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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Quote Originally Posted by Blackhawk748 View Post
    I don't know when, but im gonna use this.


    Thanks! Please do! It was my favorite of the ones I posted.

  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    For my weird forest sandbox I want to split the forest up into several different zones with distinctive types of forest landscape. Any suggestions on how to give different regions a different character, with varying degrees of weirdness?
    We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.

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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    For my weird forest sandbox I want to split the forest up into several different zones with distinctive types of forest landscape. Any suggestions on how to give different regions a different character, with varying degrees of weirdness?
    There are a couple of ways. Varying densities of forest, mixed with different terrains. Heavily forested area full of gullies and canyons, a light forest spread over rolling hills. Atmospherics are another variable to add. Make that heavily forested canyon zone perpetually foggy, with rushing rapids at the bottoms of many of those gullies.

    Also, wildlife, both encounter-worthy and not. The fog canyons might be home to hives of giant spiders. The barren uplands might be picked over by a colony of harpies in the cliffs that overlook them. The light forests of the valley floor might make the best grazing land for deer and elk, thus also attracting hunters like centaurs, and fey with affinity for such animals like satyrs. A certain craggy peak might be both a memorable landmark for pathfinding, and the nesting grounds for a family of griffons that hunt in several adjacent territories.

    Finally, you'll need to sell the culture surrounding the place. Have a few zones where people live, either as hermits or in small villages, and make sure they have good names and stories about any of these places. Test out the mouth-feel of these names before committing to them. "The Low Breaches." "The Greenfell." "Carter's Bog." "Drymoor." It's even better if some of these names don't have clear relations to what the place is, because if you play it right, the players will subconsciously assume that there's a rich story behind it - maybe even a mystery to draw them in.

    This is a neat thread to find, becuase I'm in the midst of running MY fey-tinged sandbox game, "The Wild March". Part of what I'm going for for this is to make it an actual settler's frontier, where the players use downtime to expand the town's resources, cut trails, et cetera, and most of the landmarks they find don't have names yet. They can either pick a name themselves, or hand it off to me so that I have the npc settlers name it. It's fun, because oftentimes it'll get named after the circumstances where they found it. A random encounter with a gold-hided boar led them to name the place "Bristle-Back Hill."

    Good luck!
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  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    *Something like those creepy effigies/fetishes/poppets from The Blair Witch Project

    *blood in the trees instead of sap

    *Sap in the animals instead of blood

    *an animal with maggots for blood

    *the wind sounds like pained groaning
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

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  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    For my weird forest sandbox I want to split the forest up into several different zones with distinctive types of forest landscape. Any suggestions on how to give different regions a different character, with varying degrees of weirdness?
    The "true" true forest is usually surrounded by an area of tall grasses, bushes, and short, young trees that thrive in the sunlight-rich area. Inside the forest itself, areas that were recently devastated by forest fires could be full of dead and blackened trunks, with life starting to return in some places.

    An area settled by ants or termites could have weak, sickly trees whose roots and trunks are full of holes, with termite mounds rising between them.
    Quote Originally Posted by Inevitability View Post
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    1. Describing basically the exact same monster but with twice the RHD.
    Quote Originally Posted by Artanis View Post
    I'm going to be honest, "the Welsh became a Great Power and conquered Germany" is almost exactly the opposite of the explanation I was expecting

  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Varying forest density can be a good way to do it. The difference between a European forest (well-maintained, generally, with minimal underbrush and through which men can ride horses) and a North American forest (such dense underbrush that you're almost more climbing through it than walking, unless you're on a game trail or road) is stark; so much so that the two continents' populations are often confused by the description of common behaviors in works taking place in the forests of the other continent.

    South American jungles (oft called "rainforests") differ greatly from African jungles, as well.


    A forest of trees denuded of leaves and shrouded in snow is a different place than a temperate wood.

    For particular ethereal feeling, consider something that does happen IRL sometimes: ice that literally COATS the branches of the trees. It's pretty, where it isn't weighing them down into ugly, drooping deformities of the trees.

