Exquisite CΔrpse: Forest Law

 Sorry this post is a little late, I got distracted by things. Shout out to Xenophon of Athens, RandomWizard, semi-IDIOT, deus ex shit, Purplethulu, TheFirstGokun, Spwack, Sundered, Squig, theisticGilthoniel, Filth Pig and Phlox for participating. I have added a lot of connective tissue between these templates to tie them together, but left each delta itself unedited.

Δelta: Forest Law

Despite the best efforts of the Church, various heresies, secret societies and mystery cults hide within the cracks of society like weeds. Not all of them need to be rooted out however, many have been absorbed into the Church, or brought to heel or made allies. One such practice is the elven traditions of the Grey-Black Forests, which itself is built upon knots of compromises between it's people, it's trees and the Stag Lords. Thier traditions are strange, on one hand they hold to the virtues of impartial justice and purity, on the other thier lands have a hunting seasons not only for deer but human and elf. When a tiger eats someone in the Grey-Black you do not hunt it down, you bring the beast to court before a Forest Judge. Some Judges are rooted to a single community, others wander. Despite being heretical  it's considered good fortune to meet one, for they are known to carry with them waters of healing and wisdom.

To gain templates from a  rank of Forest Law you must have at least one template from the previous rank. Don't try to cheat this, the Forest can tell. As with many deltas, this list is not exhaustive.

0. Neophyte

To pronounce judgements, one must first prove they are capable of mercy. The conservitive judges may look down upon your initiation if you are neither an elf nor a local, but they can not stop you by the Law.

The Calling: (Xenophon of Athens)

• Happen upon an injured or ailing wild animal. Treat their condition, and ensure they are healed. You can sense the locations of animals both wild and domestic. 
• With a gentle mental pull, you can call them to you, and they will come in peace and friendship. You cannot speak with them, but you can exchange emotions non-verbally. If you cause harm to an animal you've called or located, you lose this ability.

1. Acolyte

To pronounce judgement in the Forest, you must understand it. To understand the Forest, you must understand it's waters. Clean and unclean, ill or hale, pure and vile. At this rank you are expected to follow the instruction of your seniors.

The Curing: (RandomWizard)

• Call to a wild animal stricken with illness, and have them drink clean water from your open hands.
• With an hour of searching in a wilderness area, you can find medicinal herbs that can cure (or at least slow) any disease. Children and animals in need of such treatment can instinctively sense that you can help them, and will come to you of their own accord.

The Cleansing: (Gorinich)

• Call to a lost person with stricken with guilt and forgive them for what they have done. 
• With good clean water and a little quiet you can wash away curses and profane powers. If you can't completely get rid of it, you can at least suppress it.

Take Me Up, Cast Me Away: (deus ex shit)

• Confront someone in a place they thought was safe. Make them blind and deaf and dumb with a sharp blade. If they didn't deserve this, find another and start again. When they die, find another and start again.
• When you look into someone's eyes, you can tell if they have seen evil and not confronted it, heard evil and not objected to it, or spoken of evil without condemning it. You learn when and where this happened but not what, specifically, they failed to do. If you remove the offending eye, ear or tongue you may immediately graft it onto someone else to replace a damaged or missing part.

2. Judge

To pronounce judgements, you must have the power to inforce them. There are a number of ways to prove your commitment before the Forest. You are now equal to your seniors, outranked by the Stag Lords, who are outranked by the King of Deer.

Unto The Silent Waters: (semi-IDIOT)

• Take someone whose sins could not be forgiven by their victim or by two impartial judges of good standing who've heard their testimony. Drown them in the dead of night. Make sure their body is never found. 
• In dark or murky water you can summon the revenant of the one you drowned to drag down another. If this is judged unjust by higher powers, then you will disappear into the next body of water you touch.

Hands of Glory: (Purplecthulhu)

• Take the left hand of a thief and the right hand of a murderer, preserve them from rot, and wear them on your person. If you lose the hands, or use the abilities to steal or unjustly kill, you lose these benefits.
• So long as you have the left hand, mundane locks click open open at your touch, and lights held by you are only visible by those you wish to see it. So long as you have the right hand, you can preternaturally sense illness, injury, and blood.

