Arousal is never a substitute for a listed control condition.

As a bonus action, awaken a garden in a 10-foot-radius area centered on a point on the ground you can see within 30 feet. It lasts for 1 minute, requires no concentration, and ends early if you are incapacitated or create another garden. Roots and blossoms appear even on worked stone, leaving no permanent damage. You can create it PB times per long rest. When it appears, choose up to PB willing creatures you can see; these are its sheltered creatures. Once on each of your turns, as a bonus action, choose one sheltered creature in the garden; it gains temporary hit points equal to 1d6 + your Wisdom modifier. You may do this as part of the bonus action that creates the garden. These temporary hit points last 1 minute.

Veiled. When you grant these temporary hit points, you may gain 1 Arousal, at most once per turn. If you had at least 3 Arousal before doing so, the recipient also has advantage on its next EROS save before the start of your next turn.

Unveiled. When you grant the temporary hit points, you may spend 1 Libido to also grant them to a second sheltered creature in the garden. This does not generate additional Arousal.

Your garden’s radius becomes 15 feet. When you cast a spell using a spell slot that restores hit points to a sheltered creature inside it, choose another sheltered creature inside it. That second creature regains hit points equal to your Wisdom modifier. If the spell restores hit points to only one creature and its rolled healing exceeds that creature’s missing hit points, add the unused healing to this second creature’s restoration, up to your Verdant Keeper level. Count only healing from that spell, not this feature or any other bonus. This benefit occurs at most once per turn and cannot trigger itself. This is the Circle’s measured renewal: the second fruit of a single act of care.

Veiled. When you experience Rebirth while inside your garden, you may use your reaction after resolving it to give each sheltered creature inside the garden temporary hit points equal to your Verdant Keeper level. Once you use this reaction, you cannot use it again until a long rest.

Unveiled. Immediately before your own Rebirth resolves, you may spend 1 Libido to prevent the single level of exhaustion that event would give you. You still lose its normal 1 Libido. You may use this prevention once per long rest, and it requires at least 2 Libido before payment.

At the end of a short rest during which you tend plants, prepare tea, or keep a quiet vigil, choose up to PB willing participants, including yourself. Each adds your Wisdom modifier to the total hit points it regained by spending Hit Dice during that rest. A creature can receive this benefit once per long rest.

Veiled. Each chosen creature may also reduce its Arousal by 1. This never triggers Rebirth.

Unveiled. Choose one participant with at least 1 Libido remaining that has experienced Climax since its last long rest. It regains 1 Libido, up to its maximum. A creature may regain Libido from this feature only once per long rest, regardless of the number of Keepers present.

Your garden’s radius becomes 20 feet. Once during each garden’s duration, when a sheltered creature in it would drop to 0 hit points without being killed outright, you may use your reaction to leave it at 1 hit point instead. The garden immediately ends. Once a creature benefits, it cannot benefit from this feature again until a long rest.

Veiled. When Petals After Rain grants temporary hit points following your Rebirth, recipients may also reduce their Arousal by 1.

Unveiled. When you use The Garden Remembers, you may spend 1 Libido to allow the saved creature to move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks, immediately after the triggering damage resolves. It must be willing and able to move.

At level 6, you shelter three companions in a garden. You spend a bonus action to protect the injured scout, then later heal the defender with a spell slot and direct Petals After Rain to the scout. In Veiled play, choosing to gain Arousal brings Rebirth closer; you must weigh its restoration against exhaustion and Libido loss.

Rules boundaries: Temporary hit points do not stack. No Circle feature creates a new core resource, replenishes its own uses, or triggers itself recursively. Each named feature’s use limit applies across all forms and all creatures. These options have received a rules and compatibility review; encounter playtesting remains necessary.