    I once thought about a kind of tree that actually drew its water from an upended root system that slow-melted the ice at the core of the branches. It had a more fungus-like underground structure that didn't require photosynthesis.

  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Varying forest density can be a good way to do it. The difference between a European forest (well-maintained, generally, with minimal underbrush and through which men can ride horses) and a North American forest (such dense underbrush that you're almost more climbing through it than walking, unless you're on a game trail or road) is stark;
    We don't have forest. What we have is tree plantations. The only wild environments I've seen in Germany are swamps which are to muddy for logging.
    We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.

    Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying

  8. - Top - End - #38
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    *lecherous satyrs and centaurs

    *cultists

    *Healing spells attract unpleasant sorts of living creatures; flies, rats, etc.

    *Undead hands reach up out of the ground

    *all of the animals are diseased

    *all the trees and plants are blighted

    *possessed animals

    *The lecherous possessed trees from Evil Dead 1

    *it's always night, even when it should be daytime

    * the geometry of the forest is all wrong. Some places have a larger or smaller area than their circumference should allow. You may have to walk several times farther to go through a particular area than you would to walk around it.

    *A cleric of Malar or The Devourer or Mastiphal preaches to the animals, and occasionally kills one to punctuate a point, like a dangerously unhinged version of St.Francis
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2017-01-21 at 06:32 PM.
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  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    An arrow flashes through the air thudding into a tree. Sounds of battle and men shouting can be heard from just off the path. When the players rush to investigate the sounds intensify untill they burst into an empty clearing full of relatively tall grass, which is completely silent. No birds chirping, bugs buzzing or any other sounds of the forest can be heard. The sounds of battle are gone. No thing responds to any shouting by the players. There are no animals or creatures within about 40 yards of the clearing. Further investigation of the clearing reveals that scattered throughout the tall grass are old skeletons (just piles of bones, not undead), clad in the tattered remains of tabards and armor which look to be at least a hundred years old. It is clear that nobody has disturbed the clearing since whoever these people were died here.

    Further investigation of the tree near the path turns up no complete arrow, but a rusty arrowhead stuck deep within the tree, it's shaft and fletching having long since rotted away.
    Warning, this poster makes frequent use of jokes, snarks, and puns. He is mostly harmless and intends no offense.

  10. - Top - End - #40
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    *wolves

    *wolves howling constantly all hours of the day and night

    *bats

    *spiders

    *eight legged wolves with bat wings and possibly some other traits of stock creepy animals as well (snake tongue? cat eyes?)

    *Vaguely tree-shaped wads of slime
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

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  11. - Top - End - #41
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    --What appears, from the outside, to be a perfectly circular river flowing constantly clockwise. The path crosses it twice. At the first crossing, the PCs experience a moment of disorientation, before finding themselves walking alongside a perfectly straight river. There is no second crossing before leaving the forest.

    --(Alternate of the previous one) What appears, from the outside, to be a perfectly circular river flowing constantly clockwise. The path crosses it twice. At the first crossing, the PCs experience a moment of disorientation, before finding themselves walking alongside a perfectly straight river on their right. To the left, there is an empty expanse of plains. Occasionally, the PCs would see figures or buildings out of the left corner of their eye. At the second crossing, there is another moment of disorientation, and the PCs are on the other side of the circular river.

    --The path turns into a hopscotch game that gets more and more complex and difficult to complete as you go. Several of the squares have bloodstains in them. As soon as anyone trips or otherwise fails to play hopscotch, the path reverts to normal (unless they've fallen off of it entirely)

    --A section of the forest where all of the vegetation is plywood props, faced towards the north rather than towards the PCs. If the PCs examine themselves, they'll notice marionette strings trailing up from their limbs. PCs feel a minor compulsion to face towards the north when they talk, and to not stand in any location that would obscure them from view from anyone standing to the north of them.

    --A tree that is growing golden coins instead of leaves. The gold coins cannot be removed without the permission of the tree's dryad. If removed by force, the person who removed them will forever be viewed with distrust and suspected of thievery by everyone they meet.

    --Trees growing from other trees (either rooted to them or instead of fruit)

    --Animals that, when you kill them, they split open and a smaller version of that animal jumps out.

