So this seems like it should be a fairly basic adventure, so if it already exists and somebody could direct me towards it, that would be great. Otherwise, I may right up a few encounters of my own.
So I'd like to have a brief side-quest for my party vs the fey. A group of loggers are having trouble in an area and think it is haunted. Trails change, tools have gone missing, animals have gotten in their food, loggers keep falling asleep, sounds surround the campsite at night, they keep seeing ghostly figures in the distance, groups of trees move in the night, and fires turn into smoke. etc. and multiple suggestions to tell the loggers that trees have already been cut down, trails go different directions, orders were different, etc. So far 5 loggers have gone missing, plus one has been found dead.
A group of 6 dryads reside 1/3 mile(?) away from where the loggers are logging and along with a couple of satyrs, and a small horde of atomies, sprites, and grigs are trying to scare them away. I'd like to keep at some to most of the fey good, to really open the possibility of dialogue. It might make some of the characters really question how much violence. So far the fey have only killed one person, and everybody agrees he was a notorious bully.
I think that most fey would not want to put too many animals in danger, so they might be using a few racoons and squirrels to help destroy food. Moles and badgers might also burrow under the tents or loosen stakes. I'm thinking of having one or two combat encounters with a bear, an elk or two. I've just got to string it all together now.
My idea is to have the party start at the logging camp. They can ask around and at least find out what has happened. As soon as they enter the forest proper, the atomies and sprites try to use dancing lights to seperate the party and lead them into a bees hive or a bog. That night, a couple of atomies try to shrink item and steal some of their items. The atomie might also try to encourage the horses to revolt. Grigs will keep using pyrotechnics to make keeping a fire impossible. With invisibility and/or stealth +19, plus distance and other factors, I doubt the players will observe them. If they continue, the satyrs show up and use ghost sound or suggestion, along with dancing lights from the atomies and sprites. I don't think the grig will use entangle too much, since that sort of seems like overplaying her hand.
What other sort of suggestions could the satyr use? Go this direction, go back, (side note, does the recipient have to see the caster to be affected?)
If they need to, 1 or 2 of the dryads could suffer sickness to travel further away from their trees and use wood shape and treeshape to confuse the party as well. Go to sleep under a copse of trees and then have it move. Go to sleep in a clearing and wake up in trees. The party will be immune to the satyrs sleep spell, but the dryads have deep slumber.
If the party has been relatively peaceful so far, and they do reach the dryads' grove, they find the missing loggers charmed, but otherwise unharmed. They have room for peaceful negotiations now.
I believe my players will just slaughter them as they see them, but I'd like to make some incentive for them not to. Hopefully the lack of killing so far and the good aligned fey will help that.
Or I could give a couple of the fey class levels as well.
What would a reasonable number of fey be? They won't all be encountered at once. 6 dryads, 3 or 4 satyrs, and about 10 each sprites, grigs, atomies?
If they continue on after that, the satyrs show up
Class Features: Favored Enemy (Plants +6), Favored Terrain (Forest +4), Track, Forest Ghost, Hunter's Bond, Woodland Stride, Swift Tracker, Evasion
Gear: +3 Ripsaw Glaive (18k), +3 Mithral Breastplate (13k), +4 Belt of Giant's Strength (16k), +2 Headband of Inspired Wisdom (4k), +3 Cloak of Resistances (9k), +1 Ring of Protection
Rynjin wrote:
Richard "Orange" Ajennt has always wanted to be a Lumberjack and woodsman. From a young age he was fascinated at other people's complacence to the encroaching floral menace that permeates the land. He's dedicated his life to fighting this danger, and his single-minded dedication to the eradication of the plant hordes has granted him certain specialized skills to aid him in his crusade.
Stalwart companion of Jackie Woods, the two work in tandem much of the time, both in combat and in business. Rick's skill at woodcutting is unparalleled, and he sees it as both his duty and his privilege to provide high quality lumber at low prices to his friend.
