And, again, there's material here that my players have not uncovered yet. If you're in my game, be ye warned that this way lies ruin(ed fun).
I haven't done a ton to clean my notes up for public consumption. Apologies. Consider this a, uh, a glimpse into the way I make notes. Perhaps the sketchiness will inspire you more than a beautifully laid-out module. Anyway, I can't be assed.
I have done some work to inject commentary on how the playtest went as the players went through the dungeon. Retrospective-ing is one of the reasons I'm mocking up these play reports.
The Forest Castle
The Moon King sent out the Siege Castle to conquer the suzerain cities of Gafferdy.
The Siege Castle first went to the Forest Castle in the Forest of Drood. There, it squatted and shat out deep pits and assault tunnels. Huge, steam-powered axes began cutting down the gods of the druid-knights.
It worked ruin.
When the Father Tree fell, the druid-knights took up a desperate scheme to save their lives and their forest. They worked a ritual--ancient, dangerous, and bizarre. They shed their human forms, and let the forest run wild over the city. The population (what was left, anyway) was polymorphed into mushroom giants.
There was no longer any city to conquer.
So it's a fallen city--a huge ruined pile. Roofs have collapsed and roads have split open. The aquaducts have toppled and now streams run through the streets. Coyotes slink out of tilted doorframes. The buildings are covered with thick tufts of grasses and wildflowers growing from between the bricks.
And everywhere: the trees!
The Forest Meatgrinder
Note: The Forest Castle reviles the use of wood. Candles and lamp oil is okay. Those who bear wooden torches will be targeted first.
Playtest Note: I cover my Meatgrinder basics in this post.
Resources taxed- Resources taxed
- Resources taxed
- Resources taxed
- Resources taxed
- [Curiosity] Salahander: You spot a giant pink salamander extending its long tongue, which is tipped with an opposable hand--to gather moss from the side of the tree to eat. Its gormless mouth seems to smile at you.
- [Curiosity] Nature Specters: From the edge of the path, a strange looking undead menaces you. Its skull is topped with a mushroom. It floats to a man’s height, but it wears an old worn cloak. Skeletal hands grip scepter. It throws clementines at you. If you harvest their mushroom, you can make a tea that allows you to see invisible spirits.
- [Curiosity] You hear the harmonizing of song sloths.
- [Curiosity] Jar Head and the Night Puppets: A giant wearing a broken earthenware jar on his head lumbers by, planting seeds. He’s followed by tiny fairies (called night puppets), glowing like fireflies. They gather around you curiously, but Jar Head doesn’t seem to notice you - unless you’re burning torches. Then he tries and puts the fire out, angrily.
- [Curiosity] Spracubi Warriors: A group of cube-like little fellows with sprouts on their head come running by. The last one in the line turns to you and lets out a yelp and runs to catch up with his gang.
- [Travel Event] Tumblesnatchers: [Discard: S2, P3, C4, W5] giant tumbleweeds come bowling through the area. Attacks people in the back of the party first. Prompts Pentacles tests. Failure means they’re rolled into a random zone. Fungal giants will get to them first. They will extract them from the tumblesnatcher and steal their gear.
- [Travel Event] Dum Drum Sprouts: A patch of dum drum sprouts grows here.
- [Travel Event] Strangler’s Oak:. Old Man Oaky - a strangler’s oak hive - looms over a particularly gloomy part of the forest. As you pass under him, he tries to drop his terrible seeds on you! He creaks and moans as he does so. Test Cups to avoid the falling seeds. If you fail, it falls on a patch of skin (your neck, most likely). If you fell Old Man Oaky, the Stiltsman comes for thee! You can use acorn potions to reduce him to a baby, though.
- [Travel Event] Tunkin: A walking treasure chest, filled with plants, replete with arms and legs comes walking across your path. He freezes when he spots you, then flees. If you recover the plants inside him, you can trade them to Dingle for acorn and oak potions.
- [Travel Event] Treasure, but in a trap like on Endor. If investigated, a net pulls everyone around the chest into a snare trap. Mushroom Giants steal items off of the trapped PC’s belt for shamanders. [Treasure = sum of discard pile in silver]
- [Encounter] Jimby Slick, expert bug catcher, asks you for help capturing a Boar Beetle--a beetle the size of a cow. He joins your party. The Boar Beetle is gnawing on the tree in the next place the PCs go to.
- [Encounter] Mushroom Giants: A shroomling steals the weapon of the PC with the lowest Cups and takes it to a group of larger giants. You notice right as they disappear into the bush. Somehow, they appear sad.
