Illustration of a small green mushroom with a pointed cap on top of a small moss-covered mound.
Safety Rating: Potentially harmless, beneficial, and dangerous.
Environment: Temperate forests.
Fairy Circles: Each fairy circle fungus produces a ring of mushrooms that has a magical effect on anyone who enters it. They are called fairy circles because a number of fairy communities are heavily involved in cultivating and breeding them. As a result, there are many different varieties of fairy circle fungus, each of which produces a mushroom with a distinctive appearance.
The Dark Green Fairy Circle is a type of fairy circle with magic that can only be fully accessed by those who have formed a magical bond to the forest. Only characters that have lived in the forest for at least one year are able to form this type of bond.
Details: This type of fairy circle is much harder to spot than most. The mushrooms are small with deep green pointed caps that blend in with the small plants of the forest floor. They make rings that are three feet wide.
This fungus is connected to the root network of their entire forest. Anyone who is inside the ring can attempt to connect to the forest and perceive all of the living things within it. This is Sensing Magic and it can be used to observe a particular location or to locate a specific plant, animal, or person within the forest. Those who have a bond to the forest gain the full benefit of this magic, while those who don’t can only gain a limited, unstable access that easily becomes overwhelming.
Lore: Many druids use Dark Green Fairy Circles to monitor their forest homes. In temperate forests, Dark Green Fairy Circles have been an especially helpful tool in the struggle to stop poachers. Efforts are currently underway to create a type of Dark Green Fairy Circle that will grow in tropical forests.
Using a Dark Green Fairy Circle: A character can use a Dark Green Fairy Circle to connect to its forest. Doing this requires that the character gets their entire body within the fairy circle. They then need to take several minutes to focus both on forming a connection to the forest and on what they want to know.
Any character that has a bond to the forest can connect to it without needing to roll. For everyone else, using the fairy circle is a mind roll. Characters that know Sensing Magic, or that have lived in this forest for at least one year, roll three dice. Characters that don’t have either of those things, but are trained in the Nature skill, roll two dice. Everyone else rolls one die.
- 0 Successes: “For one brief moment you are connected to every living thing in the forest. But it’s too much for you. Your mind pulls away and the magic collapses in upon itself and is forced backwards. Now every living thing in the forest is aware of you and knows where you are.” In addition, the character must recover for a full day before they are able to use a Dark Green Fairy Circle again.
- 1 Success: “The process of connecting to the forest is overwhelming. There are so many different living things here. You briefly form connections with many of them as you struggle to focus on your goal.” If the character is trying to locate something, they know what direction it is in. Otherwise, they gain one useful fact about the thing they are focusing on. “In the process of finding this information you felt a brief moment of connection to a being. That instant of surprise as you two noticed each other broke your connection with the fairy circle, but you know that something in the forest is now aware of your presence.” In addition, the character must recover for a full day before they are able to use a Dark Green Fairy Circle again.
- 2 Successes: A full success means that the character successfully connects to the forest and they can either examine the plants, animals, and people that are in a specific location or they can find a specific plant, animal, or person within the forest. After the character does this, they become overwhelmed and have to stop. The character must recover for a full day before they are able to use a Dark Green Fairy Circle again.
- 3 Successes: The character becomes one with the forest. They can use the fairy circle twice to examine a location or find something. Then they need to stop, but they only have to wait one hour before they can use a Dark Green Fairy Circle again.
Dark Green Fairy Circle 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.
