Jungles of Chult Session 2

Beware the crocodiles of the Tiryki River ...

The crocodiles will eat you

our intrepid heroes:

Sound of Distant Rain (cat-man rogue)

Terahn Atzi (human priest)

Nugiri (lizardman monk)

Takashi Kaga (human magic-user)

Nebin (halfling barbarian)

Chiratidzo (human druid)

with River Mist and Flask of Wine (cat-man guides)

The last session ended just into the expedition up the River Tiryki, after five days of travel following the river, the characters led by River Mist and Flask of Wine and porting a rowboat with them through the jungle (despite the river being right there ...)

Picking up where we left off, on the morning of the sixth day, Chira noticed a strange little creature at the edge of camp as everyone else was breaking things down. The thing looked like a root knotted into a six-inch high humanoid form, with pebbles for eyes and mouth, eagerly watching the party. It was sitting on a mess kit. Chira informed the party as to its presence, and Takashi, miffed as he realized that the thing had taken his mess kit, mage handed the kit up and as it rose through the air, the little creature jumped off and ran away.

Takashi discovered an empty wasp nest left in his bag in the mess kit's place; and Chira informed everyone that the thing was a Chwinga, a kind of nature spirit that is generally harmless though sometimes mischievous.

Continuing on, through the evening, the characters noticed eyes watching them from the river--insectile eyes from rocky carapaces. Asking their guides after these sightings, River Mist informs the party that these must be Aldani, the lobster-men the haunt the waters of Chult. "Don't take what's theirs, and they won't bother you," she says, and then continues the hike.

Day 8 -- morning -- Chiratidzo heads down to the river as camp is breaking to wash his face. As he crouches there, he gives a shout--"There's something in the water!"--as what looks like a waterlogged tree drifts toward him and the rest of the party comes nearer. Then the log surges out of the water with a huge splash, and a giant crocodile's jaws close around Chira, snap his back, and the crocodile beings to drag his body back into the river. The rest of the party threw missile weapons at the crocodile, but to no avail, and the reptile and its prey both disappear under the waters of the lake ...

River Mist and Flask of Wine shrug. "The jungle is dangerous," River Mist says, and then she and Flask continue to lead everyone on.

Day 9 -- diseased bite -- Sound of Distant Rain saves

Day 10 -- morning -- the party comes across Quinsela, or "Quin", another druid, now out hunting alone. He agrees to accompany the party, knowing that the crocodiles along the River Tiryki are deadly things to contend with ...

Later, the party comes across a kind of idol rising out of a series of rocks in a kind of calm area of the river. The idol is an obelisk, vaguely carved, dedicated to Olokuna, other than a maze-like vulva and stone phallus rising from near the water line. An altar of flat stone lies just under the water, covered at the moment with worked stone offerings (stones with carvings of hands, crabs, phalluses, mazes, vulvas, etc.); Sound of Distant Rain deposits a flask of palm wine on the altar for deceased Chiratidzo, further offering a prayer to the Cat Lord for the man's dead soul ...

Day 11 -- physical barrier -- the party runs into a cliff blocking their path; they decide to backtrack for a day rather than attempt to climb or circumvent it

Day 13 -- morning -- Flask of Wine calls Sound of Distant Rain forward to look at something--it's a dead body, half-eaten by a mouth-dragon and now abandoned in the bole of mighty tree-roots.

Day 14 -- morning -- The party enters a small mango grove and Flask of Wine (from scouting ahead) comes back with broken fruit on his shoulders. "There are mad apes ahead," he says and brushes himself off; he is immediately backed up by the sound of screaming apes from behind and another thrown fruit. Nugiri steps out and catches some thrown fruit, and also grins broadly at the two apes he can see.

The apes interpret that as a threat and charge into combat. One runs all the way forward while the other throws rocks from behind; but Sound of Distant Rain hates monkeys, as do the rest of the party, and they quickly kill both apes (though one does knock Nugiri out with its fists before dying from other melee attacks)

River Mist then points out that the swamp containing the Sailback Hill/Shrine is within a day's travel, if anyone were interested in checking it out. Everyone agrees that it sounds interesting, and so the party moves to the east bank of the river (they've been hiking down the west bank), and they find a wide swamp with both stork-men and sail-backs lurking in its midst.

