Aconitum napellus
A native-only European herb that opens fast, poisons on contact at the deadly tier, and heals through the fight.
Monkshood is a Perennial herb that fights on poison and staying power: it Poisons what it hits, inflicts a deadly contact recoil, and mends itself as the fight drags on. It is native to Europe and has no invasive card, so the arena only ever fields it as a native buffer for your bench — there is no attacker version to play. Its armor is thin, so it survives on chemistry and healing rather than toughness.
Its starter attack, Rhizome Creep, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 28 damage and leaving the target Poisoned (see statuses). The free once-per-battle ability, Allelochemical Priming, comes in at level 25: Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. It mends the plant. The advanced attack, Deep Root Strike, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (41 damage) and heals the plant as it lands. Most of your monkshood sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider.
Monkshood keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout arrives on the level 68 riser. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health — but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
Monkshood holds the Toxin trait at the deadly tier: striking it Poisons the attacker hard, and that recoil fires in player-versus-player (PvP) too. Sulfur soil does not neutralize it, though a Cloche-warded attacker absorbs it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. Defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a Ca/Mg amendment for a little extra DEF — plays to its heal-and-punish game.
At level 40 monkshood reads 103 HP and ATK 21 (this is a native-only card, so there is no invasive stat line). DEF is 4, a step above the perennial-herb floor. Its tempo is a quick starter but a slower cruiser: turn 1 runs on its initiative (46), which leads the opening exchange, and every turn after on its SPD (21), where it is out-paced. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, monkshood climbs to 190 HP and 37 ATK, and its DEF reaches 8 — modest armor for a soft herb, so most of its growth is in health. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so its early lead is gone and it acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys it the durability to keep healing and poisoning through longer fights.
As a perennial herb, monkshood is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and is hit for only ×0.667 by them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play monkshood as a native buffer that opens fast and outlasts: the HP cushion, bench overshield, self-healing attacks, and deadly contact poison let it soak damage and tax attackers over a long fight. It is a support piece, not a finisher. It is inedible, so feeding it any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins. It fights as a quick-opening skirmisher until about level 23, after which its bulk takes over, so there is no reason to hold it back from leveling.
Leveling trades speed for power. A plant’s tempo (SPD + INI, the turn-order edge) fades as it grows, while its power (HP + ATK + DEF, net of the rising Sun cost to retreat) climbs. The crossover is the level where power overtakes tempo: below it the plant is a fast skirmisher, above it a heavyweight. Shown for each stance this plant can actually hold — native adds a HP cushion, invasive an attack edge, neutral neither — with the card at its crossover and fully grown at Lv 100.