Arborist

An Arborist, also known as a Heart Shaper or Seed Soother, is a type of Shaper Artisan who specializes in using Heart Seeds to construct Chimera.

Chimera Creation

Arborists construct a variety of chimera depending on their specialization. The main types of Arborists are sinew arborists, golemic arborists, and intethus arborists.

Sinew Arborist

The most common arborist practice is creating chimera from living animals. By surgically placing a Heart Seed in the exposed heart cavity of a living animal (or by placing the fruit on top of the animal's exposed chest if it is an animal that's smaller than the heart seed itself), the heart seed will enter a pupae state by growing fibrous roots around the animal's body and surrounding its outer host in the same tissue. These pupae will incubate for between six to eighteen weeks before rotting and leaving a "newly born" chimera infant.

This requires surgical skill and knowledge to accomplish. The animal must be alive for the entire process, requiring heavy sedation and surgical precision to expose the heart without complications. The pupae must also be kept in an ideal, temperate temperature and left undisturbed for its entire incubation.

Golemic Arborist

Golemic arborists perform their art on inanimate objects. This is considerably easier to perform and creates a chimera which is immune to disease and physical decay, living as long as the heart-seed remains within it. However, these golemic chimera are considerably less intelligent and versatile than their fleshy counterparts.

Intethmus Arborist

An intethus arborist combines the skills of sinew and golemic arborism to create undead constructs using dead tissue. This is the only way to create a chimeric creature out of human, Giant, or Droven bodies, as living sapient creatures would by killed by the process.

Undead created by intethus arborists are not to be confused with undead created by intethus shapers. Undead created with shaping are less versatile, unintelligent, and can only remain animate as long as the shaper that created them is able to maintain their ritual spell.

Undead created by arborists are called golemic ghouls, and come with their own benefits and drawbacks. They are more intelligent, easily surpassing the cognitive abilities of golemic chimera. They're even capable of speech if their vocal cords are intact, though their communication is typically rudimentary. However, unlike undead created with shaping, golemic undead are subject to natural decay, and typically rot beyond usefulness in less than a year.

Slave Trading

Arborists are essential to the Estarian slave trade. Chimera are an easy form free labor, and well-made chimera are extremely valuable in human polities. Chimeric slaves are particularly valued because they can be "created" where and when they're needed, saving the exurbanite cost of transporting humans in chains from Estaria's colonies.

The Vildrel slave trade mostly consists of transporting heart seeds from the Blue Bog, as well as exotic animals whose features would make ideal chimera for whatever labor is desired.

Type

Artisan