Poet's Grove

A poet's grove is a graveyard, serene and simple with no stones or markers. Instead of carving monuments to quietly erode over centuries the deceased are interred wrapped in linen with a beechnut embedded in their heart. After a month it sprouts, feeding on the body wrapped around its roots and absorbing the ghost left tethered within the bones, growing into a Verse Tree. Once the tree entirely devours the bones beneath it the magic takes hold and the tree's smooth gray bark begins to crack, etching itself with the deceased's unwritten work. The distinctive voice of each tree makes headstones unnecessary.

The groves are open to all who lived with words and are carefully tended by groundskeeper monks. They meticulously copy the writing from the trunks and branches of each Verse Tree, checking daily for new passages and collecting the ghost-written works into posthumous anthologies that support the perpetual maintenance of the groves. It's an endless duty as prolific ghosts regularly fill their original tree and spread to its saplings, creating entire stands and clearings etched with more works than they ever penned in life.

Note: There are several species of tree and arboreal parasites that mimic the look of a poet's grove but are unrelated. One such species is the carnivorous Glyphic Aspen which grows in large stands on calcium-poor soils. They produce marks on their bark that appear to be writing and often invitations to rest. Don't trust them. They lie. They only want your bones.

Another type of false grove is created by the Ruby Stanza Borer, a species of beetle that has an instinctive grasp of language and rudimentary psi abilities in its larval instar. They replicate the writing effect of true Verse Trees by burrowing through the host-tree's cambium layer in the shape of words, causing the script to appear in scars on the outer bark. This eventually kills the tree. They're generally not skilled writers, producing disjointed hackwork.

A true poet's grove will always have groundsmonks in attendance and a scriptorium situated somewhere on the grounds. Don't be fooled!

Guardian Trees

The Coin Tree

A holy cypress, the eldest tree in a sacred grove, stands a short walk off the road. Over the centuries generations of travelers and locals have driven a fortune of coins into the trunk and lower branches for luck. Its bole glimmers in the sunlight that filters through the canopy, more metal than wood. Below the soil its roots are carved with sigils that can still be made out, if the leaf litter is cleared away and one takes the time to decipher the healed scars left on the bark.

The coin tree is studded with 7000 GP worth of coins in mixed currencies. They can be retrieved if you spend a month prying them out of the wood, or the raw metal can be collected from the ashes if you cut the tree down and burn it.

The tree is a fairly famous shrine. Locals and travelers passing by will attack anyone defacing it.

Killing the tree will wake and free the malicious entity it was imprisoning. The entity will feel indebted to whoever releases it and will try to fulfill one minor wish. If you don't use the wish immediately, it will follow you until you do. If you don't use the wish within a month, the entity will become aggressive and start trying to force you to wish so it can discharge its debt.

The wish will be fulfilled in the spirit it's intended, no monkey's paws.

Once the wish is granted and the entity is completely freed it will roam, spreading chaos and indiscriminately slaughtering anything in its path. There's a good chance it will come after the ones who released it because they know what it is and where it came from.

The Entity

Amorphous shadow form. 8 HD, gains 1 HD with each kill. Fear gaze attack, grappling tentacles, 1d12 slashing attack. 3 attacks per turn, +5 to hit, move 50'.

The entity can be sealed away by creating a new holy tree. The party must discover the sigils carved into the roots of the original tree, replicate them on another living tree, and force (or trick) the entity to touch it. As soon as the entity touches the holy tree it will be safely imprisoned again.

The Rag Tree

A gnarled, knotty hawthorn growing on the shore of a perfectly clear spring. Its branches are tied with bright ribbons and strips of cloth, left as offerings for healing or charms against misfortune.

Once a month you can cure a wound or lift a curse by leaving an offering on the tree. Tie a piece of cloth onto a branch and prick a finger on one of the thorns (1d4 damage). By the end of the next day you'll be healed.

If you can remove one of the cloths without being pricked by any thorns (DEX save), it will act as an amulet against whatever misery it was offered to cure. Its power lasts for a month once removed from the tree and will protect its bearer three times. It visibly wears and becomes tattered as it ages or is used.

Protects Against:

1. Poison
2. Harm (wounds)
3. Sickness
4. Paralysis
5. Ambush
6. Death
7. Theft
8. Curses
9. Haunting (incorporeal things)
10. Fear
11. Scrying
12. Possession (and mind control)

Damaging the tree in any way will unleash the stored curses on the vandals, one after another. Gain a new random curse each month. The curses stack and cannot be removed with offerings to the tree.

The Iron-Bound Oak

A massive hollow oak bound in iron bands and chains to keep the sundered trunk from splitting further and falling to pieces. A thick ring of black iron is set in the earth five feet out from the trunk and supports a simple iron post and chain fence that circles the tree to keep people back. The townsfolk have many conflicting stories about the tree but they all agree that you don't go there at night, don't touch the iron, and if something calls to you from within the hollow, don't answer.

The grove where the iron-bound oak grows is an hour walk outside of town. It and the surrounding woods are peaceful, but subtly wrong. There are no wild animals within a quarter mile of the tree. Domesticated animals will refuse to go beneath the oak's branches.

Passing beyond the iron chain and going into the trunk has a chance of transporting you to another plane or an alternate reality.

Time Entering Trunk Transported Elsewhere (roll d% under)

Day                  36

Night              51

Dusk or Dawn          76

Full or New moon         100 (Bon voyage!)

Returning through the tree is possible only on the full and new moons. (Roll d% under 3 to return.)

Sometimes things emerge from the tree and are trapped inside the circle of the chain fence. They will ask anyone present to help them get out. Mortals who answer or speak to them are enthralled (WIS save) and forced to switch places with them inside the tree.

Maintaining the iron bands and fence circle is a traditional part of the town's summer festival. The ritual work is done at high noon on the solstice and has been performed faithfully every year for as long as anyone can remember. The idea of not inspecting the tree or even delaying the festival by a day is horrifying to the townsfolk, though none of them are able to explain exactly why.