Forest Garden, Week 4

Virginia Sterrett, again.

 

22: Tortoise

• An ancient tortoise the size of a carriage. Someone has drawn obscene graffiti on its shell.

• (?) The tortoise would be grateful for a clean shell. The apes make fun of it.

23: Hothouse

• A hothouse of cracked and dirt-streaked glass.

• Within, white pebble paths and an explosion of colourful plants with bizarre fruits.

• (??) d6 fruit finder:

  • 1 = striped, ordinary fruit, albeit a bizarre hybrid

  • 2 = ultramarine, overwhelming perfume

  • 3 = cyan, venomous spines, but delicious inside

  • 4 = magenta, soporific poison, dizzying musk

  • 5 = peuce, attempts to bite back with little toothed mouths

  • 6 = emerald, woody and inedible, but seeds are actual emeralds worth 5 coins

24: Mushroom Patch

• A generous patch of wrinkly red mushrooms under a burnt-out stand of trees. Strange chemical smell.

• (!) Mushrooms are poisonous and highly, explosively flammable. Even the air nearby is full of explosive gas.

25: Bamboo Thicket

• A maze of bamboo plants the size of trees, whistling in the breeze.

26: Stone Garden

• An overgrown square with great mossy stones.

• (!) The stones are actually ambulatory, with crab-like appendages that they keep hidden when observers are near. This means that they are in different positions each time the PCs pass through.

27: Wind Demon’s Lair

• (!) Lair of an invisible stalker. Haunts the nearby forest and thickets. You can hear (but not feel) its presence, a breeze that hisses through foliage and whistles through bamboo. The stalker has an invisible lash with a grapnel that it uses as a hook and garrotte. The demon delights in tormenting its prey, and wishes for souls and trophies.

• (?) The lair is filled with odd trophies — skulls, costume jewellery, feathers, teeth, charms and baubles. The fistful actually valuable jewellery is worth 5 coins.

28: Ziggurat Stair

• Stairs of stone with marble rails supported by kneeling caryatids. At their end: the great stone doors, snarling basalt lions, open just wide enough to admit a person.

• (!) : By the doors: the Peacock Knight, fiercest of the forest knights.

• (?) The doors lead to the palace courtyard (L4).

29: Pomegranate Door

• Marble stairs lead to cyclopean doors of stone, carved as a pomegranate in relief. Marble statues join hands over the entrance; they are scabbed with moss and vines. Fleshy growths spill from breaks in their hollow bodies.

• (?) The doors are unlocked, if stiff. They lead to the womb of monsters (L3).

• (?) The growths in the statues are shrike demon eggs.

30: Picnic Area

• Rusting iron frames of benches and tables, home to moss and caterpillars.