Total Conversion: Curse of Strahd 5e

[Guest]

Chap 2: Areas of the Unknown, Part I
The following areas correspond to labels on the ORIGINAL CoS map of Barovia on page 35.


Common Features
Unless otherwise specified, apply the following rules to doors, secret doors, locks, and webs:
Doors--a wodden door can be forced open with a DC 10 Str check or DC 15 if the door is barred/reinforced. Increase the DC by 5 if the door is stone and 10 if iron. Decrease the DC b 5 if the door is made of glass or ice or is weakened (such as by rot/corrosion).
Secret doors--if there are obvious clue's to its presence, such as scratch marks/footprints, a character with a passive Wis (Perception) of 15 or higher notices the secret door. Otherwise, a PC must search the area and make a DC 15 Wis (Perception) check.
Locks--a creature proficient with thieves's tools can use them to pick a typical lock with a DC 15 Dex check. A typical padlock can be broken by smashing or slashing and succeeding on a DC 20 Str check.
Webs--characters can pass through ordinary webs and thick cobwebs without restraint or being slowed. A character can clear cobwebs from a 10-ft square as an action. Webs woven by giant spiders are different (see Chap 5 in DM's Guide).


A. Worthwagon Road
Text: 'Giant, fall-leaved trees loom on both sides of the road, branches clawing at the mist. Black pools of water lie like dark mirrors in and around the muddy roadway. Your boots are about to take the brunt of the muck.'
If the PCs walk along the road, they arrive at area B after 5 hours. If traveling in a Fungai's turkey wagon, the travel time is halved.


B. Adelaide Gate
Two sets of these gates exist: one to the west and one east of the village Adelaide.
Text: 'The mist spills from the forest to swallow up the road behind you. Ahead, jutting from the fall-leaved woods on both sides of the road, gray stone buttresses arch just over head height in the fog. Dew slicks the woodgrain grooves of the sticky, black-varnished doors that hang on the stonework. Two headless stone statues of equally tall turkeys flank the gate. Their heads lie in the weeds at their feet, staring at you with large yet somehow still beady eyes.'
If the characters are traveling on foot, the western gates swing open as they approaching, creaking on their hinges. The gates close behind the characters after they pass through. If riding in wagons, the gates open in front of the lead wagon and close after the rear enters.
The eastern gates don't open for people trying to leave the Unknown and the fog chokes any that pass through the gates or skirts around them.
If the Beast is defeated, the gates open and the North Wind clears the road east of fog.


C. The Edelwood Forest
Text: 'Towering trees, whose fiery canopies are lost in heavy gray mist, black out all but a drear light. The tree trunks are unnaturally close to one another, and the woods have the silence of a forgotten grave, yet exude the feeling of an unvoiced scream.'
If the PCs are traveling in wagons, they can continue to the village of Adelaide (area E) without incident.
If the characters are on foot, whoever has the highest passive Wisdom (Perception) score notices: 'You catch the grandly tripping notes of a distant song.'
A moment later: 'You hear the thick and fibrous ripping and tearing of a falling tree, its boughs snapping like bones.'
If they head in the direction of the sounds: 'The stump of a recently chopped tree still oozes black sap. Beside it, a tree with knobs and gnarls rougly resembling a face upon its trunk clutches a crumpled envelope between two low and twining branches.'
One week ago, this Edelwood tree was the man Alvin Oscar. He tried to escape from the Unknown with a letter from his master when the Beast stripped his final hopes and he succumbed to the Edelwood Slumber.
The letter in Alvin's hand has a large 'A' set into its wax seal. The parchment is worn and flimsy. If the PCs open and read the letter, show the players "Andrew Kole's Letter (Version 2)" in appendix F, dated one week ago.
Alvin was instructed to place the letter at the gates in the hope that visitors would find it and turn back.
If the PCs linger in the woods, they hear the howl of a lone dog far off in the forest. Each round, one more dog adds its voice to the howling, the sound
getting progressively closer to the party. If the characters are still in the woods after 5 rounds of howling, five dire dogs arrive and attack. If the characters are trying to leave the Unknown, these dire dogs are joined by a pack of 20 dogs. The attack stops if the PCs retreat to the road and head toward the village of Adelaide (area E).


D. Eternal River
Text: 'The river flows as clear as the melting ice of the undomesticated mountains.'
The river is roughly 50 feet wide, its depth ranging from 5 to 10 feet. Arching stone bridges span the river at two points, one near Adelaide (area E) and the other near Fallwater (area H). They are made from the same stone as the wall surrounding the Unknown.


E. Village of Adelaide
See Chap 3.


F. Eternal River Crossroads
Check for a random encounter whenever the characters reach area F, unless accompanied by Fungais.
Text: 'An old wooden stockage creaks in a chill wind that blows down from the high ground to the west. Its holes are mercifully empty, though the wood bears the countless stains and splattermarks of weaponized produce. The well-worn road splits here, and a signpost opposite the stocks points off in three directions: Adelaide to the east, Fallwater Pool to the northwest, and Tavern Town to the southwest.
The northwest fork slants in descent and disappears into the trees. The southwest fork winds around an upward slope. Across from the stockade, a shoulder-height stone wall encloses a small plot of graves in shroud of fog. The sticky, black-varnished sign above the entry reads: Eternal Garden Cemetery.'
The northwest fork leads to the river and the road southwest leads to area H. The east road leads to an arching stone bidge and continues to Adelaide (area E). If the PCs are traveling with Fungais, the Fungais lead them along the northwest road to the Fungai Encampment.
The stockade stands atop a wooden platform sticky with varnish made from the black sap of Edelwood trees.
The cemetery holds 11 graves. PCs who dig up the graves find moldy bones buried without coffins. The denizens of the Unknown respect their dead by not enclosing them in the wood that marks souls for consumption and utter destruction by the Beast.
The gravestones: 'Here lies Maude--she ran afoul of dogs, getting toothed and clawed.
Here lies Pete--he raced naked on a cold day and ended in a dead heat.
Here lies Trevor--he liked to eat mulch, which wasn't so clever.
Here lies Stacy--she walked in on some druids and got clubbed by a mace-y.
Here lies Bob--drawing a woodcutter's ire, he suffered a hatchet job.
Here lies Camille--she fell into Lake Froget and sank like steel.
Here lies Kipper--cursed by a Fungai, he got hit with his own whip-er.
Here lies Shane--he argued with a centaur and got kicked in the brain.
Here lies Lindy--she walked a roof too many on a day too windy.
Here lies Will--he barrelled down Fallwater but took a bad spill.
Here lies Gina--a marvelous musician until she swallowed her ocarina.'
If your card reading reveals a treasure is here, it's buried in one of the graves. For each grave the characters dig up, there's a cumulative 10 percent chance of finding the treasure.


G. Fallwater Pool Encampment
Text: 'The road gradually disappears and is replaced by a twisted, muddy path through the trees. Heavy-laden wagons have dug deep ruts into the earth.
The canopy of mist and branches gives way to boiling thunderclouds above. There is a clearing here, next to a river that widens to a pond, some might say a small lake, several hundred feet across.
Five colorful round tents, each ten feet in diameter, are pitched outside a ring of four, mulch-heaped wagons exuding a thick and loamy pungence. A much larger tent stands near the pond bank, its sagging sheet walls lit from within. Near this tent, eight horse-sized turkeys drink from the river.
A deep gnome plays a mournful tune on an accordion while their brightly clothed brethren sing and dance to an entirely different song around a bonfire.
A footpath continues beyond this encampment, meandering north between the river and the forest's edge.'
The eight draft turkeys drinking from the river aren't easily startled.
If the PCs are brought here by Fungais, their escorts remain at the camp and don't accompany the party any farther.
Twelve Fungais (CN male and female Fungai commoners) are standing and sitting around the fire, telling stories and eating from barbeque skewers. Three others (CN male and female Fungai nobles) rest in three of the four wagons but leap into action if an alarm is raised.
The Fungais will only attack if provoked with threats or insults. Otherwise, the PCs are offered food and drink and invited to join the reverie. If the PCs linger, continue with 'A Fungai's Tale' below. If they're in a hurry to leave, one of the Fungai tells them, "It was fated that you came to our camp. Ms. Evangeline foretold it. She awaits you." The Fungai directs them to the largest tent. If they head that way, continue with 'Ms. Evangeline's Tent.'


A Fungai's Tale
Text: 'Once upon a time, maybe a year ago, a powerful wizard came to this land. He stood where you're standing...sitting. A charming man, he was, for a wizard, anyway. He thought he could rally the people of the Unknown against the Beast. He stirred them up to revolt--you know how they get--and brought the mob to the Elder Edelwood.
But the Beast appeared and sang. And when he sings, he sings your secretest sins out of hiding. The mob scattered in despair only to plant roots from their feet. Every one of them fell to the Edelwood Slumber that day.
But the wizard, he and the Beast fired their spells off at each other. In their fight, they flew from the Elder Edelwood to a precipice overlooking the falls. Saw it with my own eyes, I did.
Thunder shook the mountainside, and boulders tumbled upon the wizard--thank spores he had magic. He was even able to take a direct bolt of lightning--I swear! But then the Beast fell on him. Nobody could've survived that.
The Beast flung him a thousand feet to his death. I checked. I climbed down the river to find the wizard in case he was just mostly dead. But it was too late--the Eternal River had already flushed him down.'
The Fungai storyteller doesn't remember the wizard's name, but recalls that it sounded important. If the characters haven't spoken with Ms. Evangeline, the storyteller urges them to do so.


Ms. Evangeline's Tent
Text: 'Magic flames cast a reddish glow over the tent interior and reveal a low table covered in black velvet. Light glints from a crystal ball on the table as a hunched figure peers into its surprisingly foggy depths. As the elderly Fungai speaks, her voice rasps like two rocks sanding each other to dust. "Right on schedule!" Laughter bursts from her withered lips with the clacking of thrown stones.'
Ms. Evangeline (see appendix D) speaks the name of each party member and makes some reference to that PC's past deeds. She then asks the characters if they want their fortunes read. If they say yes, she produces a worn deck of cards and proceeds with the sequence in Chap 1.
If the characters don't want a reading, continue play using the reading you performed before starting the adventure.
Ms. Evangeline has met a good many adventurers and lost souls in her time and knows they can't be fully trusted. She wants to free the Unknown from the curse of the Beast (see appendix D), but fears any harm to the Fungais, so she never gives aid or asks for any.


Treasure
For each turkey wagon that the PCs search, roll once on the folowing table to determine the treasure:
d20 Treasure
1-10 None
11-13 Sack of 100 units of currency (DM's choice) used in Tavern Town
14-16 Pouch of 100 units of currency (DM's choice) used in Adelaide
17-19 Sack containing one common item
20 One magic item (see Magic Item Table B in the DM's guide)
If your card reading reveals a treasure here, it's hidden in one of the wagons. Ms. Evangeline gives the PCs permission to search the wagons if they ask, and any such search also yields the treasure.


