Hell's Bells!

It's been a while. Many irons in the fire at the moment, lots of balls in the air. Firstly, I am working on a project with Thaumiel Nerub from D-oom Products, called ‘The Skeleton Coast’. It’s a sandbox/point crawl type thingy, that promises to be a tough excursion with some exciting locations to adventure in. Thaumiel is doing some amazing art behind this, and needless to say, I am excited to see what we come up with.

Secondly, I am working on another project with the Master of the d100 table, Konsumterra, of elfmaidsandoctopi. Take a hop over to his blog for the first two exciting pieces of what he has come up with for this . In short, a huge opening next to a village leads down to Hell. Again, it will be a sand/point/crawl adventure, guaranteed to never be the same twice.

The village is called Black Stump, and because of its proximity to such evil, livestock are mutated, as well as the villagers themselves. Below is a small slice of what to expect; it's written primarily around the animals, but you can skip the first small chart and just roll, making the appropriate changes where necessary.  

Not all is well in Black Stump, nor should it be, being this close to the Maw of Hell is bound to have certain, consequences…

Misshapen Livestock/Villagers

 1.   Cows 

 2. Chickens 

 3. Sheep 

 4. Goats 

 5. Horses 

 6. Rabbits

If your result on the Abnormalities chart is not applicable, as in, you can’t milk a chicken, then simply roll again. These results can be singular, or apply to the entire herd.

Abnormalities

1.      Have slimy pink tentacles, instead of eyes.

2.       No legs, has flippers/fins instead.

3.       A large slavering mouth on the beast’s stomach. It recites demonic litanies with as much bile and blasphemy as it can muster. It peppers its devilish ramblings with eye-watering swearing, and personal attacks on the Players. Think, ’The Exorcist’.

4.       Head has been replaced by that of another animal.

5.       Have reptilian skin instead of what it should normally have. The skin is cracked and weeping, and emits a truly smelly substance.

6.       Have tiny baby fingers instead of teeth.

7.       Tail is actually an arm.

8.       When milked the animal gives off : 1) Scalding hot water, 2) Pus, 3) Urine, 4) Custard, 5) Steam, 6) A random potion, 7) Poison, 8) Blood, 9) A green glowing liquid, 10) A yellowish gas.

9.       Have eyes dotted all over body.

10.   Animal has no ears and the sockets are writhing with maggots

11.   When walking the hooves/feet give off large blue sparks.

12.   The head is alight with a strange black fire.

13.   Creature has large bat wings that are too weak to actually be of any use.

14.   Has a singular horn coming from its forehead and farts fire.

15.   The animal has large gills on the side of its neck.

16.   Has the head of a giant fly.

17.   The animals don’t bleat or neigh etc. Instead they, 1) Cry like baby. 2) Hiss. 3) Buzz like many flies. 4) Certain random words in Common, but backwards. 5) Caw. 6) Screech. 7) Scream. 8) Pray.

18.   They have developed a taste for human flesh.

19.   Dorsal fin on back.

20.   Are covered in human hair (if animal) or covered in molding feathers if not. 

21.   Tongue is made of a green, pulpy, plant-like substance, and is coated in wicked thorns.

22.   Have multiple heads.

23.   Have developed a taste for each other.

24.   A mouthful of shark’s teeth.

25.   Have the head of a large bird, except for the chickens, they have the head of a cat.

26.   Have retractable claws.

27.   Have luminous yellow eyes that glow-in-the-dark.

28.   Have detachable jaws like a snake, and can swallow things twice their size.

29.   Are completely see-through.

30.   Covered in tiny steaming cuts that bleed profusely. 

Imps and such are fond of practical jokes and love to hide gruesome items in your food. Makes the whole,’ Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup…’ pale in comparison.

Things you really don’t want to find in your meal.

Waiter! There’s a (roll d20) in my Ale/ Gruel/ Meat-Pie/ Loaf of Bread/Soup/Stew

1. Toe-nail clippings
2. A glass eye
3. A real eye
4. The tip of a penis
5. Maggots
6. A small pink sack that is writhing, with something trying to get out. If you wait around long enough, it births a large purple fly.
7. A forked-tongue.
8. A piece of skin with a large boil on it.
9. An Imp’s tail
10. A small mouse
11. Half a small mouse!
12. An egg. Has a slimy frog inside.
13. A nose
14. Tiny fruit bat ( still alive)
15. Rabbit/Sheep droppings
16. Tentacles
17. Bloodstained bandage
18. A clump of matted hair, with a piece of scalp attached
19. Rot grubs
20. Green slime

Gulch. If the fallen angels don't get you, the whores will

It begins, as it so often does, in the darkness, in the nothing, under a heavy blanket of silence.

