Weirdening Weald

*“The hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark, narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. …The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there… The place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night.”* —H.P. Lovecraft

The Weirdening Weald is an ancient place, already old when most of the gods were young. In time immemorial, it cradled the great spirits of nature, and its loam felt the footfalls of the old ones. As millennia passed, its roots swallowed rivers, its canopy stole the sun from vast tracts of land, and its groves crested mountains that have since weathered to hills. In all that time, the Weald has changed little. Time seems to transpire around it, lapping at its edges like the sea around an island. Though kingdoms rise and fall beyond its borders, the Weald remains a world apart—a place where memories and old magic linger in the rings of trees and where new ideas never quite take root.

#### Mood and Mystery

Very little is known about the Weald’s interior. There is simply something wrong with the place, something that unsettles the nerves, plays upon fears, and discourages exploration. Too many stories of danger exit the wood and too many travelers do not. The few pathfinders who dare the Wealds’s deep trails return with strange scars, stranger stories, and too few prizes to warrant either.

From the outside, the Weirdening Weald looks like any venerable forest. In some places, dark, tangled, and foreboding. In other places, sun dappled and open, like an evergreen palace of towering tree pillars, ivy carpet, and wind-rustled canopy. But there is something more to it. Something hiding behind the wind and the leaves and the trees. Something living and vigilant. A presence that none who stand dwarfed amongst the trees can deny.
The Weirding Weald is a numinous place. It evokes feelings that sages deconstruct into three terms.

\*Mysterium tremendum\* unsettles the nerves of interlopers, evoking fear and trembling, especially in first time visitors.

\*Mysterium fascinans\* conjures awe and intimidation as the interloper delves deeper. And nearest the Heart of the Forest.

\*Mysterium deus\* evokes an unsettling feeling of being in proximity to a supernatural or divine “other.”

Most describe this faceless “other” as a dark, sinister presence, but perhaps, they are simply not in touch with the natural order of this ancient place. Deep-woods druids and Shapards cast the Weirdening Weald in a brighter, if not wilder, light, describing the supernatural presence as beautiful, terrible, and bestial. They talk of “Weald” as if it were a living creature with a personality and will of its own. Men of the cloth reject the idea that the forest is alive but acknowledge that some Great Presence lives therein. Worshippers of Pug, Daerith Ri claim to hear the whispers of a withdrawn aspect of their Green Gods. Others sense older gods, inimical to man and dwarf, brooding in the forest’s vastness and waiting for the age of man to pass. Perhaps they are all right.

### Power of the Weald

*The Weirdening Weald has lair actions;*

* **Animate Plants** (Sp) At will; forestwide. As the spell, except the target must be a Weald-born plant and the effect ends if the target leaves the forest. Typically used to redirect or remove paths, add forks, thicken or thin canopy, move branches, and channel or relocate water by moving roots.
* **Aura of Rust** (Ex) Once a day; forestwide. Non-magical ferrous metal objects take 1 damage/day; this ability ignores hardness. Objects gain the broken condition once losing half their hp. Mending and make whole effectively repair rusted objects. Bottles of deer tallow, linseed oil, and other special oils prevent rusting. Each bottle costs 5 sp and holds 5 applications. Each application treats an item no bigger than a weapon or shield for 1 day. Armor requires 2 applications. Ferrous creatures take 2d6 rusting damage/week.
* **Aura of Wildness** (Ex) Constant; forestwide. Domesticated creatures must save 1/day or become untamed as the snap the leash Weald spell. Individuals with the wild shape class feature make a Constitution check  DC 14 to change to humanoid form.
* **Awaken** (Sp) 1/day/square mile. As the spell, except the target must be a Weald-born plant or animal, and the target serves the forest indefinitely.
* **Charm Monster** (Sp) Three times per day; forestwide. As the spell, except the target must be a Weald-born plant or animal—including familiars and vermin—and the charmed target understands the forest’s desire.
* **Ghost Sound** (Ex) At will; forestwide. As the spell, except that the sound is real and not illusory. The sound may include speech, and the sound must be a sound currently being produced somewhere else in the forest.
* **Siphon Magic** (Ex) Constant; forest wide.
* **Warp Wood** (Sp) Three times per day; forestwide. As the spell, except the target wood must be dead, and the ability includes rotting wood and rejuvenating rotted wood.
* **Memory** The Weald remembers individuals and catalogues their deeds. It can connect individuals to the deeds of bloodrelatives and millennia-old ancestors.
* **Absorb Knowledge** (Sp) Constant; forestwide. The Weald absorbs and remembers the knowledge possessed by those who die on the forest floor. Treat the Weald’s knowledge of a particular fact as if it had cast speak with dead on the corpse and the corpse received the normal speak with dead Will save.
* **Senses** Using bloodsense and tremorsense, the Weald tracks individuals until they leave the forest. When an individual returns, the Weald must recognize it again by its blood. Until then, the forest knows only its species.
* **Bloodsense** (Ex) Constant; forestwide. TheWeald can identify individuals by their blood, when spilled.
* **Tremorsense** (Ex) Constant; forestwide. In addition to the normal functions of tremorsense, the Weald can also identify an individual’s species.
* **Siphoning Magic**: Sun, rain, and soil provide the basics for any forest to thrive. The Weald takes more. It siphons magic from every spell cast within its borders. This siphoning effect evidences itself in small ways, depending on the spell. For example, when the Weald feeds upon a fraction of the magic of a cure light wounds spell, the grass around the wounded becomes lush and vibrant. Such “spell marks” last for days and, to those who have learned to read them, reveal a great deal about the nature and power of spells cast and the events that may have transpired. The Weald desires casters to cast more spells so that it can siphon more spell energy. Ironically, the siphoning encourages them to do so because that first cure light wounds or ice storm was not as effective as usual, and the caster may be obliged to repeat the casting or cast something else. Once a spell is cast, the Weald recognizes that the caster “has food” and capitalizes on the opportunity to extract more spells to siphon. By manipulating trails and carrying sounds, the Weald may route dangerous creatures toward spellcasters in the hopes that more siphonable magic arises as the caster defends, attacks, and heals.
* **Other**; The Weald’s relatively few permanent inhabitants provide a base amount of magic for the it to feed upon. The magic is woven into daily rituals, blessings, curses, sacrifices, and children’s rhymes. These cantrip level spells hold little magic, but they are an integral part of every inhabitant’s daily life, repeated at meals, before and after rest, and during many common tasks. The magic is so slight and provided so regularly that the Weald does not send challenge creatures against inhabitants in order to prompt more magic to siphon. In fact, the forest protects inhabitants precisely because they feed it habitually. The Weald feeds upon their magic like a whale on krill.

