Weirdening Weald Personality

### The Weald's Attitude

The Weald’s starting attitude is indifferent toward those born in the Weald and unfriendly otherwise. It is easier to fall from the Weald’s good graces than to rise in them. The following are examples of conditions that lower the Weald’s attitude toward you by one notch. The Weirdening Weald never forgets these conditions. If a condition is met more than once, its effect does not stack.

* You have instigated a forest fire in the Weald.
* You have a living or dead blood relative toward whom the weald has a worse attitude.

The following are examples of conditions that raise the Weald’s attitude one notch. The Weald’s attitude never rises above friendly. If the condition changes, you lose the corresponding attitude rise.

* You are actively pursuing the druid class. (It was the last level you took)
* You feed the Weald with spell energy daily.
* You are of the animal, fey, or plant type.

### Personality

The Weald’s personality, will, and mindset are ancient, bordering on alien. It enjoys perceptions and powers beyond understanding—and often beyond the notice—of those who dare to enter its bounds. It nourishes itself. It defends itself. And it remembers those who have challenged it in the past. It is in many ways like any other creature, with the notable exception that it is the size of a small country. The Weald employs subtle but effective tactics to expel or kill interlopers. To a virtually timeless forest like the Weirdening Weald, these actions occur with rapid response times. To a target creature with a lifespan of only 1 or 2 centuries, however, the Weald’s actions seem patient and calculating.

### Senses

The Weald feels. Keenly. It enjoys forest-wide tremorsense, keen enough to pinpoint the location of any creature and identify it by species. Some say the forest recognizes individuals by their unique footfalls, but this rumor is inaccurate; it spawns from the accurate observation that deep woods inhabitants sometimes “step” like other creatures to disguise their species from the ever vigilant trees. Inhabitants worry that the forest “feels” their voices, so secrets are often spoken in whispers while rapping loudly on a tree. The Weald can indeed recognize individuals: not by their footfalls but by the blood they spill. The first time an individual bleeds upon the forest floor, the Weald knows him or her. It tracks individuals with tremorsense and catalogues their acts under the signature of blood until they leave the forest. When an individual re-enters and bleeds again, the forest “remembers” the blood and connects current activity to the catalogues of the past. Often the Weald connects newcomers to blood-relatives who spilled their blood in the past, perhaps many generations or even centuries before if the bloodline runs pure. Newcomers whose ancestors held strong positive relationships with the forest may feel welcomed by the woods, if only in some small, mysterious way. Those whose ancestors performed dark deeds in the Weald’s borders feel a great threatening presence all around them. In many ways, the rumor that the Weald punishes men for the sins of their fathers is correct. The Weald’s recognition of creatures by their blood may be why so many thorns grow along its outskirts. And it may be one reason why the weald abhors bloodless constructs and exsanguinated undead.

### Memory

What the Weald consumes, it remembers. In addition to recognizing and remembering creatures by the blood they spill, the Weald absorbs many of the memories and much of the knowledge of those who expire beneath its canopy. To something as old and alien as the Weald, this knowledge is rarely valuable on an individual level, but it helps to classify the attitude and refine the archetype of the individual’s species. Some say that the Weald is ravenous for blood and knowledge. Dig up a creature newly buried in its soil, and become a believer. Roots thick and thin snake through every vein in its body. Someone just 2 days in the ground must be chopped from the very trees in order to be removed.

### Attitude

The forest dreams of ancient times, of the behaviors of long-dead creatures and pre-civilized forest dwellers, just as people dream of idealized crops, forests, or orchards. What the fledgling races of men and elves call progress, the Weald considers pale shadows, intolerable deviations into the madness of civilization, and corruptions of the green and ancient state of life. As a consequence, the Weald considers correct those behaviors of old, and incorrect behaviors must be pruned like limb and blossom. Interlopers who exhibit incorrect behavior take their lives in their hands when they step into the woods. Like any NPC, the Weirdening Weald has an attitude toward each inhabitant and interloper based on the forest’s memories of their actions and their adherence to the Old Ways. Newcomers to the Weald inherit the attitude of their closest bloodrelative, perhaps a distant forebear, who bled on the forest floor.

### Movement

Like all intelligent creatures, the Weald has learned that the element of surprise provides a great tactical advantage. The forest tends to act when creatures are not looking. Since the forest cannot see, it uses its keen tremorsense to determine when target creatures are still and their heartbeats slow. This typically occurs when creatures are sleeping, but it is not uncommon for a relaxed (or drunken) person on watch to hear or notice movement while sitting quietly at a campfire. The Weald may move paths, add forks, or redirect game trails at will. Explorers who wake in the weald may feel disoriented, as if their camp rotated during the night. Trails that should lead deeper, now lead home. Landmarks cannot be trusted. The best advice comes from a handful of successful trappers and furriers. “Don’t make any appointments,” they say, “A path may take 3 days or it may take a fortnight. It just depends.” Superstitious parties pass by large ancient trees on the same side, lest they risk separation. Folk say that night comes early to the Weirdening Weald. This is true not only because of the forest’s canopy but because the Weald can thicken (or thin) it at will. During the day, the Weald filters the sun’s rays, blocking most before they reach the forest floor and creating an acre of dim light centered on targets whose species suffer in such conditions. Vampires and undead travelers experience the opposite effect, as the canopy opens above them and subjects them to the full glare of the sun. During the night, the Weald typically hides the moon and stars, making navigation by celestial bodies impossible and the prospect of getting lost dangerously likely. The exception is for lycanthropes, whose wildness the Weald favors and for whom the Weald never withholds the moon. One of the Welad’s most insidious defenses is to starve interlopers. It moves its roots to redirect streams underground and withhold fresh water. It shakes its branches to spook game and withhold fresh food. An old Weirdening saying, “Deer and rabbits dance around the starving man,” has been depicted in wood whittled by emaciated men and found near their bones.

### Voice

In addition to the challenges of disorientation and starvation, an interloper must come to grips with the forest’s haunting sounds and voices. The Weirdening Weald possesses the power to listen to vibrations and repeat them anywhere within its borders. It does not understand languages or the meaning of sounds to those who hear them, but it often experiments with the repetition of sounds, and it has catalogued the reactions species have to them. The Weald may repeat the roar of a mountain lion or the wail of a banshee to scare interlopers into perilous terrain or the domain of a territorial creature. The forest cannot reproduce convincing sounds from memory, so it replays them live. In the Heart of the Forest, the Weald squeezes the “Briarbound Maiden” whenever it needs to throw her sympathetic screams as a lure. And it has learned that whispered conversations or the branch-whipping sounds of a storm 400 miles away have a disconcerting effect on creatures standing alone amidst still branches. These strange, disconnected sounds have prompted many rumors amongst neighboring folk. Some falsely believe that the Weald has the power to teleport creatures within its borders. They say this explains why dreadful creatures can be anywhere (can’t you hear one now?!) and why people get lost inside. Most folk simply believe that the Weald is haunted. It is, but forest crones know that these carried echoes are not true evidence. In fact, some listen to the leaves to gather imprecise information about distant areas of the woods. The Weald also mutters to itself in a language of rustling leaves and clattering twigs. Commune with nature or comprehend languages can tap into one of a hundred, alien, forest “conversations” with itself. Few have the patience to tune into a contextless fragment that may take the Weald a month to utter completely.