The group enters the Wild Wood and encounters some of its dangers at Briar Creek (will-o’-wisps, razor briar, and vampire vine) on the way to the owlbear den site. If the player characters have agreed to collect plants for Bristle, this is where they will get them.
Supplemental Information: The following information is useful for running this stage of the adventure. The map and tokens are optional, but the creature and plant descriptions are necessary.
- Briar Creek Encounter Map (36 by 29 squares)
- Will-o’-Wisp Tokens: Red, Green, Blue
- Will-o’-Wisp Creature Description
- Razor Briar Plant Description
- Vampire Vine Plant Description
Reading the Briar Creek Map
- Briar Creek: The blue, stony line running vertically down the center of the map is Briar Creek.
- Elevation Lines: The curving gray-brown, stony lines indicate elevation. The darker side indicates higher elevation and the paler side indicates lower elevation.
- The Briar Creek Ravine: The dark brown area directly around Briar Creek where the elevation lines are close together marks a small ravine. This entire area has Vampire Vines in it.
- Standing Trees: All standing trees are shown top down and partially transparent. Their branches are shown as bushy, pale-green ovals centered around brown and black spiral trunks.
- Downed Trees: The moss covered logs of many downed tress are scattered throughout both maps. In this map there is one living downed tree that bridges the creek. Some of its roots are in the ground and some are in the air.
- Razor Briar: This dangerous plant is marked by dark red (almost black) looping squiggles.
- Willow Thickets: The pale-green, bushy areas in the creek are willow thickets. Because they have many small trunks, rather than one large trunk, no trunks are shown for the willow thickets.
Using the Map on a Virtual Tabletop: The above map and tokens are designed to be used on virtual tabletops, like roll20. If you choose to do this, keep in mind that action scene rounds are anywhere between thirty and ninety seconds, depending on what the characters are doing. As a general rule, each round a character can move a number of squares equal to three times their body number.
- Body #3: They can move up to 9 squares.
- Body #4: They can move up to 12 squares.
- Body #5: They can move up to 15 squares.
Navigating the Wild Wood
Description of the Wild Wood: “Tall, dark-green conifers tower above a carpet of brown, decomposing leaves. Below these giants, the branches of deciduous trees and bushes are bare. Only a few have tight, yellow-green buds that are beginning to sprout. The forest is open and lush in a subdued way, with vibrant-green moss and ferns growing on every branch, log, and stone. Inside the forest, the air is cool and damp, carrying the earthy smell of slow decay and healthy soil.”
Group Roll: The player characters have a map of the Wild Wood with a precise route marked on it, but following this route isn’t trivial. The map is two-dimensional, only so big, and smaller obstacles, like downed trees, aren’t marked on it. In addition, the towering trees of the forest make it hard to spot landmarks. Following this route precisely enough to avoid hazards is a group roll at the standard difficulty. The success thresholds are:
- A Partial Success is at least 1 × the number of player characters.
- A Full Success is at least 2 × the number of player characters.
- An Outstanding Success is at least 3 × the number of player characters.
Roll Results: Use the individual rolls as a basis for narrating the group roll results, taking advantage of relevant character vulnerabilities, like Cold Sensitivity or Easily Fatigued Body, to make consequences for failures and partial successes. If there aren’t any appropriate vulnerabilities, then give one of the characters a Moderate Injury.
- Description of the Challenge: “As soon as your route takes you off the main path, you discover what a lie the apparent openness of this forest is. The forest floor is covered in a latticework of branches, logs, and stones, all partially-hidden under the mat of decaying leaves. And, while it may be easy to see through the leafless bushes, moving through them is anything but easy.”
- Failure: The characters get lost. The process of getting lost is arduous and activates all relevant vulnerabilities the characters have, ideally one vulnerability per character. At the end of that, the characters stumble into the encounter with the will-o’-wisps. Once that encounter is over, the characters will need to get creative with their skills and abilities to get un-lost and find the owlbear den.
- Partial Success: Something minor goes wrong. The characters wander off the designated path enough that their journey is more difficult than it needs to be and it activates a relevant vulnerability in one of the characters. When they are getting close to the owlbear den, they encounter the will-o’-wisps.
- Full Success: The journey goes smoothly and is as easy as possible. The characters can’t avoid encountering the will-o’-wisps, but they are at full strength when they do.
- Outstanding Success: The journey goes so well that they get a special bonus, like being able to spot the will-o’-wisps at a distance.
Will-o’-wisp Encounter at Briar Creek
Plants for Bristle: Briar Creek has Ghostleaf, Ghost Eater Vampire Vine, and Razor Briar, all three of the plants that Bristle might want cuttings from. Razor Briar is marked on the map. Both Ghostleaf and Ghost Eater Vampire Vine can be found inside the Razor Briar patches.
The Will-o’-wisps’ Goals: The will-o’-wisps want to entrance as many people as possible and kill them by leading them into a ravine filled with Razor Briar and Vampire Vine. If they entrance multiple people, they will split them up and lead each of them to a different patch of Razor Briar.
Starting Parameters: After traipsing through the woods, the player characters encounter a group of will-o’-wisps at Briar Creek. The group’s condition at the start of this encounter is determined by the group roll they made to navigate through the wood. That group roll also determines where the player characters start the encounter.