- [Encounter] Honey Bubble: A porcelain golem made of yellowish clay and painted with bright sun bursts. Smells sweet. Bees buzz around him. Carries jars full of honey. Speaks “Ancient Dweller,” which only a true Linguist knows. Sells you magical healing honey for 50 silver if you can speak to him.
- [Encounter] Turnip Wizards: Turnip Wizards cry for help in the sound of young children. If you follow, you walk right into their trap ambush! They’ll cast a spell on you for free during their “surprise round.”
- [Encounter] [PC+2] Shamanders are kicking a Mushroom Giant to death for not doing enough crimes.
- Ouzel - First warns you of the Stiltsman in a condescending way
Stats as a giant.
Playtest Notes: I didn't do a good job designating what "wrong to the Forest" entailed. I was excited to pull out the Stiltsman, and was inconsistent initially about his rules. From then on, the players were more scared to do "anything" than they should have been in ideal circumstances. Players should be able to play around. I would recommend using this character cautiously, with plenty of telegraphy, and some concrete bounds.
Zones of Drood
 |
| The "dungeon" of Drood |
Playtest Note: I give the PCs a map of the dungeons they go through. There are hidden areas, weird paths, etc., but I don't see any harm in telling them up front what things look like. Mapping is tedious and detracts from the act of play. The Ouzel (the biggest, most talkative bird) gives the PCs the maps usually. Because this was the first session, the Popess gave the PCs this map during the first City action.
Entrance
The ruins of the Drood are like looking at the ruins of Pompeii: a city plucked out of time by disaster.
The gloom of the forest is oppressive. You cannot see unless you have a light source.
Mushroom giants running away from a Shalamander, who is messily devouring them.
The General
In a blasted, ruined building a hermit lives. The General is a deserter from the Moon King’s army. He wears a dirty parade uniform: doublet, striped poofing pants, tall hat with a broken plume. He has a peg leg.
- When approached, he barks: “FRIEND OR FOE?”
- He calls the PCs “new recruits.” He considers them his subordinates.
- He has pockets full of treasure--the spoils of war. He wants the PCs to descend into the Siege Pit and gather cogs. Will pay you 10g per cog.
- “After the Siege Castle walked to the City of Drood, it stopped a short distance away squatted onto the farmland beneath it. While its limbs were bombarding the city of Gafferdy, its ass was busy shitting out siege tunnels while turning the excavated earth into projectiles. The city has fallen and the Siege Castle has moved on, but the tunnels still remain.”
- He uses the cogs to create a large model of the Siege Castle. The Siege Castle is fighting lots of little soldier figurines, carefully painted. He spends a lot of time getting the colors, positions, troop placement, and tactics correct. He rolls dice and plays war games with himself. He’d love for you to play with him.
- He worships the Siege Castle as the War God.
- He doesn’t go into the Siege Pit himself because he “mustn’t leave his post.”
- If asked about going to the Siege Castle himself, he seems nervous. “See the War God in person? N...no...no…He knows terrible things.”
The Siege Pit
There is a tunnel down into a pit. In the pit is the parasite’s web. It’s dark and wet.
The Passage
There is a bad smell. Both rotting animal and vegetative at the same time.
- The passage is choked with the bodies of small, cube-like creatures (spracubi). Strange sprouts seem to be growing out of eye-shaped welts which cover their tiny, crystalline bodies.
- If you fuck with the spracubi, a cloud of spores is released. The fucker-with contracts dum drum sprouts.
- These reanimate into sprout zombies when the party tries to escape!
The Pit
It’s cold, calm, and dark.
- A tangle of machinery, flotsam, jetsam, and cogs. The pit is like a crater--somewhat conical.
- Total of [discard] cogs to be found here.
- Anybody who steps into the pit FALLS THROUGH.
- You are TRAPPED! Webs! Rope, tattered chords, sails, and rigging crowd the hole.
The Parasite:
Strong and somewhat smart
A rhino-sized spider, mechanical and made of stained glass - a ruined porcelain mask of a saint’s smiling face
What’s it doing?
S - Winding its web while telling you a story
P - Coming right at you while asking what you are
C - Picking trash from the web while humming some idiotic tune
W - Poised directly above you while screaming, laughing, then screaming
Likes: Talking (never meets anyone down here), wants to reassemble you into itself
Dislikes: Its own image
HD: 12
Major Dooms:
Reassembly - Heal 1 HD by jamming trash in its wound
Spit Web - Can Roughhouse as a major doom to trap you in its web
How to get away?