There’s an almost epochal stillness between the breaths, or the screams, as old collapses into fiery oblivion and gives way to the new.

 (It all depends on what kind of day the universe is having)

At first it is just void, then there is something tiny, yes, understandably so, but a fuck lot bigger than what was there three seconds ago. Three seconds ago, there was absolutely, bloody, nothing.

The something twists, and turns, and grows, and surrounds itself with an embryonic sac of light, and it is the first, of the first things, to grow.

Soon, others will follow.

It has become. It thinks. It thinks, ‘I am hungry’.

But there is nothing for it to eat because that has not been created yet. All in good time, all in good process. Strange fruit will sadly come to bear.

Then it cries. Loudly. And all hell breaks loose.

More light, more sparks, more creating, more, everything. Anything to shut it up. It smells the nourishment all around, as it darts its heads forward, pecking at the universe. It eats till it can eat no more, and then it retches.

The contents of its innumerable guts flow out into the spaces around it; stuffing vast, purple, cavernous stretches of emptiness, like deserts of midnight, with celestial vomit.

Spinning droplets are coalescing, becoming moons, becoming planets, just thrilled to be becoming something, rather than endless, nothing.

It grows, as it should. It is now fully formed and large in thought and kinetic deed. For what would be the purpose of tiny, inconsequential, creators? They must govern entirely, or not govern at all.

 Its breath frosts in the cold, creating the stars, fixing the heavens.

It is now the largest being in existence. It comprehends its heft and finds it good. It cups its genitals and finds it even better. It is both light, and dark. The beginning, and the end. The taker, and the sustainer. It is life, and life begets life.

It shoots it seed out into the void.

Countless, glowing, spiraling spermatozoa, like shooting stars, are sprayed into the dark to seek the thrumming, squirming, eggs that lie at the centre of the planets. The asteroids scour the endless cold for the warmth of a liquid core; their tails corkscrewing them onward to fulfill what they were made to do.

And when the pulse of warmth is felt, when a planet displays its heated nucleus to the heavens, the asteroids adjust their path accordingly, and slam into that surface with the force of the cosmic rut that begot it. The space travelers winnow their way down through the seas and sediments, until they can go no further.

Of such dalliances, gods are made.

And when they are ready to be expelled (the gods, fully-formed, with a willingness to govern and have others follow) their planets explode, massively, sending them off into the universe to find another home and make a kingdom for themselves. A place to call their own. They leave behind naught but debris, and a hole so black and powerful that not even light can escape its clutches.

But they are jealous gods, and will often go to war, because they seek to become the dominant force and sole focus of adoration and endless, ululating, worship.

But who knows their ways and paths better than themselves? Not I, I wouldn’t dare, lest they smite as they see fit. It is not for me to report on that, I tell all I’ve been privy too.

However, what I can state, with a certain degree of certainty, is that not all asteroids make it all the way down to the swollen, vulgar, baboon buttocks, at the centre of a world.

Some die, flopping and gasping, like a fish out of water on the surface, or just below it.

Over time it fossilises, and is known as Aether, by the elves, Manna by the dwarves, Godsmack or Godspit by the clergy, and Angeldust by the humans. It is the most costly element in the universe. And it attracts all sorts of madmen and women to try and find it. It is hailed as a ‘God-in- a-bottle’ and its restorative qualities are legend.

It can be mined, like its poorer cousin gold, it can also be panned in the rivers and streams of the high places, lying there, glittering, glowing…

 It is everywhere, you just need to know where to look for it.