H. Fallwater
If the characters reach area H by following the footpath from the Fungai encampment (area G): 'You follow the river to the base of a canyon, at the end of which a great waterfall roars into a pool, billowing forth cold and spraying clouds. A bridge of stone spans the canyon nearly one thousand feet overhead.'
If the characters are on the high road: 'You follow the dirt road, its muck clinging to the side of the mountain, all the way to an arching bridge of mold, moss, and fungi-choked stone that spans a natural chasm. Stone dogs given a new coat coat of black moss stand alert over the corners of the bridge, ears and tails pointed.
On the mountain side of the bridge, a waterfall roars into a clouded, roiling pool nearly a thousand feet below. The pool feeds a river that winds into the fog-shrouded and fall-leaved trees that blanket the valley like a cold forest fire.'
The chasm's walls are slippery and sheer, and can't be scaled without magic or a climber's kit. The bridge is slick with the spray of the falls but safe to cross. The road south of the bridges leads down the mountainside to area F. The road north cuts through the mountains to area I. The dogs are harmless sculptures.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Gates of Barovia = Adelaide Gate
Dalvan Olensky = Alvin Oscar
Tser Falls = Fallwater
Tser Pool = Fallwater Pool

[Guest]

Chap 2: Areas of the Unknown, Part II


I. Black turtle cart
Text: 'Even here, in the mountains, the forest and fog are inescapable. Ahead, the dirt road splits in two, widening toward the east. There you see patches of black cobblestone, slick and round as turtle shells.'
If the Beast has invited to the Elder Edelwood or otherwise wants to steer them in his direction, add: 'Parked at the fork in the road, pointed east, is a large wooden cart hitched to a black turtle the size of two draft horses. The turtle regards you from heavy-lidded eyes gleaming with a weary intelligence.'
The turtle is under the Beast's control. It waits for the characters to pile intot he cart if they so desire. There is room inside for eight of them. If they get in, the turtle draws the cart down the road to area J. The turtle can't be discourged from its course.
PCs who don't want to travel east in the carriage can follow the road northwest through a set of wooden gates (area or travel south to the bridge at Fallwater (area H).


J. Edelwood Gate
The following assumes characters arrive here in the cart from area I. Modify as needed if they arrive by other means.
Text: 'After winding through the forest and craggy mountain peaks, the road takes a sudden turn east. The Elder Edelwood towers before you upon the precipice of a fifty-foot-wide, fog-filled chasm that disappears into unknown depths. Roots as thick and sturdy as stone towers crush and weave their coils in and out of the rock. Cracks spread from each monstrous stitch of wood and stone, countless displaced boulders jutting like loose teeth.
A bridge of rope and wooden planks stretches across the chasm, creaking in the wind. A wooden portcullis, black with resinous varnish, hangs above the entry tunnel. Across the chasm, the Elder Edelwood gapes open from a massive hole in its trunk, a toothless maw. Rich, warm light spills from within, flooding the courtyard where its roots rip through the black cobblestone. Torches flicker on both sides of the maw, their flames sad pinpricks in comparison.'
The bridge appears sturdy, but several of its boards are missing, and it creaks and groans under any weight. There is a 5% chance of one of the boards breaking under a creature. If one breaks, the creature must succeed on a DC 10 Dex saving throw or fall to the bottom of the cliffs, 1000 feet below. If a companion is within 5 ft of the creature and reaches out to grab it, the creature has advantage on the save.
A patch of green slime (see Chap 5 of the DM's Guide) clings to the portcullis in the entry tunnel and can be spotted with a successful DC 20 Wis (Perception) check. The slime will not fall on those entering, but it does on the first character who leaves by this route.


K. Elder Edelwood
See Chap 4.


L. Lake Froget
Text: 'At the foot of a mountain, nestled in the autumnal forest, is a large lake. The water is perfectly still and dark, hiding all that enters its depths.'
If the PCs arrive along the shore north of Tavern Town in the daytime, add:
'Pulled up along shore are three small rowboats. A fourth boat sits in the middle of the lake. An ill-formed figure casts a fishing line over one side while a much smaller figure leans precariously over the other.'
Each rowboat can safely hold five people. The person fishing on the lake is Frogfolk Bill, a resident of the Frogfolk community within the deep waters and frigid waters of Lake Froget. He is in a fog-induced trance and doesn't respond to anything or anyone unless attacked. His boat is 400 feet from the nearest shore.
His companion is the seven-year-old Fungai runaway, Arabelle. Her budding gift of prescience has told her that great enemies of the Beast will come to the shores of Lake Froget. In her impatience, however, she's asked Frogfolk Bill to take her out to the center of the lake from which point she can watch every shore. She is unaware that Frogfolk Bill has been in a trance for days beside the rowboats, assuming it to be a mere idiosyncracy like those of the nearby townsfolk.


Roleplaying Frogfolk Bill
Frogfolk Bill is currently under the influence of the Beast and will fall into Edelwood Slumber as soon as he leaves the boat if the characters take him to the shore. If the PCs push him overboard, he will sink down where other Frogfolk from the Lake Froget will come for his body but will be unable to wake him.
Frogfolk Bill barely understands his own actions at this point. He is unarmed and does nothing to aid or thwart the characters.


Roleplaying Arabelle
If the PCs watch the boat from the shore or row out into the lake, Arabelle notices them and stands up. In her excitement, she tips the boat and falls over the edge. A deep gnome child, she's too small to reach the edge of the boat.
PCs who act quickly can save Arabelle before she drowns. A character on shore must make a DC 15 Str (Athletics) check to reach her in time. The DC is 10 for characters who took a rowboat out onto the lake.
Like most Fungais, Arabelle is bald and has pastel skin. Her saucer-like eyes are an opalescent black. If rescued, she refuses to say where she came from unless a character succeeds on a DC 15 Cha check. If the PCs agree to let her travel with them and approach her family's camp outside Tavern Town (Chap 5, area N9), she will stop them and explain that she ran away because she's destined to help defeat the Beast--why else would she continue to have visions of the Beast's enemies? But her father, Mr. Lou, is too overprotective...of the precocious seven-year-old...and refused to help her seek or aid any such adventurers.


M. Mr. Elkman
This encounter can occur anywhere along the base of Mount Barking: 'North of the mountain lake, the trees begin a steady climb up the slopes of Mount Barking until the jagged like of the toothed evergreens. The ground here is rocky, uneven, and tiring to navigate. Even the wild dogs avoid this neck of the woods. Soon, you climb above the blanket of fog that rises from even the trees themselves. Gray and pregnant thunderclouds roll overhead with muffled rumbles of thunder.
You see an elk standing on a rocky spur about sixty feet away. It stands on its hind legs and brings the hooves of its forelegs to its mouth. It flings off the first dark hoof with its mouth. Slender, velveted fingers jointed in disparate places like antlers remove the other hoof. The thing in the shape of an elk waggles its fingers with the crack and pop of far too many knuckles.
A gust of cold wind blows every last oiled and spiky hair off the bipedal elk, revealing a naked man. His thick black beard and long, matted hair are streaked with gray. His elk-brown eyes crackle with eldritch power.'
Mr. Elkman (CN male human archmage) came to the Unknown a little over a year ago with the rest of the outsiders brought in with the fog tide. He tried to free the denizens of the Unknown from the Beast's oppression but overestimated the combat ability of a mob of commoners against the Beast's multitude of forces. The battle eventually brought Mr. Elkman and the Beast to the mountains where the Beast hurled the wizard over Fallwater (area H). The wizard, his staff and spellbook lost, survived the fall and retreated into the wintry mountains, hoping to regain his power, only to lose much of his willpower to the Beast's influence.
Mr. Elkman has forgotten his original name and the world whence he came. In fact, he doesn't remember anything that happened before his fight with the Beast. He believes all who come to him are agents of the Beast intending to finish him off and will turn his destructive magic on the PCs shouting, "You think my magic has grown weak? Think again, thralls!"
If reduced to 50 hit points or fewer, he shouts, "Tell the Beast he can break my body but never my spirit." He then attempts to flee.
Mr. Elkman, truly none other than Mordenkainen, archmage of Oerth and leader of the Circle of Eight, has cast a mind blink on himself to prevent the Beast from using his past against him and further deteriorate his will. While the spell remains in effect, he will continue to assume the PCs are hostile. The PCs can determine he's under the mind blank spell with an 18 Int (Arcana) check. It has a duration of 3d6 hours, after which he will cast it again as soon as possible unless the PCs are there to prevent it.
Mr. Elkman, as he prefers to be called in his present state of failure, has a different spell list from the archmage in the Monster Manual as noted here:
Cantrips--fire bolt, light, mage hand, prestidigitation, shocking grasp
1st (4 slots)--detect magic, mage armor, magic missile, shield
2nd (3 slots)--mirror image, misty step, web
3rd (3 slots)--counterspell, fly, lightning bolt
4th (3 slots)--Mordenkainen's faithful hound, polymorph, stoneskin
5th (3 slots)--Bigby's hand, cone of cold, scrying
6th (1 slot)--true seeing
7th (1 slot)--Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion
8th (1 slot)--mind blank
9th (1 slot)--time stop


Mordenkainen's mansion
If the PCs prevent him from blanking his mind again, he invites them to his 'mansion.' He leads them up the mountain to an invisible doorway that serves as the entrance to his extradimensional lair, created by his very own Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion spell. He provides them with food and sanctuary where they are free to take an undisturbed short or long rest.
Mr. Elkman is familiar with worlds beyond his own but not our world.
If he isn't the foretold ally (see Chap 1), he declines to join them if asked. But he does imbue each character with a charm of heroism (see Chap 7, DM's Guide). Once the PCs leave and he has recovered his spells, he will cast mind blank again.
If he is the foretold ally, Mr. Elkman will agree to help them fight the Beast at the final battle but will not join them in their travels.
Mr. Elkman, originally a stubborn and difficult man who refused to suffer a fool, is a shell of his former self. He is silent and withdrawn, often staring into space and refusing to listen. He's much happier acting like an animal in elk form, however, and will assume it any chance that he gets. If he gets into a mood while in elk form, his reassumes his human positions and mannerisms but remains in his elk body.
If the Beast is defeated and Mr. Elkman survives, he will agree to accompany the characters back to their world if asked, springing at the chance for a new beginning.


N. Town of Tavern Town
See Chap 5.


O. The Old Grist Mill
See Chap 6.


P. Loon River Crossroads
Always check for a random encounter when the characters reach area P in their travels.
Text: 'The road comes to an X intersection with branches to the northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast. The lower half of a snapped wooden signpost thrusts upward at an angle near the easter elbow of the intersection. The top half of the sign, featuring muscular arms pointing in four directions, lies in the weeds nearby.'
The characters can easily figure out how the top half connects to the lower half. When aligned and rejoined, the muscular wooden arms indicate Pottsfield and Winter Road to the Southwest, Lake Barking to the northwest, Tavern Town and the Elder Edelwood to the northeast, and Manorfield to the southeast.
Worthwagon Road, which runs northeast to southwest between Tavern Town (area N) and Pottsfield (area S), is generally level. A quarter mile along the northeast branch, an arching stone bridge crosses Loon River.
The northwest branch climbs gently only to become a mucky dirt trail through the woods within a half mile. It merges with Worthwagon Road again after a couple of miles, but not before sprouting a branch that leads to the Schoolhouse on Lake Barking (area V). The southeast branch wends downward, following Loon River into a valley. This trail at the mostly abandoned riverside burg of Manorfield (area U).


O. Inn of Whispers
See Chap 7.


R. Raven River Crossroads
Always check for a random encounter when characters reach area R.
This stretch of Worthwagon road has multiple branches. One heads north, quickly turning to a dirt path to the Shcoolhouse (area V). One heads south, becoming Winter Road (area T) as it winds through the lower mountains and clings to the side of Mount Gawking. The third branch heads west toward the Mulch Fields (area W), dipping south as it changes from a road into a gravel trail.
Standing at the busy intersection is a signpost: 'You see a weatherworn signpost next to the road. Its three arms point along the three branches of the road. The arm pointing north reads Pottsfield, and through the woods you can see an arching stone bridge spanning a river. The arm pointing east reads Tavern Town, and the road slopes up gradually in that direction. The lowest arm, pointing southwest, reads the Mulch Fields. The road slopes gently down in that direction and you see that gravel replaces the mud.'


