This stretch of woods contains an Awakened Tree (8d10, resist BP) hiding
somewhere among endless rows of identical pines. The Woodsman (5th-level ranger) wants to chop it down, and beseeches your aid in
finding and defeating it. The Tree is crafty, and has every reason to stay
still and silent. How can you make it break its disguise?
Why?
1d10, or based on the party's prevailing alignment:
1. Lawful Good.
The Tree serves a cabal of evil druids, and has been working with them to
undermine the town and torment the inhabitants. The Woodsman will give a long
list of its crimes: tearing down homes brick by brick, polluting crops,
spreading rats, giving children nightmares.
2. Neutral Good. The Tree is a hanging tree,
animated by the restless souls of criminals who have
died in its branches. The Woodsman seeks to destroy their evil for good and
lay the souls to rest.
3. Chaotic Good. Young people of the village make promises and sacrifices at the Tree to win supernatural favors, including carving the names of their crushes into the tree to win their love. The Tree is actually possessed by a devil, and there are horrible consequences to the deals they unwittingly make. The Woodsman's lover was charmed by the devil on behalf of another man, and he seeks revenge and to free her from the curse.
4. Lawful Neutral.
The Tree was a deodand (an inanimate object held legally responsible for the
accidental death of a person). A mischievous druid animated the Tree to save
it, and the Woodsman has been sent to bring it back to justice. It may be able
to use its newfound sentience to bargain for a new trial.
5. True Neutral.
The Woodsman wants the glory of defeating the most powerful tree in his woods,
and is willing to pay a reasonable sum for assistance, as well as giving you its
branches as trophies (which may have magical or alchemical properties).
6. Chaotic Neutral.
The Woodsman believes that the Tree will grant a wish to whomever kills it. He plans to wish for fabulous riches, and promises a
modest share to anyone who helps him, but demands the killing blow - and will turn on the party to ensure he gets it (if they haven't already turned on him).
7. Lawful Evil. The Woodsman
is an agent of the local Baron. The Tree is allied with a local group of
highwaymen rebelling against his rule, and had been sent to spy in the Baron's
own pleasure gardens; capturing the Tree will prevent that information from
leaking back to the rebel scum, and give the Baron valuable intelligence on
his enemies.
8. Neutral Evil. The Tree is a wood nymph who shelters and feeds lost travelers. The Woodsman is a sadist who hunts people for sport, and he is tired of his quarry escaping with the Tree's help. Once the Tree is defeated, he will use the players for target practice. Roll again to determine what lie he tells them.
9. Chaotic Evil. Oaths taken before the Tree are held sacred by Zikru, and her paladins make pilgrimages here to receive their holy orders. The Woodsman works for a necromancer whose plans have been foiled for the last time, and if the Tree is destroyed, then the paladins will lose their powers to oppose him.
10. There is no animated tree. The Woodsman is a madman. Roll again or pick one for his delusion.
The Tree has about twice as much HP as similar mundane trees (4d10), and won't react to being attacked until it has lost a quarter of its hit points; after that, it checks morale each time it's hit, crying in pain on a failure. Once it gives up its position or is bloodied, it will attack suddenly and aggressively, but will flee and resume its disguise at the first opportunity. It can command other trees to grapple (with +3).
My family went to get our Christmas tree yesterday. I wonder,
is this what a horror movie looks like from the killer's perspective?
This is pretty big to call a single encounter, given that players could spend
several days dealing with it, but shorter than what I would usually call an
adventure. I think it's perfect as a random encounter in a sandbox hexcrawl,
or during travel. When people talk about the 15-minute adventuring day or complain about casters
going nova, in the context of wilderness random encounters, I think they miss the point. Overland
travel is about resource attrition, just like dungeon delving, but the resources
you have to manage are time and opportunity. When you're trying to beat the clock to
your destination, or just working through a limited set of rations, every side
quest is a potential distraction. Sure, you can spend a day or two helping the
Woodsman, but then will you get to the Moonstone Circle before the Solstice?
What about the next random encounter, or the one after that? You need to have more going on than the players
can actually engage with. Not only will it make the world feel alive, but also forces the players to make meaningful decisions. Every random encounter they choose to engage with comes with another one they'll have to pass up. And in the context of travel, they'll have to do it without knowing what or how many opportunities still lie ahead - trading a certain adventure now, for the possibility of more rewarding ones later. And decisions based on limited information are the most interesting type of decisions.
You could run this in a hexcrawl (on the smallest grid you use,
often 220 yards or ~50 feet), a pointcrawl between different zones in the
forest, or even a 5-foot-square combat grid. Pick a node or hex for the Tree to be
in, and be mindful of opportunities for it to sneak away. The area should be big enough that it will take several days to search. But I think the mechanics of the search are less important than the social
interactions and the players' creativity in solving the problem.
Brute-force solutions are possible but not effective. They could just go looking for it, in the variants where it has some distinctive marking or evil aura, but it's a huge area to cover, and abilities like detect magic or divine sense will quickly run out. Simply attacking trees will take even longer, and the tree can tolerate a bit of pain; players would have to nearly clear-cut the forest in order to be sure (which may lure it out, if the Tree is of a mind to defend its brethren).
Players can learn about the Tree from the Woodsman, or from whatever
town is nearby, and infer its goals and intentions in order to craft an
effective appeal. Be open to letting approaches work - the flipside of
being sentient is that the Tree will get bored, and in many of the
scenarios is also desperate, so it can be lured into making mistakes.
Look for opportunities for it to communicate to the players, probably
through cute little forest animals, to try to turn them and the Woodsman
against each other. Characters will be spread out to search, and can easily communicate in secret without the Woodsman overhearing.
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