Rather long. My apologies.
Mushrooms
Dryad
Hand carved pipe
Underground lake
a conflict of interest (Murielle's prejudice vs best path as a druid)
Awakened dove - with levels of Ranger
Murielle's War (level 10+)
This adventure is primarily designed for a good-aligned or balance-aligned party with some investigative tendencies. However, a pure hack-n-slay group can use this as a pleasant diversion, or as a way to set up Murielle as a future ally.
Summary: Murielle hates fire giants, and plans to kill a tribe that just moved into some prime river real estate. The fire giants just want to be friends, and have prepared a lovely gift for to appease Murielle. The PCs get to either somehow make all of this work, or choose sides.
Locale Basics
This can be set along any river that has a sizable stretch of canyon, and near fire giant-inhabited mountains.
The canyon in this region ranges from 80 to 150 feet high, and consists of a lot of limestone-cemented granite. Natural erosion of the limestone has created the canyon, and copious caverns of varying depth and size, as well as insured that the river and surrounding area are densely populated with granite boulders, sharp edges, and other whitewater dangers. A number of scrawny, tough trees dot the river edges, growing out of cracked rocks and eking sustenance from the land.
Along the canyons, there is a particular set of caves which penetrate deep into the canyon walls. The outermost cave is about 18 inches in height, a few feet wide, and less than a foot from the ground where it is hidden by an overhanging lip of stone. But that tiny entrance extends nearly a dozen feet into the wall before opening up into a small series of beautiful, living caverns. The last important cavern in that series, however, is not small - it is nearly a hundred and sixty feet across, with a ceiling dome nearly fifty feet high. A few smaller caves branch off the ceiling, and all but one ultimately dead end (the exception leads to the surface, but is very small).
But most importantly, a year ago, Murielle moved in.
Murielle
A 13th level dryad druid waging a brutal, solitary war against a tribe of fire giants who desire the region for its multitude of tactical advantages. Murielle is not particularly attached to the region itself, nor would she normally deny anyone a place in the world where they can be safe. The problem is that she hates fire giants, believing that they will almost certainly poison the river downstream with their burning sulfur, iron smithing runoff, and unsanitary waste handling. And downstream lies a fairly sizable stretch of delicate forest that Murielle happens to like the way it is.
Murielle moved here, and has moved other places, via a combination of liveoak and windwalk cast on her tree. She has set her tree up in the lake cavern where it would be reasonably safe from the fire giants. The cavern has been hallowed by Murielle, with the spell effect daylight filling the entire area. Murielle's tree is currently rooted into a small limestone bed in the middle of the lake.
Murielle is sometimes known as the 'wandering dryad', and can easily be introduced elsewhere in your campaign prior to this one to give them a personal hook into this scenario later on.
Cleave the Dove: Actually, Murielle's war is not as solitary as it seems. Cleave is a dove Awakened by her magics several years ago, and has remained her constant companion since, and is now an 8th level dove ranger (45 hp, feats are alertness, dodge, mobility, skills are heavily focused on tracking, stealth and spying). Cleave has been assisting Murielle by keeping her appraised of the fire giants' activities.
Fire Giants
The fire giants are a rather small tribe of 14, with a 6th level adept, but no hell hounds, trolls, ettins or young red dragons. They are a rather unusual troupe in many ways, however, and that is hardly the oddest aspect.
A few years ago, Hrosh (the tribe's primary adept) got a bit hungry and ate a handful of mushrooms that happened to be within armshot. The visions only lasted for a few minutes, but seemed to last longer, and Hrosh took them far more seriously than perhaps they merited. After a year of deliberation (and more consumption for clarification), he came to the conclusion that the spirits were telling him that the tribe needed to change their ways.
To help him persuade the others, he began cultivating the mushrooms, mixing them into a powder, and punctuating his speeches on the matter by throwing the powder into the tribal fire.
Not everyone was persuaded (and the powder had no effect at all on the non-fire giants), so Hrosh and the other believers left in the night to pursue the religious vision. The vision is essentially a "return to nature" kind of thing, although they're rather ignorant of exactly how nature works or how to return to it. The result has been a kind of weird mix of pseudo-naturey pap and near-worship of nature spirits... including the dryad they've seen in the area.
The strongest tenets thus far (and they'll add more when they think of them) are "Don't harm any trees", "The dirt kissing ceremony" (performed every dawn and dusk), and "Have Hrosh bless any fires you build before you build it". Since they're building as many fires as fallen deadwood can support, Hrosh will be pretty busy, at least until the nearest ten miles of land runs out of deadwood.
They're still very new to this mushroom-inspired religious stuff, but they'll try very hard to be as respectful as possible to anything naturey.