The stork-men with the evil-eyes

Almost immediately, the party spies a group of stork-men between them and the sail-back hill; Sound of Distant Rain and Flask of Wine sneak out to (bag?) them, but Sound decides to talk instead. Fortunately, one of the several stork-men speaks the Common tongue, though hissing like a swan; "These are our swamps! What do you offer to move through them? Give us shiny things!" The party gave a mirror and a disassembled mess-kit, and I rolled an 11 for reactions, so that was enough. "I am Sssra," the lead stork-man declared. "You may travel our swamp. And let me say, the best place to rest is beneath the banyan outside the mouth of the sailback shrine," it adds.

---

The party deposited the boat in the banyan "grove" matching Sssra's description; they felt a supernatural sense that it would be "good" to camp there, indeed; then they headed for the dungeon in the open mouth of the sailback hill.

The mouth opened onto a stairway down (the gullet); this led down to a three-way fork; the party went west and found themselves in a stairway that ended in water. Nugiri checked under the water and didn't seem to find anything. The party then glanced down the east way, but ultimately went down the south way into a large chamber with stone pillars rising up that look like they support the stone spines of the hill that make it resemble a sailback. There were pit traps around these pillars; then entering the main chamber, the party saw a ruby, pulsing slowly, in the jaws of a small stone sailback on top of an altar against the south wall; the other walls were carved to resemble up-curving ribs. The altar was dedicated to SUCHOS, a god like an animal-headed Egyption god, but with a dimetrodon head.

A small swarm of mosquito-bats attacked the party here, but were easily dispatched ...

Furthermore, there were four other exits from the room ... the party checked one and found a collapsed corridor; checked another and found a closed door; but looking down the south west corridor, they found a series of natural caverns, of which one held a crevice in its floor filled with glittering coin. The party went for the coin, but were surprised by a "nest" of creepy monkeys with blood-red hands hanging from the stalactites on the ceiling of the chamber. Sound of Distant Rain was foremost in the party seeking the coin in the crevice, and he suddenly keeled over dead, clutching his head; Takashi also fell over, blood pooling from his nose, but not quite dead.

The creepy-monkeys with blood-red hands

While Nugiri saved Takashi and Flask of Wine ran forward to save his friend's (Sound's) body, the party elected (after a first intuition to run), to fight--and because they killed one monkey and injured two others with a variety of spells and attacks, the creepy monkeys fled deeper into the cave after failing a morale check.

"Let's loot this thing and get the hell out of here!" Nebin cried, and then the party quickly grabbed what they could of the coin (including 2 scrolls) and then fled back to the large room with the pulsing ruby-heart. They pitoned the little sailback statue's mouth open and took the ruby, but heard the grinding of stone nevertheless--the mouth of the cave had closed! Placing the ruby back re-opened the closed jaws. The cat-men thought they might be able to run fast enough to grab the gem and then make it out ahead of the jaws, but the party balked in the end and elected to return later.

So deciding, they checked one more room and found a tomb filled with sarcophagi for sailbacks. Opening the most ornate one, Teran forced open the sarcophagus and breathed in a poisonous cloud, but lived ... inside they found a sailback skeleton plated with gold, which they took ...

With a couple thousand coin (from the monkeys) and a gold-plated skeleton in their possession, the party went straight for the river with their rowboat and began to row their way back down the River Tiryki toward Nyanzaru. On the river, flowing downstream, their movement doubled to 10 miles per day (one hex per day).

---

Day 16 -- evening -- rare plants, zabou, 4 "doses" of zabou mushrooms which the party collects (Quin as an herbalist can pick them without trouble)

Day 20 -- evening -- croaking of giant frogs ahead--the party decides to accept another roll on the encounter die in the future to avoid the frogs now ...

Day 21 -- morning -- as Teran hauls the boat down into the water of the river, a giant crocodile surges out of the water with a high initiative and snaps Teran up in its huge jaws. Teran is instantly killed and dragged away into the water, leaving the party bereft of a third member ...

Except the hindquarters are Tehran's, not a zebra ....

Day 22 -- back in town! (now everyone can get XPs)

In Nyanzaru, the party went to Jobal, whom they know collects hunting trophies, to sell the gold-plated skeleton to him. Jobal is sad to hear of Chira's death, but is glad to buy the skeleton off of them for 250 gold. During this conversation, Nebin brings up the mosquito-bats they killed (and the bodies they saved) trying to sell them to him too, but Jobal shows his colors, racist against "lesser" folk by "belittling" Nebin. "What, did you step on that? How cute!"

The party then also sold their 4 "doses" of zabou to Jessamine, who has been interested in rare plants.

And in the end, Nebin and Takashi caroused. Nebin ended up in debt to Jessamine 100 gold and in love with Talara, halfling wife of a local halfling merchant, Haban Widewater; and Takashi ended in debt to Jobal for 400 gold, and furthermore beaten and robbed so that he starts the next adventure slightly injured ...