S. Pottsfield
See Chap 8.


T. Winter Road
See Chap 9.


U. Overgrown Manor
See Chap 10.


V. The Schoolhouse
See Chap 11.


W. The Mulch Fields
See Chap 12.


X. Winter Place.
See Chap 13.


Y. The Seed Garden
See Chap 14.


Z. The Landboat of Frogs
See Chap 15.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Black carriage = Black turtle cart
Gates of Ravenloft = Edelwood Gate
Bluto Krogarov = Frogfolk Bill
Luna River Crossroads = Loon River Crossroads
Berez = Manorfield

[Guest]

Chap 3: The Village of Adelaide, Part I


Adelaide is one of the most severely oppressed settlements in the land. The village lies in the shadow of the Elder Edelwood, buried under fog and every night, any caught outside must contend with swarms of Business Bats.
Until recently, the Beast had been paying nightly visits to Irene Kole, the adopted daughter of the village burgomaster. Irene carries a piece of the soul of the witch Tabitha, the only one to have ever escaped from the Beast. He intends to sing her final hopes away so that she may fall into Edelwood Slumber and become a tree for him to consume by fire.


Approaching the village
When the characters first approach: 'Tall shapes loom out of the dense fog that surrounds all. Multicolored threads drape many of these quiet, empty-windowed buildings like webs of a yarn-spinning spider. No sound breaches the silent and smoky air except for a mournful sobbing that echoes through the streets from a distance.'
The sobbing comes from the townhouse of Adelaide, the defected clone of the witch Tabitha (area E3). With the exception of areas E1 and E2, all shops in the village are among the permanently closed and yarn-draped buildings--Adelaide secretly being the one responsible. Unoccupied shops have been looted of anything valuable, but many are home to Feathered Friends, rebels whom Adelaide has transformed into birds. Feathered Friends are sentient but cannot speak or use any stats but those of tiny, ordinary birds.


House occupants
If the PCs explore a residence other than Adelaide's townhouse (area E3) or the burgomaster's mansion (area E4), roll a d20 and consult the following table:


d20 Occupants
1-2 None
3-4 2d4 swarms of birds (non-hostile Feathered Friends)
5-14 Villagers
15-16 2d4 swarms of rats
17-18 1d4 scarecrows
19-20 2d4 the Beast's fog-touched fey (see appendix D)


The unoccupied
Any house without villagers is one of the abandoned buildings draped in multicolored yarn. These threads also hang from the rafters of the interior. While having no properties other than ordinary thread, if a PC grabs hold of many threads looped around the same rafter, they can yank the single beam free with a Str DC 20.
A house infested with rats or home to Feathered Friends appears thusly abandoned.
Visual reference: https://67.media.tumblr.com/8a5e395f...e18o2_1280.png

Villagers
A house of villagers is home to 1d4 adults (any race, commoners) and 1d6-1 children (any race, noncombatants). PCs who listen at the door hear low, muffled speech from within. They can see humanoid shapes move in the windows, typically lighted at night. Villagers never attack first and flee from danger if possible. Many of them carry the holy symbols of the Queen of the Cloud, which can be any object but shaped as though formed by a cloud.


Scarecrows
When the PCs open a door or shuttered window of an abandoned home hosting scarecrows, they see blood and the mutilated bodies of birds. If the PCs search the house, they will find the scarecrows in the process of bird-killing. The scarecrows will attack the PCs once they've dispatched the birds (1 round). Feathered Friends killed as birds do not revert to their original forms.


The Beast's fog-touched fey
When the PCs open a door or shuttered window of an abandoned home infested by
the Beast's fog-touched fey, a breath of mist smelling of burning wood and oil blows by them. Mist rolls and curls across the floor of the building and the scent becomes stronger as the fey converge upon the PCs.


Areas of the Village
The following correspond to labels on the ORIGINAL CoS map of Barovia on page 42.


E1. Old Bill's Mercantile
Text: 'The sparse light from this building spills out from behind drawn, heavy curtains depicting birds flying through clouds in colorful brocade. A sign over the door, creaking on its hinges, reads "Old Bill's Mercantile."'
The establishment is 70 feet long by 40 feet wide. The owner, Old Bill (any race, commoner), sells items from the Adventuring Gear table in the Player's Handbook, but only buys items with a price lower than 25 (object of currency is the DM's choice), and sells them for 10 tens the price.
He trades with Fungais when they pass through. He's happy to make a profit from any strangers unlucky enough to find themselves here. He serves his own interests and offers no sanctuary. He never bargains unless he has an idiosyncracy revolving around a particular object since, as he says, "If you want it badly enough, you'll pay for it." He has no competition in the village.
If the PCs give him a hard time, he calls Perry Wimple (any race, gladiaotr but with Int 6 and no shield). Perry is his nephew and stockboy under a severely gouging contract. His muscles ripple under his leather tunic, giving ample notice of his strength. But in his simple-minded devotion, he won't leave Old Bill to join the PCs while his uncle has something to say about it.


E2. Last Tavern Left
Text: 'A single shaft of light thrusts into the main square, its brightness a solid pillar in the heavy fog. Above the open doorway, a sign hangs precariously askew, proclaiming this to be the Last Tavern Left.'
The building is about 60 feet square. A blazing fire in the unbarred hearth warms almost as much as it threatens to spill out over the hard wooden floorboards. The PCs can see a barkeep, three Fungais drinking and reveling together, and a human male, Isaiah Kole, son of the burgomaster Andrew Kole.


Roleplaying Isaiah
Isaiah (LG male human veteran) is a young man who sits by himself at a corner table, sipping the house moonshine. The villagers call him "Isaiah the Lesser" or "Lessie" for short because he's lived in the shadow of his father for most of his life.
Isaiah invites the PCs to join him, offers to pay for their homebrewed drinks, and asks for their aid in protecting his adopted sister, Irene Kole. If they agree to help, he takes them to the burgomaster's residence (area E4). He wants them to help escort Irene to Tavern Town, a settlement in the heart of the valley, and out of the shadow of the Elder Edelwood. He hopes the Beast will be unable to reach Irene there, as he's heard it is well-defended. Like most villagers of Adelaide, however, he hasn't left to see for himself because of the night terror of the Business Bats.
Isaiah has spent all of his spare time training after learning about the wizard's assault on the Beast about a year ago. If the PCs suggest that he accompany them, he agrees provided that Irene is first brought to a place of safety. As long as Isaiah accompanies the characters, he acts as a party member for the purpose of determining each character's share of XP, though he gains no points himself.


Roleplaying other NPCS
Barkeep--is a pudgy little man (any race, CN commoner) who mimicks the voices of his patrons when they take orders for drinks. Indeed, he even attempts to act like them when he brings them their order. He's a man of little knowledge but if asked for information, he'll make something up in the hopes that it helps.
The three Fungais--(nobles) sit at a table near the front door. They are, in fact, the owners of the tavern, having given up mulch-gathering after their giant turkeys fell to dire dogs. Their names are Alan, Mirabel, and Sara, and the make sure the customers pay their tabs. If the PCs question them about their past or the tavern, all three exchange joviality for solemnity and relate the tale of the death of their turkeys, growing increasingly emotional until they're all wailing and sobbing at the end. As the PCs leave them, they suggest visiting Ms. Evangeline for their fortunes (Chap 2, area G).


E3. Adelaide's Townhouse
Text: 'A moaning sob floats through the still, gray streets, coloring your thoughts with sadness. The sounds flow from a two-story townhouse with yarn cords for curtains.'
The house, about 40 ft square, belongs to the one that the villagers call "Snow White" because the white-haired woman has never told them a name. She was never given a name by the rebels who created her to be a clone of the witch Tabitha, but the influence of the Beast has led her to believe that she is Adelaide, caretaker spirit of the village--why else would she have such power? She will not, however, attack the players unless they attack her or threaten the Beast in her presence. See stats below.
Upon entering the house, the PCs feel the unnatural wintry chill that pervades the entire house (those who can may detect its magical nature). Multicolored threads drape over every frost-crystalled surface, the long ends of their strands clutched by the white-haired Adelaide sitting at the center of the floor in the upstairs bedroom. She wears only a simple patchwork shift and her bare feet leave no print in the frost which she creates.
Few have noticed her resemblance to Irene Kole because the cloning process left her without pigmentation and Adelaide only leaves her home at night, but the PCs may perceive the similarities with a DC 11 Wis (Perception) check. Adelaide says nothing in the presence of anger but will speak, albeit haltingly, to someone who talks with her gently. Gertruda, whom she adopted as a servant but has come to care for as a daughter, is missing and Adelaide fears the worst. See Chap 4, area K42 for Gertruda's fate. Adelaide will only speak of her past if the PCs report back on Gertruda's fate.
If the PCs search the house, they can find Gertruda's doll, a miniature stuffed scarecrow with an unsettling leer on its sackcloth face.
Her idiosyncracies are decorating abandoned buildings with her yarn and knitting clothes for her scarecrows with needles of ice, though the DM may add more.
Adelaide's song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd_FpKwGkTs


E4. Burgomaster's Mansion
Text: 'A weary mansion squats behind a rusting iron fence. The iron gates are twisted and torn. The right gate lies cast aside, while the left swings lazily in the wind, squealing and clanging with cyclic precision. Weeds choke the grounds and crawl up the sides of the house. Yet, many feet have tramped down a path to and around the domain.
As you approach, you note where heavy claws have stripped the walls of their painted finish. Great, soot-black smears tell of many fires having been set upon the mansion. Not a pane nor shard of glass remains in any of the windows, all of which are boarded up. Someone has carved cloud sigils into the planks.'
Characters who survey the grounds can, with a DC 11 Wis (Perception) check, discern the prints of dogs and humanoids. The footprints were made both by mobs and the Beast's fog-touched fey while the pawprints were made by dogs and dire dogs.
Irene Kole (LG female human noble, 14 hit points), the adopted daughter of the burgomaster, is inside the mansion and won't open the heavily barred door unless she's convinced that they have no allegiance to the Beast. If convinced with good roleplay or a DC 15 Cha (Deception or Persuasion) check or by accompanying Isaiah, she opens the door and bids them enter.
Once inside: 'The interior is well furnished, yet the fixtures and furniture show signs of great wear. Noticeable oddities are the boarded-up windows and holy cloud symbols in every room. The burgomaster is in a side drawing room on the floor, wrapped in a simple knit shroud. Flowers were placed on his body, but they've wilted, adding to the scent of decay.'
Isaiah and Irene knit the shroud themselves.


Roleplaying Irene
Irene, a striking human with auburn hair, has had much of her will and hopes stripped by the Song of the Beast. The villagers can sense her impending doom and avoid her on sight. The PCs are her best hope for protection, so she is willing to accompany them under certain conditions.
She doesn't remember her early past, how she came to the Unknown, or where she came from.
She does say that father was fortunate enough to die of heart failure than to fall into Edelwood Slumber. But no one wants to help her or Isaiah take their father to the cemetery for a proper burial. No one has even helped them carve a headstone, so they've simply collected stones to pile upon the grave. She asks the PCs to help deliver the body safely to Dona, the local priest (area E5). If the PCs convince her to go with them without moving the body, she will sneak away at any moment to do it herself, risks be damned.