#### The Old Ways

To outsiders, a Weirdening resident's life is a mysterious one, filled with strange sayings, regimented rituals, and daily traditions that seem superstitious and backward. If a person wants to live in the Weald or even wander it safely, he or she must learn how to feed the forest with rhyme and ritual. Only this is not how the inhabitants know it. Their rhymes and rituals are merely “the Old Ways,” passed down from generation to generation. To Wealdeners, the Old Ways have spiritual connotations, habitually observed and rarely shared with outsiders. PCs who endeavor to learn the Old Ways quickly find themselves participating in the mood and traditions of the forest. Inhabitants uphold countless superstitions and traditions, representative of the Old Ways. Many vary wildly from place to place, but here are just a few with forestwide adherents:

* Wealders open the eyes of their dead, lest the deceased wander lost and angry through the wood, unable to find their way to the afterlife.

* Sinners confess their transgressions by cutting themselves and dripping their blood upon the thirsty forest floor. Evil men heal themselves before a single drop falls.

* A bloodless man cannot pass to the afterlife. Consequently, the dead are never buried, lest the roots exsanguinate them before the souls can reach the heavens.

* One of the greatest punishments is to be buried—dead or alive. Revenants of the buried haunt the Weald. Every dawn, they return to their graves, and the root wicker cage that was once their circulatory system.

* Any man-made structure built without sacrificing blood to the forest shakes itself down upon its owner.

* In a year’s time, treants grow from those dead who have commended themselves to the forest with sap, seed, and ritual.
* There are places in the forest that give or take youth, but only the unborn and the dead can find them.

* Wealders extinguish torches before midnight. This is related to a far older tradition: Wealders do not permit white moths to gather, lest a mora (witch) hide in their number.

* If you count butterflies one less than your group’s number, one of you will die.

* An evil creature is born every time a “civilized” man enters the woods.

* Weald beasts must never leave the forest as tamed companions of outsiders, lest the beasts become infatuated with “civilization” and become half-men, abominations that outsiders call lycanthropes.

* If you nail the skin or hair of a sick person to a tree, the tree will absorb part of the disease and lend its strength to healing the illness.

* Ancestors store wisdom in the trees, but only descendents of their bloodline can tap it by clawing into the tree ring present in the ancestor’s day.

* Every year, Wealder kin, friends, and lovers celebrate the upcoming spring by giving each other blood-dyed pieces of thread. Each wears it until a tree signifying their relationship blossoms, whereupon the bearer drapes the thread upon the blossoming branch. It is an ill omen if the tree never flowers. Terrible feuds have blossomed from trees that do not.

* Every plant has a theme, a power, and a purpose. Flowers tend to be the beguilers, and that is perhaps why outsiders are so fond of them. True power lies in leaf, stem, and root.

* Salt is incapable of holding magic, and makes an excellent ward against magical creatures, enchantments, and curses. Wealders who hear rumors of salt-encrusted springs are like gold-diggers hearing of a new vein.

### Feed the Forest Ritual

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