"Weird forest" encounters

[Bohandas]

*the sound of a river where there isn't one

*an apparition of a child walks by and then fades away

*an area of chopped down trees that looks not so much as if the trees were felled by loggers then as if the trees were cut down with an enormous scythe

[Segev]

The forest is unseasonably warm, yet the trees are already turning to autumn colors. Leaves fall and blanket the earth, but still thickly cover the branches, as well. Strangely, animals seem to be unable to shake off leaves, and the gold and red things also cling to your own garb.

To those who make a check (perception or Will save), the real horror is revealed: the forest is on fire, and the "leaves" are flames. The animals, like the party, that don't realize aren't even flinching as they burn to death.

[eru001]

successful, high dc, perception check reveals that this section of the forrest is actually a clearing full of a large group of ninjas, who have disguised themselves as trees. They are now hositle. To eachother. There appear to be groups from d4 rival dojos. You are caught in the middle.

[SomeNerd]

--Upon closer examination, the bushes are actually just green clouds

--Trees growing root vegetables

--The party comes across a temple that seems to be dedicated to one of them. The centerpiece is a sacrificial altar covered in old blood.

--The trees become less and less realistic the further they go into a specific area, eventually reaching a point where they're replaced with people in poorly made felt tree costumes. The people are entirely unresponsive.

--A bridge made out of paper

--The party comes to a valley where the trees have marks along them, looking similar to a tide line. A DC 25 Knowledge(Nature) check reveals that the markings are actually from fire, but wouldn't normally be this regular.

--A very large tree, around the base of which is an extremely shabby village of normal-seeming humans. The humans only speak Sylvan, and act entirely obsessed with tending to the tree. If the party climbs into the branches of the tree, they'll see that instead of fruits, it appears to be growing humans.

--An extremely overlarge bramble bush, at least the size of a mansion. Tunnels have been cut through it, and it appears to be inhabited, although the denizens quickly flee from the party into the brambles if spotted.

[Yora]

although the denizens quickly flee from the party into the brambles if spotted.

That's where things get interesting! Crawl into a tight maze that is inhabited by something that has all the advantages and is obviously not welcoming you? But it's also really curious what you might find if you do...

[Bohandas]

High DC spot or spellcraft check reveals that the trees are actually statues transformed with a combination of the spells wooden blight and either animate objects or stone to flesh

[Winter_Wolf]

Spores. Party stumbles into a heavily fungi ridden area and either there's one type of very powerful hallucinogenic fungus, or the certain combination of species creates the same effect. Non-magical as such, but those who fail their saves (Will or Fortitude as you like) can be brought around with a cure poison spell or the like. Maybe simply the affected fall into a catatonic state, maybe they get manic, maybe they start attacking imaginary monsters or fall under the delusion that their own party is out to get them and it's kill or be killed.

[Bohandas]

*banging on them reveals some of the trees to be made of metal

*The trees grow thickly togeher, dividing the forest into branching corridors like an unusually solid and tall hedge maze

*there's a small village within the forest. The odd thing is that it's a village he PCs have been to before that was definitely somewhere else.

[Bohandas]

*The trees scream if their wood is chopped or branches broken

*Animals cannibalizing members of their own species

*swarms of flies

*swarms of bees

*The party members' faces seem slightly wrong

[Bluepaw]

A clearing has several chopped-down trees, with stumps left behind. One of them has a barefoot teenage girl in a plain shift kneeling on it, her face in her hands, weeping inconsolably (the PCs could also hear her from off the path, perhaps getting them to leave the path to try to find the child in distress). If they ask her what happened, what's wrong, etc, she tells (without looking up) them that her home is gone and she has nowhere else to go. But if the PCs try to get her to come with them, she takes her hands from her face -- and they see that her eyes are made out of wood, and in her mouth are long wooden teeth. (She is a dryad of some sort whose tree has been felled, leaving her hungry for revenge...)

[Segev]

A tree, with utterly delightful-looking fruit hanging from its branches. Should anybody eat of it, they immediately age one age category, gaining all stat modifiers as appropriate. They also are dazed for one round as they re-orient themselves; they remember living all the time that they just aged, and feel as if they'd just woken up from living out that part of their life, back here. They'd thought nothing of the fruit after eating it in their memory, but now...

