Treant

Origin and myth

The treant - a tree that walks, thinks and guards its forest - has no single ancient source, but it grows from deep roots in European tradition. Sacred groves were the temples of the Celts, Germans, Balts and Slavs, and the belief that certain trees held a spirit is everywhere in folklore: the Greek dryads and hamadryads, who died when their oak was cut; the Norse world tree Yggdrasil; and the Slavic leshy, the forest master who could grow as tall as the trees. Medieval churches carry the "green man", a carved face sprouting leaves - the living, watching forest in stone.

Folk tales add trees that move. The Welsh poem Cad Goddeu, the Battle of the Trees, preserved in a 14th-century manuscript of far older material, has the enchanter Gwydion animate the trees of Britain to fight as an army. Grimm's tales feature willows that speak and trees that grab travellers. The word "treant" itself is modern, coined for tabletop role-playing in the 1970s as a generic term distinct from the copyrighted "Ent" of 20th-century literature; the folkloric walking tree is public domain.

Appearance

A treant is a mature tree given the rough shape of a person. The trunk is the torso, thickening at the base where it splits into two or more leg-like root masses that lift from the ground with each step. Two main branches serve as arms, ending in a spread of twig fingers. The head is either the upper trunk with a face emerging from the bark - deep-set hollows for eyes, a knot for a nose, a split in the bark for a mouth - or a crown of foliage in which the face is only implied.

Texture is the whole subject: deep, vertical bark fissures on the trunk, smoother wood on the limbs, moss in the crevices, lichen patches, fungi brackets on the shaded side. Species matters: an oak treant is broad and gnarled, a willow drooping and sinister, a birch slender and pale. Eyes, when shown, are usually a soft green or amber glow deep inside the hollows.

In modern fantasy

Walking trees are among the most widely used creatures in fantasy. They appear as forest guardians in tabletop role-playing systems including Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder, as units in fantasy strategy games and wargames, as bosses and allies in video games from action titles to farming sims, and in fantasy films where the forest comes to life. Because the copyrighted literary versions are so famous, design from the folkloric bark-and-branch template rather than any franchise.

3D printing notes

The treant is the best FDM subject in the entire bestiary. Its surface is bark, so layer lines become texture rather than flaws; the trunk is a vertical mass that prints without supports; and the branches can be angled upward like a real tree so they need no support either. At 28-32 mm tabletop scale, resin still gives the finest twig and moss detail, but a 40 mm FDM treant at 0.16 mm layers is entirely usable on the table.

At 75 mm, print the trunk and root mass as one piece on the build plate, with the branches as separate parts pegged into sockets - this lets each branch print upright with its twigs facing up. Use 3 walls and 10-15 percent infill. At 150 mm and larger, the treant is an ideal centrepiece: print the trunk in two sections split at the waist with a large keyed joint, add a 4-5 mm wooden dowel through the centre for strength, and print the canopy in resin or as a cluster of FDM foliage pieces.

Print-in-place articulation is a natural fit: root-leg hinges at the hip and branch-arm hinges at the shoulder with 0.5 mm FDM clearances produce a poseable treant.

Painting and display

Wood is more than brown. Base coat in a dark grey-brown, wash with black, then drybrush in stages: mid-brown, warm grey, and finally a pale bone tone on the highest bark ridges. Glaze the shaded side with thin green for moss. Eyes and mouth in a glowing green or amber, or use a clear resin insert lit by an LED in the hollow trunk.

The base is forest floor: leaf litter made from dried herbs, a fallen log, a few mushrooms and a scattered stone. A treant with a lantern hanging from its branch makes an excellent night-light.

Related creatures

As a made or animated being the treant belongs beside the Golem and the Gargoyle. In the forest it keeps company with Baba Yaga, whose hut walks on its own legs, and with the mountain Troll, who turns to stone in daylight.

For a treant of any species or size, ask Fantasy Lab 3D for a custom print.