One place it was rumoured to be, in abundance, was north of the Vergil Corridor, on the Highveld, in a small settlement called, Gulch. A rough and ready place if ever there was, and believe you me, if the fallen angels didn’t get you, the whores would…

People of Gulch

Gunther Glass: Mayor of Gulch and first known discoverer of Godspit. Ranger 5th)

Gunther Glass, a trapper, near death from parasites and bear trauma, rolls off his mule and falls head first into a freezing mountain stream. He goes under, several times, each one longer than the last. He feels the warm embrace of death on his august frame and is ready to surrender to its inevitability. His hands drop to his sides and rest upon the stream’s floor. Someway, somehow, he makes one last attempt to live, and his frozen hand grabs a nugget of pure Godspit from the bottom of the stream. He described it later to me, as if he had been hit by a bolt of pure lightning. He told me that he fairly flew out of the chilled mountain and onto the bank to thrash about blindly, like a trout on a hook.

He said he’d never felt so alive. Just by holding the glowing rock, he had given himself a new lease on life. He had the energy to build himself a fire, make a shelter, and hunt down a pair of klipspringers (rock jumpers) for his supper. In the morning he was up before the sun examining the element that had made him whole again.

The early morning light had robbed it of its ghostly glow, but it still shone brightly, none the less. It was verdant green, with flecks of mercurial silver, and banded by stripes of urgent red. There were many other hues to behold but his untrained eye grasped the obvious ones first. After he eats his breakfast he heads back to the stream to find more, and spends the morning panning but to no avail. There was none to be found. Six days later though, higher up the tributary, and using a rock pool to create a primitive sluice, he uncovers a chunk the size of the palm of his hand, and when he reaches out to grab it, he is rewarded by the familiar shock of pure energy, and the wild taste of sweating copper in his mouth. After several weeks of panning and primitive mining, he needs to frequent a town of sorts so that he may purchase enough supplies to see him through the upcoming winter, as well as aid him in further exploration for this most holy of minerals.

I do not know how much he got for those first few, fragile, ounces of Godspit, but he was wise enough to not flood a non-existent market with all he had. It was enough however, to see him return to that place with a wagon, mules, lumber, and suitable supplies for the task that lay ahead.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for Gunther, far from it. The mountains are dangerous at the best of times, doubly so when you have your head in the ground seeking what the gods have cast asunder. Orc, ogre, wolf, both dire and timber, all tried- unsuccessfully- I may add, to snuff out Gunther once and for all, but the nuggets of pure Godspit he kept on his person had somehow managed to change him, to heighten his senses, and make him more than capable of seeing off any would be aggressors.

Once though he lost a great deal of his right thigh muscle in a savage fight against several wolves who were hunting below the snow line. He thought he was done for, as help lay many, many leagues away. But in his pain and delirium, he heard a voice as if coming from above, and it told him what to do. He crumbled one of the smaller pieces of the Godspit into a fine powder then added boiling water to it so that it became a paste of sorts. He plugged the wound with it, covered it with torn strips of cloak, and waited. Less than a week later it was if nothing had happened. His leg had not only had fully recovered, but had never been stronger. He truly felt as if he were getting younger, and stronger.

And so it went for at least two years, Gunther mined where he could and sold what he had, but always slowly, he didn’t want to give the game away. But the Godspit had entered society (albeit on the extreme fringes) and people talk. A loose tongue is more dangerous than an unsheathed sword any day of the week. The Godspit was sold by the local merchant (who had taken to grinding it up and sniffing it, to experience the most incredible sense of euphoria he had ever felt) to a wandering mage, who tried some in a fiery conflagration spell and nearly burnt down an entire forest instead of just roasting a horde of attacking goblins.

 Godspit, like most things, should be used in moderation. But these were early days, heady times, where people were still in the experimental phase and paid no heed to the potential consequences, and believe me when I tell you, that there were consequences aplenty; with fallen angels being the least of them…

(To be continued)

Fear and Loathing in Greyhawk

I’m back. Back from the U.S.A and the best four days in gaming. Still trying to process it all. I have a d1000 yard stare and am feeling…otherwise. Had a great time. I write for a company called GCT Studios and was manning their booth at GenCon. They produce Bushido-the Game, ( a table-top miniature skirmish game of an Asian bent, as well as a board game called, Rise of the Kage) not to be confused with the 70’s RPG of the same name. Firstly, it’s a long way from Cape Town to Chicago. A long way indeed. Secondly, well, they say things are always bigger in America, but fuck me, you lot aren’t kidding, are you?