At any point, they may use augury as a spell-like ability with a standard action casting time, as long as they phrase the query as having taken a specific action. If they go through with that action, the next time they try to use augury based on this event, they may use augury again as before at any time. If they take any other action than the one they asked about, however, the next time they try to use this spell-like ability, they have only a 50% chance of being able to (though they know if it failed). Each time they take a different action than the one they asked about, the next attempt at an augury has half the chance of working that the last one did, as the character's memory of events diverges more and more from the way things are now unfolding.

[Bohandas]

*The trees are actually some other kind of plant growing in the shape of a tree. Like a stretched out cactus or something

*a fox tearing at and eating one of it's own forelegs as if the leg were a bunny rabbit or something

*they find a person's skin without the person in it. Like someone was skinned in one piece

[Segev]

A herd of deer stalks a pack of wolves, eventually pouncing and bringing down an old and slow member of the pack.

[Jay R]

Also any ideas for ways to lure a party off the road into the forest, especially after being specifically warned not to?

A trail of bread crumbs that goes across the path into the woods.

Bonus points if it leads to an nice old woman in a gingerbread house who is being bedeviled by a pair of monsters in the guise of children.

[DireSickFish]

I asked a similar question but was looking for Fey stuff to include. Got some good results: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...809-Fey-Tricks

One thing I did was have themselves from the future but tiny and unrecognizable give their past selves advice about how to proceed. Then when they got to that same point as their future selves I let them try to convince their past selves about any new ideas or changes they should make.

[Excession]

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.

[Segev]

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.

This one's kind-of heartbreaking. Well done.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I love ghosts. They always seem under-powered and under-utilized for the impact they have on my favorite myths and fictions, so I tend to make them a bigger deal when I need "strange" and "weird" encounters.

• The party hears a whistling sound somewhere off behind them. No matter how hard they search, they can never seem to find the source. Over the course of several days, off and on, they hear it getting closer. Every once and a while it will start up, whistle on a bit, and then stop. Eventually the tone shifts, and it becomes clear the thing whistling is almost upon them. The party readies to meet the whistling person that's been following them, and it grows so loud it must surely be about to burst through the trees when...it stops. And a voice behind them (by about a hundred meters or so) screams like bloody murder. If they investigate, they find the path ahead runs along a cliff-face briefly. At the nearest bend, about where the scream must have come from, the road appears to have weathered down a bit, and a pile of fallen stones lay scattered across the forest floor below. If they make their way down the treacherous slope, they might happen upon an ancient skeleton and its horse, lost to a dark night long, long ago.
• The party comes across an old hut just as night starts to fall. Black smoke flows up out of the chimney and smells of a cooked meal. Light and laughter can be heard from outside, and the whole place looks like a thoroughly lived in little tavern of some sort. Except that when they open the door, the light abruptly shuts off and the laughter ends. Inside there are only a few dusty skeletons laying about an empty and long abandoned house. The skeletons bear marks of battle, or perhaps more accurately, a slaughter. Everything outside and in now is covered in cobwebs and dust. But the fireplace is still warm.
• As the party travels, a deep fog settles in no matter the time of day. As the party travels through the fog, something feels off. The forest now feels as though it's watching them. The fog feels so thick that it almost has the presence of another body. An extra pair of footsteps are heard if someone listens for it, or an extra plate of food has been set out at camp despite no one remembering doing that. While setting up watch orders, there will seem to be a gap, as though an extra watch was going to be set. The feelings will pass, as will the fog, in time.*

*I like deliberately getting the number of party members wrong as GM. When they eventually realize I'm saying "the five of you" instead of "four", the palpable panic on their faces practically makes the session alone. The fact that the ghost following them was just curious made it all the stranger, and more memorable for them.

[oudeis]

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.

This one's kind-of heartbreaking. Well done.

Yeah, I got a little teary-eyed over this one, too. Now I have to include it in a game so I can make certain that she gets all new friends.

[Excession]

This one's kind-of heartbreaking. Well done.

Yeah, I got a little teary-eyed over this one, too. Now I have to include it in a game so I can make certain that she gets all new friends.

