Illustration of a small desert tree silhouetted against the setting sun. The sun is directly behind the tree dramatically lighting up its leaves. Delicate swirls light fill the air around the tree, creating the impression of a powerful magic radiating out from it.
Safety Rating: Extremely dangerous.
Environment: Deserts, especially in desert valleys where its deep roots can find water.
Details: The Tree of Eternal Sleep protects itself from herbivores by creating a powerful zone of sleep-inducing magic around itself that goes out to six feet beyond its outermost branches. This magic is strong enough to affect any creature that moves part of its body into the zone. Creatures that don’t sleep are still affected, but instead of sleeping they go into a trance-like state that makes them unaware of their surroundings.
This sleep-inducing magic is so potent that attempts to deflect it or resist it only work temporarily. And once someone has fallen asleep within the zone, they can’t be woken until they are removed from its area of influence. If a sleeping person or animal is not rescued by being dragged out from the tree’s magic zone, they will waste away until they join the collection of bones that surrounds its base. For this reason, the Tree of Eternal Sleep is especially dangerous to lone individuals, though some trees have claimed the lives of entire groups.
The Tree of Eternal Sleep looks similar to a wild fig tree. The ring of bones that surrounds its base is the first and most obvious warning of its dangerous nature. Another way to identify the Tree of Eternal Sleep is that it continually produces both fruit and flowers. Because it needs pollinators, its fleshy red flowers produce nectar that contains a potent and long-lasting stimulant. Its fruit also contain a diluted form of this stimulant, which allows birds to eat the fruit and spread its seeds. As a result, a whole community of birds, pollinators, and other small animals use this tree as an important source of food and protection.
Lore: The fruit from the Tree of Eternal Sleep is used to create strong stimulants and, once sprouted, its seeds can be used to create potent sleep aids. While the nectar from its flowers is especially magical, they need to be picked within a minute of opening to maintain their most useful properties—properties that only last while the flowers are fresh. As a result, the fruit of the Tree of Eternal Sleep is a valuable commodity that is sold throughout Crossroads, but only locals use its nectar.
Currently, the fruit of the Tree of Eternal Sleep is harvested from wild trees. Harvesters wearing rope harnesses work in three-person teams. Small pieces of the fruit are eaten to give the harvesters a temporary immunity to its sleep-inducing magic. In addition, a least one person remains outside of the tree’s zone at all times. The rope harnesses ensure that if anything goes wrong, anyone who falls asleep can be dragged to safety.
Because of the value of its fruit, experts are working on cultivating less dangerous varieties of the Tree of Eternal Sleep, but so far progress has been slowed by the difficulty involved in cultivating it. Only a handful of experts have been able to grow full-sized trees outside of the desert. One interesting discovery that has come out of this experimental work is that the Tree of Eternal Sleep is actually carnivorous. The victims of the tree provide it with an important source of nutrients that cannot easily be replaced.
The most famous expert to work with this tree is Juniper Huckleberry. Fifty years ago, Juniper led a team that found a way to combine some of the properties of the Tree of Eternal Sleep with that of Flashing Stone Cactus to create Glowing Stone Cactus, which is the primary ingredient used to create lampstones. The “Into the Research Garden” adventure has more details about this aspect of the tree’s history.
Observing the Tree: The ring of bones around the base of a Tree of Eternal Sleep is obvious to anyone who gets close to it. This means that any character near one doesn’t need to make a dice roll isn’t needed to notice it. In addition, characters who do take time to observe the tree can roll perception to notice that the pollinators and birds that live in the tree seem to be unaffected by its sleep-inducing magic. Anyone who gets an outstanding success witnesses something helpful, like a bird eating some of the fruit.
Knowledge Rolls: If a character encounters a Tree of Eternal Sleep, they can roll Nature to identify it. Because this is a dangerous tree that many people are trained to spot, most characters will get to roll Nature to identify it even if the character is not actively trying to identify it.
- 0 Successes: A failure means that the character believes that this is an ordinary fig tree that a dangerous predator spends a lot of time under. It is important to be wary of this animal’s return.
- 1 Success: A partial success means that the character remembers that this is called the Tree of Eternal Sleep. It has sleep-inducing magic that affects anyone who goes near it.
- 2 Successes: A full success means that the character also remembers that people who fall asleep under the Tree of Eternal Sleep can’t be woken until they are moved outside of the tree’s zone. However once they are moved, they can be woken normally. In addition, they know that the tree’s magic also affects people who don’t sleep by putting them into a trance-like state that makes them unaware of their surroundings.
- 3 Successes: An outstanding success means that the character also knows that the fruit and flowers of the tree contain a stimulant that makes people immune to the tree’s magic.
Sleep-inducing: The magical zone of sleep-inducing magic created by the Tree of Eternal Sleep goes out to six feet beyond its outermost branches. Any time that a character enters the tree’s magic zone, roll their magical defense to find out how quickly the character is affected. Characters that have eaten fruit from the Tree of Eternal Sleep within the previous twenty four hours are immune to this effect.
- 0 Successes: A failure means that the character starts falling asleep right away. If they are taking an action, they fall asleep in the middle of that action. Once asleep inside the zone of the tree, they can’t be woken until they are moved out of the zone.
- 1 Success: A partial success means that the character resists the tree’s magic enough to slow it down. The character can complete one action before they fall asleep. If they move outside of the tree’s magical zone before the end of their action, then they remain awake.
- 2 Successes: A full success means that the character is able to resist the magical sleep for a few minutes. They can complete two actions before they fall asleep. If the character moves outside of the tree’s magical zone before the end of their second action, then they remain awake.
- 3 Successes: An outstanding success means that the character is able to resist the magical sleep for an unusually long amount of time. They can complete three actions before they fall asleep. If the character moves outside of the tree’s magical zone before the end of their third action, then they remain awake. Alternatively, the character can shelter one of the other members of their group from the tree’s effect. This means that the character who got the outstanding success can stay awake for two actions (as if they had gotten a full success) and the sheltered character can stay awake for one more action than they would be able to on their own.
The Tree of Eternal Sleep is part of the Crossroads Setting for the tabletop role-playing game, Magic Goes Awry. Click here to go to the list of wild and whimsical magical plants from the Land of Crossroads.
Eeeek this is delightfully creepy! I bet the tree profits a great deal from the nutrients and moisture of its victims…
Absolutely! It doesn’t seem that way at first, but it is a full on carnivorous plant.