D20 SYSTEM✦ Normal

The Rutting Scars of Maplewood

# Wilderness# Intrigue# Dark Fantasy

The ancient Maplewood is in a state of primal crisis. A horde of colossal, magically-corrupted stag beetles have entered a violent, unnatural rutting season, their armored bodies and ramming attacks devastating the forest. The Hunters' Guild, long stewards of the wood, are accused of allowing this by letting their sacred, druidic Repellent expire. Is it negligence, sabotage, or a desperate bid for relevance? You are outsiders, hired to investigate, but you will find that the beetles may be the victims, and the true monsters wear human faces.

Chronicle Prelude

You arrive at the besieged logging outpost of Hearthwood, a fortified timber town on the edge of the Maplewood. The air smells of pine, fear, and the distant, resonant crack of chitinous bodies colliding with trees. Hunters' Guild sentries eye you warily as wounded loggers are carried in, and a tense council argues inside the longhouse.

Environmental Traits

The entire Maplewood ecosystem is destabilized. The stag beetles, once docile giants, are in a frenzy, their rams leveling sections of forest. The Huntsmaster claims a rival faction, the Circle of Root and Thorn, sabotaged the Repellent. The Circle claims the Guild's industrial logging poisoned the ley lines driving the beetles mad. The truth lies deeper, in a corrupted heart-tree the beetles are instinctively trying to destroy.

Legendary Archetypes

Rayan

HP:45

STR:16

WIS: 12

CHA:11

Key Factions & Autonomous Nodes (8)

Huntsmaster Garrick
A tall, weathered human male in his late fifties, with a close-cropped grey beard and a permanent scowl etched by sun and responsibility. He wears battered, but well-maintained, leather and chainmail armor adorned with the Guild's insignia. His eyes are hard and pragmatic, constantly scanning the treeline for threats.
Elder Thorn
An ancient human woman, her age impossible to guess. Her skin is like bark, and her long, silver hair is woven with living vines and small, pale flowers. She wears robes of moss and woven grass, and her eyes are a deep, weary green, holding the patience of centuries and the grief of recent years.
Logger Ivor
A gaunt, nervous man in his thirties, with dirt under his nails and haunted eyes. He wears the practical, worn clothes of a woodcutter, but his hands tremble. He constantly glances over his shoulder, as if expecting retribution from both the forest and his former employers.
The Beetle Whisperer
A young person of indeterminate gender, clad in armor made of iridescent beetle chitin and living moss. Their movements are erratic, insectile, and they often pause to tilt their head as if listening to sounds no one else can hear. Their eyes are large and dark, with a faint, reflective sheen like a beetle's carapace.
Merchant Vex
A shifty, wiry gnome with a pointed nose and quick, calculating eyes. He operates from a cluttered cart just inside the safety of Hearthwood's walls, his goods a mix of basic supplies, questionable salvage, and single, rare items sold at exorbitant prices. He smiles too widely and his deals always seem to favor him.
The Bleeding Alpha
A colossal stag beetle, easily the size of a draft horse. Its iridescent exoskeleton is cracked and weeping a thick, amber-red sap that glows with a pained light. Patches of fungal growth sprout from its joints and mandibles. It moves with a tortured, frantic energy, its mandibles clicking not in aggression, but in apparent agony.
Guild Sapper
A grim-faced human with soot-stained goggles pushed up on his forehead. He wears reinforced leather gear laden with pouches, tools, and the unmistakable cylindrical shapes of demolition charges. His expression is one of fanatical determination, bordering on madness.
Root Scout
A lithe elf with skin like pale birch bark and hair the color of autumn leaves. She moves with a silent, predatory grace, clad in armor of woven roots and hardened sap. Her eyes hold a deep suspicion of outsiders, but also a fierce, protective love for the wood.

Chronicle Prelude

Environmental Traits

Legendary Archetypes

✦ Related Cases ✦

The Frost-Melting Verdict

The Bay of Chitin and Lees