STAT ALTERATIONS/ADDITIONS

Adelaide, Glacier Witch, original here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archi.../t-481408.html
Medium Human, NE
Hit Points: 120 (16d8+48)
Speed: 30ft
AC: 18
Str 10 (+0) Dex 17 (+3) Con 16 (+3)
Int 16 (+3) Wis 16 (+3) Cha 19 (+4)
Saves: Dex+7, Con+7, Wis+7, Cha+8
Skills: Any skills the DM feels appropriate
Damage Immunities: cold*
Damage Resistance: fire*, damage from nonmagical weapons
(* Results of “Investiture of Ice”)
Senses: Passive Perception 17, darkvision 60 feet
Languages: Common
Challenge Rating: 10 (5900 XP)
Magic Resistance. The Witch has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Eldritch Invocations. The Witch can see through both magical and non-magical darkness within a 120 feet radius. Add her Charisma modifier to the damage of each ray of the Witch’s Eldritch Blast.
Frost Blast. Whenever the Witch casts Eldritch Blast, its damage’s type is treated as cold damage. Also, if the beam hits a creature, roll a 1d6. If the result is 6, the creature suffers from the “Restrained” condition till the start of the Witch’s next turn.
In addition to the above, whenever the beams hit a creature or object, three grids of the Witch’s choice, including the grid (or one of the grids) which contains the creature/object that was hit, become covered in ice (the selected grids must be adjacent to one another). (If the beam does not hit its originally intended target, the DM may rule that the beam will keep on advancing and eventually hit the ground or an object in a particular grid of the DM’s choice.)
Any grid covered in ice becomes difficult terrain, and whenever a creature tries to move 5 feet within the ice grid, it must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or fall prone (if the creature succeeds on this save, it does need to repeat this saving throw any more during that turn, regardless of how many extra grids he moves).
The ice created by the Witch's magic is magical, and does not melt on its own. However, if magical fire damage is inflicted to any grid covered in ice, or if the DM otherwise deems that a particular arcane event melts the ice covering the grid, the grid is no more covered by ice. If the Witch dies, the ice will melt as well.
Body of Ice. The Witch does not need to concentrate on “investiture of ice” to maintain its effects. Also, when the Witch casts Cone of Cold, or uses the “freezing wind” ability of “investiture of ice”, all grids within range of the effect become covered with ice. The rules applied to the ice grids created by the Frost Blast ability also apply to ice grids created by this ability.
Innate Spellcasting. The Witch’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 16, +8 to hit with spell attacks). The Witch can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
At will: detect magic, dispel magic, eldritch blast (three beams), investiture of ice*
3/day each: armor of agathys (as a 5th-level spell)*
2/day each: counterspell, hex (as a 5th-level spell)
1/day each: power word stun
* Cast before combat
Actions
Cone of Cold. (Recharge 5-6) The Witch casts “Cone of Cold”.
Reactions
Absolute Zero. When the Witch’s HP cut 60, immediately and as a reaction, the Witch casts “Cone of Cold” as a 7th-level spell. The Witch can use this ability only once per long rest.
Legendary Actions
The Witch can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. The Witch regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Seeping Cold. The Witch targets 5 grids within 120 feet (which do not have to be adjacent to each other). They are covered in ice.
Cast Spell (Costs 2 Actions.) The Witch casts "detect magic", "dispel magic", "armor of agathys", or "power word stun".
Birdful Polymorph. (Costs 2 Actions.) Functions as Baleful Polymorph except that the target can only be transformed into a bird and the following change is made to the 24 hour Will save:
If the subject remains in the new form for 24 hours, they gain another attempt at a Will save to escape the form. If this save fails, it loses its ability to understand languages. A second failure results in the loss of other memories of its previous form. A third failure results in its Hit Dice and hit points change to match an average creature of its new form. These abilities and statistics return to normal if the effect is later ended.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Donavich = Dona
Mad Mary = Adelaide
Morninglord = Queen of the Cloud
Bildrath's Mercantile = Old Bill's Mercantile
Blood of the Vine Tavern = Last Tavern Left
Ismark the Lesser = Lessie
Arik the Barkeep = Barkeep

[Guest]

Chap 3: Village of Adelaide, Part II


E5. Church of the Queen of the Cloud
Text: 'Atop a slight rise, against the thick, root-stitched foot of the precipice supporting the Elder Edelwood, stands a gray, sagging edifice of stone and wood. A bell tower looms toward the back, and flickering light shines through holes in the shingled roof. The rafters strain with feeble creaks against their load. Though weather beaten and worn, the church miraculous has preserved the majority of its now pockmarked stained glass windows. They depict a jovial procession of all manner of beings within a city of white cloud, watched over by a regal woman in blue, her wings like clouds themselves.'
If the PCs approach the doors: 'The heavy wooden doors are covered with claw marks and the black soot of fire.'
The village priest, Dona, lives here. Other villagers, even if worshippers of the Queen of the Cloud, shun the church. The following areas correspond to labels on the ORIGINAL CoS map of the church on page 46.


E5A. Hall
Text: 'The doors open to reveal a ten-foot-wide, twenty-foot-long hall leading to a brightly lit chapel. Flickering torches reveal the garish and unnatural colors of the disproportionate processionals in the stained glass.'
Visual reference: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PWzpgq89g...600/otgw21.png
Visual reference: http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/...20150114165337
Visual reference: http://overmental.com/wp-content/upl...ouds-25921.png
'Four doors, two on each side of the hall, lead to adjacent chambers. The chapel floor is strewn with debris. A soft voice from within recites a prayer. The floorboards rattle with an inhuman scream from beneath, drowning out all supplication.'
The scream comes from the undercroft (area E5g). The soft voice belongs to Dona, the priest (area E5f).


E5B. Anna's bedroom
Text: 'This dirty, lightless room contains a wooden bed with a straw-filled mattress. Mounted above the headboard is a wooden holy symbol of a shaped cloud.'


E5C. Dona's bedroom
Text: 'This debris-strewn room contains a wooden bed with a straw-filled mattress. An oil lamp burns brightly from a small table beside the bed. Mounted above the headboard is a wooden holy symbol of a shaped cloud.'
This is Dona's room and contains nothing of value.


E5D. Trapdoor
Text: 'Time and neglect have punched holes in the ceiling of this moldy room, which contains a few broken roof shingles in puddles of stagnant water. In one corner, set into the floor, is a heavy wooden trapdoor held shut with a chain and padlock. High, ear-piercing screams lance through the door.'
Dona has lost the key to the iron padlock, though a thorough search of the church can reveal its location with a DC 20 Wis (Perception) check. If the chain is removed and the door opened, the screaming stops. The trapdoor is swollen and stuck in its frame, so that a successful DC 12 Str check is required to pull it open. Below is a wooden staircase that descends 15 ft in the undercroft (E5g).


E5E. Office
Text: 'An old desk and chair stand against the south wall, a wooden holy symbol mounted above them--the smiling head of the church's goddess. A ten-foot-long iron rod attached to the north wall stands bare, suggesting a tapestry once hung there. Against the far wall stands a wooden cabinet with four tall doors.'
An empty wooden donation box rests on the chair. The desk contains blank parchment, quills, and dried-up inkwells. Though large, the cabinet contains little: a tinderbox, blue candles, and two books: Hymns to the Queen of the Cloud, a volume of chants, and The Blade of Truth: How to Fight a Cult, a strange book mixing logic exercises with lurid descriptions of violent cult worship.
Song reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSC9Tk3bK4k


E5F. Chapel
Text: 'The chapel is in shambles with overturned and broken pews littering the dusty floor. Dozens of blue candles mounted in candlesticks and candelabras light even the shadiest corner. At the far end of the church sits a claw-scarred altar, behind which kneels a priest in soiled vestments of white and blue. Beside her, a long, thick rope stretches up into the bell tower.'
If the PCs haven't entered the undercroft: 'From beneath the chapel floorboards, you hear a young woman cry out, "Mother! I'm starving!"'
Dona (LG any race acolyte) has been praying throughout the night. Her voice is hoarse and weak. A little more than a year ago, she and her 20-year-old daughter, Anna, joined the mob against the Beast and stormed the Elder Edelwood, having been lured into following the "all-mighty" wizard Mordenkainen (Chap 2, area M). By all accounts, the wizard died by the Beast's hand. The rebels fell to mist and song. Anna, in her weakened state, became one of the mist-possessed.
Dona was able to trap her daughter in the undercroft, where she has remained, unfed, to this day. She cries out to her mother at all hours. Meanwhile, Dona spends every moment in prayer and supplication to the Queen of the Cloud.
Dona is not aware that attacking a mist-possessed only harms the mist that shrouds the host. If the PCs seem intent on "slaying" Anna, Dona does her best to stop them without outright murdering them.
In addition to the lore known to all denizens (see Chap 2), Dona knows the following:
--Irene Kole is adopted, found at the edge of the forest near the Thronestone. She had no memory of her past.
--Every night at midnight, a silent procession of scarecrows makes a beeline through the church graveyard to the townhouse of "Snow White" (see Special Events below).


Funeral for the Burgomaster
If the PCs bring Andrew Kole's body to the church, Dona presses them into helping her bury the body in the cemetery (area E6) at dawn. During the burial, Dona prays to the Queen of the Cloud in exchange for the escape of Andrew Kole's soul to the afterlife.
Once he's interred, Dona suggests taking Irene as far from the Elder Edelwood as possible, either Pottsfield (Chap 8) or Tavern Town (Chap 5). Dona is unaware of the dangers in Pottsfield.


E5G. Undercroft
The church's undercroft has rough-hewn walls and a floor of damp clay and pungent earth. Rotting wooden pillars strain under the weight of the wooden ceiling. Candlelight from the chapel above slips through the cracks, allowing you to glimpse a silhouette exhaling fog in the far corner.'


The silhouette is Anna, a mist-possessed (see Chap 2). She's not in her right mind and will approach the group in steps, observing, before suddenly lunging to attack. If they flee, she will attempt to escape. Dona will try to stop her even if she dies in the process. If Anna is allowed to escape, she is the mist-possessed who will appear in random travel encounters until she is freed. Once restored, she will tell the PCs the events that led to her possession (see area E5f), but will have no memory of what transpired afterward.


If your card reading reveals a treasure in the undercroft, it's in a moldy old donation box in the southwest corner of the room. The chest has a simple lock but is not trapped.


E6. Cemetery
Text: 'A fence of wrought iron with a rusty gate encloses a rectangular plot of land behind the dilapidated church. Tightly packed gravestones shrouded by fog have had their inscriptions blackened and scratched away. Shallow, coin-shaped depressions cut across from one corner to the other.'
During daytime, the cemetery is still and peaceful. But every night at midnight comes a procession of scarecrows reporting back to Adelaide (see Special Events below).


E7. Black Turtle House
This house of cultists is described in appendix B.


Special Events
If the PCs are out at night in Adelaide, there is a 50% chance they will encounter 1d4 swarms of Business Bats and a 25% chance that one swarm of Feathered Friends will come to their aid if any such hostile encounter occurs. The hostile swarms will not pursue the PCs into any building, but the Feathered Friends may follow at the DM's discretion.


March of Scarecrows
Every night at midnight, 1d8+2 scarecrows march from the forest across the cemetery and into the village to Adelaide's house where they make a silent report to her using knife-fingered sign language about the Feathered Friends and others they've killed.
Text: 'A scarecrow hops out of the fog and over the iron fence into the cemetery. Another and another follow, marching on stilted legs to the opposing corner.'
If the PCs are without a light source and hidden: 'The scarecrows hop the fence again and continue toward the village.'
If the PCs are detected, the scarecrows will attack. They will not follow the PCs into any buildings if the PCs hold the door against them, DC 10 Str check. Instead, they return to their march.


The Woodcutter
This event only occurs at night if the PCs are making their way through the village.
Text: 'You hear the sound of mud squelching under small, wooden wheels. A being as hairless as a gnome but large as a human pulls a rickety cart laden with logs through the fog.'
The lone woodcutter has been charged by the Beast to spy on the town while en route to the Old Grist Mill. If the characters are without a light source and move quietly, they can follow the woodcutter all the way back to the Old Grist Mill. But if the woodcutter detects them, it will recognize the PCs as strangers and follow them until they enter a building or attack. If they retreat into a building, the woodcutter goes instead to the Elder Edelwood to make their report. If they attack, the woodcutter fights to the death unless the Beast encounters and stops the woodcutter.