------


Remembrance for the Dead
Tehran Atzi (human cleric of Ubtao 1), Sound of Distant Rain (cat-man rogue 1), Chiratidzo (human druid 1)

the Strangler Fig

I was in Panama for Christmas with my dad, uncle, and granddad (Granddaddy was stationed in the canal zone during the 70's, so my dad went to high school here and it definitely captured the family imagination), so I thought I'd try to come up with some D&D stuff related to Panama or tropical environments in general.

To that end, the other day I saw some pretty cool banyan trees, aerial prop roots hanging down from above, stretching for the ground, ready to create more and more trunks in an ultimate banyan grove all centered around a single huge trunk of intertwined trunks. Some quick Wikipedia research informed me that banyans are sometimes called "strangler figs" for the way that they grow around a victim tree and "strangle" it with their roots; and further that, as a fig tree, they are home to fig wasps, which developed symbiotically and cospecialized with fig trees, the fig providing the wasp a place to lay eggs and mate, the wasp pollinating the fig.

Hence the double feature of Strangler Figs and Fig Wasps ... Today, the Strangler Fig:

or Banyan Tree ...

Called a "strangler fig" because it is a parasitic organism that "strangles" its host--the banyan tree actually grows atop another tree, its seed having landed somewhere in the host's upper branches, and grown like a vegetative octopus from there. Early on, the banyan actually looks like tree roots growing down around the trunk of the host tree; later, as the banyan swallows or "strangles" the host and sends out limbs of its own, these down-growing roots actually become almost trunks themselves, creating the illusion of a small grove where the reality is one large down-growing organism (as opposed to an aspen grove, all one organism, but growing upwards).

After enough time, the banyan actually kills its host (after it has grown large enough to sustain itself), and as the host tree decays within the banyan's central trunk, it leaves behind a hollow space, perfect for any variety of spirits, jungle-creatures, or bandits to dwell within or inside which to store their valuables ...

And so, to D&D-ize the banyan tree ...

Strangler Fig
No. Appearing 1 (1-6)
AC 0
HD 8-12
THAC0 per HD, e.g. 12-10
attacks: suggestion or 7-12 roots
damage: 2-7 or charm
no movement
treasure: F

A strangler fig large enough to attack a party of humanoids has grown into a veritable grove of its own, with prop-roots resembling entire trees and aerial roots hanging down from the canopy throughout the "grove"--hence its hit dice of 8 to 12; feel free to shrink or expand the number according to the age/size of the "grove".

The grove feels to be a place of peace, which is the will of the fig attempting to lull prey into a sense of security. There is a 1 in 3 chance that from 1-4 animals of various kinds (e.g. monkeys, lions, agouti, etc. etc.) are resting beneath the banyan's limbs, subtly tapped by its roots, charmed, and succumbing to its appetite. These animals may be used by the banyan to attack intruders if the intruders are hostile.

Suggestion: All those who enter the grove (i.e. pass into the shadow beneath its canopy) must save against spells (or a make Will/WIS save), or they find the grove to be a perfect place to make camp, and make an argument for settling down for the day, or at least for returning before day's end ("Look at how peaceful the animals are here--lions and monkeys lying down together!").

The banyan being a slow-moving tree, creatures must spend at least 10 minutes under its canopy before its roots can act. At that point, those beneath must make a save against paralysis or be tapped by an aerial root. After that, 7-12 roots may act each turn, either directly attacking characters or charming them.

A root that attempts to charm a person descends and rests on their body, attempting to "tap" into them; the character must make a save against paralysis (fortitude or reflex? constitution or dexterity? choose what you want in newer editions). Characters who fail are "tapped" and cannot leave the vicinity of the grove, and can be compelled to fight against hostile intruders. Over the course of the root's accelerated growth, they become part of the banyan in 1-6 days, entombed within a new root-trunk. A cure disease spell will dissolve the root's connections inside the body, though a character thus freed will suffer 3-18 damage from separation.

Otherwise, the roots attack with slams like treant-limbs, dealing 2-7 damage per blow.

Any treasure is to be found within the main "trunk" (which may be hollow), or embedded in the down-growing aerial roots, in either case being the treasure of those entombed within--which will, of course, entail 10 minutes or more work to extract ...

Parasitic though they be, banyans are also often symbiotic homes to other creatures as well.

One half of banyan trees are home to a swarm of Fig Wasps, insects that co-developed with fig trees in a relationship even closer than that of the normal process of bees pollinating flowers.