Pull off the mask: Reduce it to a mindless pile of trash.
Beat It Up: Reduce it to HP 0 and flee as it reassembles.
Climb Out of the Pit: Someone can drop down a rope you can climb out.
Or just Make Something Up.
Playtest Note: The players skipped the general and the pit. Because I believe that non-linear play needs skippable content, this is fine. The PCs missed some lore and some treasure, but bypassed danger and focused on the main quest.
The Lucky Pig Statue
A copper pig statue, smiling and winking. Around its neck, a (copper) braided rope and bell. The bell says “Lucky” in an ancient mode. A slot on its back obviously accepts coins.
Every 3 silver placed into the statue, a journal page extrudes from the pig’s mouth.
(The journal pages are from the Knight with the Pentangle Shield)
Trying to pry open the lucky pig causes the pig to squeal. This is a magical effect and triggers a Wandering Monster’s check.
Unless carefully disarmed, acid floods the pig’s stomach and ruins the remaining pages.
Playtest Note: I printed out pictures of the monsters from Ayejay_Make_Art and let the players see them each time they put 3s in the vending machine. Because I wasn't using just "Goblins" and "Trolls," this let me telegraph the dangers that the PCs would be facing. It is a little gimmicky, but enormously successful. Really recommend using methods like this.
The Garden Inn
The Garden Inn is an old ruined building with a huge tree growing through it -- but with a fresh coat of green paint. Crude white letters name this: The Garden Inn.
Home to Dingle, Mingle, and Walamar, itinerant plant golems raised by some garden wizard of old. They all hate each other but live together in an inn. They don’t understand why nobody ever stops in.
The plants basically know the history of the city and the deal with the four trees. They’ll tell you if they’re asked.
Dingle, in the Garden
Master Weed Puller
Jolly and good natured
Complains about Mingle undoing his good work, guarding his garden against him
Blames Walamar’s murderous ways for nobody ever stopping in to his inn
Tends a garden
Digs holes with a stick
Has a worm friend named Ralff
Several of his plants have been stolen by Tunkin, a mimic
“Will you please get them back, please?”
If you do, will give you potions he has brewed:
Digs holes with a stick
Has a worm friend named Ralff
Several of his plants have been stolen by Tunkin, a mimic
“Will you please get them back, please?”
If you do, will give you potions he has brewed:
Oak Elixir: If administered to plant, it immediately grows to be a large adult specimen of the appropriate type (as if 50 years had passed). If consumed by an animal, immediately grows to be a large adult (1d4 inches taller than average, for a human).
Acorn Elixir: The opposite of an Oak Elixir. It turns plants into seeds and adult animals into adorable juveniles.
Walamar, in the Kitchen
Notorious killer
Damned cheerful about it
Thinks Dingle is a goody-two-shoes
Things Mingle is a jerk (he is)
Brewing a poisonous soup for guests over a bubbling cauldron
Ingredients include minced up root babies (mandrakes), nightshade, red and white speckled mushrooms
Green fumes leaking over side of cauldron
Happy to give you a cup of his “soup” for 5 silver
Poisoned Soup: Obviously poison. Radioactive green. Still, deadly poison is deadly poison. At 5s, this is a bargain.
Mingle, in the Common Area
Plants weeds, hates flowers
A jerk!
Insults both of his brothers
Insults you too, while he’s at it
If you distract Dingle, he’ll tear up his garden
If you help him out with this, he’ll give you an ooli slime
Ooli: This slime filled with suspended smiling faces loves to devour crops. Deals 5 damage and withers any plant or plant-based creature.
Playtest Note: Like the General and the Siege Pit, this stuff was straight-up skipped by my players. Ah, well. There will probably be content later in the game that gives the PCs a fetch quest back to deliver something here.
Dungeon Grass
It's long: waist-high. You hear it whispering to itself, rippling as if an unfelt wind is blowing it. If it likes you, it's as soft as feathers. If it doesn't, it's as sharp as razors (1 Wound for every 10' traveled, or every 30’ if wearing full plate).
If burned: They create a tremendous amount of smoke. This immediately enrages the local birds who begin dive bombing you, and prompts several Wandering Monster checks. The smell of burning dungeon grass makes plant-based monsters fly into a rage--especially the Stiltsman (Lore Bids can reveal this)
You can talk to it. It has the personality of a wronged samurai.
Playtest Notes: An avoidable trap by just going around it.
