d66/d36 Monsters of The Great Grim Gloomy Forest.

Image: Black and White Keyed Map of Gallows Wood.
Not the Great Grim Gloomy Forest itself.
Leo Hartas, from The Elven Crystals by Oliver Johnson.

 

‘…the countryside is wild forest. Areas which appear close together on the map may be quite isolated from one another. A traveller might easily encounter a forgotten palace enclosed by tangled woods barely a day’s ride from a bustling town… woodland areas have an ill and eerie repute… the moon raises a luminous ground-mist from the rotting leaves, and faerie sorcery drips from the old oaks…’

The Lands of Legend by Dave Morris (1986). This is just a footnote (DW 6, p.22)

I think of the Great Grim Gloomy Forest (or whatever you call this entity in your setting) as another form of mythic underworld that can be played in a similar way to a dungeon/ megadungeon, and bends/formalises reality in a similar way.

Forest of Doom was always one of my favourite Fighting Fantasy adventures, and Gallows Wood (DW 3 The Elven Crystals) even looks like a dungeon.

I grew up on the edge of the Pennines in West Yorkshire, UK, and the plantations ('The Rune Woods') round the reservoirs on those moors heavily influenced my sense of this forest of the head.

It’s a fairly vanilla/grim European forest (and North American by way of D&D), but it doesn’t have to be. There are various terrain types within the forest, including swamps, broad bodies of water, and open meadows.

Some credit due:

Monster 1,1 is not the same as Matthew Schutt’s Professional Monsters class (Dragon Magazine No. 163), but that is why I have a lizardfolk druid called a Dire Erudite.

Monster 2,3 – Puddocks – are a name I put to a halfling idea by @Odd_Johnisms of Unlawful Games.

Notes:

·         System/ setting agnostic.

·         A parenthetical number indicates the monster is either unique or normally solitary.

·         For numbers and strength, treat depth in the forest as dungeon levels.

·         Can be used for populating or as a random encounter table.

·         Spells named are not necessarily the spells in your rulebooks.

·         It’s in table form for immediate use, but it’s otherwise just a list I put numbers next to, so the probabilities aren’t balanced.

 

