Hamadryad

A hamadryad looks like a lovely elven or human woman, marked out by long green hair and deep, glittering green eyes. She is gentle, sharp-witted and courteous but timid, and seldom talks with humans or their kin. Like her dryad cousins she is bound to one oak, yet she may travel away from it. Her oak is invariably vast and ancient but shows no magical aura; patient questioning through speak with plants will probably expose it.

She may carry a knife, but she avoids melee in favor of magic, all at 11th level. Once a day she can use hold plant, and three times a day charm person with a -3 penalty to the save. At will she has pass without trace, entangle, animal friendship, speak with plants, quench fire (the reverse of fire storm) and dimension door, the last only between trees and no farther than 660 yards.

She always notices snares and pits, can never be entangled, and instantly sees through magical vegetation such as that made by massmorph, tree or hallucinatory forest. Treants and the trees they rouse are plain to her. She can step into any living tree as by transport via plants and stay as long as she likes. If a caster is already inside a tree by transport via plants, pass plant or plant door, there is always room for her, and she may try to charm him with a -6 penalty to the save. These special charms are at will, apart from her three daily charm person spells, and work even on high-level druids (7th and up).

Call woodland beings cannot compel her, though she knows when she is in its area, and 90% of the time she goes to watch the caster; if his goals do not clash with hers, she helps of her own accord. Expecting trouble, she rallies animals and charmed humans to fight while she hops between trees, breaking enemy ranks with entangle and charm.

Hamadryads live only in huge, primeval forests far from towns and almost never leave them willingly. They speak the tongues of sprites, pixies, elves and dryads, are 90% likely to know those of treants, fauns, centaurs and druids, and 33% speak Common picked up from captives.

They rarely quarrel with woodland folk and dote on dryads and treants, often using quench fire to protect them. Any treasure goes to a dryad friend: a hoard in an unguarded tree might tempt the greedy to fell it, any hiding place is found sooner or later, and nothing a dryad holds can be turned against the forest.

Handsome men draw her eye as they draw a dryad's, but she is not possessive. She leads a charmed man deep into the woods to work at some chore, usually guarding trees from loggers, then releases him beside a dryad's tree, where he may be charmed afresh. If not, he may leave.

A hamadryad never eats. Sunlight absorbed through her green hair, plus water, sustains her; she prefers clean spring or well water but will tolerate water fouled by people or beasts. Kept indoors without at least an hour of sunlight daily, she starves in 10-20 days, and if her hair is cut she starves unless allowed to regrow it.