I'm glad you both enjoyed it

[Mith]

This thread has inspired a few ideas that I could turn into a lowish level adventure:

*One can find a trail that leads off the road through the woods. The path reaches a clearing, and ends at a flat stone on the earth that has no dirt on it. Standing on the stone, a person hears a voice over there right shoulder. If they turn right to face behind them they teleport to a new location, standing on a identical looking rock face. If they stand on the rock and turn left, they will reappear at the first clearing. (A Natural Teleportation Circle with an invisible pixie/ghost messing with people)

*Walking through the woods, the party sees human foot prints on the ground, sinking a good quarter of an inch into the ground. Following the footpath, they will notice that regardless of what the path crosses, the foot prints always sink to the same depth. A Survival or Perception check will notice that the path is fairly narrow (~5 feet), but branches a way up that would usually hang over the path are broken. The path lead into a perfectly round clearing with a quarter inch trench around the circumference. The edge of the clearing is surrounded by a tall dense hedge with the path being the only break in the wall. The footprints lead right up to a tall menhir in the exact middle of the clearing.

Spoiler: Details for the stone if interested.

Show

If the party touches the stone, it will stand up and turn around. While there are no visible eyes, the party can feel a gaze upon them. If the party plays music either before touching the stone or after it stands up, it starts to dance. Any attempts to send an object into the clearing from the outside after the stone stands up is caught by the hedge. No spell can enter the clearing, although spells work inside the clearing. The party can leave the clearing at no interference. The hedge will even move out of your way and let you through.

If the party decides to fight the stone, I would give it a 40' movement speed, and make the circle exactly 40' in diameter. The stone can do a slam attack, knocking a target prone. It has a foot stomp/kick that can knock a standing target back or prone. If a target is hit by a stomp/kick attack, they make a DC 10 Con check or die as uarter inch footprint appears in their torso. I would fluff any near misses on the part of the stone to leave a footprint shape in the armour/shield of the character.

The footprints on the path or objects disappear the following sunrise.

[Pauly]

A pack of wild boars run by, chased by a pair of Gauls and a very small dog. The big Gaul shouts "Romans!" And the little one says "Don't be silly, the last Romans left a hundred years ago."

The Gauls then pursue the boars into the forest.

[Eldan]

A school of fish flies by overhead. A school of fish flies by overhead.

I had something similar, except it was actually a sperm whale crashing through the trees, followed by a leisurely party of fair folk hunters.

[Eldan]

Animals that the PCs slay end up carrying magic items, gold, and gems.

One step further: a mid-sized predator attacks the party, and when slain, all its insides are rubies. It bleeds rubies, its entrails are strings of fist-sized rubies, etc.

[Eldan]

Cute looking humanoid animals. Who are total bloodthirsty psychpaths.

And the opposite. Pale, muscular young men, clad only in bird masks, tattoos and loincloths, who are very helpful and cheery.

[Bohandas]

Bonus points if it leads to an nice old woman in a gingerbread house who is being bedeviled by a pair of monsters in the guise of children.

A gingerbread house occupied by a creepy old elf lady. Is she a witch or is it xmas? the pcs must work through the ambiguity.

[Bohandas]

As for being lured off the path, maybe a cat familiar is drawn off by a mysterious red dot

[Jay R]

The sound of a baby crying off in the woods.

If investigated, the baby is sitting on a blanket near where a small battle between two groups of humans had been fought. Nothing indicates that there were any survivors.

Also, you can't find the path now.

[Bohandas]

The path simply disappears except for the specific patch of it they're standing on. They're now surrounded by forest.

[Bohandas]

*A house made of corpses

*a brook gives off steam

*trees and rocks and such are sunk into the ground at odd angles, as if someone had transmuted the ground into quicksand or some other semisolid or viscous liquid and then quickly transmuted it back before things could sink completely

*solid ground spontaneo8sly turns non-solid

EDIT:

*a river of magma

*a riber of blood

*a river of feces

*snow in summertime

*a climate-inappropriate sandstorm

*weird mirror symmetric trees with superfluous second trunks and roots growing above the branches

*the trees are clay sculptures

*the trees are standees