Terraforming a "barrens"

[Herobizkit]

How big is the barrens in term of surface area? How close is the town to the edge? A lake, by definition, has an outflowing stream or river- where would this go and how would it affect the area downstream?

I don't rightly know the overall surface area, but it is the setting of a 1-20th level uber-campaign. There is only one "civilized" town [though there is a second one that may not exist in the future] with roughly 800 persons of mixed races, mostly human. There are also scads of other tribes numbering each in the low hundreds as well, plus the Goblins and Orcs and [maybe] Gnolls.

There is a naturally occurring [and at present, haunted] lake that is connected to a mountain; the mountain is the focal point of the campaign. There is also one river that is shown on the campaign map, though it is in a remote area. The player mentioned the possibility of developing his envisioned grove around said lake.

And for the marsh, cattails produce up to 30 tons of edible roots per acre. Of course harvesting them would be difficult, but the results can be fantastic, esp when mixed with fish farming.

Also a great idea!

 

[Herobizkit]

Why don't you build an Alter as the center of a ritual spell. The ritual spell will corrupt\convert the land to a forest fit for drow. Perhaps corrupt\sacrifice a treant or two as permanent guardians of the space. Spiderify a few satyrs and maybe import a few spider eye goblins.

Not a bad idea. The player has already considered terraforming an island in his proposed lake and having his own private altar upon it. The character is a GOOD Drow, and definitely does NOT want to Drow-ify her sacred space.

 

[Sigurd]

Good Drow has a tactically easier but perhaps personally more difficult option.


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Find some allies and prove their sincerity by including them early. If they are good Drow they are going to want to be seen in their good works to gain trust.

 

[sinecure]

Her PC should recognize the ground won't sustain life with only water. Especially old trees 60 feet tall. They will fall over dead before the year is out.

I'd let her try and puzzle it out only pointing out what should be obvious to her character. One solution is Rock to Mud, but that is permanent not instantaneous. It's a dispel magic away from a bad day. Summoning earth elementals would be really cool. Planar binding might work. Or if she could travel to the elemental plane of earth and barter her case there. Or talk to another druid for advice (meaning you give her your own advice from the pov of the NPC)

Is this like a fighter building a castle? It sounds like she wants to stick around if she is building a grove over a year. Is she going to transplant animals too? Birds work for the short-term, but 365 trees do not sustain much life. grass and bushes are needed too. And bugs.

I'd ask her what she is trying to accomplish here and point out only the hurdles her character would know for being her class. It does seem a little strange. Does she plan on changing the weather that has allowed the region to become what it is?

 

[Slife]

Summoning some Djinni for 20 cubic feet of vegetable matter apiece would be a decent way to get some compost for topsoil. A thickness of 5 cm is generally sufficient for establishing vegetable cover, so you get about 120 square feet of topsoil per casting.

The other spell-like abilities grant 40 gallons of wine and sixty meals worth of food. The sixty meals (make them 100% celery, which means you have a 14250 grams per 2000 Calorie meal, so forty pounds for a 2500 calorie meal*) will compost at an accelerated rate, and should become about a ton of decent mulch after about 48 hours (because of the accelerated decay which makes it inedible after 24).


*Yes, this could be seen as a bit of an abusive interpretation.

 

[DMH]

She could also research a spell that allows branches to be turned into saplings. A 60' oak should be able to give up 5-10 branches without dying and it would be a way to get a quick, though monoculture, understory.

 

[Pathanus]

Another source of plants/seeds/etc would be (Nolzur's) Marvelous Pigments. As long as its drawn you could get saplings/flowers of any non-valuable plant species. Then plant them and let them spread around themselves.

I'd imagine something like 1000 cu. ft. of fern spores deployed properly could cover a lot of area.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#marvelousPigments