Veronica fruticulosa
A soft European perennial herb whose whole passive identity is quietly building armor — a weak battler that plays best as a benched native buffer.
Rose Mountain Speedwell is a perennial-herb card. It is native to Europe and invasive nowhere, so it only ever fights as a native plant — there is no attacker stance for it, and everything below is framed around that buffer role. It is a soft, low-armor herb whose interest is entirely in its two always-on traits.
Its kit comes online across three levels. The starter attack, Crown Split, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and hits for 40. The free once-per-battle ability, Stabilization, arrives at level 25: it pins the ground down so the foe stalls and cannot break away — a Bind that stops a retreat rather than dealing damage. The advanced attack, Deep-Seated Grudge, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun and deals 36. None of its moves carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes the turn — turn order is settled purely on its tempo stats.
Read off its trait schedule, this card keeps two always-on traits, and both are armor-builders. Basal Rosette comes in at level 10 and adds a small flat DEF bonus — the ground-hugging rosette that resists grazing and mowing. Contractile Roots stacks on at level 68 and pulls the crown deeper each checkup, adding DEF a point at a time up to a modest cap. Both arrive at full strength (there is no half-strength young tier here). Neither trait fires on a chance — they are constant. The card holds no Toxin or thorns trait, so biting it carries no recoil.
Rose Mountain Speedwell is not a climber, so it takes no Moss Pole. Because its own identity is stacking DEF, a Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment suits it well — the flat DEF it adds sits on top of the armor its traits are already building. Being native-only, it has no attacker-side gear picks; equip it to survive and support.
At the snapshot level 40, where every move is unlocked, it reads HP 103, ATK 20 and DEF 1 — that DEF is the bare soft-herb floor, and almost all the armor this card ever shows comes from its two traits rather than its category. Retreat costs 11 Sun. Its tempo is quick on both clocks: opening initiative 39 and sustained SPD 37, so it is a fast starter that stays fast into the mid-game. As a native it carries a +15% HP cushion, and while benched it projects an overshield bar onto your active — sized by rarity, and as a Least-Concern species that bar is only a sliver.
By the cap it swells in biomass to HP 190 with ATK 36, but its base DEF barely moves off the herb floor at 1 — a soft weed stays soft, and its resilience keeps coming from Basal Rosette and Contractile Roots rather than the category cap. Retreat rises to 21 Sun as the plant roots in, and its once-quick tempo has sunk to roughly one percent of cap, so the mature card no longer wins the turn it used to open.
As a perennial herb it belongs to the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal categories (annual-forb, grass, aquatic, bulb) for ×1.5, is resisted to ×0.667 by Specialists (succulent, conifer, fern, epiphyte), and trades evenly with other Competitors and with the off-wheel Weird categories.
This is a weak battler in absolute terms — low ATK and a DEF floor of 1 mean it will not carry a fight on its own. Its best use is on the bench, where its native overshield and quick tempo help, and its Bind ability can lock a fleeing foe in place for a teammate. It is not edible, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins, making it a steady grow-out and a family-tree collection piece more than a coin engine. It fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 27, after which its growing bulk takes over — though even then it remains a soft support card, not a heavy hitter.
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.