Cultivator

I had a fever. The Greenhouse Keeper of Pell put a hand on the side of my neck, said "wait," and went away for nine minutes. When she came back she had a sheaf of pale leaves still wet from the work-bench and a flake of Warm Glass between two fingers. She did not pray to it. She listened to it. And then she did the thing it needed, which was that she crushed the leaf into the flake, and the flake brightened, and the brightness went into my neck where her hand had been, and the fever ran out of me into the floor like dirty water. I asked her, later, what she had done. She said: I read what was wrong. The Greenhouse knew the rest.

-- recovered fragment, courier's journal, Pell, late winter

What a Cultivator is

A Cultivator is the person who has read the old work and learned to do some of it. Not all of it. Nobody alive knows all of it. But enough that the settlement does not have to ration water, enough that the doors of the deep-strata cache will open for them once, enough that the wound that should have killed someone yesterday is closing tonight.

Where the Mage compels the Winds with pattern, where the Sage narrows the Winds through clarity of will, where the Bloodborn channels through lineage, the Cultivator does none of those things. The Cultivator works the Lattice — the stable, programmable data-dimension that lies under everything. The Mage, the Sage, and the Bloodborn channel the Winds; the Cultivator tends the systems that make the Winds possible. Their power is recovered technique. It is reproducible. A second Cultivator can be taught what the first learned, given a Greenhouse and time.

This is why settlements with Cultivators are richer than settlements without them. It is why some Holds have running water and some Freeholds ration. It is why the Greenhouse Keeper of a Carehold is, often, as politically significant as the gate captain. Cultivators do not make society possible. They raise the ceiling of what society can be.

A Cultivator is legible the way a Fighter is legible. They are the technician the surface world recognizes. Every faction has work for one. Every warband wants one. Every settled place that has lost theirs will hire the next to walk in.

Chassis

The class engine

Five moving parts. Together they are the Cultivator at the table.

1. Seeds

The Cultivator's known protocols -- each one a distinct process: cellular repair, water synthesis, Miasm-clearing, structural diagnostic, nanite-mediated toxin filter. A Seed is not a channel effect pushed through biology. It is a learned process you carry and run. Your collection is unlimited: you gather Seeds from the world through Greenhouse mentors, trade, salvage, and field recovery, and every Seed you acquire stays in your collection permanently. The constraint is not how many you know -- it is how many your Slates can hold at once. A Seed's tier determines what level of Seed Slot it requires to activate. You cannot activate a Seed of a tier for which you have no Seed Slots.

2. Seed Slots

Your activation budget -- the channeling resource you spend to run a loaded Seed. The slot tier must match or exceed the Seed's tier. You have far fewer Seed Slots than a full-channel class: the Cultivator's power lies in selection, Technique, and timing, not volume. All Seed Slots recover on a long rest. The Seed/Slate engine does not share a resource pool with Wind-slot classes; multiclassing does not merge activation budgets.

3. Slates

Physical interface devices you carry -- recovered Lattice hardware from the same tradition that produced the Seeds. A Slate hosts a loaded Seed and provides its activation interface. You must have a Seed loaded on a Slate you are carrying to activate it. Your Slate count (see class table) is the only limit on how many Seeds you have ready at any moment -- and any Seed in your collection can be swapped onto a Slate during a short rest. This makes the Cultivator more flexible than either a Bloodborn (fixed known list) or a Mage (dawn preparation): the full collection is always one short rest away, at the cost of fewer total slots. Slates are physical objects: they can be lost, damaged, found, and traded. A Cultivator who has lost all Slates cannot activate anything until they recover one.

4. Slate Slots

Your metamagic pool -- the resource that powers Technique modifications. Slate Slots recover on a long rest. They do not begin until L2 and grow slowly (see class table). A Technique modification that costs Slate Slots must be declared when the Seed is activated; they cannot be spent retroactively. Slate Slots do not activate Seeds directly -- they shape an activation, extending it, redirecting it, or amplifying what the Seed does beyond its rated parameters.

