Circle of the Ancient Guardians

Druids of the Circle of the Ancient Guardians utilize and maintain powerful magical allies that take many different forms. These allies help them to protect the wild lands from those that would disrupt the natural order.

Heart of the Guardians

At 2nd level you obtain a magical item that the form of your guardian will shape itself around. This item is called an ancient heart and allows you to grow a plant construct called an ancient guardian.

The number of magic items you may be attuned to is reduced by 1.

With 4 hours of work, you grow a plant construct of tangled vine and wood to serve as your guardian. At the end of the 4 hours, your guardiann appears and once you place the ancient heart within it, gains all the benefits of your Guardian’s Bond ability. You can have only one active guardian at a time.

If your guardian is ever slain, the magical bond you share allows you to return it to life. With 4 hours of work you may use the ancient heart to call forth your guardian’s spirit and use your magic to create a new body for it. You can return a guardian to life in this manner, even if you do not possess any part of its body, as long as you have the ancient heart. If you use this ability to return a former guardian to life while you have a current guardian, your current guardian becomes a living statue and is replaced by the restored guardian.

If you lose your Ancient Heart or it is destroyed, you can perform a 2-hour ceremony to summon it or to receive a replacement from the wilds.

Guardian's Bond

Your guardian gains a variety of benefits while it is linked to your ancient heart.

The guardian obeys your commands as best it can. It rolls for initiative like any other creature, but you determine its actions, decisions, attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or absent, your guardian acts on its own.

For each level you gain after 2nd, your guardian gains an additional hit die and increases its hit points accordingly.

Your guardian’s ability save DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + its Strength modifier.

Your guardian's spell save DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + its Wisdom modifier.

Your ancient guardian adds your proficiency bonus to its saving throws.

Your guardian is proficient in two skills of your choice.

Your guardian has two hands that it uses to make grapple and slam attacks.

You can find the base statistics for the ancient guardian on page 4.

Living Statues

Once you have animated a guardian, as an Action you may command it to eject the ancient heart causing your ancient guardian to be petrified into solid wood as the heart drops to the ground. The vegetation that is left behind retains the guardians shape and hit points but loses all other features and becomes firmly planted into the ground.

You may animate this petrified form by spending 10 minutes in concentration after placing the ancient heart against it.

The vegetation that is left behind retains the guardians shape and hit points but loses all other traits, abilities, focae, and features. The living statue can be used for cover, blocks line of sight and effect, and has an AC of 16. Creatures that are grappled or restrained by your guardian when you reclaim the heart remain trapped in its clutches and can escape with a succesful athletics check against your guardians's ability save DC + 2. Creatures that have been engulfed by your guardian must succeed on an athletics check agains a DC equal to your guardian's ability save DC + 5 to escape.

For every point of damage dealt to help the creature break free the escape DC is reduced by 1. In addition, ¼ of the damage rounded up, caused by area of effect spells or abilities that hit both the guardian statue and the creature it holds is applied as if it was helping the grappled creature escape. If the guardian catches fire with a grappled or engulfed prisoner, the prisoner takes damage until the guardian can no longer hold them or they escape.

Versatile Growth

At 2nd level you gain access to a resource known as growth points. You have a pool of growth points equal to your druid level.

You may add or remove features granted by growth points by spending a number of minutes equal to ten times the growth point cost. Adding or removing versatile growth options that change your ancient guardians size requires an hour of growth time per growth point cost of that option. When you remove a feature from your guardian you regain a number of growth points equal to its cost

Growth points return once the guardian they were spent on becomes inactive (it dies or is petrified by removing the ancient heart).

You may not purchase the same Versatile Growth Option more than once unless it says otherwise.

You can find a list of Versatile Growth Options on pages 2 and 3.

Enchanted Wood

At 6th level your ancient guardian's magical heart enhances its AC by 2. If it has Barkskin its AC is 18. In addition, your guardian immune to harmful effects caused by plants, such as those caused by the spells entangle and spike growth.

Ancient Wellspring

At 10th level your power over nature infuses the ancient heart, granting your guardian enhanced regeneration. At the start of each of your turns your ancient guardian regains hit points equal to your Wisdom modifier + ½ your druid level rounded down.

If your ancient guardian takes necrotic, fire, or cold damage this regeneration does not occur at the start of your next turn. The guardian must have more than 0 hit points to receive the benefits of this feature.