    --Roll will-saves for all the PCs. To anyone who fails, tell them they come to a fork in the road, and ask them which direction they go in. If they go left or right, they've walked off of the path, leaving behind a dinner fork embedded in the ground. (Anyone who succeeded just sees a dinner fork embedded in the path from the get-go)

    --A staircase that leads to the forest's basement. It's full of giant rats, and killing all of them causes the innkeeper to give you five silver.

    --When the PCs wake up, the previous day's events are remembered as though they happened a long, long time ago.

    --There's a locked door just sitting in the middle of the path. There's nothing visibly preventing you from walking around it.

    --A bustling village square. At nightfall, everyone in the square walks off into the distance in random directions simultaneously.

    --When the party wakes up, there's an extra party member that they all remember being with them for the entire adventure. (Use as a way to introduce a new player)

    --As soon as the PCs enter the forest, they entirely forget about everything that happened outside of it until they leave (although they do remember that they're trying to get to the other side)

    --The path visibly narrows off in the distance, but never actually seems to get any narrower as you walk along it. Looking back, it appears to be significantly wider than it was when you walked along it the first time.

    --The path loops back on itself. Following the loop and turning back the way you came takes you to a new section of the forest.

    --Days and nights are each only ten minutes long.

    --The path is still completely visible even in pitch darkness, or with your eyes closed.

    --Flip a coin for each player. Any player who got heads sees an adorable puppy. Any player who got tails sees the rotting corpse of a mongrel. The dog in question will act like a living puppy around PCs who got heads, but can't perceive the PCs who got tails. To the PCs who got tails, it looks like the PCs who got heads are carrying the corpse around if they take the puppy with them. If the puppy actually does anything useful, it looks to them like the person who commanded the dog to do it accomplished the task by using the corpse as a tool in some gruesome manner. Also flip a coin for anyone else who sees it. (Might be a pain long term, so you might want to have it vanish or settle into only one state when they leave the forest)

    --The PCs come across an ancient dwarven stronghold. The ground around it has been scorched into oblivion, it's full of levers the function of which is unclear, and it contains packs of wild dogs and cats that will fight viciously despite their organs hanging out from nasty looking wounds.

    --Each 5' square of terrain has different weather.

    --(Working off the previous one) a checkered weather pattern, alternating between rain and clear skies. It creates an 8x8 'board', several squares of which contain corpses of the dead, including what appears to be a king, run through by a knight's lance in a way that looks as though the knight struck him from above.

    --A circular area upon which the word 'ice' is scrawled across the ground several times in varying handwriting and at various angles. The area has no unusual effects.

    --The path forks (legitimately this time). Eventually, it meets up with itself again... but the issue is that when the party reaches the point where it joins up, they meet themselves coming up the other fork. They can freely walk through their doppelgangers, and will join up with them as they walk along the path normally.

    --The party comes across one of their previous campsites; however, it appears to be several years old.

  12. - Top - End - #42
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    *Animals which, on the inside, are already filled with maggots and worms and stuff as if they were dead (they may or may not be undead)

    *there's an extra sun or moon in the sky

    *rations and perishables rot unusually quickly

    *any meat products carried ooze fresh blood (unless stored in an extradimensional space with a sealed entrance)

    *the swaying of the plants and rustling of the leaves does not match the wind. Instead it seems to be in time with some unheard music.

    *bile seeps from the cracks in the bark of the trees

    *intermixed with the trees are animals hideously deformed into the shape of trees

    *the trees glow green

    *the PCs age at ten times the normal rate while in the forest

    *any campfire that they attempt to make immediately goes out w8th a blinding flash as if affected by a Pyrotechnics spell
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2017-01-24 at 02:08 AM.
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  13. - Top - End - #43
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Every time you use a divination spell you will spot a monkey staring at you with blank eyes from an unreachable spot as soon as you go outside.
    We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.

    Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying

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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    We don't have forest. What we have is tree plantations. The only wild environments I've seen in Germany are swamps which are to muddy for logging.
    I thought you guys had the Black Forest? It's famous outside your country at least.