GenCon was mad. I won’t bang on about it, you lot know the score. Met some really great people at the booth. Met some absolute twats. Turned loads of people onto our product, pimped and pushed the GenCon specials whenever possible, and did some great business. Our miniatures on display were wildly successful and pulled hundreds of people into the booth to learn a little more. I managed to network as planned, and have filled up my writing calendar with enough paid work to keep me busy for the next twelve to fourteen months.

Because of the scarcity of RPG material in South Africa, I had a shopping list the length of an  elephant’s todger. Big thanks to the lads at DCC for my purchases, and to Games Plus for seeing me right with my collectibles. I have now plugged all the holes in my immediate collection... but I see more purchases on the horizon, regardless. I also picked up an excellent copy of Outdoor Survival for my OD&D game from the lovely people at Noble Knight.

Who ate all the pies?

Once we finished the show, it was off on a road-trip to Ground Zero. ‘Bloody hell,’ I thought, ‘this is Greyhawk…’, as we turned into the more pastoral and bucolic lands of Lake Geneva. We parked the car and went meandering around the town looking for the sites. We stopped at the Horticultural Hall to see where GenCon 1 took place, back in 1968.

GenCon then.

GenCon now

Then it was a short stroll to where it all began. It’s a modest house. White, wooden clad. I wanted to knock on the door and see what was on the inside, but I thought that would just be rude, not everyone shares my passion for D&D in all its many fashions. So I took some snaps and tried to imagine what had gone on there, all those long years ago. I’m glad I went to see the town and the little things that mean so much to me.

 I met a few people who used to game with him, and a few who referred to him as, ‘Oh, Gary What’s-his-face’.  And so it goes. We spent the night drinking the King of Beers, listening to the frogs and cicadas come up as the sun slowly went down. It was pleasant. I’ll be back next year at GenCon, just like the Pie-Man, selling his wares. I don’t think I will return to Lake Geneva until the sculpture/statue is up. Once was good enough. We headed up to Chicago and stayed in a place that looked like the Hotel from the Shining, and reminded us of the Bates Motel at its finest. Needless to say we escaped, unscathed. Then it was plane after plane, mile after mile, until the wholesome sight of Table Mountain appeared over the left-wing of the plane. A simple matter of touchdown and I was home. Knackered, but well worth it. See y'all, next year.

"Above there is no ending

For the Vodka spinning Mir

All that is is passing

And now is never here

So keep on raging

You frenzied pioneers

No time for the wringing of hands

Strange faced ambassadors, strike up the band

Bust out that Dom Perignon

Johnnie Walker Red on that fairway lawn

Remember tripping on the fourth of July?

Exploding octopuses in disguise?

They picked you up and they never let you down.

Everyone's forgiven in the land of Pleasant Living now.

Yuri Garagin sends

His kindest regards

How those Yankees doing?

Still Rock and Roll and Fancy cars?

But onto pressing matters

Such as the gluttony of the starving stars.

No time for the wringing of hands

Strange faced ambassadors, strike up the band

Bust out that Dom Perignon

Jonnie Walker Red on that fairway lawn

Remember tripping on the fourth of July?

Exploding octopuses in disguise?

They picked you up and they never let you down.

Everyone's forgiven in the land of Pleasant Living now."  - Clutch.

If you go down to the woods today... you're sure of a big surprise.

“If you go down to the woods today,

You're sure of a big surprise.

If you go down to the woods today,

You'd better go in disguise…”

I enjoy coming up with interesting places and people. So far we’ve been to Swamp City, Nazawrath, and met with the Midnight Ramblers. This week we’re off to the forests for some arboreal adventures and to listen to the songs from the wood. Ramble on!

Bestiary and Persons of Interest

Ghillies

More apex-predator than bucolic forest dweller, the Ghillies are unparalleled in stalking, hunting, and killing. If by the off chance you walk into some while traipsing through the woods, they are never surprised, ever. In turn, they always surprise, 100% of the time. It doesn’t matter how many rangers you have in the party, no one ever sees a Ghillie coming. In combat they favour bows and short blades, seldom using long swords or weapons of that ilk because they prefer to do their killing silently. They craft their arrow points from bone, and their stabbing/slashing weapons from flint and antler. They clothe themselves in the colours and the materials of the forest thus making them nigh impossible to spot. They use a plethora of poisons on their blades and arrows, ranging from the relatively benign to the downright deadly. Class all movement as silent, and visibility as if they were garbed like elves in their wooded environs. Because of their stealth and use of their natural environment, treat the first time they strike an opponent as if their enemy had been successfully backstabbed, even if the Ghillie was attacking from the front.