d66	Result
1,1	Dire Erudite (1). Lizardfolk druid; if there is more than one in a forest, it is an apprentice or a challenger. Unsociable, but not unfriendly.
1,2	Winter Dryads. Shaggy white fur; spreading black antlers glittering with frost; casts frost fingers; bone-tipped spear and nooses of creeper; if there’s a leader, it’s a warband on the march.
1,3	Dryads. Green furry squirrel tail; sun-dappled camouflage; casts forgetfulness and doze; stone knife; playful.
1,4	Autumn Dryad. Russet furry squirrel tail, with stench glands and manticore prickles; glorious red and gold camouflage; casts enfeeblement; wooden cudgel; mean.
1,5	Bosky Reptiloids. Several related kinds of lizardfolk; oversize talon on each claw for (d3) climbing/digging/gutting; wear heavy furs in winter, straw raincoats spring and autumn; bounty hunters and trackers; love jewels.
1,6	Leaf Elves. Cast one spell; skintight leaf-o-tards and skullcaps; poison blowpipes; always want to steal and scatter all your stuff; you can’t see them unless level 3+.
2,1	Bare Elves. Cast one spell; naked, acrobatic brachiators; can strangle you with their bare hands or bare feet; separate you from your animals, companions and hirelings; you can’t see them unless level 3+.
2,2	Giant Beetle (1). Colossal, glistening, impregnable; impressive flanged horn; non-aggressive, but can be provoked; it can fly, burrow and uproot trees; sometimes overgrown with a Fungus Colony (2,6).
2,3	Puddocks. Toothless, yellow-eyed B/X halflings dressed like they’re in The Wind in the Willows; always encountered near water; their villages and towns often go unnoticed, except during the rushlight festivals. Shy but friendly. Will go full Ewok if they have to.
2,4	Oakenshield (1 or 2). Giant bearded, helmeted, axe-wielding, shield-bearing, armoured warrior; carved from a single ancient tree; centuries of overgrowth; pillars/idols/champions of a lost civilisation?
2,5	Wood Woses. Ghastly undead neolithic survivors; can see in the dark; brutal stone axes, thrown and wielded; direct sunlight reduces them to rotting mossy stumps; drink blood; not scared, not stupid.
2,6	Fungus Colony (1?). May be intelligent, may be psychic, may be delicious or medicinal; usually immobile (use any mould/fungus as basis); odds/evens, malign/benign, 1 on the d6 it’s a fantasy cordyceps/yellow musk creeper.
3,1	Two Headed Double Bodied Serpent (1?). Ambush as venomous rattler and hypnotic constrictor; escape as rolling hoop with tails in mouths; intelligent; knows where a sapling is that, if it/they coil around together will heal them of all wounds and disease.
3,2	Werewolf Hunters. A party of young women (inc. trans), all in red hoods; bows, pistols, y-shaped staff, hand axes; might have dug a pit; they’re just out for a stroll and you should get inside before dark, okay?
3,3	Unicorn Hunters. A party of young women in practical outdoorswear; blunted arrows, nets, modified mancatchers, cruel jagged black knives; might be mounted; stay out of our way or we’ll cut you, see?
3,4	Deadly Nightshade. Queen of the Wood; the undead, shrunken husk of an ancient goddess, but still has power; 5th level + to see her as anything other than an unearthly, beautiful woman/androgyne; drains WIS and CHA. All must come, who she calls in the forest.
3,5	Mauken/Maukin (2-3). Hare/rabbitfolk; heavy straw raincoats, muskets, cudgels; looking for dead women to mourn and venerate; build dismal/beautiful shrines at the graveside; creepy and tearful.
3,6	Shaggy Green Ape (1). Sad-eyed and intelligent; can communicate with you, but you think you’re doing it; very strong; can easily escape; will lead you to a problem, away from danger or to bloody punishment and retribution. It could easily defeat the Braineater.
4,1	Shaggy Green Ape, Braineater (1). Utterly indistinguishable from the other one, but takes on knowledge and voice from any brain it devours; really likes to upset and terrify mortals. It knows the Shaggy Green Ape could easily kill it but knows it would show mercy.
4,2	Bandit Trees. Face in trunk, walks on modified roots, wields one or more weapons in modified branches; they want your cash and jewels more than they want to kill you.
4,3	Evil Trees. Dimly intelligent, they hunger for flesh and blood; like to kill as many as they can, but will settle for your pack animals if you flee; only Bandit Trees and Deadly Nightshade can communicate with them. Can send out animated leaves and twigs as spies and lures.
4,4	Unicorn (1). Beautiful and fearsome; a lot bigger, wilder and dirtier than you expected; can bite, stab and stomp, but is a sucker for a maiden (however you define this status); definitely has magical properties.
4,5	Werewolf (1). d6 1-2 mistaken identity (how/why?), 3-4 cursed unfortunate (transform by cycle), 5-6 monster of evil (transform by will).
4,6	King(s) of the Wood. Semi-naked berserkers who fervently believe they are wedded to the Queen; they often clash at crossings and where tracks meet.
5,1	Outcasts. d6 1-2 disease (not necessarily. contagious, fatal, obvious or real), 3 sin eaters, 4 sins of the fathers, 5-6 genuinely really unpleasant (they might hide or exult in it).
5,2	Outlaws/Adventuring Party. d6 1-2 hail-fellow-well-met, 3-4 practical career criminals, 5 hardened killers, 6 sadistic loathsome absolute bastards.
5,3	Great Hairy Spiders. Someone’s worst nightmare; paralytic venom; use webbing to fish with as well as nets; same chance of intelligence as dungeon spiders.
5,4	Giant Spider (1). Colossal, intelligent; can talk if it wants to (doesn’t want to); incredibly old and just wants to be left in peace; has a huge webbed lair somewhere deep in the forest.
5,5	Giant Bees. Lovely fuzzy things the size of a small pony; carry intruders to a safe distance, then fly away; can easily lift an armoured rider from a horse, two could lift both at once; deadly burrowing sting.
5,6	Mi Go. Imperfectly disguised as Sprites, Pixies, Giant Bees, Goblins or Shaggy Green Apes; very ‘Hello Fellow Kids’. Here on business.
6,1	Bole Morays. Hairy badger-snakes; usually eat birds; you can lose an ear, eye, nose or throat quite easily.
6,2	Bad Trees. Animate, mischievous, don’t know their own strength, but ultimately cowardly; like to scare and threaten mortals; fear Bandit Trees and Evil Trees and know where they are.
6,3	Minotaur (1). Odds/evens, melancholic/berserker; not stupid, can talk; likes booze; its blood is highly prized (healing, male vigour, berserking).
6,4	Sprites/Pixies. d6 1-2 Pixies, 3-4 Sprites, 5-6 Pitched battle between the two; double number encountered to represent two sides. They really hate each other.
6,5	Goblins. Twisted black armour, cruel jagged black knives, nets and whips; excessively oily, smoky firearms; envenomed spiky slingshot; cannot be seen by unlevelled characters, unless they choose to reveal themselves; fear iron and holy; stalking the (d6) Dire Erudite, Puddocks, Shaggy Green Ape, Unicorn, Giant Spider, Giant Beetle.
6,6	The Owlbear (1). Bigger than any bear, old as the forest; huge, blank glowing eyes; overgrown with soft mosses; terrible rending claws and shearing beak; how can something so huge be so silent? Its cries silence the forest, everything pauses.