  15. - Top - End - #45
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Sure, almost a third of the country is covered in trees. But those aren't natural environments. We actually do have 35.000 hectares of not commercially used forest, but out of 11,400,000 hectares that's still only 3%, or 1% of all space. And for Central, West, and South Europe that's considered pretty high.
    We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.

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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    If you have Heroes of Horror there's a table of 100 "that ain't right" things to include that are generally creepy and easily can fall into forest settings. Other things that I like:

    --random dilapidated shrine and thousands/millions of (harmless) tiny spiders crawling around the area. Lots of webs in the branches and a few husks of small birds and whatnot. (This actually happened to me on a countryside stroll in western Japan once, the ground appeared to be moving because it was crawling with spiders over EVERYTHING.)

    --recently vacated campsite. The bedroll and shelter are still up but the fire is cooling embers and the campers are nowhere to be found.

    --thick fog suddenly rises up and all sound is severely muffled, vision including dark vision or heat vision are basically worthless.

    --compass (if present) starts spinning wildly. If the party presses on it returns to normal but if they stick around it continues to act strangely for a few minutes then settles firmly on "north". Can the group really trust it now, though?

    --phantasm reenacts some scene, then disappears. It doesn't react to the PCs at all, plays out once, and doesn't happen again for at least 24 hours.

    --dead silence. If you've ever been in natural forest when this happens, you know all you need to know about it.

    --animal exodus. ALL animals running pell-mell definitely AWAY from something or TOWARD something.

    --domesticated animals without owners. Not feral animals, just regular animals without their people. A house cat meowing for food; a small flock of sheep milling around; a few cattle just chilling in a small clearing; a friendly dog.
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  17. - Top - End - #47
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Quote Originally Posted by SomeNerd View Post
    --Flip a coin for each player. Any player who got heads sees an adorable puppy. Any player who got tails sees the rotting corpse of a mongrel. The dog in question will act like a living puppy around PCs who got heads, but can't perceive the PCs who got tails. To the PCs who got tails, it looks like the PCs who got heads are carrying the corpse around if they take the puppy with them. If the puppy actually does anything useful, it looks to them like the person who commanded the dog to do it accomplished the task by using the corpse as a tool in some gruesome manner. Also flip a coin for anyone else who sees it. (Might be a pain long term, so you might want to have it vanish or settle into only one state when they leave the forest)
    This one's the best
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  18. - Top - End - #48
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    *diligent mapping will reveal that the trees in one area form a pentagram if viewed from above

    *the veins in the trees' leaves form pentagrams and/or other occult symbols

    *the nearby vegetation has completely changed when the PCs wake yp after making camp

    *fur based clothing worn by characters becomes undead like in Ghostbusters
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  19. - Top - End - #49
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Each time they wske up its a different season. All evidence that its been a single night dissappears. Fire embers look ancient, that tree whose branch they bent looks dead etc. Animals and mounts seem to have aged a season, pcs havent, or alternately, are getting younger by a season.

    Read the section in manual of the planes about the fey home plane and darker fey.

    An irate pact devil is arguing with an invisible pixie. Devils wsrns the pc about msking deals. Both teleport/escape if threstened. If left alone they argue over something before the devil shouts fine before dissappearing in a flash of brimstone. The invisible pixie follows snd constantly offers help. Take it whichever way you want.

    A tree oozes blood and a constant wind around it moves through the leaves causing human like cries and sobs. Its bark feels like dry scabbed skin. If the pcs attempt to heal it they take damage as their flesh cracks and bleeds as the tree seems to get better. It can be healed 50 hp. Any who heal it cannot heal their horrible disfurement but the hp damage is hesled normally. If whoever is disfigured attacks the tree they get back their form as the tree screams and gets worse. Dealing 100 points of damage kills the tree, its a human child afterwards, dead with no way of being brought back. Bloody tears stain her face. If fully healed the pc becomes the next tree. The girl is incoherant and talks in an ancient unknown tongue. She leads them to the remains of an ancient cottage. A small skeleton clutches a doll, no sign of what killed it. The child cannot leave the cottage once she arrives, but taking the doll to the party member frees it though they remain scarred. They have some of her memories now. If they return the doll the girls says thanks in common then falls over dead.