5. Techniques

Learned modifications and crafting methods, drawn from the technique tree. Two kinds:

• Modification. Applied when activating a Seed. Spend Slate Slots as specified to change how the Seed runs: extend range, split yield, hold its effect for delayed release, push it past rated tier. At most one modification per activation unless a Technique states otherwise.
• Crafting method. Applied outside combat using Greenhouse time. Produces a temporary item, a charged artifact, or a modified Seed variant. Crafting methods do not spend Seed Slots; they cost time, Greenhouse access, and sometimes Slate Slots spent during the work.

You know a growing number of Techniques as you level (see class table). Any Technique in the tree can be learned regardless of Field, unless it lists a prerequisite.

Ambient: Greenhouse access

Every Cultivator starts with a home Greenhouse -- through a settlement, a faction, or a mentor. Without Greenhouse time between long rests, you cannot load Seeds onto new Slates, add Seeds to your collection, or use crafting-method Techniques. A campaign that never provides Greenhouse time is playing with a broken Cultivator. The World Master should plan for it.

Class features

The Cultivator's class features reflect a technician's path: broad capability that deepens with level, and a capstone that removes the last environmental constraint on the work.

Feature ladder

Major class features

• Lattice Sense (L1). A passive read. On sight you know whether a piece of Lattice hardware is Cold (dead), Warm (recoverable), or Live (running). An INT check reveals what a Seed does, what a Slate is running, what a relic yields, and what its dependencies are. The world's hardware is legible to you the way letters are legible to a scholar.
• Starter Seed Set (L1). You begin with a Greenhouse-provided collection: four tier 1 Seeds chosen from the general Seed list, appropriate to your background and faction allegiance. These are the Seeds loaded on your first Slate; they are yours to keep and build from.
• Walking Greenhouse (L20). Wherever you sleep for 8 hours, a functional Greenhouse exists. You load Seeds onto new Slates, add Seeds to your collection, and use crafting-method Techniques without infrastructure. Your pack is your workshop. You have not become a Greenhouse keeper. You have become a Greenhouse.

The technique tree

Each time your Techniques Known increases (see class table), pick one from any branch below. Some require prerequisites listed inline. The list grows as the class is played. Techniques marked modification are declared when activating a Seed and cost Slate Slots as listed; at most one modification per activation unless a Technique states otherwise. Techniques marked crafting use Greenhouse time and produce items or altered Seeds. Unmarked Techniques are passive: once learned, always active or triggered without cost.

Reading

• Seed-Reader. Ten minutes' study of a Seed reveals its full function chain: yield, prerequisites, dependencies, drift status. No check required.
• Cargo-Cult Disentangler. Watch a settlement perform a ritual around a working relic. You can identify which gestures are genuine operating procedure and which are ceremony the centuries grafted on.
• Trapfinder. Recognize tampered Lattice -- booby-trapped Seeds, hostile programs, sabotaged Slates -- on sight.
• Yield Estimator. Before activating a Live Seed or Totem, predict its output to within 10%. Most appraisers cannot do this. Useful at a trade table.

