Plot advice please - FT MILL SC GRP DO NOT READ

[On Puget Sound]

The party is investigating a destroyed village which, it will turn out, has been eradicated by wood woads and satyrs angry at having their forest disturbed. One unusual feature is that the ruins are filled with trees...some huge, some smaller... that have sprung up from nothing, growing to full size in a matter of days or weeks.

Eventually they will either eradicate the satyrs and allies or negotiate with them; either way they may discover that a ritual was used to grow the trees, and that living victims were required for the ritual.

One other note... this takes place in a fantasy England just before the age of discovery and colonization really takes off, and the players have been granted this land as a fiefdom if they can clear it of hazards and restore wood production, specifically of ship-mast quality timber.

So I have two ideas for the tree ritual:
1) The dead bodies of the victims are used as fuel for the fast growth of the tree, with the tree size depending on body size used; the biggest trees came from horses and cattle. This would allow a negotiation with the satyrs (the ritual cannot be learned by the PCs) to make their land profitable and help fuel Britain's eventual naval ascendancy (which the players of course know happened historically, resulting, I hope, in an AHA moment).

OR
2) The victims must be helpless or willing, and alive... they are still alive in tree form, and the ritual might be reversable. In this scenario, the satyrs probably won't willingly reverse it, creating a new quest to find the cure.

Which one sounds like more fun?

 

[weem]

The party is investigating a destroyed village which, it will turn out, has been eradicated by wood woads and satyrs angry at having their forest disturbed. One unusual feature is that the ruins are filled with trees...some huge, some smaller... that have sprung up from nothing, growing to full size in a matter of days or weeks.

Eventually they will either eradicate the satyrs and allies or negotiate with them; either way they may discover that a ritual was used to grow the trees, and that living victims were required for the ritual.

One other note... this takes place in a fantasy England just before the age of discovery and colonization really takes off, and the players have been granted this land as a fiefdom if they can clear it of hazards and restore wood production, specifically of ship-mast quality timber.

So I have two ideas for the tree ritual:
1) The dead bodies of the victims are used as fuel for the fast growth of the tree, with the tree size depending on body size used; the biggest trees came from horses and cattle. This would allow a negotiation with the satyrs (the ritual cannot be learned by the PCs) to make their land profitable and help fuel Britain's eventual naval ascendancy (which the players of course know happened historically, resulting, I hope, in an AHA moment).

OR
2) The victims must be helpless or willing, and alive... they are still alive in tree form, and the ritual might be reversable. In this scenario, the satyrs probably won't willingly reverse it, creating a new quest to find the cure.

Which one sounds like more fun?

They both sound great, but I had an immediate vision for #2 and that would be a dungeon crawl below the town - maybe among the ruins a tunnel/pit is discovered - deep down there somewhere I imagine the roots coming through the roof of a large cavern with the bodies of all these living beings (humans, cattle, etc) suspended among the roots well above the PC's heads. Their bodies alive, but unconscious as their spirit(whatever) empowers the trees above to grow, etc.

Just a quick thought as I pass through, hehe.


---edit---

You know, a quick bit of inspiration *wink wink, see sig below* hehe

 

[fuzzlewump]

I like number two. Playing it to be a bit creepy, like just walking through the town of trees they feel like they're being watched, maybe even faint whispers as the wind blows through the branches of the man-trees. Maybe the trees bleed, so they're might be a couple of them that look like blood splattered on them, but really it comes from within the tree.

The cure is to chop down the tree, fashion a rough life-sized model of the original being that formed the tree, cast a Wood to Flesh ritual, which I just made up. In order to figure out the original shapes, a Commune with Nature ritual has to be cast. This solution is expensive, and time consuming, but given that the Satyrs probably took a lot of time to do it, it shouldn't be curable in one fell swoop.