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The Twisted Forest

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
extempus
Oct 19, 2006 2:13:32 In the chapter "Geography of Oerth" in Greyhawk Adventures, there is a description of the Twisted Forest (pp. 95-96). They're somewhere in the Drachensgrabs, "scattered over the hillside meadows," but it is said in the writings of Uhas of Neheli that, after having slain some Flan tribesmen in the Suenha Hills (ie, the Drachensgrabs), the Suloise colonists were cursed by Flan gods and that "neither they nor any of their kind should leave the valley in which the massacre occured." They were summarily transformed into "pillars of tortured stone for all the world to see." So, where is it? On a hillside, or in a valley?

The Suloise colonists had "fled with all their treasures eastward along the northern coast of the Azure Sea," which therefore suggests the massacre and thus the Twisted Forest is in the southern Drachensgrabs somewhere. However, in Slavers there is no mention of the Twisted Forest that I can find; on p. 88, there is a section on the Central Pomarj (the Drachensgrabs), and it speaks of the "three larger mountains that jut violently upwards" (ie, Drachenkopf, Mount Flamenblut and Hakentos). It goes on to say, "... Hakentos, which stands in the shadow of Drachenkopf and is considered a taboo place by the human tribes that worship the Earth Dragon, although the reason for this belief has been lost in antiquity."

Considering the foregoing information, the foothills around Hakentos would appear to be a logical place for the Twisted Forest, perhaps northeast of Stoneheim. This is just a guess on my part, anyone else have any ideas? Or is there an official location listed somewhere that I am unaware of?
#2
pauln6
Oct 19, 2006 8:31:52 Maybe they were on the hillside OF a valley!

You could check out Anna's maps on Canonfire. She has put a stupendous amount of effort into putting canon locations on her maps and the Pomarj is one area that she has completed.
#3
ripvanwormer
Oct 19, 2006 11:15:22
"... Hakentos, which stands in the shadow of Drachenkopf and is considered a taboo place by the human tribes that worship the Earth Dragon, although the reason for this belief has been lost in antiquity."

Sounds likely. Note that it doesn't matter how hilly a region is; if it's between two or more mountains, it's a valley.
#4
extempus
Oct 20, 2006 4:25:00 Quite right, but since it's specifically said to be "scattered over the hillside meadows," I'm not certain a mountain valley would qualify. Perhaps the Twisted Forest is in a valley between some hills, scattered about the valley floor and the sides of the hills as pauln6 suggests. Northeast of Stoneheim appears to be off the beaten path (with only one apparent mention, it would seem it's location is not well known so it wouldn't be near a well-travelled highway), and it would also explain Hakentos' taboo status if it were in its foothills.

The reason I'm wondering is that the adventurers in my campaign may soon be heading to the Pomarj to deal with Turrosh Mak, Stalman Klim and the Earth Dragon, and they will likely run across the Twisted Forest (and after discovering the letter from the Circle of Darkness aboard the Doomgrinder, things will definitely get interesting)...
#5
Mortepierre
Oct 20, 2006 4:31:56 As they say in my (meta-)region, "a man's mountain is often a dwarf's hill."

In other words, how you call a geographical feature is often a subjective matter ;)
#6
extempus
Oct 20, 2006 17:12:37 Good point, lol. In the end, I guess it doesn't really matter, but I always try to figure things like this out before we adventure anywhere. Esmerin was such an example (took me a while to place it in a location that fit all the facts as accurately as possible)...
#7
zombiegleemax
Oct 28, 2006 0:32:31 I placed the Twisted Forest just north east of the Drachenschabs (SP?). It worked great. the PC's had to retreat through there many times. The Vilians would never chace them through the forest. Although that is where they found the Crystal of Ebon Flame???????:D
#8
extempus
Nov 27, 2007 19:24:35 Well, it only took 13 months since I first posted on this, but we finally made it to the Twisted Forest in last night's adventure! Things have been interesting leading up to this: after an orcish pirate ship sank a ship belonging to one of our allies, the adventurers decided to get involved (our "B" Team, as we started calling them... the "A" Team, which is comprised of all our 18th+ level characters, are busy elsewhere, enchanting magic items, etc). Since it was the beginning of low summer, merchant ships from the north were about to start heading south through Woolly Bay for trade (since Oerth's axial tilt is 30º, the seasons are more pronounced, winter being typically severe enough to freeze all the rivers in the northern Flanaess, so there is basically no trade until after the spring thaw), so the pirates were a little itchy to get back into action.

