I'm running a Pathfinder game for the first time in a long time and I've gotten lots of ideas from brainstorming with Veeky Forums.
I've decided to run a game inspired by this image.
Tired of being used for fire wood, the trees starting killing back, tearing men apart. As they grew stronger they became more ambitious, invading human settlements, pushing them to near extinction. Now humanoid brings live in small settlements, always in fear of the forest rising against them.
Swords are weapons made to kill men, axes replace them in mass production. Most sorcerers and wizards specialize in fire spells.
The players are going to be from village that's been in isolation for 10 years. Their supplies are running low. Now one has visited nor returned from supply runs in that time.
I'm looking for Tree Folk / Ent images, especially evil looking ones.
Also any ideas you have for the game are welcome, I'm pretty excited about.
Exploring broken ruins between bloodthirsty, thick forests seems like a given.
Have the ents fight something else, too. Undead. Lizardfolk. Demons, who knows. They aren't friends with the humans, either.
Kayden Ortiz
For sure! The first session I actually plan the players to head out as a last ditch effort. They'll end up at what they think is the next village to find that its completely overgrown and destroyed.
Luke Lee
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Jayden Gray
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Cooper Ortiz
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Jayden Wright
Wut. How in the world does a village survivor ten years without wood. Protip, it doesn't. They all freeze death during the second or third winter. Or die from even worse shits then usual because they have nothing to cook their food.
If a village happens to be "lucky", they'll have a coal mine nearby. In which case they last until their tools start breaking, leaving them desperately mining with sharpened rocks.
Buildings beyond mud huts and other simple structures can't be built, most other building are patched only with shoddy repairs.
Jose Phillips
People used to intimately familiar with surviving in deserts, plains, will last longer, but good luck with groups beyond twenty or so.
William Clark
I did think about this and not 100% of the woods are ents. Humans would be afraid to venture far from the village but the borders would mostly be safe. Fires would be something highly respected. Maybe the village would have only a few large fires at night and people would come out and cook as a community.
Also maybe winter isnt a thing. Either way yeah there are problems if we stop and think about it but I'm not really one need to fill ever plot hole.
It's a game, it's for fun.
Nicholas Sullivan
Maybe the trees don't come alive until they reach a certain size. So every day the men go to the edge of the village and cut down the saplings, which are then sparingly used for fuel (as too much smoke attracts the ones that walk)
Luis Anderson
That terrifying moment when the trees you cut down a month ago are already back encroaching on the walls again.
Parker Hughes
>Nobody chops firewood alone >Villagers leave in large groups and clear the trees immediately surrounding the village. This is a task done regularly, quietly, seriously, and as quickly as possible. >This serves a dual purpose for the people living there. The obvious benefit is lumber and firewood. But it's also done for another reason. >While the trees near the village have never been seen to move (yet), it's unavoidably, uncomfortably true that the trees get closer if left unchecked.
Brayden Ross
Ah, makes more sense.
You wouldn't want to use any sort of melee weapon, ax or not, against a Ent unless you're someone much tougher and stronger then your average person.
The wizards and other assorted mages would want to specialize in ice magic, to slow the trees from "lumbering pace", to "exaggerated slow motion", leaving them open to melee. Get them cold enough and the expanding sap will cause them to just straight explode like a shrapnel grenade.
Fire, unless done with some sort of high temp fuel, will be useless against Ents, as it's not easy to set living trees on fire.
Jace Johnson
And by cold enough, I mean cold and rapidly enough, which for normal trees, isn't that difficult at all.
Villages would probably accept the trade-off of salting the earth in a ring around the village to ward off evil spirits/Plants.
Sebastian Perry
Meat not from domesticated animals would become a delicacy, and ones that are domesticated will always be under heavy guard, lest something try to 'free' them. Or, alternately, attempt to kill them for being 'tainted'.
If your Orcs are anything like the default kind, they'll either be hunted down even faster then the humans, or fight back and thrive without humans competing for resources, leaving behind plenty of pillage.
A plot point you could throw in could be 'plant-crazy' humans. Those being Druids, Shamans, and the like, driven mad by the sudden, all encompassing murderous rage crashing over from all sides.
Like wise, there may be Elves who've been driven berserk, or wholly agree with the trees new disposition. There could also be Elves who think that this might be a bit much, or just feel bad about it, and being willing to help humans/the party.
Liam Butler
In fact, Druidism might come viewed in the same way as Necromancy; Entirely possible for it to be a extremely helpful type of magic, but inevitably corrupts and twists those who use it.
Julian Ortiz
you kill those tree motherfuckers and take their wood when you can, that's how.
Just like real life.
Alexander Sanders
Any of that neat/useful for you OP?