Activation

• Guarded Yield. Modification -- 1 Slate Slot. When you activate a Seed that forces saving throws, designate up to your INT modifier of willing creatures you can see. Each designated creature automatically succeeds on the save against this activation. The process reads friend from threat when you tell it who to spare.
• Extended Reach. Modification -- 1 Slate Slot. When you activate a ranged Seed, its range doubles. When you activate a touch Seed, its range becomes 30 feet. The carrier envelope expands; the effect rides further than the Seed's rated parameters.
• Refined Output. Modification -- 1 Slate Slot. When you activate a Seed that deals damage, reroll a number of the damage dice up to your INT modifier. You must use the new results. A second pass through the output parameters catches what the first missed.
• Held Pattern. Modification -- 1 Slate Slot. When you activate a Seed with a duration of 1 minute or longer, its duration doubles, to a maximum of 24 hours. The process runs on a slower burn; the yield persists.
• Frequency Spike. Modification -- 3 Slate Slots. When you activate a Seed that forces a saving throw, one target of your choice has disadvantage on their first save against it. The activation is tuned to the precise resonance frequency at which that target's resistance fails.
• Hot Load. Modification -- 2 Slate Slots. When you activate a Seed with a casting time of one action, you may activate it as a bonus action instead. The Slate pre-stages the activation sequence; what normally takes a practiced moment becomes reflex.
• Silent Run. Modification -- 1 Slate Slot. The activation produces no perceptible signature: no vocal recitation, no somatic interface, no resonance bloom in the Miasm. Observers detect nothing. A Seed running silently cannot be identified or disrupted on reaction.
• Split Yield. Modification -- 1 Slate Slot per Seed tier. When you activate a single-target Seed, choose a second valid target in range. The activation forks at output; both targets are fully affected. The Slate Slot cost equals the Seed's tier.

Slate work

• Quick-Load. You may swap the Seed loaded on any one Slate you carry as a bonus action, without requiring a short rest. This is the in-combat emergency swap; outside combat the short-rest baseline still applies for Slates you are not Quick-Loading.
• Parallel Threads. Load two Seeds onto a single Slate simultaneously. Both are available for activation, but each activation from a double-loaded Slate costs 1 additional Slate Slot.
• Hot-Swap. When a Slate you carry is lost, damaged, or destroyed, transfer its loaded Seed to another Slate you carry as a reaction. No short rest required. The receiving Slate begins drifted; clear the drift at your next short rest or Greenhouse visit.
• Slate-Shield. As a reaction when you or an adjacent ally would take damage, interpose a Slate to absorb the hit. The Slate takes the damage and may break. On a successful INT check (DC 10 + half the damage taken), the loaded Seed survives the impact.

Greenhouse

• Field Greenhouse. Crafting. One hour with a Repair Kit anywhere with ambient Miasm. The site functions as a Greenhouse for that scene: you may swap Seeds, tune Slates, and use other crafting Techniques. You cannot use this to acquire new Seeds.
• Greenhouse Reach. Activate a Seed loaded in your home Greenhouse from a distance of up to your Cultivator level in miles. You feel the activation acknowledge.
• Cultivator's Pantry. Your home Greenhouse continues to maintain Seeds in your collection while you travel. Returning after a week or more, you find them in better condition than you left them.

Cycle

• Yield Splitter. Modification -- 1 Slate Slot. When you activate a Seed, you may run it at half yield. This activation does not expend a Seed Slot. The effect is diminished; the slot is spared.
• Push the Cycle. Modification -- 1 Slate Slot. Once per long rest, when you activate a Seed, treat your Seed Slot as one tier higher than the Slot you actually spend. The Seed drifts after this activation and cannot be used again until you have Greenhouse time.
• Drift Resistance. Your Seeds accumulate drift at half the standard rate.

Defense

• Counter-Seed. As a reaction when a hostile psionic effect targets you or an ally within 30 feet, expend a Seed Slot to attempt to disrupt it. Make an INT check against the effect's channel DC. On a success, the effect is suppressed.
• Sabotage. As an action, attempt to disable an active hostile Seed in line of sight that you have identified. Make an INT check against DC 15, or the operator's INT check if contested. On a success, the Seed is disabled. The operator is immediately aware.

Social

• Cultivator's Voice. In any settlement with Lattice infrastructure, you are recognized as a practitioner. Advantage on Persuasion checks with settled inhabitants who depend on that infrastructure.
• Trade Floor. Your appraisals of relics, Seeds, and Slates are accepted at face value in most settled markets. Forgers have learned not to try you twice.