Fairy Fountain
Here sits an old stone fountain. Clear, cool water pools under a ruined wall and remains of a well.
A shamander guards the well. As the PCs approach, it crawls out and menaces them.
If defeated and if the fungal giants stole a PCs weapon, an elf will appear hovering over the pool carrying the dagger of dendrification.
She will say: “The trees told me that thou lost a weapon. Is this what thou lost?”
If the PCs are honest, she will give them the dagger of dendrification. If dishonest, she will give a Malediction to the PC who lied.
Dendrification Dagger: The wielder of the dagger tests Wands. If they succeed, the victim is immediately turned into a small oak tree. This status remains as long as the dagger is not removed. (Yes, the item is essentially 1 use.)
Playtest Notes: The Fairy Fountain is a "hidden room" in the forest. You can see it on the map just below the Sister Tree, but it's not labeled. Therefore, the PCs did not know of it. I described the sound of "falling water" each time the PCs entered this area, but that did not inspire them to wander that way. I think this was a failing in two parts: 1) I needed a way to broadcast this better, and 2) my current PCs are still learning the ropes of OSR play. It's okay to have skipped content, but I could have helped support the "hints" about this better.
The Father Tree
...is cut down. The redwood sized stump is bone white. A shrine at the base of the tree has a stone reading “Father.”
As the PCs near it, the hair stands up on their arms. Anyone with Wands 3+ seems to hear a distant singing.
Nature specters ring the ghostly stump, hurling old fruit at you. They scamper away if you pluck their mushrooms.
Drinking mushroom tea allows you to see invisible, as if you had the sorcerer's sight.
- If none of the PCs can sense magic, Dingle offers to brew them ghost tea if they bring any nature specter mushrooms.
Father Tree’s Song: The Father Tree will always sing. If you can see invisible, you can hear his ghostly song.
C - Eflat - G - F - G - High C
Playtest Notes: I literally played the songs of each tree on a piano with the expectation that the PCs would memorize the intervals and play them back to me when the time was right. I was skeptical about how well this would work. The first success they had, the PCs latched onto it. They thought that it was so fun. However, because the "gimmick" was repeated four times, they kind of got bored with it. They stopped paying a lot of attention to what the actual notes were. It was only by one or two PC's good note taking that allowed them to progress. I'd consider it a mixed success.
The Mother Tree
A weeping willow the size of a sequoia. Her long, feathery branches reach down to the leaf-covered floor. A shrine at the base of the tree has a stone reading “Mother.”
[PC] number of shamander dwelling in the upper branches cast spells on you.
Can use devil’s dandelion seeds to get to the upper branches.
Devil’s dandelions growing here are large as picnic tables. Their seeds dance in the air, like parasols.
If held onto, a devil dandelion seed can carry you in the air about 1000 feet once.
Mother Tree’s Song: The Mother will sing when a sad story is told to her.
High C - G - G - Gsharp - G - D
Playtest Notes: The devil's dandelions were immensely fun to play with, honestly. Put something like them in your game and let them interact with your combat mechanics. Fun, fun, fun.
The Sister Tree
A shining silver beech tree. Carved on its sequoia sized trunk are hundreds and hundreds of names bound together with hearts. A shrine at the base of the tree has a stone reading “Sister.”
At the base of the tree is a carpet of flowers.
The flowers produce a heady perfume.
Smelling the flowers will produce a euphoric effect. You become Charmed by the next thing you see.
If you and your lover carve your name into the Sister Tree, your relationship blossoms.
Sister Tree’s Song: The Sister will sing when she sees two people kiss or hears a romantic story
Dsharp - D - C - G - G - G sharp - G
Playtest Notes: This was a difficult to get right. Some of the "rooms" of the dungeon didn't land because I didn't telegraph them appropriately. I feel like the Sister and the Brother presented stumbling blocks because my (newish) PCs weren't employing all the powers of lateral thinking.
In this specific instance, the PCs knew that "kissing" needed to happen to hear this song. With the combination of weird NPCs in the forest and the charming flowers at the base of the tree, I had imagined this would be a weird/fun time. However, the PCs did not think outside of this zone. They thought they had to kiss each other.
Because I wasn't trying to get the game into a magical realm situation, I let a fairly chaste kiss between two sisters activate this song. It wasn't my intention, but I certainly didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable.
The Brother Tree
The Brother Tree is a goro goro (bomb) melon tree. It occasionally drops a large beach-ball sized melon.
During a Challenge, a bomb falls as a minor action if the focus character has an odd initiative.