    In the trees they see an exact duplicate of one of the party members, except in simple woodsmans garb. It flees never quite out of sight to a home that is an exact replica of the characters childhood home. Said home is horribly rundown. The faceless doppleganger is gone, but the pc instinctively goes unerringly to their room, and finds a note in their handwritting. "I am so sorry! But I had to! There was no other wsy! Forgive me! They took it from me, but it is done! I did it, may all the gods forgive me." Bloodstains are on the end of the paper, and on the floor, along with an old rusted knife/weapon of that pcs. Alternately, the letter is dated for the near future.

    They find a pair of white gloves, the kind mary poppins would use to check for dust with some minor treasure. Each night whomever took the gloves/treasure finds all of his gear unpacked and stacked neatly. Written in the dirt in blood are the words "So filthy!" In that charcters handwritting, starting as normal then getting sloppier and crazier as it goes along. There are 13 lines and that pc has a circular scar around his non dominant wrist each morning. It looks fresh. Leaving the gloves causes them to reappear on another pc. This continues until they leave the forest, where they see the gloves folded neatly on a tree next to a severed hand that had been nailed into the furthest tree trunk. It is identical to whoever last had the gloves' hand. The scar on their non dominant wrist never goes away.

  20. - Top - End - #50
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Locals (possibly just little squirrels and such) looking really secretive and furtive about something. Some sort of fungus or something on further investigation. A secret society meeting in a circle with weird chanting, well off the path. Which raises further questions, with answers to be found even further off the path...

    Locals (also possibly animals, asking only using body language) offering very vague hints, requests, or warnings. Then being horribly killed either by the unexplainable or the seemingly natural and accidental.

  21. - Top - End - #51
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    Many humanoids in the forrest, climbing the trees, skulking low in the underbrush, even leaping across the canopy. Closer inspection reveals them to have animal-like features, and even to just behave like the animals they resemble. They're not naked, but they're Tarzan-level clothed, only. The creepiness ramps up when "wolves" are found eating a "deer."

    Despite their humanoid appearances, they never act in any way different than animals would.

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  23. - Top - End - #53
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    For European Forest use more the Polish/Belarussian forest primeval (last lowland fragment in Europe actually) as a base.

    For other weird stuff.

    Vividly coloured non encounter fauna (the fabled white stag, but also Teal Squirrels, Pied Raven (a real thing), Crimson Jays, Green Chipmunks.

    Have the clearing they set up camp in be smaller when the sun rises than when they set up

    Have a fairy circle of mushrooms grow whenever they stop for more than an hour

    Have the cobwebs catch dew in such a way that together they make a pattern but only if the PC's stand in an exact spot. Like in the pillar temple scene at 1:10

    Albino Parasitic Redwoods and similar versions of other trees

    The trail is made up of large pavers - but closer inspection shows it to be hard worn burl wood pounded with dirt. Which makes their regularity suspicious.

    Plants an animals arranged in mathematical patterns (perfect octogon, the Fibonacci sequence in various trees along a path every so often).

    A collection of tiny doors in a base of trees along the path. The area just outside the doors show use (dirt trails etc) The doors open just fine-to show the tree as normal inside. Miles from civilization.

    An abandoned picnic. (the cut apples have yet to brown, perhaps champagne that still bubbles, insects are nearby but so not disturb the delicious sweats and meats) The is a card game going and the last card someone laid is the queen of spades or equivalent unlucky card. If they come back later the scene has been perfectly reset.

    Known copycat birds (like lyrebirds etc) call out poor versions of pleading for mercy/torture/killing scenes in various languages is apparently nice parts of the forest. Or other inappropriate noises

    Tiny weeping angels knockoffs. Use either fey or demonic images. Each time they get closer until they appear on the person. And then the person feels covered in fine crystaline sand. Which is what the statues turn into anyway if the PC's do get their grubby mits on them)

    Several Woodpeckers in various directions have their tempos match up for a well known funeral or evil militaristc musical bit for a few seconds and then go silent.