- In most cases, the player characters will start on the far left side of the map (vertically centered). However, if things went badly for them in their group roll, they might start out on the bottom of the map in the creek.
Description: “You are walking along a forested hillside above a small ravine that has a creek in it, when you see pale lights dancing and bobbing between the trees.”
Magical Lure: As soon as the characters see the will-o’-wisps, they will need to roll their mental defense to protect themselves from their magical lure (Emotion Magic). Characters trained in Necromantic Magic are considered prepared on this roll. Any character that gets a partial success or that fails the roll is entranced and must follow the will-o’-wisps toward the ravine.
Knowledge Rolls: After a character resists a will-o’-wisp’s lure, or at least partially resists it, they can roll Arcana or Culture to find out whether they can identify it. Characters trained in Necromantic Magic are considered prepared on this roll.
Turn Order: Although turn order is specified for each round, with the entranced people going first, do what makes sense for your game. It might make more sense to alternate entranced and non-entranced characters.
Round #1 (30-90 seconds): The will-o’-wisps lead each entranced character toward a different Razor Briar patch within the Briar Creek ravine.
- Fully entranced characters go first. They must follow their will-o’-wisp and are prepared on rolls to overcome any obstacles that block them from following.
- Partially entranced characters go second. They must follow their will-o’-wisp, but can take other actions, as long as those actions don’t create a direct barrier to following.
- Non-entranced characters go third and can take any action they want.
Round #2: Unless they were stopped in the first round, the entranced characters reach the small ravine and follow their will-o’-wisp down into a Razor Briar patch. If they get injured in the process, the magic entrancing them breaks.
- Fully entranced characters go first and are prepared on rolls to overcome obstacles that block their movement. If they reach the ravine, their turn ends with a roll to safely climb down into the ravine. They aren’t prepared on this roll, because the purpose of the roll is to stay safe, rather than to overcome a barrier to movement.
- Partially entranced characters go second. They have time to take an action before they reach the ravine. If they reach the ravine, their turn also ends with a roll to climb safely down into the ravine.
- Non-entranced characters go third and can take any action they want.
Climbing Down: Climbing down into the ravine is a Climbing skill roll. When entranced characters climb into the ravine, they don’t have time to get out and use climbing equipment. Unless their climbing equipment is part of their body (a Built-in Tool), they can’t use it for this roll. Because the entranced characters are climbing down into Razor Briar patches, the results of their roll determine whether they get injured.
- 0 Successes: A failure means that they slip and roll down the hill into the middle of the Razor Briar patch, becoming injured in the process. If this is their first injury, they have a Moderate Injury.
- 1 Success: A partial success means they slide down the hill with just enough control to avoid serious injury, but they end up in the densest part of the Razor Briar patch. They will take a one die penalty to their roll when they try to leave the briar patch.
- 2 Successes: A full success means they make it down without injury and end up in an average part of the briar. When they try to leave the briar patch, they can roll normally.
- 3 Successes: An outstanding success means that they make it down to a particularly good spot. Maybe it is a less dense part of the briar, or there is a rock that gives them partial protection. Whatever the reason, they get a die for being prepared when they try to leave the briar patch.
Round #3: Once one or more characters is in the ravine, the Vampire Vines make their move.
- The Vampire Vines attack everyone in the ravine. Any characters that are unaware of their presence or separated from the group take a one-die penalty on this roll.
- Everyone does a Nature knowledge roll on Vampire Vines.
- Any characters that are still entranced (they are uninjured) follow their will-o’-wisp to the next Razor Briar patch.
- The remaining characters take their actions.
Getting Out of a Razor Briar Patch: The characters need to roll their physical defense (as described in the Razor Briar description) to get out of the Razor Briar patch without becoming injured.
- Characters that are inside a Razor Briar Patch may notice the silvery leaves of Ghostleaf or Ghost Eater Vampire Vine.
Round #4, 5, 6, etc: The Vampire Vines will attack each round until the player characters have injured two vines or successfully used one of the other defensive techniques from the Vampire Vine description.
- The Vampire Vines go first.
- Any uninjured characters that are still entranced go next, following their will-o’-wisps to the next patch of Razor Briar.
- The remaining characters take actions in any order they please.
Wrap Up: Once the characters are safe from the Vampire Vines, the main drama of the scene is over. As the scene wraps up, the characters have an opportunity to get things they need and recover.
- Bristle’s Plants: As they wrap up, give them another opportunity to notice and collect the Ghostleaf and Ghost Eater Vampire Vine in the Razor Briar Patches.
- Recovering: This is an opportunity for the group to rest and recover from being drained by the Vampire Vines or to do what they need to recover from having their vulnerabilities triggered. If they don’t take this opportunity, they will start the encounter at the owlbear den in the same condition that they ended this encounter in.
- Finding the Owlbear Den: Groups that aren’t lost can follow Briar Creek to the hill that has the owlbear den in it. Groups that are lost will need to find a way to figure out where they are or locate the owlbear den.
Find the rest of the Owlbear Reintroduction Program Adventure here.
