Tree Keeper

Tree Keeper
Watercolor concept art of the Tree Keeper
First appearance	p067
Comic	Rice Boy

The Tree Keeper, as he appears in Rice Boy, is the latest member of a long lineage stretching back to the Green Age. This particular Tree Keeper is the nephew of Calabash.<ref>http://www.rice-boy.com/see/index.php?c=070</ref> He has magic abilities that tie into the forest; the Tree Keeper can both converse with the trees and make small plants grow from his fingers.<ref>http://www.rice-boy.com/see/index.php?c=069</ref> To get around the Dorlish Wood, the Tree Keeper travels in a tree with the appearance of a stagecoach, that walks upon four large root-legs.<ref>http://www.rice-boy.com/see/index.php?c=073</ref>

Rice Boy is the first candidate for Fulfiller that has been sent to see the Tree Keeper. He leads Rice Boy to the inside of the tree Daughter, where he shows him Ridrom's Prophecy. Strangely, while he is entrusted with the Prophecy, the Tree Keeper hardly believes in it or the departed Avatar<ref>http://www.rice-boy.com/see/index.php?c=093</ref> He sends Rice Boy to visit Parod for more information on the Prophecy.

History of the Lineage

The beginning of the line of Tree Keepers is explained in Negat the Tall. As Negat transformed into the tree Mother, she spoke with a small boy, and told him to spread her seeds far and wide. He obeyed her command, and caused the creation of the Dorlish Wood.

Baroness Esnurz, in the second Red century, wrote A History of the King of Trees, about the Woods' inhabitants' views toward the Tree Keeper. They saw him as a mythological figure that controlled the activities of the trees, which seems largely accurate. The Dorlish people also made small wooden idols of the Tree Keeper, which they worshipped discretely.<ref>Order of Tales (Book I), Appendix: "Dorl", p222</ref>

References

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