#waybound

I kind of wish all of the Monarchs had Ascended. I know there were perfectly excellent reasons to need to kill off Malice, Shen (and Seshethkunaaz), but it could have been hilarious!

The Path of the Harmonic Garden is a difficult but rewarding path. Many set out to follow this Path, seeking its power, but fail to maintain the patient balance required to tread it. Those who cultivate their path with exactness go on to become some of the greatest refiners, wanderers, and producers on Cradle. Those whose impatience gets the better of them ruin their foundation, and become lesser life artists.

A slow path by almost all measurements, successful practitioners along this path often do not reach Gold until their late twenties and spend significant time at Copper, refining their madra and tending to their garden.

While initially slow and weak, the Path of the Harmonic Garden eventually creates sacred artists capable of maintaining the finest sources for refining, and possessed of the strength to defend them. 

Harmonic Garden Madra is composed predominantly of life aura before all else and the difficulty of this path lies in balancing the scale between this overwhelming life aura and the multiple other lesser aspects of vital aura. Earth, water, and light aura must be harmonized with each other as well as balanced against life. It is no simple task. 

Artists on the Path of the Harmonic Garden begin tending the earth from a young age, cultivating, creating, and maintaining a space in which they will train their sacred arts, and cycle vital aura into madra. Tending to the garden allows them to balance the vital aura in which they cycle to their needs.

The cycling method followed on this path is known as the Seasons Renewing Cycle. It is designed to allow the core to wax and wane in its absorption of vital aura, preventing the core from adopting too strongly to one balance of madra. Through this cycling method, Harmonic Garden artists bring their core to the peak of Copper and back repeatedly until they are satisfied with the balance of aura represented in their madra. 

While cultivating their garden is designed to generate the proper balance of aura for cycling, it also serves to create an ideal location for the formation of Sylvan Loamseeds. These natural spirits thrive in the blend of vital aura found in a successful balanced garden and their appearance is often used as a sign that an artist has achieved a truly harmonic space and is ready to advance to Iron.

From there, cultivation now includes not only the garden space, but the Loamseeds as well, tending to their growth and preparing them for the next step in advancement. At Jade, some artists on this path enter into a contract with whichever Loamseed has grown most successfully, and the two advance together as they tend to their garden. For others, the natural spirit is not contracted with for advancement, but continually fed and strengthened, until it is absorbed at the peak of Jade in order to advance to Lowgold.

Due to the nature of natural spirits, there is no one Goldsign for the Path of the Harmonic Garden -some have no Goldsign, while other signs have been as varied as living vines twined around the arms, flowers growing from the hair, or moss covered skin.

Techniques:

Enforcer: The Deeproot Forest enforcer technique anchors the body to the vital aura of the living earth, strengthening the sacred artists skin to resist attacks, allowing them to withstand great blows without moving, and enhancing their ability to draw upon vital aura to replenish their cores and heal their bodies.

Striker: The Eternal Spring appears as bright flecks of vibrant green madra that can burrow into a seed or plant to accelerate its growth. 

Ruler: The Gardeners Hand technique harnesses the vital aura inside of plants, bending them to the control of the sacred artist.

Forger: The Wellspring is a forged spike of madra, that when driven into the ground releases beneficial madra into the soil, enhancing and revitalizing even the poorest dirt.

Outside of combat, practitioners of the Harmonic Garden are often renowned refiners due to the quality of their ingredients. Those that choose not to refine themselves are still highly sought after for that same quality of their harvests. The Eternal Spring can be used sparingly to accelerate the growth of a plant without damaging its ability to produce mystical properties, while the Gardeners Hand guides root and limb alike to both aesthetic perfection and maximum function. The Wellspring is not often used within the bounds of a Harmonic Garden, but can be sold, traded, or gifted to others to boost the productivity of farms and orchards. At the Lord level, soulfire and experience greatly expand the avenues open to the sacred artist, with new plants to cultivate that require different blends of aura to thrive in. 

Whether in defending their territories, or defending their lives, combat is no stranger to those on the Path of the Harmonic Garden. Many of these artists will roam far and wide seeking rare seeds to add to their collections, and danger is always around in both the wild and civilized places of Cradle. It is unlikely to find a practitioner on this path without a collection of seeds on their person that they can use to fight. 

Thorny vines can explode outward from one of these sacred artists at a moment's notice, guided by the Gardener’s Hand to reach out, grasp, and restrain. A scattered toss of the Eternal Spring can change the shape of a battlefield in an instant, as dormant seeds sprout anew, sending brambles and trees shooting to the sky, each one a potential tool to trip or ensnare an opponent. Then there are the rarer plants in the arsenal of the Gardener; those that produce caustic bulbs to be thrown, those whose flowers produce sickly aromas that lull into sleep, those whose leaves cut like razors. All the while the Deeproot Forest protects and heals the sacred artist, as well as the plants they push their enforcement into.

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