It didn't take long before they began to attack each of the ports along the Orcish Wild Coast; they fell, one by one, aided by an orcish army raised by former slave lord Lamonsten the Lazy using the ring of the Pomarj, captured from the Black Sorceror of Verbobonc. He had vowed revenge on Turrosh Mak, since after his retirement in 580 CY, he began working a mining claim near Hardby, eventually settled in Eldredd to raise a family (making occasional trips to his mine to check up on his employees), but his wife and son were killed when Mak's armies invaded a few years later; Lamonsten happened to be in Hardby at the time, and the irony was that he didn't know that Mak was his old friend and former slavelord, Theg Narlot.

What made the invasion more successful than it should have been was the fact that Lamonsten had been raising an army 3 times a year to march south from his base at Leraizen, and had been doing so for a decade; Mak had grown used to expecting this, and had withdrawn most of the humanoids from the Orcish Wild Coast except those in the former population centers (ie, Fax, Cantona, Elredd, Badwall, etc), and 3 times a year, he would send an army north to battle Lamonsten's army marching south (Mak didn't know he was behind the thrice-yearly invasions). Needless to say, with things being somewhat routine for a decade and the two armies slaughtering each other north of Cantona 3 times a year like clockwork, everyone had grown rather complacent, and since the pirate season was just beginning and most were still in port, there was no communication between anyone, especially considering how fast each city fell.

Eventually, even Highport fell, and Lamonsten's army had outfitted themselves with captured equipment, such that they looked like Mak's returning army (since they were carrying shields emblazoned with the Pomarji heraldic device). They raised little suspicion (who's going to question an army with 2,000+ troops that look like your own? They were supplemented with skeletons, zombies and bone colossi from Braxem's Village as well), and are now about 40 miles north of Stoneheim. A special strike force, consisting of an alu-demon wizardess, 4 assassins (one of whom is the Grandfather of Assassins) and Lamonsten, stole into Kalen Lekos invisibly one night and assassinated Turrosh Mak; Lamonsten had the pleasure of watching him die, and was shocked to see he was really Theg Narlot, who also recognized him before he died. Stalman Klim, high priest of the Earth Dragon, normally slept in his quarters in the temple, which necessitated charming the guards and sneaking in.

All 4 assassins attacked and assassinated a groggy Klim; he had been awakened by the scream of a charmed guard, who had been struck with a harm spell which was activated by tripping a glyph of warding on his door. At that moment, the Earth Dragon, angered that its high priest was dead, caused a 3 minute earthquake centered on Mt Drachenkopf; the adventurers flew out of the temple, narrowly escaping death as much of it collapsed.

Lamonsten, now understanding that the new slavelord operation was made up of his former allies, wondered about some of the others, including Brother Kerin of the Scarlet Brotherhood. The party decided to bag him in the morning; with the citizens of Kalen Lekos in confusion following the earthquake, he was easy to assassinate; they later raised him, energy drained him to zero level (a favorite tactic they use to deal with enemies to render them harmless), and charmed him, but since he was given information only on a need-to-know basis, he was unfortunately of little use. Before leaving Kalen Lekos, our priest from the A Team cast uncontrolled weather on Mt Drachenkopf and an earthquake on the cave mouth to the temple, totally collapsing it. The people of Kalen Lekos will undoubtedly believe that these events are terrible omens; once it becomes known that Turrosh Mak and Stalman Klim are dead, it won't take long before the Pomarj descends back into anarchy and chaos.

Since Lamonsten's army was still a day's march from Stoneheim, they decided to check out the surrounding countryside; the Grandfather of Assassins, a half-orc born in Stoneheim, mentioned that Hakentos, the mountain a few miles to the north, was taboo, but no one knew why. The party flew in their vimana to check it out, and that's when they spotted the Twisted Forest in the foothills just to the east of Hakentos, which the Grandfather of Assassins had heard about in his youth...