Rare (level-gated)

• Cold Seed Awakener (L11+). Crafting. Given access to a Greenhouse and a week of uninterrupted work, you may restore a Cold Seed to Warm status. The settled world was told this is impossible. The settled world is mostly right.
• Patch-Programmer (L13+). Crafting. Given a tested template and a week of Greenhouse time, you may write a new Seed from scratch. The Seed begins Warm; it must complete a Greenhouse cycle before it can be activated. The first one of your career is a story you will tell forever.
• Lattice Walker (L17+). You navigate by Lattice signature alone. Pitch dark, smoke, sensory disruption -- you move through them the way other people move through a familiar room. You are reading what they cannot see.

Fields

At L3 a Cultivator commits to a field — the layer of the Lattice they have learned to read most deeply. Three fields ship at launch: the Cell (Life), the Wind (Substrate), the Slate (Code). Three more are in development: Spark, Vril, Omega. A Cultivator who has not committed by L3 commits then; there is no field-less Cultivator at higher level.

Below L3, every Cultivator is a generalist. The L1-L2 work is foundational: Seed handling, Slate use, Greenhouse access. The field is the depth a Cultivator chooses to add to that foundation.

Cultivator of the Cell

The Pell Keeper was sixty, looked thirty, and once — I have this on the courier's word — regrew a child's hand from the wrist in three weeks. The hand worked. The child grew up with it. The Keeper said only that the cell remembered the hand; she had merely reminded it.

-- recovered fragment, courier's journal, Pell, late winter

Identity

The Cell Cultivator works the Life layer. Living Seeds. Genetics. Symbiont weaves. Crop strains, breed lines, wound-knitters, gut-cultures, antitoxin colonies. Their Greenhouse is a garden, a cellar, a wet-room. To anyone outside the field, what they do looks like miracle. To them it is reading what the cell already knows and helping it remember.

A Cell Cultivator is the most common starter Cultivator. The settled world wants what they do, and the work scales: from a wandering medic with a Greenhouse-in-a-bag, to the Carehold Keeper whose name carries past three trade routes.

Field features

• L3: Quickened Cell. Your prepared Seeds include the Living Seed list (water-making, food-yield, wound-knit, antitoxin, salve-tincture). Plus: stabilize a dying creature at touch. No kit, no check. Once per short rest.
• L6: Symbiont Cultivation. Over one week of Greenhouse time, grow a Symbiont — a familiar-scale construct of cultured tissue that bonds to you. It rides your shoulder, your forearm, or your back. It carries one always-active benefit chosen from a short list: a sensory boost, a self-heal, an alarm-call, a poison-filter.
• L10: Crop Master. Spend one month at a settlement and you leave behind a permanent +1 grade Living Seed yield. Settlements remember the names of Cell Cultivators who passed through.
• L14: Mending Reach. Once per long rest, restore a willing creature you can touch to half their hit point maximum. The work takes one minute. Watch the cell do what it remembers.
• L18: Apex of the Cell. Your Living Seed activations recharge on a short rest instead of long. Your Greenhouse can wake Cold Living Seeds others would discard. A field of corpses, properly tended, can be made to grow.

Cultivator of the Wind

We did not know who he was. He stayed two nights in the lee of the watch-house and asked nothing. The third morning he was gone. By the next moon the channelers of the settlement reported their work was easier; the Sage said she could feel her own reach without straining. Nobody connected the visitor to it for years.

-- recovered fragment, courier's journal, Westcairn, early autumn

Identity

The Wind Cultivator works the Substrate layer. Nanite colonies. Miasma density. Wind health. They do not channel; they tend the Winds the channelers depend on. They are the only Cultivator whose work makes other people's classes better. Sages, Mages, and Bloodborn in a Wind Cultivator's range report a thicker, more responsive Wind. They have no idea who tended it.

A Wind Cultivator's Greenhouse is unmarked from outside. It is the Miasm-tuning room. The hum of healthy nanite culture. The pressure-of-attention every visitor feels and cannot name.