Blessed Child of Nature: (Spwack)

• Go out into the wild with nothing at all. Return, well-fed, well-dressed, and well-storied. 
• If you fought tough-and-nail to accomplish this challenge, then you can arm yourself appropriately, growing your teeth and nails with a thought and shrinking them as you like. If you relied on the benevolence of nature, then you can whistle back to songbirds and have them follow you about, sup with the King of Deer whenever you like, and be politely hunted by tigers.

Dryad's burden: (theisticGilthoniel)

• offer to swap places with a dryad and have your offer accepted 
• You now count as a forest creature, a spirit, a tree, and a woman for the purposes of ritual and law. Also there is a particular tree where, if it dies, you die. Burning it down is not generally enough, but a surprising amount of the dryads who swap with mortals were already dying of root rot or something. You can't exit the watershed that the tree is in, lest you die, but you do know that border at all times. Lose this template if you swap back.

3. High Judge

Techically no such rank exists in the Law, but those who rise high are considered first amoung equals. Be careful not to outshine the Stag Lords, who still outrank you in principle.

Clean Hands: (TheFirstGokun)

• Wear neither foot coverings nor gloves. Do not touch that which is unclean with your bare hands or feet. Eat only from the hands of a devoted attendant, or with long, easily tarnished silverware. If you become dirty or arrogant, you lose these benefits.
• So long as they are clean, your hands do the work of ten men and women. So long as your feet are clean, you walk, run, and jump with the strength of ten men and women.

Stag’s Salute: (Squig)

• Bow to a reigning stag of a forest, and be bowed to in turn.
• When you treat with rulers, be they human or otherwise, you will always be politely greeted. Peasants and smallfolk will typically identify you as nobility. If a crime is committed against you in a forest of a stag who has saluted you, you will be guaranteed a fair trial in their court.

Greedy Arborist: (Filth Pig)

• Plant a tree in a location you have never seen nor been to
• Any tree you have planted and the grounds within ten feet of said tree count as part of “your” forest for the purpose of travel, ritual and law.

4. Pariah

Also not a recgonised rank of the judical hiearchy, but the Forest has Laws older then the Antlered King.

Buck Spirit: (Sundered) 

• Kill the King of Deer. 
• All wild animals hate and fear you on sight. In addition, when you drink an animal's blood, you gain its most notable features until you drink another animal's blood, or you can turn into that animal for an hour, after which you lose the benefits of the blood you've drank.

5. Anathema

This is a rank is codifed in the Law. Judgement has been pronounced upon you and the verdict is death.

Grown to Purpose: (Phlox)

• Water five of your trees with the blood of an enemy.
• Wooden arms and armor crafted from your trees are as effective as +1 steel. When you craft such an item, you can give it a NAME with at least five meaningful words. If you are doing an action that fulfills that NAME, you can temporarily increase the bonus to +5, after which the item shatters forever.

Discusssion:

I may have been a few weeks late with posting this one, but with Exquisite CΔrpse 3 in the works I suddently felt the pressure to finally put up the post for Exquisite CΔrpse 2. Please do not tell me exactly how late I am.

I'm happy I was able to bring this all together into something coherent. Compared to the first one there was a lot less space for things to converge becouse there was only one round, and so it remained a bit all over the place. However I think I managed to bring it all together, the trick for making deltas make sense is specificity. Making Forest Law represent the religious/judical tradition of a specific region really helped bring it together. There are some gaps in abilites you would expect a 'judge' archtype to have, such as understanding of legal codes, however you can qualify for being a Judge by fighting for it tooth and nail to get Blessed Child of Nature, so I think Forest Law is a bit different from city law.

I think despite all the inconsistant quirks of the process a throughline does present itself. To become a judge you must first show that you want to help, then you can serve justice as restoritively or retributively as you feel is correct, but if you want greater power you must break taboos and it may or may not even be worth it.

Another note, according to the doctrine of anti-canon the Stag Lords can be anything from talking deer, to beastmen, to elves who wear antler crowns, but I must insist that the King of Deer is always a huge magical talking deer.