The first thing they thought was that the stone "trees" were petrified people, and were unwilling to set the ship down and check them out firsthand. Brother Kerin was considered the only expendable person aboard, and so was lowered over the side by rope; since it takes some time for the curse to affect any evil creatures within the Forest, nothing happened to him right away, and he was asked to see if there were any chisel marks on the "trees," to see if they were artificial. He touched one, looking at what appeared to be a distorted face, and suddenly screamed...

Brother Kerin ran off, and the party quickly caught up with him and brought him back aboard; he was screaming, laughing, crying and babbling incoherently. What no one knows yet is that the "tree" he touched was in fact one of the original Suloise group who slaughtered a number of Flan tribesmen in those very foothills a millennium ago and was cursed by the Earth Dragon to turn into stone, and he was able to switch bodies with Brother Kerin when he touched the "tree." Considering he had been petrified yet totally conscious and aware of his surroundings for the last 1,000+ years, he is quite mad. And charmed Brother Kerin's consciousness is now trapped within one of the stone forms...

The party may eventually check out the Twisted Forest on foot and, if so, the assassins will eventually turn to stone too. Since the effect is not immediate, there is no apparent danger unless one touches a "tree" or stays within the forest for too long. They may or may not discover that Brother Kerin is no longer who they think he is, and if they do, they'll have to figure out which "tree" his consciousness is trapped in. It will be interesting to see what happens...

I placed the Twisted Forest just north east of the Drachenschabs (SP?). It worked great. the PC's had to retreat through there many times. The Vilians would never chace them through the forest. Although that is where they found the Crystal of Ebon Flame???????:D

I liked the idea of including the Crystal of the Ebon Flame in this adventure, but I didn't put it in the Twisted Forest. Instead, it's located within the ziggurat in the Lost City of the Suloise, which the party discovered in the Suss earlier in the adventure (it's less time-consuming to travel and find things if one is flying in a vimana). While they've been inside the ziggurat, they didn't explore beyond the magically trapped doors where the Crystal is hidden. They'll be back to investigate... they also encountered the green dragon a couple of times, who I named Clorox (he does breathe chlorine gas after all, and we got a laugh out of it)...

