Kodama
The Kodama are the gods of individual trees, serving beneath the Forest Walkers in the Terrestrial Courts of the Celestial Bureaucracy and answering to Celestial superiors in the Bureau of Nature. For the youngest and smallest trees, Kodama are mere Least Gods, more automated system than bureaucratic functionary, but as their purviews age and grow they too increase in sapience and power.
Kodama have interest in their own tree growing in influence, and can thus be protective of them, but they also have a mind for prayer and for promotion: it is tradition, and required by the doctrine of the Immaculate Order, that a prayer be offered to the Kodama of any tree from which would will be cut, and several should the tree be felled entirely. The tradition of preserving forests through replanting has its base in this tradition, for the Kodama of a chopped tree requires a new one to replace it and preserve its employment… of course, Kodama also seek advancement, to be appointed gods of copses and groves and forests, allowing them to rise above their former purviews, liquidating them for prayer as they depart.
Kodama will sometimes find themselves competing for mastery of their tree with a Dryad, an Elemental of Wood born from it. The Celestial Bureaucracy officially holds that any Dryad of a tree is automatically placed as clerk and secretary for the tree’s Kodama, but the elementals (particularly in the wake of the Great Contagion) do not always accept this subordinate position. While the material Dryads are better able to defend the tree physically, the Kodama has advantages in the bureaucracy of the Courts, and in making deals with mortals for prayer and assistance: often, Kodama will ally with human woodcutters to destroy a particularly obstinate Dryad. On some occasions, however, Kodama and Dryad will form a bond, a wedded alliance from which tend to emerge the most long-lived and massive of trees.
Kodama support the growth of new trees when old ones are felled, but their support of **expanding** the number of trees can vary widely. Those who are losing their trees, and those well-positioned for promotion, are eager for new trees to emerge, but for most Kodama new saplings compete with their tree for light and soil, and are born with new Kodama who might grow to be rivals, while a larger forest means a more powerful forest god, and more difficulty supplanting them to take their position. Thus, the majority of Kodama are highly conservative voices within their Forest Courts.
By tradition, Kodama will often gather at Sunset in the tallest trees of their forest, to offer thanks to the Unconquered Sun for his perfected service in lighting their days, and to Luna for illuminating their nights. On days of particular note they will sometimes materialize (cynics observe these days seem to occur most often when mortal tribes are near), filling the air with their characteristic rattling as they watch Sol Invictus set.
