"Weird forest" encounters

[Jay R]

In a small clearing beside the path, the PCs find a tavern constructed as if by a cargo cult. Everything is carefully crafted from local wood and plants, but it's just a bit off, as if built by someone that didn't entirely understand taverns.

If they enter, they will meet nervous dryad, who will try to act the part of the tavern keeper.

Over a hundred years ago, the dryad used to visit a tavern set up for travellers in the same location. She returned one day to find it burned down, a few people dead and the rest departed. Now she has rebuilt the tavern in the hope that her friends will come back.

With the forest considerably more wild than it used to be, the PCs are her first customers.

In a world of magic, the cargo cult approach might work. As soon as the PCs arrive, there are enough minds thinking about it that her desired customers actually arrive.

Ghosts (or other undead versions) of her original customers, all ready for a tavern brawl. To them it's just good fun, but to the PCs, it could be deadly.

"Dangerous? Nonsense; we're just throwing punches," said the wight.

[Bohandas]

*the landscape looks like a crayon drawing. The water is a vibrant semi-opaque blue and the trees have no leaves, just a jumbled mass of green above a featureless trunk

*the trunks of the trees seem to be twisted around. Features that would normally be approxomately vertical instead spiral around

*draconic templated animals with rudimentary spellcasting ability

[Jay R]

A ring of mushrooms, about 2-3 feet tall, about the right size to sit on.

In the middle is a single mushroom, with a door, a couple of windows, and a smoking chimney.

[IntelectPaladin]

Alright, I'll make what contribution I can.
Time to give my writing a field day.
When they wake up in their camp, they've found that they, their tents, their horses, everything is resting in what appears to be their campsite. Save for one detail..They're sleeping on the tree limbs.
The trees are upside down.
They realize that the world seems to have flipped over!
Whether or not their sanity has flipped over is up to them.
They can see the sky below them through the branches, paths made from branches are now
around them at their new ground level.
The sky is below them, and when they look up they can see the landscape in the distance.
They try throwing something up, it just falls back to them. And then, it falls through the branches,
Soaring into the sky below them as if it had been shot from a catapult.
Isn't that disheartening.
The party stares, and then looks around at eachother. What will they do now?
Alright, that's the best I can do for now. Good luck.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a nice day!

[Bohandas]

On a related note: If they look up instead of the sky they see a top-down view of the forest, themselves included, as if a giant mirror had been placed in the sky

[Bohandas]

*an undead dryad bound to a paper mache tree

*trees spontaneously deconstruct into piles of finished wood and paper products when touched

*all of the plant life is shiny and reflective

*the clouds appear to be made out of something inappropriate for clouds to be made out of, like plants or something

*the local forest spirits obsessively micromanage the weather like the pegasi in My Little Pony

*they fall through a hole. gravity reverses halfway down. If they climb out the other side they find themselves in a foreat that's similar but technically oriented upside-down in relation to the original forest

*the clouds are on fire

*blood red fog

*green fog

*purple and blue fog

*multicolored glowing color-changing fog

*the clouds are orange

*the trees are blue

*the water is gray

*the Teddy Bears' Picnic

EDIT:

*the trees give off steam or mist

*fanged squirrels

*glowing leaves

*the clouds form occult symbols

*the rocks give off steam

*someone driving a big rock like a vehicle like in that one Spongebob episode

*inappropriate things are geodes on the inside. plants or animals or clouds or what appear to be manufactured items.

*a skeleton has been animated but has not reassembled itself properly, like in The Witch of Coos

*Bucktoothed spiders

*spontaneously combusting trees

*sunflowers that track the moon

[Bohandas]

*the color of everything distorts for just a second

*non-burrowing animals in burrows

*unidentifiable smells

*trees split open revealing creatures inside

*predators can't hunt effectively because they are outlined with fairy fire

[Bohandas]

*peeling back the bark of trees reveals them to be made of worms

*animals and vegetation disappear in a pulff of smoke when touched

[Eldan]

Don't know if I've mentioned this one in this thread yet, but my players once came upon a forest in the spirit world that was an ocean floor in the real world (the treetops were the surface). So they found plenty of fishes floating in midair, looking confused. Also, the wild hunt chasing a whale through the treetops.

[WarKitty]

Honestly, if you want to creep out D&D players, have the critters be really really friendly. Weird, but friendly. Have the bobcat with the glowing red eyes come bounding right up to them, drop the corpse of an unidentified rodent at their feet, and rub up against their legs. Bonus points if there's something slightly off about the big cat.

It really confuses players when the weird stuff isn't hostile.

[Eldan]

Heh, yeah. The Wild Hunt killed the whale, then invited the party home with them for wine and music in the treetops, actually. THen introduced them to their king, who was currently a flower. Nothing bad happened.

[Segev]

Heh, yeah. The Wild Hunt killed the whale, then invited the party home with them for wine and music in the treetops, actually. THen introduced them to their king, who was currently a flower. Nothing bad happened.

Just... don't accept the flower-king's friendship pellets.

[Bohandas]

*the wind seems to whisper with voices urging the party to kill themselves

*The wind seems to whisper with voices telling rude jokes about the characters' mothers

*skeletal animals. Not hostile, they act normal.

*It's dark when the sun is out and bright when it isn't

*The trees have fur

*plants and trees have bones inside of them

*Trees growing out of the sides of other trees

*ghostly trees; the ghosts of chopped down, burnt down, or lightning bolted trees grow near their stumps

*the grass is rigid and razor sharp

*Unseelie fey artificially enforcing every bad luck superstition the characters ever heard of

[DuctTapeKatar]

Up ahead, crouched over carrion, a lithe humanoid figure looks back on them. Its face is horrifying, with deep, sunken red eyes, no cheeks to be spoken of, and needle-like teeth. Upon seeing the party, it opens its mouth, as if screaming, its head beginning to shake and rattle. Upon blinking, it disappears instantly, but they can always hear rattling in the distance behind them and at night might catch a glimpse of those red eyes.

A lonely spider-creature living in a small hovel to the side of the woods gives shelter to the party, as well as free back-massages.

A small canoe falls on the party. It has supplies in it, and shows signs of being in water recently, but nobody in it to speak of.

Upon examination, the road which they were traveling on was made out of skulls the entire time. And the first time they checked, it was plain cobbles and dirt.

All attempts to use a curse word or an insult is interrupted by a sudden blanket of falling rain.

A tree follows the party. Whenever they look back, they can see a dead willow in the center of the road. Inspecting it shows that a hollow in the shape of the face seems to be facing the way they were headed. At night, those who stand watch might see the tree lurking in the shadows, its face seemingly smiling and naked branches rustling, despite there being no wind.

A woman dressed in basically only a loincloth dances in a clearing, a large pond of blood at her feet and gashes in her wrists -- however, the blood is flowing into the wounds, not out of it. When she notices the party, she only talks about "the song." She begins laughing at anyone who attempts to play music, saying, "you can't match it, you simply just can't!" Attacking her does nothing, aside from creating another wound which the blood at her feet will flow into.

[Bohandas]

Upon examination, the road which they were traveling on was made out of skulls the entire time. And the first time they checked, it was plain cobbles and dirt.

Works especially well in Greyhawk campaigns using Iuz as a villain (as he canonically had at least one road like this made)

Edit:
anyway...

*Someone has grafted trees together one on top of another to form 'the deciduous centipede'

*The squirrels are venomous and/or have stingers

[Bohandas]

*fanged squirrels

This one I feel I should clarify. Depending on the intended tome these squirrels could either have true fangs in normal position for fangs if the campaign is serious or they could have abnormally pointy incisors if the campaign is more humorous