STAT ALTERATIONS/ADDITIONS

The Woodcutter is racially a medium-sized Fungai and shares their racial stats except for spell-casting that requires verbal components and has the following monster stats:
Woodcutter
Size Medium
Type Humanoid
Alignment unaligned
AC 9
HP 93 (11d8+44)
Speed 30 ft.
STR 19
DEX 9
CON 18
INT 6
WIS 10
CHA 5
Senses Darkvision 60 Ft.
Passive Perception 10
Languages Understands The Languages Of Its Creator But Can't Speak
Immunities Poison; Bludgeoning, Piercing, And Slashing From Nonmagical Weapons That Aren't Iron
Condition Immunities Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned
Challenge Rating 5
Traits
Siege Monster: The woodcutter deals double damage to Objects and structures.
Berserk: Whenever the woodcutter starts its turn with 40 hit points or fewer, roll a d6. On a 6, the woodcutter goes berserk. On each of its turns while berserk, the woodcutter attacks the nearest creature it can see. If no creature is near enough to move to and Attack, the woodcutter attacks an object, with preference for an object smaller than itself. Once the woodcutter goes berserk, it continues to do so until it is destroyed or regains all its hit points.
The woodcutter's creator, if within 60 feet of the berserk woodcutter, can try to calm it by speaking firmly and persuasively. The woodcutter must be able to hear its creator, who must take an action to make a DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check. If the check succeeds, the woodcutter ceases being berserk. If it takes damage while still at 40 hit points or fewer, the woodcutter might go berserk again.
Aversion of Fire: If the woodcutter takes fire damage, it has disadvantage on Attack rolls and Ability Checks until the end of its next turn.
Immutable Form: The woodcutter is immune to any spell or effect that would alter its form.
Magic Resistance: The woodcutter has advantage on saving throws against Spells and other magical effects.
Magic Weapons: The woodcutter's axe attacks are magical.
Actions
Multiattack: The woodcutter makes two magical axe attacks.
Slam: Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) slash damage.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Church = Church of the Queen of the Cloud

[Guest]

Chap 4: The Elder Edelwood


When the caretaker abandoned Edelwood, his body, the Elder Edelwood continued to grow upon the precipice where he'd left it. It grows to this day, digging its roots ever deeper into the Thronestone, crushing and choking its foundation as its autumnal arms reach ever higher to the sky. The Beast, a fraction of Edelwood's size, uses his abandoned body as a home and fortress. The masons, engineers, and architects who've carved out and furnished the interior have been rewarded with eternal life, though they spend most of it sleeping in the roots at the heart of the Thronestone.
The locations described in this chapter can be found on the map in the ORIGINAL CoS on page 52.


Random Encounters
d12+d8 Encounter
2 Beatrice (see appendix D)
3 Steward (see appendix D)
4 1 black cat
5 1 broom of animated attack (see appendix D)
6 1d4+1 giant centipedes
7 Toy by Mr. Toymaker
8 Unseen servant
9 1d4+1 village rebels (any race, commoners)
10 2d6 swarms of spiders
11 1d4 evil druids
12 1d6 swarms of Business Bats
13 1d4 fog-touched fey
14 1d4+1 Black Turtle acolytes (any race, evil)
15 1d4 woodcutters
16 Trinket
17 Giant spider cocoon
18 1 Black Turtle witch (see appendix D)
19 1d4+1 of the Beast's fog-touched fey
20 The Beast (see appendix D)


Village rebels
Text: 'A loud clamor echoes through the living halls of the Elder Edelwood. Cries of "Kill the Beast!" are mixed with bold voices shouting, "Never again!" and "To the root!"'
The wrathful mob brandish torches and pitchforks in a sad display of futile force. Everywhere they go, they shout for justice. They follow the PCs unless prevented from doing so. As long as they're with the adventurers, random encounters occur on a roll of 9 or higher.


Black Turtle witch
Text: 'You hear a woman's scratchy voice calling out a name. "Grizzlegut! Grizzlegut, where are you? A pox on you, you mangy cat!"
Through the darkness comes a woman with a black turtle tattoo on her completely shaved head.'
PCs can try to hide from the cultist (who has darkvision) or catch her by surprise. This witch belongs to the Black Turtle Cult who believe that the Beast is the next to wear the shell mantle of their god, the Black Turtle. The Beast fits the description of the one prophesied: "a being of god-like power, gaunt and full of holes, a shell in need of a shell."
The witch calls out the name of her black cat familiar who has wandered off and gotten lost. If the PCs confront her, she attacks.
This encounter happens only once. If this result comes up again, treat it as no encounter.


Black cat
Text: 'The darkness itself lets out a demonic hiss. A black cat darts out of the shadows, scampering past you.'
Grizzlegut, the familiar, searches for its mistress. It wants nothing to do with the PCs but attacks if cornered. If the PCs capture or kill the cat, this encounter doesn't occur again. Otherwise, treat as no encounter.


Toy by Mr. Toymaker
A toy can only be encountered if the characters are moving, not resting. Otherwise, treat as no encounter.
Text: 'You find a discarded that toy no child could love.'
The toy has a slogan stitched or printed on it in tiny letters: "No Fun for You!" Roll a d6 to determine the specific toy:
d6 Toy
1 A plush werewolf stuffed with sawdust and tiny wood-carved babies. It has dull knife blades for claws and retractable teeth.
2 A smiling jester marionette with tangled strings and tiny copper bells sewn into its cap.
3 A wooden puzzle box, 6 inches on a side, carved with silhouettes of leering clown faces. The box rattles when shaken. A character who spends a short rest fiddling with the box can figure out how to open it with a successful DC 20 Int check. The box is empty, with nothing inside to explain the rattling.
4 A faceless doll in a wedding dress that has yellowed and frayed with age.
5 A vaguely coffin-shaped jack-in-the-box containing a pop-up vampire.
6 A spring-loaded set of wooden teeth with fangs, all painted white. The teeth gnash and chatter for 1 minute when the spring is wound tight (requiring 1 action) and released.


Broom of animated attack
Text: 'You hear a scratching noise. Out of the shadows comes a broom, sweeping its way toward you as though held by invisible hands.'
When it gets within 5 feet of a party member, the broom enchanted to sweep the Elder Edelwood attacks.


Swarms of spiders
Text: 'A mob of spiders, all spiny legs and shining orb bodies, skitters out of the darkness across the dusty floor.'
The spiders gang up on one party member. In the confusion, one spider tries to crawl into the character's backpack and hide there. It makes a Dex (Stealth) check contested by the character's passive Wis (Perception) score. If the spider loses, the character sees it enter the backpack. If it wins, it waits until the character takes a long rest before scuttling out to attack.


Fog-touched fey
Text: 'The smell of burning wood and oil cloys the air. A low fog rolls in around your ankles, heralding jilting footsteps.'
If the characters are moving quietly and not using light sources, they can try to hide from the fog-touched fey.


Beatrice
Beatrice has cast a greater invisibility spell on herself and is stealthily hunting the Beast through the Elder Edelwood. Choose one character in the back of the marching order for the following: 'You feel a gentle tap on your arm but see nothing behind you.'
If the character reacts in an alarming or threatening manner, she hastily whispers, "We're on the same side, fool. Wait, I'm still invisible."
Though determined to kill the Beast, the Fungai Beatrice fears she's over her head. If the PCs don't ask her to join, she wishes them well and goes on her way (she can be encountered again later). If they invite her to join them, Beatrice interrogates them about everything they've learned about the Beast in a rapid-fire manner--not to challenge them but as a simple matter of (monster-hunting) business.


Giant centipedes
If one or more PCs have a passive Wis (Perception) of 16 or higher: 'You hear the scuttle of many legs...from above you.'
The giant centipedes that have made their home in the Elder Edelwood prey on all living creatures in whom they detect no touch of fog. They hunt by dropping down onto their prey from above.


Giant spider cocoon
A giant spider cocoon is encountered only if the characters are moving (not resting); otherwise, reroll.
Text: 'A white cocoon is suspended from the ceiling amid thick webs. It wraps around a humanoid shape.'
Characters who can reach it can cut it open to free what's inside.
d6 Contents
1 A faceless, Edelwood mannequin.
2 A Black Turtle witch (see appendix D). She screams like a wild animal and slings spells with abandon.
3 One of the Beast's fog-touched fey (see appendix D). It fights until killed.
4 A villager (CN commoner). If freed, they cackle until silenced or a calm emotions spell is cast on them. Only when calmed will they attempt to flee.
5 A dead villager that serves as a host to a swarm of spiders which crawl out from every orifice.
6 A Fungai scout. The Fungai knows the Elder Edelwood's layout and helps the characters until a hostile encounter, at which point they flee.


Steward
If the Beast's clockwork steward was killed/destroyed or captured in a previous encounter, this encounter doesn't occur. Otherwise, Steward approaches quietly. A character whose passive Wis (Perception) score meets or exceeds Steward's Dex (Stealth) check can hear the steward.
Text: '"The Beast wishes to see you," intones a metallic voice in the darkness.'
The steward directs the PCs to a random location in the Elder Edelwood.
d6 Location
1 Black Turtle room (area K15)
2 The organ room (area K25)
3 Library (area K37)
4 The canopy (area K57)
5 The parched fountain
6 Laboratory (area K76)
The Beast isn't actually in that location unless the card reading (Chap 1) says that he is. Steward will accompany the PCs to the locations and continue to follow them without helping or harming them during any hostile encounter unless they find the Beast or they ask Steward to leave. If the Beast attacks, the steward will fight with him, praising whatever the Beast does in monotone, even if he fails. In other combat and while navigating, Steward will repetitvely intone directional messages such as, "Turn right in 50 ft," or "recalculating."


Evil druids
If one or more PCs have a passive Wis (Perception) of 16 or higher: 'You can't shake the feeling that something is behind you. When you look back, you see only your shadow. It steps out of the darkness, its bare feet smeared in black sap.'
If more than one druid is present, the others are close by but hidden in the darkness. The Elder Edelwood is a holy place for the druids and they induce a trance in themselves upon entrance. They will follow the characters but do not attack unless attacked first. They otherwise obey the Beast's commands.


The Beast
The Beast makes a surprise appearance.
Text: 'Thunder cracks outside the living walls of the Elder Edelwood, and you hear the thick rip and tear of a falling tree. By your side, a voice sings out: "Tralalala tralalala, cut the wood to light the fire!"'
Any character who has a passive Wisdom (Perception) lower than 19 is surprised as the Beast appears seemingly out of nowhere. The Beast prefers to attack the closest surprised character. Otherwise, see appendix D for his stats.


Swarms of Business Bats
Text: 'A multitude of wings flap in the distant but cannot drown out the sound of mercantile chatter.'
Spies and accountants of the Beast, they attack the PCs without provocation.


Trinket
A random character finds a lost trinket: 'You kick something--a trinket.'
Roll on the Trinkets table in appendix A or create one on the fly.


Unseen servant
Text: 'A curious objects drifts into view as though held aloft by an invisible force.'
This unseen servant was created by the Beast and is permanent until destroyed. Roll a d6 to determine the carried object.
d6 Items
1 A dust tray full of what appear to be shiny black orbs. If a character comes within 5 ft of the servant, the orbs to be disposed of awaken, revealing themselves as a swarm of spiders.
2 A wooden bucket full of mulch. A character who reaches inside may find an animal-related trinket recently separated from its animal.
3 An unlit, handheld metal lantern exactly the size and shape of the Beast's own.
4 A bloodspattered deck of tarokka cards.
5 A tiny black turtle whose legs swim sluggishly in the air. Taking the turtle attracts 1d4 Black Turtle cultists (any race, bandits), who arrive in 1d4+1 rounds.
6 Mordenkainen's spellbook with a black velvet dust jacket stitched over its leather cover. The book contains all the spells that Mr. Elkman knows. On subsequent occurrences of this encounter, the tome is a children's illustrated storybook.