Field features

• L3: Wind-Read. You feel miasma density and color saturation. You know which directions are dead-zone, which are saturated, which are sick. As a bonus action, identify the dominant miasma color within 1 mile.
• L3: Wind Tune. Action. For 1 minute, ambient miasma in a 30 ft radius is thickened. Allies within the radius channeling psionic effects gain advantage on their channel rolls. You can do this a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus.
• L6: Faraday Field. Action. 10 ft cube where Psionic damage is reduced by half and opposed miasma-read against creatures inside has disadvantage. Lasts 1 minute. Once per short rest.
• L10: Nanite Suturing. When you use Wind Tune, you also regain Hit Points equal to your INT modifier plus your Cultivator level. The Winds give back what you give them.
• L14: Wind Shaper. As an action you may direct a substrate-resident phenomenon (a phantasm, a miasma-resident creature, a drift-cluster) up to 30 ft in any direction. WIS save to resist if the phenomenon is intelligent. Most are not.
• L18: Apex of the Wind. The Miasm around you is yours. Within 60 ft you may issue Wind Tune at will, no cost. Once per long rest you may revive a dead-zone hex for 24 hours, returning ambient miasma to a region that has had none in generations.

Cultivator of the Slate

He had six Slates on him when he came through the gate. Six. Two on his belt, two in a chest harness, one in a hand satchel, one under the pack flap. The watch let him in because of the seventh: a folded Slate the size of a coin he showed at the door, on which a small green light kept the time of the captain's pulse. The captain had been with the watch for nineteen years. She did not need to ask what the light meant. She let him in.

-- recovered fragment, courier's journal, Eastern Lattice run, midsummer

Identity

The Slate Cultivator works the Code layer. They carry more Slates than other Cultivators. They run more Seeds at once. They can re-write what a Slate does. They are the door-opener, the signal-runner, the comms operator, the ECM artist. The Hold's signal-room operator. The wanderer who walks into a sealed cache and ten minutes later walks back out.

Where the Cell Cultivator is the settlement's healer and the Wind Cultivator is the Miasm's gardener, the Slate Cultivator is the operator — the one whose work changes what the relics in the room can do.

Field features

• L3: Double Slate. You start with +1 Slate slot beyond chassis (effectively 2 Slates at L3). Plus: as a bonus action, swap which Seed is active on any Slate you carry.
• L3: Signal Hand. You can interface with old electronics and Lattice-derived devices by touch. INT check; advantage if the device is settled, sealed, or one you have read before. Plus: your starter Slate set includes a Comms Slate (signal, mapping, scan).
• L6: Patch Writer. Once per long rest, write a small temporary Seed-patch: modify a Seed's behavior for one scene without rewriting the Seed. The patch dissolves on the next long rest.
• L10: Concurrent Runs. You can run two Seeds simultaneously on a single Slate without the Parallel Threads yield penalty.
• L14: Network Master. Link up to 4 Slates you own into a network. Any networked Slate may activate any Seed on any other networked Slate, anywhere on the network's range (1 mile per Cultivator level). Cultivators who lose a networked Slate to theft have built whole campaigns around getting it back.
• L18: Apex of the Slate. Your Slates no longer drift. You may write Live Seeds from scratch in a Greenhouse over a week, given a tested template. Your prepared Seed count is limited only by Slate slots: load whatever you want, swap on the fly, run it tomorrow.

Fields in development

Three more Cultivator fields are sketched but not yet shipped. They are noted here so a player or World Master can plan around them.

• Cultivator of the Spark (Energy). Cells, generators, fusion plants, charge cycles, power flow. The settlement's power-broker; the warband's quartermaster.
• Cultivator of the Vril (Vril psionic energy). The high-end forbidden tier. World Master gated; the fiction is "you stumbled onto Vril-ya work in your apprenticeship and you know what nobody is supposed to know."
• Cultivator of the Omega (Aberrant omega biology). Omega-pair organisms, post-collapse evolved biology. Engineers the aberrant rather than channels it; bordering Shifter territory but distinct in approach.