It’s rumoured they operate under impunity granted by the Arch-Druid himself, and are in essence assassins under his druidic control. They never attack without provocation though, and prefer to lay waste to bands of marauding orcs, goblins, bandits or anything else that may cause the forest and her inhabitants harm. However, if they feel cornered, or in any way threatened, they will attack. They sometimes perform bodyguard duties to high ranking Druids who have business far from their own forest holds.

They weave no spells, instead they rely on their natural skills and abilities of tracking and hunting that have been passed down from generation to generation. They are a nomadic peoples the Ghillie, preferring to spend each night in a different place, leaving before the sun rises. The Ghillie are rare, no one is very sure just how many there are in the realm, nor are they sure of their exact make up. They never mix with anyone else save the Druids, and the Druids are forbidden to speak of them. They are a mystery the Ghillie, a window into an older time, because surely, these primordial forest children were there when the first acorn was planted?

The Ghillie can be found in any forest, wood, wald, or woud there is. It’s not known if they use anything for transportation except their own feet, but they travel light and rely on the forest for food, shelter and medicine. Their language is not known outside of Ghillie or Druidic circles and they can also communicate in their own version of Thieves Cant. They also make fiendish traps to ward off people from areas that they would see protected.

Ghillie Spike Trap

For every ten Ghillie encountered, one will be at least a fifth level fighter. For every thirty Ghillie you come across there will be two fifth level fighters and one eighth level. Just who is in charge is anyone’s guess, and it’s said that men and women can lead a pack of Ghillie, they make no distinction between the sexes, and even the very youngest fight as a level 1 warrior. It’s said that those that survive an attack by the Ghillie are offered up in bloody sacrifice to Herne the Hunter, Protector- Deity of the forests. They also worship the Jack-in-the-Green, and are always a part of the Ceremony of the Green Slumber. (More on this below)

Ghillie Man-Trap

As far as treasure is concerned, they have no use for shiny coins or gaudy baubles, and these will be scattered around the corpses of the fallen as a mark of disrespect to their vanquished foes. They communicate with forest animals and use them to pass word from one group to another. They prefer dealing with badgers and squirrels for short distance message carrying, and crows for anything more than several leagues.

Jack in the Green

‘Have you seen Jack-In-The-Green?

With his long tail hanging down.

He sits quietly under every tree

 in the folds of his velvet gown.

He drinks from the empty, acorn cup

the dew that dawn sweetly bestows.

And taps his cane upon the ground

signals the snowdrops it's time to grow.

It's no fun being Jack-In-The-Green

no place to dance, no time for song.

He wears the colours of the summer soldier

And carries the green flag all the winter long.’

A rare and powerful guardian of the forest, the Jack in the Green is a sworn protector of all that live there. Incredibly tall, incredibly strong, he answers to no one, not even the druids. Jack is, as Jack does, and gods protect you, if you get on his bad side. Jack never dies, and Jack never sleeps, instead he patrols the forest for hours on end ensuring that all is well in his realm. He uses the birds and the beasts as his eyes and ears and he utilises the special skills of the Ghillie where needs be. Jack is a living thing, created from the flora of the Slumbering Green, and were his physical form ever damaged, or destroyed, it is to the Slumbering Green he returns to await the cycle of rebirth. While in this state, the Ghillie set watch in the Glade of Shadows where this magical transformation takes place. When in combat, Jack summons Tree-Kin, Ghillies and Swathe Elementals to his aide, as well as the regular denizens of the forest. He uses the grass, roots and trees to Entangle his foes, then douses them in Faerie Fire for added effect. Jack casts druidic spells as if he were a fifth level druid but prefers to duke it out old school. Jack can meld with the Root Mind of the living world, and travel vast distances to where he is needed most. He will sink into the earth and reappear wherever there is plant life.