The Beast's fog-touched fey
If any character has a passive Wis (Perception) score of 16 or higher, the party isn't surprised. In that case: 'Mist floods the room, curling into every nook and cranny. A dark silhouette moans as it staggers forward. Behind it, another follows.'
These fey, once forest-dwelling rebels against the Beast, now lash out at anything that moves.


Black Turtle acolytes
Text: 'Methodic footfalls step in time with chanting voices. You smell incense as thick and overpowering as a smear of black sap across your nose.'
The small group of cultists with black turtles tattooed over their shaved heads are devoted to the Beast and will attack you as soon as he appears. Before then, however, the chanters will follow the PCs, singing, unless the PCs run and hide. The presence of the chanters alerts any hostiles to your presence and makes taking rests an impossible task.
Chant reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWt7sH14uZ4


Woodcutters
Text: 'An axehead glints behind the back of one with gnomish proportions on a human scale.'
If the PCs are moving quietly and not carrying light sources, they can try to hide from the woodcutters who begin with their backs to the PCs.
These woodcutters are making their report to the Beast but have gotten lost within the Elder Edelwood. If there are more than one, they communicate to each other with sign language saying, "He's not here" after searching a room.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Rahadin = Steward
Gadow Blinsky = Mr. Toymaker
Tower roof = The canopy
Torture chamber = Laboratory

[Guest]

Chap 4: Elder Edelwood, Outer Reaches
Refer to the ORIGINAL CoS map 2 of the castle for areas K1 through K6.


K1. Front Courtyard
As the characters enter, the weather worsens. Bone-chilling rain falls, becoming a torrent within the hour. Lightning routinely lights the sky, followed by thunder reminiscent of a tree falling.
Text: 'Thick, cold fog swirls in this shambling suggestion of a courtyard where the monstrous roots of the god tree plunge and weave into stone as though it were soft as mulch. Lightning lances the swollen clouds, thunder shakes the Thronestone, but the Elder Edelwood stands.
Through the drizzle, you see the wink and flutter of two torches hopelessly outshone by the great, pooling light that spills from the gaping hole of the entrance.'
Low stone walls enclose the courtyard, cut from the same rock as the wall of the Unknown. A howling wind rushes through the courtyard, chasing the PCs into the "shelter" of the Elder Edelwood (area K7).


Gate towers
Each outer, living gate tower has a Dark metal door with a built-in lock. PCs who enter a gate tower find themselves in a hollow stretching high above them. The Beast leaves the doors unlocked as they aren't meant to keep anyone out but to keep in those whom he wishes to torment, those with especially strong wills.


K2. Center court gate
Two gates, one north and one south, prevent easy access to what lies beyond them.
Text: 'Familiar stone walls connect the outer bark of the Elder Edelwood with the keep. Roots breaching from the stone fill the archway that should offer passage with their living tangle.'


K3. Servants's courtyard
Text: 'A stone carriage house nestled in the flesh of a massive root stands silent in its corner. Across from the carriage house, a slender sham of a door leads into the keep.'
The wooden door is swollen and stuck in its frame. A PC can shoulder open the door with a DC 10 Str check.


K4. Carriage house
If the characters enter: 'The double doors swing open to reveal a wooden cart and a black-shelled turtle the size of two draft horses. The turtle eyes you wearily as it crunches a beaky mouthful of massive root vegetables having the strength and girth of many femur bones.'


K5. Garden
Text: 'At the back of the keep, stained-glass windows lodged in the living wood and depict a gaunt being riddled with holes holding a black circle over their spindly shoulders. Below the window, green shrubs strain skyward from lines of mounded earth. Wooden gates block the way to some kind of overlook.'
PCs who uproot any of the shrubs discover root vegetables the size and shape of those eaten by the carriage house turtle. Beyond the wooden gates lies area K6.


K6. Overlook
Text: 'Dark clouds overhead drizzle constantly, but the massive canopy of autumn leaves blocks the heavens themselves. The overlook has a familiar low stone wall, but sculpted dogs stand watch before it.'
If a character peers over the balcony: 'A flash of lightning illuminates the dismal shingles and sodden cords of Adelaide. A low-lying blanket of fog smothers all but these tops.'
If a PC with passive Wis (Perception) 15 or more peers over the wall: 'Underneath this platform, about one hundred feet down, the stone opens to a nest of outward-spanning roots. The space between them could fit humanoids marching in a line.'
The descent to the space and its tunnel to area K88 can't be accomplished without magic or a climber's kit.
Anyone who falls from the overlook plummets 1000 ft.
If the card reading indicates an encounter with the Beast here, he is looking out over the balcony.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Chapel garden = Garden

[Guest]

Chap 4: Elder Edelwood, Main Floor
Refer to the ORIGINAL CoS map 3 of the castle for areas K7 through K24.


K7. Entry
If the PCs approach from the courtyard (area K1): 'The maw of the god tree hangs open, welcoming all with its flood of warmth and light.'
If the characters approahcing from K1 come within 10 ft of the entrance: 'Knobby wooden steps, smoothed and compacted by centuries of use, lead to a grand hall, the source of the warm illumination. The foyer vaults on living, branching beams. Overhead, four statues of dragons glare down, eyes flickering in the torchlight before their feet.'
If anyone but the Beast enters this area through the wooden doors adjoining area K8, the dragons come alive. They drop to the floor, hissing and spitting, and attack. They don't attack characters who enter from the proper, staged entrance at K1.
The dragons are four red dragon wyrmlings instructed to allow guests to enter but not to leave. If intruders leave this area, the dragons return to their perches and revert to stone. In stone, they are impervious to weapon damage. They never leave the room.


K8. Great entry
Text: 'Cobwebs stretch between columns carved into the wood of the god tree. Sputtering torches cast dancing shadows down the great, dusty hall, and gild the drifting motes with golden light. Along the curves of the domed ceiling, cracked and faded frescoes depict three faceless, featureless humanoids in the stages of Edelwood Slumber and transformation.
Painted double doors stand closed to the east. To the north, a wide staircase embedded into the wood of the wall climbs to heights shrouded in darkness. To the south, light spills beneath another set of painted doors.'
The southern hallway is described in area K9. The wide staircase leads to area K19.
If here by invitation: 'A fey cast in brown metal and underneath a shirt, vest, tie, and coat of silk descends the wide staircase as quiet as a cat. He tips his tophat to you with a flourish and bow, intoning, "The master has been expecting you. Please, follow me."'
The clockwork fey is Steward, the Beast's steward (see appendix D). He fights only if attacked. Otherwise, he leads the PCs to the grand buffet (see area K10).
Development
After the characters leave this room, eight Black Turtle cult fanatics (any race) occupy the room and attack any character who dares return.


K9. Guests's hall
Text: 'Torchlight flutters against the wall of this hall vaulted by a crisscross of living beams. To the east, an arched hallway stretches for twenty feet, ending at a spiral staircase leading up and down. Next to the hallway, the oiled and glistening shell from a massive black turtle has been embedded into the walls of a shallow alcove. To the west, painted doors hang ajar, and a steady bright light escapes through the opening. A song swells from behind the doors, its waltzing melody of power and submission escaping into the hall.'
The staircase leads down to area K61 and up to area K30. The double doors provide access to area K10.
Song reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9vHqkYTKIE


K10. Grand buffet
The first time entering the room: 'Three enormous, glowing chandeliers illuminate the chamber from where they've been embedded into the ceiling. Living pillars drop from the ceiling to wood-ringed floor along the garishly painted walls. In the center of the room, a heavy table stretches out before you, its clawed feet merging with the floor. The table is laden with many foods: roasted beast basted in a savory, mushroom sauce, roots and mushrooms, sweet fruits and raw mushrooms. Places are set for each of you with wooden dishes and utensils. At each place is a glass jar, much like those used for canning, but filled with a thick, milky substance. Water condenses in droplets on the chilled walls of the glass.
A screen of mirrors with many partitions sits in curves and angles in front of the far west wall. A cloaked and antlered figure stands at their center, singing a blaring, thunderous melody to their infinite reflections. Suddenly, he stops. A deep silence falls over the hall, and the figure swivels toward you on spindly heels carved full of holes.'
The figure is an illusion of the Beast. It welcomes the PCs and invites them to dine. It acts like the Beast and plays the part of the gracious but off-kilter host without a sense of personal space. It invites the PCs to eat, "Eat more, I insist," and explains they are free to explore. The illusion may talk about the Beast's history and shed light on the Elder Edelwood in an offhand, dismissive way, but their answers provide no useful information on the inhabitants, treasures, or dangers other than to say there have never been enough guests.
The illusion lasts only for 3 rounds. When the time is up, or the illusion is attacked, it simply disappears with a mocking laugh.
The moment it disappears, every fire flares up, threatening to burn the ceiling and set the entire tree alight. But before they can begin, a mass tide of fog cascades through the Elder Edelwood and snuffs out every open flame in the god tree.
Characters who move the screen of mirrors discover curtains and a door behind them that opens to K11. This cannot be found until the mirrors have been moved out of the way.
The food on the table is edible though discovered to be vegan, the meat being a mushroom-based substitute. The milky but non-milk liquid is aluminum-magnesium hydroxide, antacids used to relieve heartburn, acid indigestion, and upset stomach.


K11. South archer's post
Text: 'The rooted courtyard is visible through arrow slits in the north and west walls. Leaning against the wals are mirrors of various sizes and concavities, all distorting appearances.'
Each arrow slit is 2.5ft tall and 4in wide. Business Bats use the arrow slits to leave and return to the Elder Edelwood every night.
A secret door in the east wall can be pulled open to reveal a length of curtain behind a wooden-backed screen of mirrors in area K10. Characters can't pass through the door until they move the mirrors.


K12. Turret post
Text: 'A high dome in the tree caps the thirty-foot-wide octagonal room before you. Above the arrow slits, faded frescoes on the ceiling depict a cloaked and antlered silhouette singing through narrow slits to faceless, featureless humanoids crawling and writhing in the courtyard.'
Each arrow slit is 2.5ft tall and 4in wide.


K13. Turret post access hall
Text: 'This long, narrow corridor runs east to west. Cobwebs fill the hall, obstructing sight beyond a few feet.'


K14. Hall of druidic faith
Text: 'Dust chokes the grand hall, stretching into the darkness ahead and covering the wooden sculptures of Edelwood trees painted in black sap that line the hallway on both sides. Webs hang from the arched ceiling like drapes and bridge the trees together.'
Painted doors stand at both ends of the hall. Above those leading to area K15, a black turtle has been relieved from the wood and painted in black sap.
If the characters re-enter this room, they discover 1d4 evil druids in the midst of a ritual involving live animal sacrifice (animal of the DM's choice). If they release the animals, the druids would rather recollect them than attack.