He is a true destroyer of plants, and can make them tremble with fear at the whirring sound of his serrated doombringer. The sight of woodchips flying, leaves falling, and flower petals scattering galvanizes Rick, and brings dismay to his leafy foes in return.
As an aside, I like the idea of thinking of the Forest Friend spell as being plants being too afraid to mess with Rick and his posse.
Yes, Ferngully. But in which the fey have a reasonable to high chance of winning against just loggers. Does an asdventure like this already exist for PF? Or even 3.x
The party is 5th level. Sorry, I forgot that.
I was lookidng through Fey Revisited, and it talks about sprite villages being 1000 individuals. I'm not sure that having 1000 sprites would necessarily make things impossible. So I may just handwave and say there are effectively infinite sprite in the forest unless the party really goes out of their way to slaughter them and track them down. I'll throw a few sprite in every encounter, just to add further targets or distractions.
There is a sidequest somewhere in Kingmaker that is somewhat similar.
Kingmaker:
In our kingmaker game we had a similar problem. The faeries had charmed some loggers and demanded the loggers leave and not come back if they want to get the charmed men back.
I think it was in the second or third book.
We found a peaceful solution but one not all of our population liked because they said we sided with them plant guys instead of our own men.
In fact we declared the faery place off limits for our lumber teams and used feather tokens or something similar to replant adult trees where others had been cut down in that area.
Consider: how long have the fey been there? Did they just move in, and that's why this is so surprising? Or is it that they've always been and mortals have just forgotten about them?
I add these questions b/cause you have to wonder...how did the lumberjacks get THAT far into the fey wood that they're less than 2000 feet from a dryad's tree and NO ONE knows why their axes are suddenly stymied.
For that matter there might be evil rangers hunting the fey for sport; druids trying desperately to maintain an ancient pact with the creatures; forest creatures tainted by fey magic and further compounding the problem.
None of this answers your original questions though, so sorry for the tangent.
As for the smaller fey (grigs, sprites, atomies) you can just assume that when you have an encounter you have "enough" and rule them infinite. Larger, more powerful and more unique creatures though might form some sort of rudimentary political or social structure with leaders, elites and followers.
I would think a single dryad, but I'm very old fashioned. Beneath her might be satyrs and fauns; also gnomes and brownies (roughly a dozen of each) carrying out various roles such as acting as her diplomats, ward bosses and sheriffs. You might also have a few spin-off villains such as a vain bog nixie or neirid who thinks THEY should be in charge since their so pretty, or perhaps a forlarren who seethes with rage and is subtley goading the lumberjacks on so that they can destroy her mother and her precious forest.
Thanks for the help. I am thinking some more and coming up with ideas. The party is based in Sandpoint, so I'm thinking of using the northern tip of the Whisperwood. Since there is supposedly an open pit to Hell, the fey have been keeping the devils away from this direction. I may increase the distance beyond just 1/4 mile. That seemed too short for me to, but I wasn't sure how far I want the fey to respond. They fey have been here for many years, but they have been focused on the devils to the South and the humans logging to the North were such a distant problem. Only now they can't really turn too much attention, because the devils will overwhelm them. This also gives the party an incentive to make a peaceful resolution, because if they don't, Sandpoint may be overrun.
They don't. They will be asked to help by the loggers, but once they get involved, they can side with whoever they want. Heck, they could even just leave if they wanted. So far, the PCs have been pretty point and shoot. They see things and immediately start attacking. I'd like to set up a few encounters that aren't just combat, or at least, not just Kill Kill Kill. This will hopefully provoke them in thought a bit.
I think I'd like a grove of dryads. I'll throw in the bog nixie as well. Thinking she can do better against the demons as well.
Add one or two fey 'ringers'. Eldar Semi-pacifist fey with great power. They will hold off their most dangerous magic and trickery unless provoked by violent brutes. Make one a higher level neutral good fey-bloodline sorcerer, with high DC mass mind control. Make another a fey Heaven's Oracle, for more fun with saves. The third significant fey is a caster druid with a bodyguard-archetype pet. It's a safe bet any low-will PCs will have a high chance of dropping or turning on their allies. These fey are tough and should be bargained with.
