Queen's Offering - Dryad Enhancements
[b]Queen’s Offering[/b] enhances and refines the existing Gauranlen tree and dryad mechanics, giving you more control while staying close to vanilla design. It builds on the systems already present, creating new reasons for you and your colonists to grow and protect the grove.
Core Features
[b]Level Your Tree and Dryads[/b]: Perform the Queen’s Offering ritual to sacrifice seeds for permanent dryad upgrades, faster morphing cycles and to gain access to the Gaumaker. Send your colonists to work within powerful auras near the tree to boost their productivity.
[b]Release the Clawers[/b]: Turn your grove into a living defense thicket. Dryads can automatically engage intruders within the tree’s reach.
[b]Hide Your Dryads[/b]: Order your dryads to retreat into the tree’s heart, shielding them from raids and other sudden threats.
[b]Kickstart Healing Pods[/b]: Save wounded dryads when they need it most by carrying them into healing pods for rapid recovery.
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Level Your Tree and Dryads
[img]https://i.vgy.me/R63Pj5.png[/img]
Gauranlen trees progress independently through three tiers: [b]Basic, Glimmering[/b], and [b]Radiant[/b].
Performing the [b]Queen’s Offering[/b] ritual with a single Gauranlen seed upgrades the tree by one level. Each level-up increases connection strength and moss growth, while providing the following benefits:
[b]Tree bonuses[/b]
• Fewer days needed to spawn, morph, and heal dryads. Basic values are vanilla for reference.
Time / level
Basic
Glimmering
Radiant
[b]Dryad spawning[/b]
6
5
4
[b]Dryad morphing[/b]
5
4
3
[b]Healing pod completion[/b]
3
2.5
2
• Trees project an aura that enhances nearby pawns granting Pruning Speed (+15% / +25%) and Plant Work Speed (+20% / +40%). The effect gradually builds up and fades when out of range.
• Upgraded trees emit a soft glow and, at highest level, spawn tiny glowspores to light the night.
• Colonists who linger near Radiant trees with enough moss, gain a short-lived +2 mood bonus.
• Reaching the Radiant level allows creating Gaumaker dryads regardless of required memes.
• Offer leftover seeds at a Radiant tree to increase connection strength, moss count and spawn up to two dryads.
[b]Dryad bonuses[/b]
Dryad Bonus
Glimmering
Radiant
[b]Barkskin[/b]
+0.2 movement speed, +1 melee hit chance
+0.4 movement speed, +2 melee hit chance, x0.20% flammability
[b]Clawer[/b]
+0.2 movement speed, +1 melee hit chance
+0.4 movement speed, +2 melee hit chance, +10 melee dodge chance
[b]Carriers[/b]
+0.2 movement speed, 63 carrying capacity
+0.4 movement speed, 75 carrying capacity
[b]Production[/b]
up to +15% item production, +50% once when morphed
up to +25% item production, +100% once when morphed
[b]Gaumaker[/b]
accelerates the Gauranlen tree’s moss growth
occasionally attracts glowspores into the grove, caste available regardless of required memes
[i]Note:
Melee hit chance works like increasing melee skill.
Production bonus scales with tree level and nearby Gauranlen moss count.[/i]
Release Dryads
[img]https://i.vgy.me/1ggv1s.png[/img]
• Dryads automatically engage enemies near their tree, similar to animal release.
• Controllable via a responsive toggle on each tree.
• Dryads require line of sight to engage, and all castes can be sent to attack.
• Strategic tree placement allows more dynamic defense tactics.
[i]Note:
Being assigned to and following a master has priority over tree-based release.[/i]
Hide Dryads
[img]https://i.vgy.me/GyvrLO.png[/img]
• Dryads can retreat into the tree on command and remain safe for several hours.
• Dryads reemerge automatically and do not produce resources while sheltered.
• The tree itself remains vulnerable; if the tree is destroyed, the sheltered dryads die.
• This allows for viable tree placement outside your walls, as dryads no longer stand helpless during raids.
Kickstart Healing Pods
[img]https://i.vgy.me/VotZNI.png[/img]
• Proximity to any Gauranlen tree empowers dryads to enter healing pods even while downed.
• Colonists can carry dryads and drop them near the tree to initiate recovery.
• Dryads can overcome pain and low consciousness, but cannot enter pods if missing a spine or too many limbs.
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Quality-of-Life Improvements
• Healing pods and morph pods restore rest.
• Dryads wake up when a healing pod command is issued.
• Dryads wake up when their caste is changed.
Fixes and Adjustments
• Reverts an unintended vanilla change to dryad spawn duration, restoring it from 8 to 6 days (Patch 1.3.3101 alignment).
• Dryads now spawn with an appropriate rest level instead of 21%, preventing immediate sleep after spawning.
• Fixes inconsistent dryad bleeding behavior where internal logic and UI states conflicted.
• Tree connection ritual moss spawn now scales correctly with ritual quality, providing up to 50 moss at maximum (vanilla could spawn up to 192 due to double pawn-count scaling).
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Compatibility
Vanilla Expanded Dryads - compatible and with extra support for their dryads
Partially compatible - works technically, but no recommended to be used together:
Dryads & Gauranlen Reworked - will override and disable some features of Queen's Offering
Alpha Memes / Alpha Animals - corrupted dryads will have no potency boni, thematic mismatch
I recommend to use [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3665657945]Nudge Me - Melee Pathfinding Fix[/url] for better melee fighting pathfinding.
Balance and Polish
[b]Queen’s Offering[/b] is designed to stay close to vanilla balance and philosophy. Changes respect existing mechanics and aim to expand options, not replace them.
If you have thoughts or suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
Why This Mod Exists
I always liked the concept of the Gauranlen tree and dryads, but they often felt awkward to use and slow in everything they do. Their threat response was practically non-existent, and I kept having Gauranlen seeds pile up.
That is how we got here.
[b]Credits[/b]
Thanks to Teabag86 and Anthitei for feedback and comments.
Thanks to Maduyn, LonelyGViper and other redditors for insights.
Shoutout to Cleansweeper 4 cleaning approximately 594 liter of dryad blood while Rimworld ran in the background.