K15. Black turtle room
Text: 'Dim, colored light filters through vast, pockmarked stained-glass windows. They depict three scenes. In the first, a black turtle towers over the world, devouring a line of humanoid silhouettes that wrap around the edge of the scene. Opposite the turtle stands another, stamping the world flat as humanoid silhouettes ride its back in exultation. At the center, a gaunt being riddled with holes holding a black circle over their spindly shoulders.
A balcony runs the length of the west hall below the stained-glass but fifty feet above the floor. In the center of the balcony, two dark shapes are slumped in tall chairs.
Polished benches stand in rows before an altar upon a stone platform embedded into the floor of living wood. The sides of the altar are carved with bas-reliefs of winged turtles atop cresting waves. The light from above falls directly on a wooden statuette varnished with black sap. A figure is draped over the altar with a painted sign sewn into the thin shroud covering them.'
The sign reads "TURTLE EATER." The skeleton under the shroud belongs to Gus, a villager from Tavern Town with a penchant for eating turtles. The cultists learned of him, kidnapped him, and brought him back to the chapel for divine punishment.
A railing carved into the wall cordons off the upstairs balcony described in area K28.
Treasure
The statuette on the altar is called the Holy Symbol of Turtlekind (see appendix C). Any creature that has eaten a turtle that touches the statuette must make a DC 17 Con saving throw, taking 88 (16d10) radiant damage on a failed save or half as much on a successful one. It is left to the DM whether the Beast or others have eaten turtle, but members of the Black Turtle cult have never done so.
If your card reading reveals a treasure here, it lies on the floor behind the alter. If it indicates an encounter with the Beast, he stands in a swarm of Business Bats on the ceiling or poses against the stained glass--a dark, cloaked and antlered shape that begins to move.


K16. North cult room access
Text: 'This arched room connects a vast chamber to the east and a staircase that rises to the west. Alcoves carved in the north and south walls hold wooden sculptures of trees still growing with the wood of the god tree.'
The vast chamber to the east is the Black Turtle room (area K15). The staircase to the west is described in area K29.


K17. South cult room access
Text: 'This arched room connects a vast chamber to the east and the landing of the staircase to the west. To the left of the landing, the stairs curl down into darkness. To the right, the stairs climb into thick drapes of cobwebs. Alcoves carved in the north and south walls hold wooden sculptures of trees still growing with the wood of the god tree.'
The vast chamber to the east is the Black Turtle room (area K15). The staircase to the west is described in area K18.


K18. High tower staircase
Text: 'Flagstones embedded into the wall forms a spiraling staircase around a 20-foot-wide, uncut wood core. Cobwebs fill the staircase, obscuring even the view of the ceiling.'
The staircase starts at area K84 and spirals up around a central shaft (area K18a), climbing 300 feet to the top of the tower (area K59).
A recently installed masonry wall blocks the staircase 10 feet below the landing west of area K17. A chink in the wall allows fog to flow from one side to the other. A PC who inspects the wall closely can spot the chink with a successful DC 10 Wis (Perception) check. The wall is too sturdy to knock down, but they can create a hole wide enough to crawl through in 1 hour, or reduce the entire wall to a pile of masonry bricks and rubble in 2 hours.
Thirty feet below the wall and 50 feet above the foot of the steps, a small crack has formed in the outer wall of the stairwell. The crack is 0.5 in wide, 5 in tall, and 12 in deep; it leads to the Elder Edelwood's parched fountain (area K63). PCs can notice the crack automatically as they climb or descend the stairs. Widening the crack enough to squeeze through requires major excavation and would take several days.
The shaft these stairs wrap around (area K18a) runs vertically from area K59 to area K84 without any holes or obstructions. The inner wall of the stairwell between the staircase and shaft is solid.


K18a. High tower shaft
PCs can access this 10-foot-diameter, 390-foot-tall stone shaft from the top or bottom of the high tower (areas K59 and K84).
The shaft is dark and choked with cobwebs that stir in the occasional rush of wind. Climbing the shaft is impossible without magic or a climber's kit.
Business Bats fly up the shaft at night, exiting from the arrow slits. After business, they return by the same route.


K19. Grand landing
Text: 'Massive stairs rise to a landing twenty feet wide by forty feet long. Crisscrossing arches support a ceiling covered with frescoes twenty feet overhead. The frescoes depict shadowy miners with pickaxes handing mounds of dark ore to the silhouette of a woman as bent and gnarled as a tree grown in a storm.
Dust floats in the still air. At each end of the south wall, a staircase rises into darkness. Between the staircases are twin alcoves, each one containing watchful, wooden dogs as large as draft horses.'
Both staircases on the south wall climb to area K25. The massive stairs lead down to area K8. Anyone who crosses in front of the alcoves activates the dog traps.
Both dogs are mechanical traps, each activated by a pressure plate hidden int he floor in front of its alcove. A PC who searches for traps in one location notics both plates with a DC Wis (Perception) check.
When 40 or more pounds are placed on a plate, the dog falls onto the weight. Any creature on the plate must succeed on a DC 14 Dex save or take 30 (5d10) bludgeoning damage from the dog statue.
The pressure plates can be disabled on a DC 15 Dex check. The trap can also be disabled by destroying the dogs, who have an AC 18, 5 hit points, and immunity to poison and psychic damage.


K20. Heart of growth
Text: 'A mosaic floor depicts small, shadowy figures carving a much larger but spindly figure from the trunk of a large tree in lurid color. A spiral rises slowly into the darkness of the tower, flagstones embedded into the outer wall. In the center of the room, another set of stairs leads down.'
The staircase in the center of the floor (K20a) leads down to area K71.
The spiral staircase has no railing and connects the main floor with each level above. First, the staircase climbs 50 ft to a landing (see ORIGNAL CoS map 4), form which an open archway leads to area K13. East of that opening is a secret door that conceals a ladder weaved from the living tree fibers down to area K34.
The stairs ascend another 40 ft to another landing (see ORIGINAL CoS map 5), with archways leading to areas K45 and K46, and then climb another 100 ft to a landing beneath the heart (see ORIGINAL CoS map 8). The staircase wraps around the heart, ending at the top of the tower (area K60).
The heart
The tower, including the spiral staircase is alive with the hundreds and thousands of filaments from a fungal growth. When the characters set foot on the staircase for the first time: 'As you step onto the spiral staircase, a reddish light flares high overhead, then settles into a dull, pulsing red glow. You now see the full immensity of this wooden tower. The spiral staircase circles up the tower's full height.
The tower, 60 ft wide at its base, becomes narrower as it climbs. At the pinnacle of the hollow tower, a large, fleshy heart of translucent fungus pulsates with red light. Above the heart, the stairs continue upward.'
Have the PCs and Heart roll initiative. If the PCs leave the tower and return later, they can reroll but the Heart's initiative doesn't change.
The awakened tower shakes and pitches on the Heart's initiative count. ANy creature on he stairs or hanging on a tower wall must succeed on a DC 10 Dex save or fall to the base of the tower. PCs who are crawling on the staircase or who lie prone on the stairs succeed automatically.
The Heart is a 10-foot-diameter mass of bioluminescent fungus that floats on root filaments taking nutrients from the god tree's walls. PCs standing on the stairs can make melee attacks against the Heart, provided their weapons have a reach of at least 10 ft. It has AC 15 and 50 hit points. If the heart is reduced to 0 hit points, it deflates in a splatter of blood-red spores, which rain down on the tower interior and staircase. The destruction causes the ower to stop shuddering and the tower becomes dark. Destroying the Heart earns 1500 XP.
The Beast and the Heart are connected, such that any damage the Beast takes is transferred to the Heart. If the Heart is reduced to 0 hit points this way, the Beast takes the leftover damage. The Heart regains all hitpoints at dawn if it has at least 1 hit point remaining.
Ten giant centipedes sleep under the staircase. They awake and attack any who threatens the Heart.
The Beast senses damage done to the Heart and sends four fog-touched fey to destroy those responsible. They arrive in 3 rounds.


K20A. Tower hall stair
This stairway connects areas K20 and K71.


K21. South tower stair
Text: 'Fluttering torches illuminate this spiral staircase. A cold, tidal wave of fog cascades down the circling stairway, snuffing the very heat of the torches as it passes.'
These stairs start at area K73 and go up through areas K61, K9, K30, and K35 before ending at area K47.


K22. North archer's post
Text: 'The rooted courtyard is visible through arrow slits in the walls.'
Each arrow slit is 2.5 ft tall and 4 in wide.


K23. Servants's entrance
Text: 'Dim light filters in through a dust-caked window in the east wall. A door next to the window leads to the northeast courtyard. Everything is coated with dust, including a large, heavy table in the center of the floor. A thick book lies open on a desk, with an inkwell and a quill next to it. There is a broken door embedded in the north wall, and a staircase in the south wall plunges into darkness. On each side of the staircase, a skeletal figure stands sagging at attention, holding a wooden sword.'
The skeletons, which were assembled by Bellevue (see area K62), are held together with wire taxidermy frames and are hung on pegs.
The staircase descends to area K62. The east door leading to the courtyard is swollen in its frame and requires a successful DC 10 Str check to force open. The north door is cracked and hangs loose on its hinges; beyond it lies another dust-filled chamber (area K24).
The ancient book is weathered and brittle, but the ink in the well is fresh. At the top of each page is scribed the message "Please register for your own convenience and that of your next of kin." The book is more than half-filled with names, all of them in different scripts but all illegible.


K24. Servants's quarters
Text: 'Furniture carved out of the wood of the god tree occupies this 20-by-40 ft room. Soft but dusty patchwork quilts cover the beds. Dim light comes from a pair of dirt-caked windows in the northeast corner. A narrow staircase with no railing ascends along the north wall.'
The stairs lead to area K34.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
The dining hall = Grand buffet
Hall of faith = hall of druidic faith
Icon of Ravenloft = Holy Symbol of Turtlekind
Gustav Herrenghast = Gus
North chapel access = North cult room access
South chapel access = South cult room access
Heart of sorrow = Heart of growth

[Guest]

Chap 4: Elder Edelwood, Court of the Beast
Refer to the ORIGINAL CoS map 4 for areas K25 through K34.


K25. The organ room
Text: 'Dim light from the courtyard fall into this grand hall through a window of wooden latticwork in the west wall. Hundreds of dust-laden cobwebs drape the hall, hiding the ceiling form view. Directly across from the window stand a set of painted doors in the east wall. Farther south, a single door also leads from the east wall. Staircases at both ends of the north wall lead down.
At the far southern end of the hall looms a massive organ, a behemoth of dense, shining wood and heavy Dark metal. It sits like the throne of a giant atop a stone dais, facing south.'
A secret door in the south wall leads to area K13. It's hidden by dust and cobwebs and requires a successful DC 16 Wis (Perception) check to find.
Both staircases in the north wall lead down to area K19. The eastern painted doors can be pulled open to reveal area K26 beyond. The single door in the east wall opens into area K30.
If your card reading reveals a treasure here, it lies on the stone dais, just behind the organ.
If your card reading reveals an encounter with the Beast, he's pounding away at the organ. Though trained in operatic singing, his organ proficiency is left to the DM's discretion.


K26. Guards's post
If the characters enter this hall through either set of painted doors: 'The doors open to reveal...another set of doors 10 ft ahead. Between them, the 10-ft corridor stretches north to south. At each end of the hall, floating in the darkness, is a humanoid skeleton.'
The "floating" skeletons hang from pegs on the north and south walls. They've been assembled by Bellevue (see area K62), and are held together with taxidermy wire. Behind the skeleton on the north wall is a secret door that can be pushed open into area K33.
If the PCs enter this hall by way of the secret door adjoining K33, they see the skeleton hangin on the inside of the secret door as soon as they pull it open, and, with a light source or darkvision, can see the skeleton at the south end of the hall as well.


