Dryopteris carthusiana
Narrow Buckler Fern (Dryopteris carthusiana) is a specialist fern in Supplant — a native-only buffer whose game role is set out below.
The narrow buckler fern is a woodland fern of the northern hemisphere. In battle it is a Fern — a Specialist on the succession chart. It is native to East Asia, Europe, eastern North America and western North America and invasive nowhere, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker version of this card.
Its starter attack, Smothering Spores, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 28 damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Spore Rain, unlocks at Lv 25: Rains spores across the back row — the foe's whole bench sickens. The advanced attack, Frond Farewell (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 39.
From Lv 10 it carries Ptaquiloside, so an attacker that strikes it takes a flat two stacks of Poison (an opponent's Sulfur amendment neutralises this one). At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Spore-burst: when it is knocked out, it Poisons whatever killed it.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF, which a soft-bodied plant like this feels most. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 29 ATK with 2 DEF. As a native it carries a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. On defence, its DEF stays near the floor, so it relies on tempo and offence rather than soaking hits. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 35 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 34 — making it steady in both the opening and the sustained phases of a fight. Retreating it costs 16 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 its HP swells toward 190, but its DEF barely leaves its band at 3 — a soft-category plant stays soft no matter how much biomass it puts on. Attack reaches 52, retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its inverted tempo has sunk to a sliver, so the speed it relied on young is spent. It grows bulkier but never becomes a wall.
On the succession chart a Fern is a Specialist. Specialist plants hit Competitor categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Ruderal categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
A defensive fern that punishes contact twice over — Ptaquiloside Poisons attackers and Spore-burst Poisons whatever finally kills it — while still hitting respectably. Native only, so play it as a native chip-and-recoil card that banks XP. It has no resolved edible part, so fertilising it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful for levelling.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 23, after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
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.