The Sower

One of the Old Hands

"He grows nothing. He begins, and the forest does the rest."

An ordinary seed finds its own way to sprout. It needs soil, water, time, and nothing more. But beings born of magic have no way of giving themselves a beginning: they do not mate, they do not lay, they pass nothing on. Without someone to put them in the ground, an ancient forest ends up holding nothing but trees. The Sower is the one who begins them. He plants, he grafts, he sets things down, then he walks away and thinks no more about it. That is also why he cannot stop: what he has begun goes on without him, and if it grows too far, it takes hands other than his.

Apparition

First you will walk through a place that is too young. Trees all of the same age, tall and thin, standing too straight to have come there by chance, and nothing old in between them. Then you will see him, crouched in the middle of it, pressing something into the soil with great care. He knows you are there. He finishes first.
Or else he comes to you, and he is warm. He greets you, he truly looks at you, he asks questions and waits for the answers. Nothing hurries him. He does not understand what being in a hurry is, and if you are running from something, he will not understand that either.

Dangers

He has a hold only on what is willing to begin. On dead ground, on a barren thing, in a place where nothing will take root anymore, he can do nothing. He is powerful, and his domain is narrow.
He means you no harm, but everything you carry wakes up near him. The seeds in your rations sprout inside the packs, a spear shaft buds, leather starts to smell of sap. He does not do it on purpose and does not notice it.
What he asks for is always of the same kind: somewhere, a thing he began will not stop. He feels no shame and does not apologize. He tells you where it is, and he goes back to sowing.