It hits a quadrant determined by the last discarded card (S = NW, P = NE, C = SE, W = SW)
You can catch goro goro melons before they drop to the ground. You can harvest unripe ones, too. If you heat them up in your hands and then let them go, this triggers their explosions. They begin to swell and pulse.
Brother Tree’s Song: The Brother Tree will sing when it witnesses someone vanquish a foe.
High C - G - D sharp - D - C
Playtest Notes: In the playtest, one player heroically threw themselves on one of the explosive melons and actually died. It caused the Brother Tree to sing, but was more brutal than what I had imagined.
Like the Sister Tree, I had imagined the players going in another direction. I never want to imagine just one solution to a problem (and, so often, players have thought up so much weird shit), but I am worried that they didn't have enough ideas here to get over the hump.
The King’s Chamber
A building-sized stone face of a green man--you know, one of those guys composed of leaves--stands here moss covered.
The great mouth of the green man is closed. Around the mouth is inscribed with the text:
Father tree always sings
Mother when she’s crying
Sister at a true love’s kiss
Brother when there’s dying
When all four melodies are played
The door will open’d be
And into the king’s chamber come
For the king to see
The Mouth only opens if the PCs play the song of all four trees.
Courtyard: Spore Hounds
Spore hounds are in the courtyard who savagely bark choking spores and threaten any intruders. Calm them down or fight them.
The entrance to the great hall is covered in heart-shaped symbiotic mushrooms that reflect damage back on the attacker. So, fireball reflects, but starting a fire doesn’t.
There is a ruined tower covered in vines to the right of the great hall.
There are a series of outer buildings connected to the left of the great hall, with a n entrance to the buttery.
The Aviary Tower: The Fairy Cage
Former aviary, full of hanging, twisted metal cages and dry bird droppings
Currently hosting [PC -1] shamanders. They will be surprised unless the party made a lot of noise.
The shamanders are carrying [discard] amount of silver hoarded in the aviary.
On one plinth is a metal cage. Inside the metal cage is a glass jar. Inside the glass jar is a flower fairy.
- You can’t hear her through the glass.
- The metal cage is electrified. As is the plinth. Touching it deals 1 Piercing damage or 2 Piercing damage if you’re wearing significant metal.
- You can’t just push it off because that will break the glass jar and hurt the fairy.
- If you save the fairy, she gives you a healing ungent she happened to have. She says she’s going to the Lighthouse.
The Buttery: The Opossum Butler
Ansell Opossum-knight rules the buttery
“Crikey!" He'll say, "You cunts look dry, don'cha? Have a goon, won'cha? It's the Dickie Dee!"
Nominally serves the shamanders, but doesn’t really like them
The buttery is full of food, but it’s all infected with dum-drum sprouts. Eating it will infect you, too.
The Great Hall: The Forest King
Zones: Audience, Stairs, Throne, Balcony, Alcoves
An archway leads into a vaulted chamber lit by glowworms that drip from the ceiling.
So bright, no other light sources are needed.
An unused chandelier hangs in the middle of the room.
At the back of the room is a raised dais, on which two human-sized thrones sit. On one is a pile of pale flesh--the skin of Princess Sun!
Swollen mushrooms half-a-man tall crowd the stairs up to the dais. These barbarian fungi cause a blind attacking rage to overwhelm anybody who disturbs them.
The Forest King, a titanic mushroom giant (look up that huge mushroom from Dungeon Meshi), is being blackmailed by the chief shamander.
The Chief Shamander has kidnapped the Forest King’s daughter, a mushroom giant princess.
There are ugly brown toadstools around the audience hall. If you miss the Forest King, you disturb a toadstool and become confused. Confusion means you must pick your Initiative card before looking at your hand.
The Chief Shamander crawls around the ceiling of the chamber waving his wand and disappearing into alcoves.
“Get them, you huge oaf!”
Will try and drop the huge, hanging chandelier on the PCs
Will cast Wall of Fire to stop them from coming up the stairs
As the PCs enter, mushrooms grow covering the door. These heart-shaped symbiotic mushrooms.
If you defeat the Chief Shamander, the Forest King will stop attacking.
He gives you the flower sword as thanks.
Flower Sword: By spending the sword’s charge, the wielder can drive the sword into the ground as a Wands action. The sword creates a zone of poisonous flowers around the wielder. This is equivalent to a Stinking Cloud, except it smells heavenly. The user is immune. Charge the flower sword by cultivating and planting rare plants.
