The Glimmer of the Bloom, Part 2

The People of the Bloom

There is a saying whispered around the sputtering fires of trade hubs and in the rustling leaves of treetop settlements: “The Scrapper trusts their gut; the Graft-Kin trusts the vine. Both believe the other a fool.”

In the centuries since the Great Withering, humanity has not just survived; it has diverged. Cut off from one another and facing the unique pressures of the Veridian Bloom, our scattered ancestors developed radically different answers to the question of what it means to be human. In this post, we meet the major factions and cultures of this new world.

The Graft-Kin: Symbiotic Survivors

The Graft-Kin believe that fighting the Bloom is not only futile, it is sacrilege. Their philosophy is one of complete integration. Why struggle against the new world when you can join it? They see the Bloom not as a foe to be conquered, but as a partner, a source of life, and a new form of consciousness to commune with.

Their technology is grown, not built. A Graft-Kin warrior might wield a living vine-whip that stiffens to the hardness of iron on a silent, mental command. They wear armor made of layered, living bark that can slowly heal itself. Their scouts are often accompanied by “Bloom-Wisps,” semi-sentient plant-animal hybrids that act as guides and guardians. For light, they don’t burn precious fuel; they cultivate patches of symbiotic, bioluminescent moss on their own skin.

Graft-Kin society is often nomadic and deeply communal. They live in open-air settlements woven directly into the fabric of the Bloom, their homes indistinguishable from the surrounding flora. They are explorers, mystics, and traders, forever seeking to deepen their connection to the vibrant world they call home.

The Seed-Bearers: Custodians of a Dead World

Where the Graft-Kin embrace the new world, the Seed-Bearers reject it. They see the Veridian Bloom as a genetic plague, a corruption of the “pure” Earth that was lost. Their sacred mission is to act as custodians of the past, preserving the original genetics of humanity and the Earth’s pre-Withering ecosystem until the day the Bloom recedes and the world can be “healed.”

They live in sealed Arks—sometimes vast, subterranean bunkers from the Before Times, other times walled-off mesas, painstakingly cleared of all native growth. Inside, they rely on salvaged and meticulously maintained technology from the past. Hydroponic farms grow sterile, pre-Withering crops under the hum of scavenged grow-lights. Water is purified by complex machinery, and the air is scrubbed of the Bloom’s ubiquitous pollen.

Their society is hierarchical, traditionalist, and deeply isolationist. They view all outsiders, particularly the Graft-Kin, with profound suspicion, seeing them as genetically and spiritually “corrupted” by the Bloom. To leave the Ark is a dangerous necessity; to allow an outsider in is heresy.

The Scrappers: Children of Rust and Ruin

Scrappers are the ultimate pragmatists. To them, the philosophical debates of the Graft-Kin and Seed-Bearers are luxuries for those who don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. The past is a junkyard to be picked over for useful parts, and the Bloom is just another environmental hazard to be navigated. All that matters is what works, what keeps you alive, and what protects your crew.

Their technology is a chaotic but functional hybrid of salvage and nature. A Scrapper might carry a pre-Withering rifle, its cracked stock replaced with a piece of polished Iron-Bark wood and its scope repaired with a lens from a giant insect’s eye. Their armor is a testament to ingenuity, cobbled together from old road signs, the carapaces of giant beetles, and cured Thorn-Strider hide.

Scrappers live in fiercely territorial clans, often centered around a particularly valuable ruin or resource. Life can be cheap, and trust is hard-earned. But the loyalty a Scrapper has for their own crew is absolute. They are survivors, mechanics, and bandits, carving out a life from the bones of the old world.

Scout’s Log: The Scent of Metal

(The following is a transcription of a vocal log from Lyra, a Graft-Kin Scout, recorded via a pollen-based psychic resonator.)

“Log entry. Cycle of the Blue Pollen, Day 12. I made contact with the Scrapper crew near the Rust-Fangs. The Whisperwood warned me they were there… it felt the coldness of their iron. It’s so strange. Moving through the Bloom, I feel the life around me—the hum of the Glimmer Moss, the thirst of the roots, the fear of the small things that hide. But approaching the Scrapper camp was like walking into a patch of deafness. The scent of their smoke—acrid, dead—it wasn’t the scent of a living fire. It was the smell of something just… burning.

Their leader was a woman with scars like riverbeds on her face. She held a weapon that was all sharp angles and dead metal. It didn’t feel like my whip; it didn’t breathe. We traded. My pouch of Sun-Pollen for their water purifier—a ‘dead-tech’ box that hums without life. My kin need it. The trade was fair. But I pitied them. They walk through this symphony of life with deaf ears and clouded eyes, trusting only the cold, silent metal in their hands. They think they are strong because they are separate. They don’t understand that true strength comes from being a part of it all.”

GM’s Toolkit: Strangers on the Path

In Veridian Bloom, your most interesting encounters won’t always be with monsters. The cultural and ideological clashes between human factions are the heart of the setting’s social roleplaying. A simple trade negotiation can be as tense as any fight. Use this table to generate unexpected encounters while traveling.

3d6 Oracle Table: Encounters in the Wilds

• 3-4: A lone, ancient Automaton from the Before Times, still following its last, nonsensical orders.

• 5-6: A territorial “Bloom-Wisp,” a creature of pollen and light that can cause hallucinations.

• 7-8: A friendly, but cautious, trading caravan from a distant settlement.

• 9-10: A desperate scavenger, willing to trade anything for clean water or salvageable tech.

• 11-12: A “Whisperwood,” a grove of trees that psychically broadcasts the memories of those who have passed through.

• 13-14: A hunting party from a hostile tribe, their bodies adorned with the exoskeletons of giant insects.

• 15-16: A “Choral Bloom,” a massive, semi-sentient plant that communicates through complex musical tones.

• 17-18: Another group of player characters on their own journey.

Adventure Hooks

1. The Defector: A young Seed-Bearer engineer, disillusioned with their culture’s rigid dogma, has fled their Ark. They carry a data slate containing the schematics for a highly efficient atmospheric water condenser—technology that could change the balance of power in the region. They want to trade this information to a Graft-Kin settlement in exchange for asylum. But a Seed-Bearer retrieval team is hunting them to “purify” their transgression, and a local Scrapper warlord has heard rumors of the prize and wants it for themself. The players are caught in the middle.

2. Symbiotic Sabotage: The players’ home settlement is suffering from a strange blight that is slowly killing their cultivated plants. A visiting Graft-Kin healer insists it is not a disease, but a “symbiotic imbalance” in the soil. To fix it, they need a rare, inert mineral that can only be found in the contaminated sub-levels of a Scrapper-controlled ruin. The Scrappers, however, are deeply suspicious and believe the blight is a Graft-Kin biological attack, and the request for the mineral is a ruse to gain access to their territory. The players must act as diplomats, spies, or thieves to get what they need.

Conclusion: A Fragile Peace

These factions, forged in the crucible of a changed world, live in a state of fragile, shifting alliances. Their philosophies are so fundamentally opposed that conflict is not a matter of if, but when. Each believes their way is the only way to survive.

These cultures are shaped by the world around them. But what exactly lives in the Bloom? In our next post, we venture into the wilderness to catalogue the strange flora and fauna that make this world so dangerous and so wondrous.