    An animal known to be extinct runs across the path in a muddy location and disappears far too quickly. It leaves no tracks. (may be illusion from an immortal something that doesn't realize they are extinct, a ghost of the creature, have fun with it)

    To really mess with the PLAYER'S heads have people still use spot checks for much of the weird stuff. Write out cards ahead of time to pass if people notice or not - especially on the smaller stuff. Have major failures produce results too. If you want to have them get even more weirded out have exceptionally high rolls allow them to see less illusionary versions of what the other pc's see just because it is on the card that only they got they don't know that. See if you can turn certain characters intelligence, awareness, and wisdom traits into a weakness. If you can mentally isolate the players and have them distrusting their own senses they are apt to do things like wander off the path when you present them with the right oppertunities.
    Last edited by sktarq; 2017-01-31 at 01:35 AM.

  24. - Top - End - #54
    Orc in the Playground
     
    RangerGuy

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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    group of skeletal undead lumberjacks going about completely normal lumbejacking buisness (Flannel shirts and knit caps optional). They take no notice of the players and go about their buisness as if the players arent there, even if the players start attacking them.

    Woodland creatures with human hands. Otherwise completely normal. Out of the corners of their eyes the player think that these hands are delivering rude gestures.
    Warning, this poster makes frequent use of jokes, snarks, and puns. He is mostly harmless and intends no offense.

  25. - Top - End - #55
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    *ghostly wailing

    *chains hanging from the branches of the trees

    *hellish heat inappropriate for climate and season

    *the party are followed around by rats and snakes and such

    *shimmering mirages even when it's not hot enough
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Orcus The Vile's Avatar

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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Have a group that look like older versions of themselves ask them to throw a coin in a well.

    Then some games later have them travel back in time to look for a special coin the party and but didn't knew about.

  27. - Top - End - #57
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    Yora's Avatar

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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    Quote Originally Posted by eru001 View Post
    Woodland creatures with human hands. Otherwise completely normal. Out of the corners of their eyes the player think that these hands are delivering rude gestures.
    Cute looking humanoid animals. Who are total bloodthirsty psychpaths.
    Last edited by Yora; 2017-01-31 at 04:16 PM.
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    Colossus in the Playground
     
    Segev's Avatar

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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    A very well-dressed and polite child, who is a little upset because he or she is lost and separated from parents. Easily cheered up by a promise to help find them. Strangely, the child doesn't seem to want to leave the woods; in fact, insists the woods are home. If the party helps, the child eventually exclaims, "Oh! There they are!" and runs off into the woods. Trying to track the kid finds only the kinds of tracks one might expect from the wildlife native to the area.

    Later, in a dangerous combat encounter, a pair of bears charge in and help them defeat their foe. Especially if the party is in danger. They lope off after the fight is done, and the party might notice their cub look back and wave briefly.

  29. - Top - End - #59
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    *Crows with rat heads

    *animals sewn together like the mad scientist's dogs in Human Centipede
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  30. - Top - End - #60
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: "Weird forest" encounters

    In the hollow paths between the ragged branches of the old forest where yew twins with elder and both are choked by vine, there is no sound. No birdcall, no animal skitter, even the wind in the dying leaves hidden far above seems muted. Pins of light that dare to venture into this umbral demesne reveal the floating dust of bark, the sparkle of mist in the air that encircles the blackened trunks making the dark way forward all the more unappealing. No grass or weed grows between the trees here, and desiccated twig and sapling crunch underfoot where life made its eternal attempts. It seems a wood appropriate for the dead that will not lie still, but even they forbear disturbing the quiet here, the quiet into which only the daring or foolish tread. You are not welcome here. The path closes behind, roots shifting in the dirt silently and never when observed but nevertheless the way back disappears for the unwary traveller. Only the steps to the heart are open. You will rue coming here. Arboreal arches lead deeper and deeper into the solemn gloom, no hand having entwined the shapes they form, the writhing tangles unpleasant to the eye and dead to the touch. Of course you didn't see them reach for you.

    No one ever does.

    (There is an exit to the north. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.)

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