Giant Redwood itP

[Burley]

Ok. So, homebrewed Oz campaign setting, the party is from swamp, mountain and desert biomes and they're about to travel into a giant redwood forest. Camping in the forest seems like D&D 102, right? But, none of them have experienced a normal forest before.

The forest is populated with essentially High Elves and Beastmen (everything from awoken critters to dragonborn to yuan ti; anything that's a humanoid/animal hybrid type). The forest (unknown to pretty much everybody) has a sort of hivemind of Wilden (interchangeable mechanically with dryads and boguns). There may be harpies and giant dragonflies and flying monkeys.


They're gonna be roughin' it for a couple sessions, I think. They're level 2-and-some-change and I'd like to push them to level 3 before they hit the next story progress point. What kind of encounters can/should I throw at them? I do combat encounters and skill challenge encounters (from 4e).

Please feel free to get a little wacky. Gnoll fighting pits and giant dragonfly bombardiers are on the menu for higher levels, but level 2 is a tough place to plan challenging encounters. Aaaaand, I'm more of a "Yes, and-" play-by-ear kind of DM.

[Fero]

Skeletons refluffed as twig-men or tiny animated objects (twigs) who arise whenever the party hurts a tree.

Flying monkeys.

A camel with a bad attitude guarding a chest.

Spider swarms (or giant spiders).

Formorian Workers, all with the head of Herbert Hoover talking about great depression Era politics.

A peaceful but lonely treant who will follow the party loudly tell boring stories about the forest, even when the party tries to sleep.

[Burley]

A peaceful but lonely treant who will follow the party loudly tell boring stories about the forest, even when the party tries to sleep.

This is such a good idea. I can piece in lore and plot hooks between stories of this one time a squirrel was digging right just there, at least it thinks it was a squirrel, but could have been a chipmunk sitting on a feather.

[Palanan]

The Sunless Citadel is a classic 3.0 module that introduces Small-sized ambulatory twig monsters, which my group always called “twiggies.” I think they were updated for 3.5 in one of the Monster Manuals, possibly MM3.

These would be a great forest encounter for a low-level party, especially since they have the habit of rooting themselves during the day and coming lethally alive at night. Individually fairly weak, but you can send several of them after the party at once. Bonus points if the party survives their first encounter, and then camps for the night in a grove of twiggies about to come awake.

[Wintermoot]

Formorian Workers, all with the head of Herbert Hoover talking about great depression Era politics.

Man, I heart the cut of your jib.


Exploding pine-cone beetles. The look like normal pine cones until you pick them up and throw them into the nightly campfire. At which point they sprout little legs and wings and start fluttering about, trailing smoke and smoldering embers, then fly into your face and explode.

Giant Redwood men, so huge they don't even acknowledge or notice the party. They just walk through the forest and almost step on them a few times. There's no way to get their attention, all you can do is dodge them.

As this is a redwood forest, I'd be inclined to emphasize the looming enormous nature of the trees, with the branches and leaves so far above them, they appear diffuse and grey. Things live up there, they can hear them and feel them following them. They never see them, but every now and then, there is a crack and a branch comes crashing down to try and crush them. One time a snaking rope with a noose on the end comes down and snags one of them around the neck and starts pulling them up into the trees. If the rest of the party manage to cut him free, alls well, but if he's pulled out of sight, he's never seen again.

These encounters continue periodically through the time they are in the forest, but they never find out who or what it is, or why.

They come across a beautiful tin-plated axe, buried in a redwood that is approximately halfway cut through. no sign of the axe-man, no idea how long its been there. If they pull it out, two things happen. One, the tree begins toppling toward them, but so slowly its a difficult thing to notice. Especially in the second thing, which is, the only thing keeping the axe trapped was the weight of the tree. Once its pulled free it yanks itself free of the grasp of the PC and starts flying around viscously attacking everyone. As the party are dealing with it, if they fail to notice, the giant tree finally picks up speed and falls over on top of one or more of them, either trapping them under an immovable weight or crushing them utterly depending on your violence level. If they do get trapped, the only way to free them is with the vicious flying axe.

[Akal Saris]

1) Squirrel People! Look up the Ratatosk for stats. They love riddles, or can magically taunt people to chase them and get lost deeper in the forest.
2) Unfriendly apple trees that pelt the adventurers with apples. Might as well take a note directly from the Wizard of Oz movie for this one.

[Wintermoot]

The come across a travelling band of dust-bowl migrants (ala grapes of wrath) living in a hooverville camp in the deep redwoods. Because this is Oz, the band are made up of munchkins, winkies and the like who have all started migrating looking for work and better living after, oh say, an evil witch conquered the kingdom on the other side of the forest.

Because this is Oz, you can have some talking donkeys, a bennet buggy or hoover wagon that lives and talks ala the couch with the moose head in return to oz, and the like.

They welcome the party and ply them with cheap bathtub gin, then steal everything while they sleep and disappear.

[Chronos]

Mix in some Alice in Wonderland, just to keep them on their toes. A frantic rabbit-man in a hurry to get somewhere, a giant caterpillar puffing on a bong, some animated chessmen.

[SirNibbles]

Dragon Magazine #292, page 76 has an article titled "Bad Seeds: 12 Reasons Not to Go into the Forest Alone". It has some distinctly forest-themed creatures that you may find useful.

Appropriate for Level 2/3:
Wortlings
Needlemen
Myconids

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The party meets a young monkey-boy* with a riverine +1 sizing staff who helps them fight off some kobolds or something, and he seems nice, but fearless, naive, and inappropriately curious (somewhat like a kender, but not a thief and not quite to that extent). Then that night, the full moon comes out, and he suddenly morphs into a giant monkey that starts mindlessly raging and rampaging through the forest. The party has to survive, and find a way to stop him, if they can.





*Yes, I did pull this from Dragon Ball. How did you know?