One in three banyan trees is also home to a dryad, a bisan (from Oriental Adventures), or some other tree spirit; these are (1-2) the spirit of the host tree, desperate for help destroying the banyan, (3-5) the spirit of the banyan or some other spirit dwelling within the hollow of the "trunk" and which will rise to its defense, or (6) an unaffiliated spirit that dwells within the hollow trunk or spreading branches, but which is itself independent of the banyan.

Further relationships are eminently possible:
Consider an entire human keep, made of stone, swallowed by a vast banyan and now home the ghosts of its former inhabitants!
OR, a peaceful banyan, converted to (Buddhism) by a saint in expectation of better future lives and escape from the wheel of suffering, which holds under its branches/roots a permanently peaceful gathering of merchants and wanderers, guarded from evil by the power of the tree.
(the etymology of "banyan", according to Wikipedia, is that "banyan" meant "merchant" in Gunjurati Indian; and such merchants would spread their wares beneath the shade of certain [banyan] trees)

the Fig Wasp

I was in Panama for Christmas with my dad, uncle, and granddad (Granddaddy was stationed in the canal zone during the 70's, so my dad went to high school here and it definitely captured the family imagination), so I thought I'd try to come up with some D&D stuff related to Panama or tropical environments in general.

To that end, the other day I saw some pretty cool banyan trees, aerial prop roots hanging down from above, stretching for the ground, ready to create more and more trunks in an ultimate banyan grove, all centered around a single huge trunk of intertwining roots. Some quick Wikipedia research informed me that banyans are sometimes called "strangler figs" for the way that they grow around a victim tree and "strangle" it with their roots; and further that, as a fig tree, they are home to fig wasps, which developed symbiotically and co-specialized with fig trees, the fig providing the wasp a place to lay eggs and mate, the wasp pollinating the fig.

Hence the double feature of Strangler Figs and Fig Wasps ... Today, the Fig Wasp:

So there are two varieties of fig wasps, pollinating and non-pollinating (and many species of both). The pollinating fig wasp is pictured above, and has an elongated head with spurs, with which it burrows into the syconium (what will become a fig fruit), where it both deposits pollen in some of the female flowers while laying eggs in others. Non-pollinating fig wasps look more like other wasps, except that their ovipositors are ridiculously long, at least as long as their bodies--these they use to pierce the syconium and deposit eggs within from outside. I'm going to focus on a pollinating species.

Fig Wasps
No. Appearing 3-18
AC 9 (but they can't be hit by weapons--hands can slap them on a body, or squash them in the air)
hp 1
THAC0: 16 (they're small and pretty good at crawling through chinks in armor)
damage: 1-3 as they burrow in
movement: fly 30'

Fig wasps surprise on a 1-3 on a d6, being small and seemingly innocuous. Their attack roll is merely to land; with surprise, they can immediately begin to burrow in, otherwise a character can swat at 1-3 of them on their body before the wasps can act again.

After the wasps have landed on a humanoid, they begin burrowing into flesh using their specialized heads and mandibles. This causes 1-3 damage, partially from the painful sore, partially from the inflammation of the flesh around the sore.

Once inside, the wasp lays its eggs and then dies. At this point, the host character must make a save against poison to avoid a severe allergic reaction as the body responds to the presence of foreign bodies inside itself. Success indicates a mild reaction--itching hives above where the eggs were laid, rather like a nasty chigger-bite; failure indicates severe anaphylaxis: roll on a d6

1) eyes swell shut -- blind for 1-6 turns
2) severe hives -- penalty of -1 on all rolls for 1 day
3) swollen throat -- can't eat for 1-3 days, may grow weaker from hunger
4) ill for 1-3 days -- penalty of -1 on all rolls
5) violently ill for 1-3 days -- may not act other than to rest
6) death in 1-6 turns

A neutralize poison spell will halt the anaphylaxis, but the eggs will remain. A cure disease spell will destroy the eggs and also neutralize the anaphylaxis.

If the eggs are not destroyed, they will incubate for 2-4 weeks, during which time the eggs hatch, the hatched larvae pupate, and at the end of which time adult fig wasps split out of the pupae. The males' only purpose is to fertilize the females and then burrow a way out of the fig for the females to fly away. Unfortunately for the wasps, the females cannot survive in a human or demi-human host, and are ultimately absorbed into the body--BUT the males still burrow their way out, causing 1-20 damage as they do so (they might be burrowing out of an arm or leg, or on the dangerous side, burrowing out through vital organs in the abdomen!).