So an important part of design is knowing at what times during the day you are feeling creative, and using those times to design your adventures. I'm failing miserably at that today.
I need an idea for a twist on a creepy forest for a game tonight. Not an encounter idea - more like something to make it stand out and feel fantastic and/or magical.
Anyone feeling more creative than me at the moment, or remember something that they have used in the past?
Thanks!
Edit: The group is travelling to the forst to find a "witch" that can give them some more information on an idol they found. I'd like to make the forest fantastical instead of mundane, but I'm struggling to come up with a creative way of making the forest unusual that impacts play and isn't just descriptive. All that's been established is the name - The Blackwood.
Need more context. What has been established about the place so far? I assume the players have opted into visiting it. What do they know about it? What are their circumstances?
(Trying to avoid a "Yeah, but..." situation where people offer ideas but because of established context you have to reject the idea.)
Read the topiary section in King's The Shining - where the topiary animals chase Danny.
Inspirado
- When the breeze blows, branches creak. Small branches sway in the wind and always seem to be reaching out as if to grasp you.
- Some of the trees for no evident reason (wrong season) are shedding leaves.
- Petrified forest
- Mushrooms the size of trees
- No animals AT ALL. Not even squirrels &c.
- No birdsong to be heard
- Chilly drizzle inside forest but it's dry outside of it
- "Smoky Mountains" effect. Natural and mundane fog.
- Something un-natural is causing the fog on the forested hillsides.
- Only the sounds of carnivorous animals can be heard (distant wolf howl)
Encounter:
The PCs find a clearing or cave that looks like a good campsite for the night. If they settle in, during the night they hear movement in the underbrush near the edges of the clearing. It begins on one side of the camp, then shifts around the compass until it has covered about 270* by dawn. In the morning there is nothing to be seen but animal tracks.
Solution:
The site was once used as a supply cache. The food in the cache spoiled and was found by wild animals (wolves?). From time to time they return to see if anything else tasty might be hidden here.
Bonus:
There might be some useable equipment (no money) still around somewhere nearby - deeper in the cave? - if the PCs want to look around a bit.
Thanks guys! The group is travelling to the forst to find a "witch" that can give them some more information on an idol they found. I'd like to make the forest fantastical instead of mundane, but I'm struggling to come up with a creative way of making the forest unusual that impacts play and isn't just descriptive.
All that's been established is it's name - The Blackwood.
Good witch or bad witch? When I think witches and forests, my mind goes to fairy tales which can be pretty creepy. That can be a good well to draw on for ideas. If their goal is to find the witch, then naturally we want to throw some forest-related obstacles in their way to complicate matters. Does the witch want to be found? Is she luring them into a trap? Does she have the help of the evil fey that linger in this place? Do the trees rain down pollen that has a hallucinogenic effect? Is there a magical spell in place that confounds any attempt at finding one's way unless they manage to keep their focus?
What if it's a Danger: Cursed Place from Dungeon World?
Cursed Places
- Abandoned Tower (impulse: to draw in the weak-willed)
- Unholy Ground (impulse: to spawn evil)
- Elemental Vortex (impulse: to grow, to tear apart reality)
- Dark Portal (impulse: to disgorge demons)
- Shadowland (impulse: to corrupt or consume the living)
- Place of Power (impulse: to be controlled or tamed)
GM Moves for Cursed Places
- Vomit forth a lesser monster
- Spread to an adjacent place
- Lure someone in
- Grow in intensity or depth
- Leave a lingering effect on an inhabitant or visitor
- Hide something from sight
- Offer power
- Dampen magic or increase its effects
- Confuse or obfuscate truth or direction
- Corrupt a natural law
You rock! It's funny because I'm actually preparing an adventure front for the session, but I thought I was just looking for some flavor for the forest. You just clarified that what I'm really looking for is to make it a separate danger and give it a custom move.
I've been adapting DWs front structure to my D&D prep, but sometimes I stray from it a bit in trying to adapt it to a different system. It seems like every time I do that, it loses it's ability to give you that really strong focus on what's important. It feels like a very structured method that kind of breaks down if you stray, but works great when you follow it closely. That may just be my own quirk, though. Not sure.
Thanks BRJN - some great creative sparks in your ideas!
the trees seem alive, flaying their branches and droping dried nuts very close to the players (attack any living creature near by (consider them with a -15 with disavantage to attack roll so the only way for teh tree to hit a player (or any other creature is to roll natural 20) The tree attack the nearest creatures. This will create a menecing envrionment, specially when the player see you roll dices everytime they walk by a tree in a forest full of them, bringing the sentiment of insecurity not only to the character but to the player as well. Then if a fight develop, everyone (player and NPC) are always treathen, no matter where they move they provoke AoO from the trees even when disengaging) rogue get there sneak attack every round since the target is within 5ft of a tree (an opponent).