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 extempus Oct 19, 2006 2:13:32	In the chapter "Geography of Oerth" in Greyhawk Adventures, there is a description of the Twisted Forest (pp. 95-96). They're somewhere in the Drachensgrabs, "scattered over the hillside meadows," but it is said in the writings of Uhas of Neheli that, after having slain some Flan tribesmen in the Suenha Hills (ie, the Drachensgrabs), the Suloise colonists were cursed by Flan gods and that "neither they nor any of their kind should leave the valley in which the massacre occured." They were summarily transformed into "pillars of tortured stone for all the world to see." So, where is it? On a hillside, or in a valley? The Suloise colonists had "fled with all their treasures eastward along the northern coast of the Azure Sea," which therefore suggests the massacre and thus the Twisted Forest is in the southern Drachensgrabs somewhere. However, in Slavers there is no mention of the Twisted Forest that I can find; on p. 88, there is a section on the Central Pomarj (the Drachensgrabs), and it speaks of the "three larger mountains that jut violently upwards" (ie, Drachenkopf, Mount Flamenblut and Hakentos). It goes on to say, "... Hakentos, which stands in the shadow of Drachenkopf and is considered a taboo place by the human tribes that worship the Earth Dragon, although the reason for this belief has been lost in antiquity." Considering the foregoing information, the foothills around Hakentos would appear to be a logical place for the Twisted Forest, perhaps northeast of Stoneheim. This is just a guess on my part, anyone else have any ideas? Or is there an official location listed somewhere that I am unaware of?
#2 pauln6 Oct 19, 2006 8:31:52	Maybe they were on the hillside OF a valley! You could check out Anna's maps on Canonfire. She has put a stupendous amount of effort into putting canon locations on her maps and the Pomarj is one area that she has completed.
#3 ripvanwormer Oct 19, 2006 11:15:22	"... Hakentos, which stands in the shadow of Drachenkopf and is considered a taboo place by the human tribes that worship the Earth Dragon, although the reason for this belief has been lost in antiquity." Sounds likely. Note that it doesn't matter how hilly a region is; if it's between two or more mountains, it's a valley.
#4 extempus Oct 20, 2006 4:25:00	Quite right, but since it's specifically said to be "scattered over the hillside meadows," I'm not certain a mountain valley would qualify. Perhaps the Twisted Forest is in a valley between some hills, scattered about the valley floor and the sides of the hills as pauln6 suggests. Northeast of Stoneheim appears to be off the beaten path (with only one apparent mention, it would seem it's location is not well known so it wouldn't be near a well-travelled highway), and it would also explain Hakentos' taboo status if it were in its foothills. The reason I'm wondering is that the adventurers in my campaign may soon be heading to the Pomarj to deal with Turrosh Mak, Stalman Klim and the Earth Dragon, and they will likely run across the Twisted Forest (and after discovering the letter from the Circle of Darkness aboard the Doomgrinder, things will definitely get interesting)...
#5 Mortepierre Oct 20, 2006 4:31:56	As they say in my (meta-)region, "a man's mountain is often a dwarf's hill." In other words, how you call a geographical feature is often a subjective matter ;)
#6 extempus Oct 20, 2006 17:12:37	Good point, lol. In the end, I guess it doesn't really matter, but I always try to figure things like this out before we adventure anywhere. Esmerin was such an example (took me a while to place it in a location that fit all the facts as accurately as possible)...
#7 zombiegleemax Oct 28, 2006 0:32:31	I placed the Twisted Forest just north east of the Drachenschabs (SP?). It worked great. the PC's had to retreat through there many times. The Vilians would never chace them through the forest. Although that is where they found the Crystal of Ebon Flame???????:D
#8 extempus Nov 27, 2007 19:24:35	Well, it only took 13 months since I first posted on this, but we finally made it to the Twisted Forest in last night's adventure! Things have been interesting leading up to this: after an orcish pirate ship sank a ship belonging to one of our allies, the adventurers decided to get involved (our "B" Team, as we started calling them... the "A" Team, which is comprised of all our 18th+ level characters, are busy elsewhere, enchanting magic items, etc). Since it was the beginning of low summer, merchant ships from the north were about to start heading south through Woolly Bay for trade (since Oerth's axial tilt is 30º, the seasons are more pronounced, winter being typically severe enough to freeze all the rivers in the northern Flanaess, so there is basically no trade until after the spring thaw), so the pirates were a little itchy to get back into action. It didn't take long before they began to attack each of the ports along the Orcish Wild Coast; they fell, one by one, aided by an orcish army raised by former slave lord Lamonsten the Lazy using the ring of the Pomarj, captured from the Black Sorceror of Verbobonc. He had vowed revenge on Turrosh Mak, since after his retirement in 580 CY, he began working a mining claim near Hardby, eventually settled in Eldredd to raise a family (making occasional trips to his mine to check up on his employees), but his wife and son were killed when Mak's armies invaded a few years later; Lamonsten happened to be in Hardby at the time, and the irony was that he didn't know that Mak was his old friend and former slavelord, Theg Narlot. What made the invasion more successful than it should have been was the fact that Lamonsten had been raising an army 3 times a year to march south from his base at Leraizen, and had been doing so for a decade; Mak had grown used to expecting this, and had withdrawn most of the humanoids from the Orcish Wild Coast except those in the former population centers (ie, Fax, Cantona, Elredd, Badwall, etc), and 3 times a year, he would send an army north to battle Lamonsten's army marching south (Mak didn't know he was behind the thrice-yearly invasions). Needless to say, with things being somewhat routine for a decade and the two armies slaughtering each other north of Cantona 3 times a year like clockwork, everyone had grown rather complacent, and since the pirate season was just beginning and most were still in port, there was no communication between anyone, especially considering how fast each city fell. Eventually, even Highport fell, and Lamonsten's army had outfitted themselves with captured equipment, such that they looked like Mak's returning army (since they were carrying shields emblazoned with the Pomarji heraldic device). They raised little suspicion (who's going to question an army with 2,000+ troops that look like your own? They were supplemented with skeletons, zombies and bone colossi from Braxem's Village as well), and are now about 40 miles north of Stoneheim. A special strike force, consisting of an alu-demon wizardess, 4 assassins (one of whom is the Grandfather of Assassins) and Lamonsten, stole into Kalen Lekos invisibly one night and assassinated Turrosh Mak; Lamonsten had the pleasure of watching him die, and was shocked to see he was really Theg Narlot, who also recognized him before he died. Stalman Klim, high priest of the Earth Dragon, normally slept in his quarters in the temple, which necessitated charming the guards and sneaking in. All 4 assassins attacked and assassinated a groggy Klim; he had been awakened by the scream of a charmed guard, who had been struck with a harm spell which was activated by tripping a glyph of warding on his door. At that moment, the Earth Dragon, angered that its high priest was dead, caused a 3 minute earthquake centered on Mt Drachenkopf; the adventurers flew out of the temple, narrowly escaping death as much of it collapsed. Lamonsten, now understanding that the new slavelord operation was made up of his former allies, wondered about some of the others, including Brother Kerin of the Scarlet Brotherhood. The party decided to bag him in the morning; with the citizens of Kalen Lekos in confusion following the earthquake, he was easy to assassinate; they later raised him, energy drained him to zero level (a favorite tactic they use to deal with enemies to render them harmless), and charmed him, but since he was given information only on a need-to-know basis, he was unfortunately of little use. Before leaving Kalen Lekos, our priest from the A Team cast uncontrolled weather on Mt Drachenkopf and an earthquake on the cave mouth to the temple, totally collapsing it. The people of Kalen Lekos will undoubtedly believe that these events are terrible omens; once it becomes known that Turrosh Mak and Stalman Klim are dead, it won't take long before the Pomarj descends back into anarchy and chaos. Since Lamonsten's army was still a day's march from Stoneheim, they decided to check out the surrounding countryside; the Grandfather of Assassins, a half-orc born in Stoneheim, mentioned that Hakentos, the mountain a few miles to the north, was taboo, but no one knew why. The party flew in their vimana to check it out, and that's when they spotted the Twisted Forest in the foothills just to the east of Hakentos, which the Grandfather of Assassins had heard about in his youth... The first thing they thought was that the stone "trees" were petrified people, and were unwilling to set the ship down and check them out firsthand. Brother Kerin was considered the only expendable person aboard, and so was lowered over the side by rope; since it takes some time for the curse to affect any evil creatures within the Forest, nothing happened to him right away, and he was asked to see if there were any chisel marks on the "trees," to see if they were artificial. He touched one, looking at what appeared to be a distorted face, and suddenly screamed... Brother Kerin ran off, and the party quickly caught up with him and brought him back aboard; he was screaming, laughing, crying and babbling incoherently. What no one knows yet is that the "tree" he touched was in fact one of the original Suloise group who slaughtered a number of Flan tribesmen in those very foothills a millennium ago and was cursed by the Earth Dragon to turn into stone, and he was able to switch bodies with Brother Kerin when he touched the "tree." Considering he had been petrified yet totally conscious and aware of his surroundings for the last 1,000+ years, he is quite mad. And charmed Brother Kerin's consciousness is now trapped within one of the stone forms... The party may eventually check out the Twisted Forest on foot and, if so, the assassins will eventually turn to stone too. Since the effect is not immediate, there is no apparent danger unless one touches a "tree" or stays within the forest for too long. They may or may not discover that Brother Kerin is no longer who they think he is, and if they do, they'll have to figure out which "tree" his consciousness is trapped in. It will be interesting to see what happens... I placed the Twisted Forest just north east of the Drachenschabs (SP?). It worked great. the PC's had to retreat through there many times. The Vilians would never chace them through the forest. Although that is where they found the Crystal of Ebon Flame???????:D I liked the idea of including the Crystal of the Ebon Flame in this adventure, but I didn't put it in the Twisted Forest. Instead, it's located within the ziggurat in the Lost City of the Suloise, which the party discovered in the Suss earlier in the adventure (it's less time-consuming to travel and find things if one is flying in a vimana). While they've been inside the ziggurat, they didn't explore beyond the magically trapped doors where the Crystal is hidden. They'll be back to investigate... they also encountered the green dragon a couple of times, who I named Clorox (he does breathe chlorine gas after all, and we got a laugh out of it)...