A One Sided War
Murielle started the hostilities by simply attempting to get the fire giants to move, by making the region hostile to them. Entangling plants, small rockslides, flooding their fires... Hrosh has declared this a time of testing, and the tribe has hunkered down, thanked Nature for her faith in their abilities, hiked downstream to regather soaked wood, and otherwise not budged.
Murielle has recently begun staying close to them (or sending Cleave), and planning how best to attack and kill them. The fire giants, seeing the dryad, have realised that there is a major mojo forest spirit in the area, and Hrosh has come to the conclusion that The Test is a suitable gift or sacrifice for the spirit. He doesn't really want to sacrifice one of his tribe, because they're rather small, so he ate a near-lethal dose of mushrooms and spent all night caterwauling near one of the camp's trees and begging for guidance.
This morning, he got it. As Murielle prepares for war, the fire giants are spending the day carving a massive set of pipes from the cliff side. Really, it's shaping up to be quite lovely.
Enter the PCs
Hook #1: The PCs are wandering through this patch of the wilderness, and stumble across the fire giants. This will work best if there is a druid or ranger in the group, which Hrosh will naturally gravitate toward. Regardless, the fire giants will be friendly, and Hrosh will approach the PCs for help. The main help he wants is for them to look at the pipes and give their honest appraisal. The pipes are polished granite, weigh about a hundred pounds, and are modelled after a seven-reed pan pipe. Hrosh will generally be friendly and open, mentioning that it's a gift for the "mushroom spirit". Since they're here, and the wilderness has gotten rather dangerous recently, he'll also ask them if they would be willing to help escort him downriver to make the gift.
Note: If the PCs attack the fire giants, the giants will fight initially, but will flee when the PCs hack down the first one fairly methodically. They're not prepared to fight, really, they just want to live in harmony with nature. Two of them will grab and carry the pipes. Offshooting from this, you can move to Hook #2.
Hook #2: The PCs are wandering through this patch of the wilderness, and stumble across Murielle. Or, alternately, she approaches them after they chase off the fire giants in Hook #1. Regardless, she's a beautiful dryad, and she asks for their help in getting rid of the fire giant problem. If they agree, she'll bring them into her cavern for war planning. She'll give the party a fairly extensive layout of the tribes' composition and capabilities, and offer any assistance she can. If they refuse, she'll send them on their way, and you can go back to Hook #1... except that Hrosh, convinced that the PCs are the key (or possibly having spied them with the dryad from a distance), will approach them (from a safe distance) and beg (with tears, if needed) them to help his tribe give their gift to the dryad.
Hook #3: The druids have become concerned about some reports coming from Murielle in the field, recently, and suspect that she may be omitting or ignoring aspects of the balance. Primarily, her seething hatred of the fire giants has shown through in her writing, a solid indication that she may be losing her balanced vision. They hire the PCs to investigate the situation, cautioning them not to act until they have determined (a) why Murielle wants troops to kill off an entire tribe of otherwise peaceful fire giants, and (b) why the fire giants are in this particular area.
Hook #4: By default, Cleave is complicit with Murielle. He practically worships her feet, and is willing to kill whatever she wants killed. In this hook, however, he has overheard what the fire giants want, and is afraid she'll do something she'll regret for years later. So Cleave approaches the PCs, and simply asks them to talk to the fire giants, and then help him restrain Murielle from killing them all.
Hook #5: The party stumbles across the war in progress. On the one hand is a lone dryad calling all of nature down on the heads of fire giants. On the other hand are ten or so fire giants, cowering and kissing the ground and making absurd lamentations for a merciful nature goddess.
The hooks are set up so that up to three parties can separately ask the PCs for help, from one angle or another.
Proceedings
Regardless of how the PCs get involved, the obvious "win" is to negotiate a truce between Murielle and the fire giants. With guidance, the fire giants can be taught how to respect nature, and will happily do so. They'll also quite happily share their mushrooms, but that's not necessarily the best idea. In order for this to be achieved, it is quite likely that Murielle will have to be physically restrained (or knocked out) before she can be talked down - her prejudices against fire giant poisons and dirty ways are simply too strong otherwise.
A less obvious win is to help the fire giants simply find a different spot to live in, or persuade a druid with some authority to send Murielle elsewhere. Both of these may take more legwork, either to find another spot or to find a druid with enough authority.
Killing the fire giants off isn't a perfect solution, but it will earn Murielle's gratitude. If you want to point out what was really going on, Hrosh may keep a simple diary, or you could have the gift-giving spelled out in Common on the pipe sculpture.
Killing Murielle will result in at least three enemies: Cleave (if he isn't dead as well), the druids, and the fire giants.
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