Wildman of the Woods

Not much is known about the Wildman, except that he is shy and will do anything to avoid being seen. We know he exists, because the famed ranger, Greenslade Fane, has been studying them for years. Males stand between 8-10 feet tall, while the females are only marginally smaller. They tend to live in caves in the forest, near a source of fresh running water. They hibernate in the winter. Their diet consists of berries, roots and very occasionally meat, but this is the exception rather than the rule. They weigh around 350 pounds and one swat from their ham-sized hands would be enough to break your neck. If you see one coming, better turn the other way. They are peaceful for the most part, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Herne the Hunter

“Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,

Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,

Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;

And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,

And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain

In a most hideous and dreadful manner.

You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know

The superstitious idle-headed eld

Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,

This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.”

— William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

A woodland deity, bloody, bold and resolute. He is primal savagery given flesh, and, just like nature, he is red in tooth and claw. Clad in a helm of antlers, wearing armour of bone, and wielding a sword of ice, the Hunter and his pack of hounds stalk the wilds in search of wrongdoers to punish for their misdeeds, no matter how slight those wrongs may be. All transgressions are met with swift punishment, the severity thereof depends on Herne’s whim. Sometimes they would pay with their life, sometimes with the promise to do something for the horned hunter. Whenever the gods would track someone across any of the plains of existence, it is Herne they set on their quarry. He is a master tracker that sees all, not even invisibility could work against him and his hounds. Herne also ushers in the change in the seasons, and his celestial passing is tracked with great interest by the druids, who use their dolmens and standing stones to great effect. Lustful and wild the one moment, slothful and melancholy the next, Herne is a true servant of the Great Cycle.

The Hounds of Winter

“I still see her face

As beautiful as day

It's easy to remember

Remember my love that way

All I hear is that lonesome sound

The Hounds of Winter

They harry me down…”

Sting

Great hounds, massive beasts with tongues and breathe of wintery cold with flanks the hue of fallen snow, and their eyes! Their eyes are as blue as the icicles that hang from the boughs of the World Tree, and they sparkle and flash like lightning out of a vaulted winter sky. In addition to the terrible damage wrought by their sharp claws (1d8) and fearsome bite (1d10) they can breathe out gouts of frost (1d12) that will slow their opponent. Like Herne, they are keen hunters and nothing escapes their keen sense of sight, or smell. Not even being invisible can shake these dread hounds from your tail.

The Green Knight

A burly Knight of the Wood who journeys far and wide teaching the uninitiated in the ways of Chivalry and Honour, (and some say stupidity) through his use of the ancient ‘Beheading Game’. The Green Knight approaches those in need of the lesson more than most, and proposes that if they are brave enough, they may cut his head from his shoulders using his emerald axe. Not many take the Green Knight up on his bizarre offer because the caveat is as follows: that the Green Knight will return in a year and a day to do the same to them. If the player accepts the dare then he will indeed sever the Green Knights head from his massive shoulders, but the knight will not die, instead, he will pick his bloody head up by the hair, and say through his now bloodless lips, that he shall return in a year and a day to collect on his bargain. And so, no matter what happens, he will return, and if the person refuse to kneel and stretch their neck before him, they will be cut down and killed where they stand. However, if they acquiesce, then they are spared the fate of a beheading. Just what the lesson is in all of this is lost on most scholars, but the most famous player of this ‘game’ was Sir Gawain of Arthurian Legend.

Swathe Elementals

The fury of the forest given form. The swathe elemental can only be summoned by Jack in the Green, or by Herne the Hunter. Not even the Arch Druid has access to such mighty creations. Unlike most elementals, they are far from stupid, and do not resent being summoned to do their Master’s bidding. When angry, they appear like a large tree covered with snapping, thorn filled branches, as well as long vines for entangling and strangling their foes. When at ease, they appear as a human carved from wood, resting in the shade of a tree. There is no duration to how long a swathe elemental may walk the earth, only being dispelled by their creator will send them back to the Slumbering Green. So, they could be set to watch a particular area in the forest for many years without anyone being the wiser. They can only be struck by weapons of magic, and fire does double damage to them. When reduced to one hp or less, the life-blood of the swathe elemental is jettisoned into the ground through its roots to give life to the Slumbering Green, if it is needed, so, in essence, they never die, they are recycled and thus go onto to feed the next one.