In the rare case that a tree roll a double 20 (crit even on disavantage) then judge the damage of the trees depending ont he level of your player (something dealing around 5% of there max HP, it is a critical hit after all)
The trees bleed when cut
The player characters are followed by a murder of crows that chatter among themselves in almost understandable words
The branches of the trees scream when you try to put them on fire
It is always night in Blackforest
They find a village where all the villagers lack eyesight
The forest is a mangroove filled with blind carnivorous eels
Ansbach wrote:
Well, I would try to use the name of the place to describe it. I mean, "Black Wood" could either be due to what's in it....or some sort of description. I'd either suggest that the trees are a big dark in color. Maybe a very dark brown or even a bit grey/black. Either that....or that the trees have a lot of tree cover and it's quite dark under the trees. With that option, you can punctuate it with the fact that bits of light do occasionally make it through the leaves and this highlights the darkness. So..."...through the gloom, you see spears of light that pierce all the way to the leaves on the forest floor. Instead of helping you see, though, they tend to make the darkness seem even gloomier." Also, if the light doesn't get there, you can have mist that isn't dispelled by the sun. Throw in the fact that you can't see what's going on and you can have just ordinary squirrels freaking the players out.
"As you get near the forst, you can start to see the trees that begin to become more numerous. Their bark is thick and gnarled, but also a dark, husky color. As you make your way past the treeline, you have a hard time seeing through the gloom. Shafts of light pierce the dense canopy, but these bits of sunshine seem out of place and almost make the darkness deeper. The further you go into the woods and you begin to see a mist cover the ground. It seems normal and you detect nothing unusal about it, but you find yourself stumbling more as it is difficult to see where you are walking. Just out of sight, you hear things rustling in leaves, but you see no animals. Are you being followed? Or merely paranoid?"
Some of the tress could contain the imprisoned spirits of those who've offended the witch. The features of those trees would have vague faces on them, with the faces frozen in horror or sadness.
Some trees could be alive and feed on the living. Whenever a bird or a squirrel lands upon its branches, the tree cruches the creature to death and squeezes the blood out of it. Those trees could even have a smattering of dead creatures on the ground around its trunk.
The trees are slowly dying. They give off the odor of rotting leaves, and their bark flakes off with ease. Any injury to the trees causes an oil-like goo to bead up in the "wound." This goo smells like a rotting corpse. It is poisonous if consumed, the "witch" probably uses it to make poisons and other nefarious concoctions, and touching the goo with bare skin causes the affected area to wither into feebleness (imagine a less extreme version of Dumbledore's hand from the Half-Blood Prince).
As they are under the tree canopy it's dark and they see eyes and only eyes watching them. If they go to investigate they can't find the eyes but there are more eyes watching them. Eyes and more eyes. To me this would be incredibly creepy, especially if you can't find the source of the eyes.
I'm also thinking of whoever has Darkvision would see just floating gray eyes in the distance. Probably not a great idea but could be implemented in a few different ways.
Just off the top of my head
The branches of the trees clatter in the wind like old, dry bones while black squirrels with glowing red eyes chitter from the darkness following your every move. As you move further into the forest you see that most trees have one or more bulges in their trunks that look like someone or something is trying to claw it's way out.
As you go down the path, the air becomes stilted and suffocating. Little light reaches you through the dense foliage. The only sound is the wind far overhead, but it makes a sound howling through the trees like the cries of the damned. You look behind you and the path you have been following has disappeared leaving only the path ahead leading into the darkness.
For anyone who is curious about a link for the list Iserith posted, you can find all of the different lists here:
http://book.dwgazetteer.com/fronts.html
Yoda-style: The PCs encounter the witch near the entrance to the forest, but she's disguised: a lost child (obvious), a wounded lumberjack, an injured animal, a single beautiful flower amidst the decaying trees, etc. If you cross the gender the PCs will be much less likely to guess.
Or perhaps the stranger they encounter is on his way to kill the witch. The witch won't reveal herself while the PCs are in the company of the stranger... or she'll demand that the PCs kill the stranger for her.
Potential features of the forest:
- Every tree is identical
- Trees move out of the PCs' way when they move the direction the witch desires, but block movement in any other direction without appearing to move
- There's a path through the forest, and s sign that says not to stray from it. What happens if they do?
- Fires cannot be lit, and/or magic light does not work
- Darkvision doesn't work
- Distraction: during combat in the forest, players must make a DC 10 Wis save every round or miss their action due to distraction
Holy crap - I go do some actual work for a while and come back to 10 adventures' worth of ideas. You guys are awesome! I'm writing these up in a doc for future use.
I don't know if this will help but, I have a creepy forest planned for this weekend or the next session. I'm using a creature that is sort a cloaker with a few traits similar to a intellect devourer. They are an infestation from the far realm (or whatever it is called now). Instead of eating its victim it leeches onto them and mind controls the creature as long as they stay in contact. It is an abberent creature that can control the living or the dead. controlled creatures appear to be wearing pitch black ragged cloaks that when they attack the buttons clasps open up to reveal a second set of glowing eyes. When they are cluster in the dark it gives the impression of many evil looking eyes peering out of the darkness.