For Gold & Glory: Card of the Week: Regrowth

Almost a year ago now!

The End of the Long Winter

In Parma, among the northernmost lands of the Domains, winter lasts for months on end. From shortly after the leaves of the white oaks fall, the land is gripped in snow and ice until well past the equinox. Even with longer hours of day than night, the snow persists and the branches of the broadleaf trees remain bare. The whole world seems to be made solely of dead shades of gray and somber evergreen. But though it seems to take forever, the snow eventually melts and the grays give way to browns.

Until one day when the rains wash away the dust left by the snow and the sun warms the ground and the first new shoots spring up from the soil. When the first new leaves escape from their buds. When the first flowers bloom with dazzling whites and pinks and purples. In the blaze of new color, the world is Regrown.

I cannot prove a thing, but I am sure that the spell of Regrowth was originally created by a mage from a land much like Parma. To see the land bloom once again after months of hibernation can be revelatory, and it does not seem a great leap of logic to attempt to replicate such a change with magic. To replicate the springtime, even if only temporarily, is potent magic indeed.

While the nameless creator’s original spell likely affected only the regeneration of plants, it was surely not long before other mages expanded on the concept. Animals and even people are not that much of a stretch. Likewise, the repair of inanimate objects follows as well. But when the spell became capable of bringing back lost ideas, spells, and even ley lines, it truly came to draw upon deep concepts of magic.

That is not to say that most mages who know the spell use it for such esoteric purposes. Like everybody else, a mage’s wishes are mostly small. That mages can realize their grand dreams easier than others is beside the point—Regrowth is cast mostly to restore or repair small things: a barren fruit tree, a broken tool, a sickly child. In the grand scheme of the multiverse these things are small, despite their great importance to an individual mage.

Celebrating Regrowth

The natural world is defined by cycles of life, death, and rebirth. While some cultures see themselves as above nature, this is not true—people are as tied to the world as any other creature. It is no surprise, then, that cultures throughout the multiverse—at least those outside of the tropics—notice and celebrate the springtime. Whether these celebrations mark the start of a new year, observe the year's planting, or reflect an aspect of the culture's religion, many also contain themes of rebirth, resurrection, and Regrowth.

Trilliums: a sure sign of Spring in Minnesota. Unfortunately, this one is still a few days before blooming.

The Power of Renewal

Green magic is widely considered to be the weakest branch of sorcery amongst the original scholars of magic. Whether this is true is debatable—who can deny the vast power of a Force of Nature?—but it is true that green magic’s strength is slow to gather in comparison to the other colors. Hence, rare is the mage who practices naught but green magic. But while sole practitioners are hard to find, those who dabble in green magic are far more common—and most of these do so to access Regrowth. The ability to Regrow and cast any spell lost in battle—fearsome summoning, powerful sorcery, potent ley line, or anything else—is powerful, and especially so when combined with other magics that can do similar. Such other spells are not rare, but Regrowth is among the most efficient of them.