Realm of the Fellnight Queen questions. (Spoilers inside)

[Daermoth]

Questions:

My questions are these.

1. In the queen's castle, it is said to be made of living wood, no hardness or anything is given for this and it kind of becomes important later, what would it be recommended as since the castle is a giant thistle.

2. In the fight with the queen Rhoswen, she tree strides into pillars that have small holes in her room and then proceeds to cast spells at people from them, the module mentions "if the PC's find her" and such, and I'd love to know what kind of DC would be to notice that, as I presume she still casts spells and is loud doing that even from inside a pillar.

3. If the PC's do find her, how do they attack her? Do they first have to hit the pillar and destroy it, once more, what would be the HP/hardness of them, also if they target the room with aoe spells would she take damage while inside the pillar?

Can't think of anything else right now, but I'll ask more if I remember further down.

[Warped Savant]

There's a podcast with the writer about the module somewhere that I can't find anymore... but the answers, based on my notes from the podcast, are:

Answers:

2) While she's hiding in the tubes: All they really have to do is hear her casting a verbal spell. So, it should be the normal DC for hearing a whispered conversation (DC 15) modified by distance (+1 per 10 feet).
NOTE: Casting a spell with vocal components requires speaking at a clear, normal volume so I'd decrease the DC compared to what the writer stated in the podcast.

3) Column: hardness 3, 8 hit points

EDIT: I think the discussion is somewhere around the halfway point of THIS PODCAST (There's also some good advice in there about how to run the module and about what was cut.)