Campanula bononiensis
The pale bellflower is a poison-leaning perennial-herb card, native across East Asia and Europe and invasive in eastern North America.
The pale bellflower is a perennial-herb card. It is native to East Asia and Europe and invasive in eastern North America, so it plays both roles: a native buffer at home and an invasive attacker in eastern North America. As a soft-bodied herb its game is chemistry and attrition rather than armor — see categories.
Its opening attack is Volatile Oils, unlocked at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing 27 native or 27 invasive and applying Poison to the foe. Poison is a status that deals damage over time, and because it is damage-over-time it bypasses the overshield and ignores DEF entirely. Its free once-per-battle ability, Allelochemical Priming, unlocks at level 25, costs no Sun, deals no direct damage and also Poisons the foe. The advanced attack Deep Root Strike unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun, its heaviest blow at 42 native or 42 invasive. No move carries an initiative rider. See moves.
This card keeps two always-on traits. Basal-rosette arrives on the level 10 riser and gives a flat +3 DEF for the whole match, the low rosette hugging the ground against grazing. Contractile-roots stacks on at level 68 and builds DEF as the fight drags on: it adds +1 DEF each checkup, up to +5 DEF in total, as the roots pull the crown deeper. Both are in effect from the moment they unlock and stay on for the whole match. It carries no Toxin trait, so its Poison comes only from the two moves above, not from a contact recoil. For most of its climb it holds only basal-rosette, adding contractile-roots late.
As a perennial herb it is not a climber and cannot take a Moss Pole. Its DEF band is soft, so armor gear does little for it; the most useful field gear is nitrogen fertilizer, which matches its edible leaf for coins, or a Cloche when you expect to face toxic defenders. Link: field gear.
At the snapshot level 40 it carries 103 HP as a native and a thin DEF of 4, with a retreat cost of 16 Sun. Its tempo is nearly balanced: initiative of 31 orders turn 1 and SPD of 34 orders later turns, with SPD a touch ahead, so it is a steady-tempo card that neither dominates the opening nor lags badly afterward. As a native it gains the +15% HP cushion and a benched overshield contribution. As an invasive its ATK edges up only slightly, from 24 to 24; it also pays Faustian self-damage to its bench on each damaging hit and concedes 2 prizes on a knockout. See stats.
Matured to level 100 it is a classic soft weed: native HP swells to 190, but its DEF barely leaves its band at 8, so it never becomes a wall. The retreat cost rises to 33 Sun and the inverted tempo has sunk to roughly its 1% floor, so a mature bellflower is slow. Leveling buys it bulk and poison output, not armor.
As a perennial herb it is a Competitor. It deals ×1.5 to Ruderal cards (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) and takes ×1.5 from Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), whose hits it also struggles to answer since its own damage into them is resisted to ×0.667. It trades evenly with other Competitors and the neutral Weird group. See weaknesses & resistances.
Its appeal is Poison: both its starter and its ability stack a damage-over-time that ignores DEF and the overshield, so it can wear down armored tanks that a straight attacker cannot crack, whether you are chipping in single-player or in an invasive attacker slot. The catch is its own fragility — thin DEF and only a small invasive ATK bump mean it needs bench support and cannot trade blows head-on. Its leaf is edible: feed it nitrogen fertilizer for a ×1.25 coin bonus, or any other nutrient for ×1.25 XP. As a light-bodied herb it fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 22, after which its growing bulk and attack take over.
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.