This hidden threat makes it not only polite but also wise for the PCs to negotiate before slaying. Give them some clue that these fey might be competent, but don't rub their faces in it.
If the PCs lose it need not be a TPK. It depends how brutal, violent, and murderous they were before succumbing. A combination of DC18+ Special Heaven's Oracle Color Spray and the charm spells. Those fallen PCs who showed any trace of decency will probably be spared. Perhaps the fey release their charmed victims on the far side of the forest, naked, in a grove of poison ivy. Perhaps with the odd long term compulsion. Gear lost, dignity lost, comfort lost, but not slain coup de gras style unless they brutally murdered fey.
Well, I just got to thinking, and looked at a map again. I realized that there is the Whisperwood listed in the RotRL anniversary edition on the southern edge of the hinterlands. There is also a Whisper Woods in Cheliax.hmmm. Not the same thing. So, lets change things again. The fey are keeping something Thassilonian pinned deep within the forest and don't want outsiders looking into it. Maybe one of the runewells? This also adjusts the needs of the encounter slightly. The elder fey don't have to justify holding off a demon horde, just keeping a runewell hidden.
SO the Varisian Whisperwood states that it runs much of the length of the Lost Coast Road. So The wood could be about 30 miles long and about 3 miles wide at the ends, possibly 6 miles wide at the thickest part.
A treant druid9 would be about CR 13 and make a fairly respectable guardian with a decent number of hit points and 5th level spells. The grove of dryads is led by a Fey-Blood Sorcerer14 Which would be about CR 15 and have 7th level spells. The dryad grove then consists of an additional 5 dryads. There is an extended family of two-dozen brownies, a village of 1,000 sprites, 3 separate bands of 8 atmoies each, 4 bands of 6 grigs each, and 5 satyrs. In addition, the forest boasts a cougar, 2 black bears, a herd of elk, a pack of 5 wolves, a few raccoons and boar, and countless birds, squirrels, and other rodents. There is also a mated pair of unicorns that call the forest home and may ally with the fey.
Finally, there will be a court of evil fey led by a nixie witch 10. She isn't as powerful as the treant or the dryad, so she can't directly confront them. She thinks that it would be better to use the power of the runewell to force people to stay out of the forest. Her court includes a couple of twigjacks, a half-dozen quicklings, and she can call on some of the sprites as well.
Once the PCs show up, she decides that its time to make things deadly, and has the quicklings try to kill of PCs, while the other fey are only trying to scare them off.
What about things that dwell BELOW ground? Maybe give the Nixie some mites? Perhaps in an ironic twist she's charmed the Hideous King; a mite cavalier 8 who in turn has small cells of mites, mite cavaliers and mite rangers scattered in the roots and tunnels below. These creatures in turn command the vermin they find and use them as mounts and animal companions.
There's a lot of mites, but their weakness against light and their general lowliness makes them individually not a threat to the Treant and his Revels. The Nixie uses them as shock troops leading raids against the surface in the dead of night.
Also you might have the Nixie having charmed the lumberjack's leader. Through him she's urging on the mortals to delve deeper than they should into the forest. Her hope is that these interlopers either deal a blow directly to the Treant's forces or at least act as a diversion to her own activities.
The PCs then initially come to the aid of the woodcutters. In doing so they realize they're struggling against both good and evil fey. They also come to understand that Shifty McGrimm the foreman is hell-bent on carving up these woods - almost like he's possessed. The first mini-boss then is Shifty. In dealing with him they uncover the influence of the Nixie and can decide what (if anything) to do about it.
Have the PC's already met the loggers? If not, first throw in an encounter where the dryad asks the PCs' for help. Then when the loggers ask for help, the PCs will soon realize they are all ready on friendly terms with the logger's enemy and be more likely to open a dialog.
