Osmunda regalis
Royal fern (Osmunda regalis) is a specialist fern in Supplant — a native buffer and invasive attacker whose game role is set out below.
The royal fern is a tall, clump-forming deciduous fern of wet ground and stream banks. In battle it is a Fern — a Specialist on the succession chart. Native across Africa and Europe, it plays as a defensive buffer; where it has spread as an invasive into Oceania, it turns attacker.
Its starter attack, Smothering Spores, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 28 damage as a native and 28 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Fern Disclimax, unlocks at Lv 25: Locks the succession here — the foe stalls and can't heal. The advanced attack, Crozier Crush (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 33 native and 34 invasive.
From Lv 10 it carries Circinate Vernation, +4 DEF once it falls below half HP as the coiled fiddlehead shields the growing tip. At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Prothallial Reserve, a 30% chance to cling on through one otherwise-lethal hit at about 30% HP, once per battle.
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 28 ATK as a native, or 89 HP and 29 ATK as an invasive, with 2 DEF. As a native it adds a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it trades that for the higher attack ceiling and pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, conceding 2 prizes when it is knocked out. 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 13 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 32 — making it slow to open but relentless once it gets going. 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 50, 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.
It is a soft glass card — DEF stays near the floor — that leans on chipping spores and a stall-and-deny ability. A reasonable coin-earner in single-player fights but one that wants a sturdier plant on the bench behind it; as an invasive in Oceania its attack edge is only slight. 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 10 (a little later as an invasive, around Lv 13), 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.