The storytelling that you've gotta protect the upcoming generation is so killer, really amazing stuff. And this is all backed up by easily some of the best artwork to come out of this years rootjam. The board itself is a little busy mechanics-wise but the gameplay and story elements are top notch!

Great ideas and terrific art ! Really like the idea of a faction with scoring changing in the middle of the game. I tried them in a game and they were fun, but I ended up having a few questions/remarks :

- Currently the comeback mechanism doesn't seem to work. Because Hatch as an action only takes place when your sap track is full, you never get to replace the pupa token.

- If the comeback mechanism works as intended, I see no point in trying to defend the pupa, in fact you would really like for it to be removed, because he will come back with 5 more warriors and you will not miss a single step of your turn.

- What does the clearing color mean on the monarch card ? In my game we assumed it meant it's the card color you can spend to have more actions in daylight, but we weren't sure.

-Vicious Bulwark seems weird, in which situations is it more than just a Keep but with added complexity ? Curious to have the reasoning on this

-Overall I feel like there is a bit too much going on for what you described as a "Vanilla+" faction. One suggestion I could make is removing lancers entirely, they add a lot of rules in multiple places on the board for something that I think is not the core of your faction. You could just keep "Take one less hit in the clearing with your pupa and deal one more hit in the clearing with your monarch" and you would still be left with a really interesting faction and a great gameplay loop :)