The Vagabond King

A charismatic chap who rambles the greensward in search of easy marks. He does not use violence though, and abhors killing, much preferring to knock someone unconscious with his blackjack than stab someone with his dagger. He likes to target fat, slothful, merchants and bankers who have more than they could possibly spend. He travels with four extremely viscous Halflings though, who have no compunction about killing. Their names are Neeps, Tatties, Kith and Kin. The Vagabond King has to give them extra shares of the loot to sway their killing hands. He only keeps them by his side as he swore a dying oath to their mother. Were it not for that, he would be glad to see the last of their little bloodthirsty backs. There is a high bounty for the King, and an even higher one for his pack of feral Halflings, and the forest is littered with the bodies of those who have tried to collect, and failed. Be careful when you meet the King and his Halflings, you never know how it may go.

Oddities & Rarities

Chapel in the Green

An ancient place that was old when the lands were young. Many have worshipped here over the years, and the gods to which the chapel has been dedicated to, number in the thousands. It is a holy place, but it was built in honour of the Slumbering Green, as opposed to a god. There is always a caretaker set to guard the chapel and offer succour to those that need it. Once a person is inside the chapel, no bad deed can be performed there because of the overwhelming goodness of the Slumbering Green, and thus, this turns an evil mind who would hurt, to one that would help. Once such a person leaves the Chapel, that initial sense of euphoria and wellbeing will fade away, leaving the chaotic person somewhat dazed and confused. The caretaker is bound to house, feed and heal anyone who needs it, and will gladly accept any donations that the party (or persons) will make. Unbeknownst to nearly everyone, (except the caretaker) there is a swathe elemental right outside the front door that will aid the caretaker and the chapel if need be. If a person were to spend the night and pay a small tithe, they would receive a plus one to all their Saving Throws for that evening, and the following day.

Sword in the Stone

A moss covered boulder that does indeed have a sword sticking out of it. There is a motif of a sleeping dragon carved into the stone. The sword is a permanent illusion though, and it will disappear the moment someone tries to grab it, and draw it forth. However, that being said, let the players roll percentage dice, and, if one of them rolls a 1% then the sword is indeed real! It is Caliburn, a sword of legend. A longsword of +3/+5 vs. Dragons. It will vibrate and hum whenever a dragon is near. The wielder will automatically take only half damage from dragons’ breath and is immune to its charm.

The Hop

That’s what happens every seventh day, the people of the forest gather right after sunset to listen to music, swop stories, and generally catch up with all the news. The entertainment is provided by a singing group called The Beetles, which are famous throughout the greenbelt. The get-together is called a Hop, in honour of a type of dance that is performed to the music.

The Trees of Cloth

A tradition to mark the passing of a loved one, a piece of the deceased’s hair, or clothing is tied to a tree and left. It is done to ensure that the soul of their loved one makes the journey to the other side successfully. It is bad luck to remove any item of clothing from any of the trees.

The Trees of Coin

Unanswered prayers? Well head to the Tree of Coin to remedy that. When you feel that things are just not going your way, drive a coin into the boughs of the Tree of Coins, say aloud what it is that you are looking for, then leave. Hopefully your luck will change for the better. You may only hammer in one coin per new moon. It goes without saying that taking from the Tree of Coin would be a bad, bad, thing. The kind of thing that might even get you on Herne’s bad side if you were ever to cross paths.

Random Encounters/Plot Hooks

Centaurs

You stumble across the slain bodies of several centaurs. A local druid beseeches your help in tracking down, and bringing to justice, their killer.

Dryads

A Dryad spirit has been kidnapped by an evil entity that has set up home in the forest. Find out what it is, destroy it, and help the Dryad back to its kind.

Bear with a sore head

A bear is seemingly responsible for several fatal attacks in the past few weeks. Find out what’s going on.

Prince

A prince has escaped his tyrannical father and fled to the forest. Help guide the boy to his mother, the queen, without being caught by the Kings bloodthirsty bondsmen.

Greys

I’m not really one to mix Sci-Fi with my Fantasy, but I couldn’t resist a nod to E.T. Help a group of Greys find their friend who disappeared over a week ago while exploring  the forest. Perhaps he was captured by an evil witch? If she gets her warty little hands on any of his alien technology, she could become damn near unstoppable.

Sit back and listen to the songs from the wood.           

 

Lost and VERY far from home.