Christopher Carter
WTF would the nature-based dieties be doing through all of this? Would they completely side with the ents, forsaking all of their non-wooden followers? If so, wouldn't the gods of agriculture have some shit to say? Would players still be allowed to play druids at all in this setting? How do the players stop the rampage and restore balance to the wilderness? How far-reaching is this sudden turn in the trees? Worldwide? Continental? Regional? Would they attempt to engulf and destroy ALL human buildings or just settlements, leaving things like wizard towers or lighthouses alone? What happens in this world when/if the party runs for the sea/ocean? Does the plant life in the water come after them too? Do the kelp forests strangle ships in their harbors and pull men overboard down to the bottom?
They can build their homes from slain ents. Wood didn't stop existing in this situation, you just have to fight for your right to shape it now. Literally.
Luis Thompson
Nice, sounds fun.
Zachary Russell
Yes, lots of good ideas, thanks guys
I already told the players they cannot play druids, and actual in setting gods are something I almost never use in games. Divine beings are to complicated to properly utilize in a game unless they're a central focus.
Restoring balance isnt even on the table. The players just want to survive. Zombie shit is pretty over done but that would be like the characters in the walking dead trying to fix the world. It's not going to be something I even want players to think about.
As far has how far reaching this is, it's basically world wide, and it's something that's being going on for so long it's the characters way of life.
No one in the games has heard of a body of water as big as an ocean. Some large a lakes will exist, and I think the PCS village will be on one as a source of food and a natural defensive layout for the town. One side of town they don't always have to keep guard of.
Cooper Peterson
Are we getting more?
Christian Ortiz
Found these:
It has long been said that all legends arise from truth; that historical contortions and temporal burdens displace this absolute truth into fragments, each bearing a degree of relevance yet concealing the whole.
From such shattered perceptions continues the progression of myth, ultimately gestating as traveller's tales and stories.
The Yellow Road is one such reality that would benefit from having its origins and purpose cast into the brilliance of truth.
The Yellow Road appears a game-trail, a gash within fog-haunted redwood forest. The trail appears disused, yet recently tracked, as if carefully tended to. The forest surrounding the Yellow Road usually manifests closely to civilisation, usually a village or town, though sometimes a large city or metropolis; the game-trail itself merges with the routes leading to and from the locale, enticing travellers to travel upon it.
It has been theorised following observation that the Yellow Road acts as a beacon of some sort, a lure dangling the worm before the fish; scenting the air around the game-trail with irresistable pheromones, as animals are irrevocably drawn to the game-trail immediately following the Yellow Road's appearance.
Those who look beyond this momentarily cause for celebration talk of oddities and aberrance. Animals seem to display unusual, jarring movements within sight of the Yellow Road; a whip-crack bending of the neck, halting steps, and repetitive actions.
Those who listen beyond the background noise of the outer forest speak of weird piping and forlorn moans of pain and despondence that punctuate the weird silence of the Yellow Road. Attentive listeners verbalise a constant susurration of whispers, a litany of secrets spoken and impersonal ramblings that pervades the piping and moans.
Daniel Thomas
Yet what is stranger still is the complete desertion of some towns; entire houses emptied with no signs of struggle and food still on plates. The disappearance is not total, sometimes bodies are found upon the remnants of the Yellow Road; wearing no clothes yet oddly frozen, some appear to have disrobed with great haste. While other times, the bodies appear to have been dealt with great force, with massive depressions in chests, heads and extremities.
A rare few bodies are marked with unnatural sigils, symbols twisted into impossible shapes and faintly glowing yellow.
The Yellow Road is overgrown with brambles and thick, twisting thorns during the day; these thorned vines reek of the iron tang of blood, yet no blood-spatter is visible along their length.
Curiously, a confused progression of small conical mounds, their facades covered in verdigris (the mushrooms), crosses the extent of the Yellow Road. Digging into these mounds yields lost wealth, but also the thick, cloying smell of something unidentifiable.
The Yellow Road is enveloped by an eerie fog at night - the brambles and thorns retreat, freeing the trail from detritus, almost as if afraid.
Mildrew from the fog stains the remaining vegetation, and if licked yields the unmistakable tang of blood.
The conical mounds become yawning maws at night; the earth along their sides peeling away like an open orange. Thick thorned wooden cages are sunk into some mounds, their contents indistinguishable from the darkness, while others are defaced with the imprints of things clawing from the inside.
Brandon Hall
A legion of fat halflings in clashing pastel colors appears a week before the Yellow Road. They seem a merchant guild of sorts.
As night approaches, their forms liquify into puddles of clashing pastel colours; these puddles creep along the Yellow Road searching for their next victims.
A legion of fat halflings in clashing pastel colors appears a week before the Yellow Road. They seem a merchant guild of sorts.
As night approaches, their forms liquify into puddles of clashing pastel colours; these puddles creep along the Yellow Road searching for their next victims.
Isaac Harris
Use a Thorn Elemental.
Christopher James
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Elijah Evans
So it's Attack on Titan, but with ents.
Wyatt Perry
Would read and watch.
Noah Mitchell
Shingeki no Ento
Parker Sanchez
But from the perspective of the Scouting Division or whatever it's called. The PCs are leaving the settlement to head out for supplies right away.