K27. Flight of the mannequin
Text: 'This 20-ft-high hall has a fibrous, vaulted ceiling draped with cobwebs. A low moan seems to travel the length of the corridor as it rises and falls, intoning utter despair.'
The moaning is only the wind.
PCs who examine the ceiling can, with a DC 20 Wis (Perception) check, spot pulleys and a rope that run the full length of the corridor along the ceiling, well hidden by the cobwebs.
Halfway down the hall on the south side is a narrow secret door that can be pulled open to reveal area K31.
Hidden in a compartment above the western set of painted doors is a dressed wooden mannequin that looks exactly like the Beast. It wears a black cloak and its arm and fingers are outstretched in a threatening manner. The mannequin is attached to a rope that runs through pulleys fastened along the length of the hallway ceiling.
When one or more PCs reach the midpoint of the hall: 'You hear the creak of wood and the squeak of a bat. In the direction of the noise, you see an antlered silhouette, spindly arms and fingers outstretched. A deep, throaty chuckle fills the hall with discordant echoes. His cloak flares out behind him as he bears down on you from above!'
The creak is the sound of the hidden compartment opening, followed by the squeak of the pulleys. The chuckle is a harmless magic effect.
Have the PCs roll initiative and run this as a combat encounter, the "Beast" having initiative 5. On its turn, the mannequin flies over the PCs, 10 ft above the floor, and doesn't stop until it reaches the east end of the hall. On its next turn, it reverses direction and flies back to its compartment. The trap resets after 1 min.
A character who attacks the mannequin from the floor needs a range of at least 10 ft. The mannequin as AC 15 and 10 hit points, immune to poison and psychic damage. If reduced to 0 hit points while in the air, it falls to the floor.


K28. Mannequin's balcony
Text: 'A railing upheld by small, wood-carved mannequins encloses this long balcony, overlooking the Black Turtle room. Two massive and antlered mannequins of the Beast's cloaked silhouette stand side-by-side in the center of the balcony, covered with dust and strung with cobwebs along the thin wires that uphold them in false flight. The mannequins face away from the painted doors that give access to the balcony.'
Two of the Beast's fog-touched fey (see appendix D) kneel in supplication to the mannequins in the shadows. They remain motionless until one is disturbed or a creature comes within reach of attack.
The balcony is 50 ft above the floor of the Black Turtle room (area K15). A staircase north of the painted doors leads down to area K29.


K29. Creaky landing
Text: 'The embedded planks of this staircase are made of old wood that strains underfoot, creaking and groaning.'
The staircase climbs from area K16 to K28. It seems unstable but is sturdy. The creatures in area K28 can't be surprised by anyone climbing the creaky steps.


K30. The hoarse man
Text: 'Dusty scrolls and tomes line the walls of this room. More scrolls and books lie scattered on the floor, around four heavy wooden chests fitted with sturdy metal locks. The only unobstructed floor space is directly in front of the doors on the east and west walls.
In the center of this clutter stands a great desk, varnished black with sap. Behind it, a centaur scratches on a seemingly endless scroll of paper with a dry quill pen. Nearby a tasseled rope hangs from a hole in the ceiling.'
The figure is Mr. Lippy (LE male centaur), the head accountant and manager of the Business Bats. He has no interest in the PCs or their concerns and asks them only not to touch anything in a voice hoarse from talking over incessantly chattering Business Bats. Mr. Lippy pulls the rope the instant he feels his work threatened, requiring an action.
Once the rope is pulled, a tremendously loud gong sounds, shaking the room without toppling anything over. 2d6 swarms of Business Bats arrive in 1d4 rounds to drive out anyone still in the room.
Many years ago, Mr. Lippy realized that he could resist the Beast and wind up like his fog-addled herd or join the Beast and retain all mental capacity--for him, an obvious choice. He holds a combination of distaste and fear toward the Beast but would never act out against his master. He is, however, perpetually weary from having to shout all directions at his underlings, the Business Bats. If treated with kindness, he'll open up about his workplace frustrations. If the PCs hear him out, he'll divulge the hiding place of the All-Seeing Monocle (see appendix C), as indicated by the card reading. He can draw a crude but geographically accurate map to its location.
As for the chests, he knows there's a key that unlocks all four, but it was lost in the last business flurry (meeting) with the Bats.
The western door leads to area K25. The eastern door provides access to a staircase (area K21) that leads down to area K9 and up to a landing outside area K35, continuing upward to area K47.
Treasure
The room contains hundreds of worthless books and scrolls describing accounting procedures and the like. The first PC who spends at least 10 min searching the room and succeeds on a DC 15 Int (Investigation) check finds a book with a sticky leather cover. The pages of the book have been gunked together by Bat guano, which hides the key in its mass.
Two chests contain 10,000 cp in whatever item is being used for currency in Tavern Town. A third chest contains 1000 gp in whatever item is being used for currency in Adelaide. The fourth holds 500 pp in whatever item is being used for currency in Pottsfield hidden under a luridly illustrated children's storybook...drawn by one with the art skills of a child...depicting the wild but idyllic life in the fey sanctuary before the Beast.


K31. Trapworks
Text: 'The aromas of grease and well-oiled wood hit your nostrils as you pull open the door. This ten-by-twenty-foot room is filled with intricate machinery, except for small spaces between the stone gears and metal chains and pulleys. On the other side of the machinery, to the south, is a rectangular shaft that rise up form the darkness and continues past this room. Attached to the west wall is a steel plate that has a metal level protruding downward.'
See the diagram on the ORIGINAL CoS pg 76. The shaft (aea K31a) descends 90 feet from here to area K61, and ascends 40 ft to area K31b. Another 40 ft above that is a stone trapdoor in the ceiling that opens into area K47.
Operating the machinery in this room raises a stone elevator compartment from the bottom of the shaft, lifting it past this room to the top of the shaft. See area K61.
A PC can spend 1 min disabling the machinery in this room. The elevator trap won't function until the machinery is repaired.
The lever embedded in the western wall is normally down. Moving it up activates the trap and raises the elevator. Sliding it down lowers the elevator and resets the trap.
When the elevator trap in area K61 is activated, all chains, pulleys, and gears in this room move at once. It takes 10 seconds (1 round) for the elevator to reach the top of the shaft, and the machinery doesn't stop until the elevator completes its journey.
A secret door in the north wall can be spotted from this side without a check and opens into area K27.


K31A. Elevator shaft
Text: 'Cold air fills the rectangular shaft, the worn, stone walls of which are coated with slick fungi glowing green and blue. Taut chains extend up and down the shaft. The links are thick and covered with grease.'
The shaft is 170 ft tall. It starts at area K61, climbs 90 ft to area K31, another 40 feet to area K31b, and another 40 ft to area K47.
When the elevator trap is activated (see area K61), a stone elevator measuring 10 ft on a side rises up the western half of the shaft. At the same time, a solid block of stone, also 10 ft on a side, descends in the eastern half, acting as a counterweight. Both stone blocks have chains bolted to them to hoist them as needed.
Scaling the shaft is impossible without magic or a climber's kit, and the greased chains are too thick and slippery to grasp.
Set into the roof of the shaft is a 5-ft-sq stone trapdoor that can be pushed open to reveal area K47.


K31B. Shaft access
Text: 'This 10-ft-sq room overlooks a vertical shaft to the south that plunges into darkness and continues upward.'
This vantage point is 130 ft from the bottom of the shaft (area K31a). Forty feet down is area K31, and 40 ft up is a stone trapdoor in the ceiling that opens into area K47.
A door in the north wall is easy to spot from this side (no check required) and opens into area K39.


K32. Steed of the Beast
Text: 'Oil lamps illuminate this long, rectangular chamber and fills it with the resinous scent of Edelwood. Stained, yellowed lace hangs in eight curtains from wooden bars overhead. Behind them, you see the lithe silhouette of a unicorn. She hums a haunting tune behind closed lips that resonantes within your mind.'
Helga, the unicorn, claims to be a prize captured by the Beast from the forest who pleads for rescue. She will join the party if asked along. She intends to attack the characters but does so only if she sense an opportunity that doesn't involve fighting the entire party. She also attacks if commanded by the Beast.
Helga wears an enchanted gold necklace with a ruby pendant that has her under a domination spell. If the PCs remove the pendant, she is freed from the Beast's control but returns to her original state of vulnerability to the song of the Beast. Helga despairs and begins to fall into the Edelwood Slumber. There is no hope for her and she will enter Edelwood Slumber within ten minutes. Wherever the PCs leave her inside the Elder Edelwood, if they return in an hour, they will find the living floor sprouting up and tangling around her. After 8 hours, her body sprouts its first Edelwood shoots.
Treasure
Helga's necklace with its ruby pendant was a deceitful gift of peace from the Beast. If the PCs remove it, the pendant shatters and its evil enchantment ends. Even without the ruby, it is worth 750 gp in whatever item is used for currency in any settlement.


K33. Apartment stair
This dark hall is concealed behind two secret doors.
Text: 'This arched corridor has been swept clean. Four-foot-tall tapestries hang from the walls. They depict a cloaked and antlered silhouette with arms stretched upward standing within the Thronestone on a living knot of roots. Shadowy humanoid figures curl up inside the thread border of the roots.
A painted door is set into the west wall, and light seeps through its cracks. A staircase at the north end of the west wall ascends into darkness.'
The staircase climbs 40 ft to area K45. The door in the west wall opens into area K32.


K34. Servant's upper floor
Text: 'Dirt-caked windows allow little light to enter this upstairs room. Broken bed frames and torn bits of mattress litter the floors. Your movements send recently liberated feathers flying from their pillowcases. A wardrobe varnished with sticky black sap stands between two cracked, full-length mirrors hanging on the south wall. A staircase descends along the north wall.'
If someone opens the wardrobe, read:
Text: 'A plain white dress yellowed with age flies out of the wardrobe and dances to the middle of the room. It flaps around to the music of the storm.'
If anyone touches the dancing dress, it collapses in a lifeless heap on the floor. Otherwise, it dances forever. Hanging from the wardrobe are a few servant's uniforms made for something with the torso of a humanoid but the legs of a horse. These are neither animated nor valuable.
Set into the south wall, behind the hanging mirror west of the wardrobe, is a secret door. It can be pulled open to reveal a closet choked with cobwebs and that contains a wooden ladder that leads up 20 ft to another secret door in the tower stairway (area K20).
The staircase leads down to area K24.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
King's hall = Flight of the mannequin
King's balcony = Mannequin's balcony
King's accountant = The hoarse man
Lief Lipsiege = Mr. Lippy
Maid in hell = Steed of the Beast
Helga Ruvak = Helga
King's apartment stair = Apartment stair

[Guest]

Chap 4: Elder Edelwood, Rooms in Need of Sweeping
Refer to the ORIGINAL CoS map 5 of the castle for areas K35 through K46


K35. Guardian vermin
Text: 'A door of delicately engraved steel stands at the west end of this short, dark hallway. The door seems to shine with a light of its own, untouched by time. Flanking the door are two alcoves in shadow. A dark, humanoid figure, bulging in their uniform, stands in each alcove.'
The dark figures are four swarms of rats piled atop one another to form manlike shapes (two swarms per alcove). They are under the Beasts control and attack, in vaguely humanoid shape, anyone that tries to move through this area. The steel door is engraved with the image of a woman as bent and gnarled as a tree grown in a storm. She stands at the epicenter of the metal rendered into liquid shape but reaching out in fractals that branch away like right-angled roots.


K36. The cakery
Text: 'Dust plunges and coats your lungs. A sweet yet pungent smell of mold and decay fills the room, in the center of which stands a long table carved from the living floor. Dust covers the tabletop like a tablecloth inexplicably laid over the dishes and utensils.
At the heart of the table, a large, tiered cake leans heavily to one side. The once white frosting has turned green with mold and age. Cobwebs hang like a dusty wedding gown down the sides of the cake. A single, wooden doll, cloaked and antlered, adorns the crest of the cake.
Suspended above is a web-shrouded chandelier embedded into ceiling. An arched window in the south wall is draped with heavy, actual curtains. Resting in a wooden stand by the window is a dusty lute, and standing quietly in the souhwest corner is a tall harp shrouded in cobwebs.'
With a DC Wis (Perception) check, a PC who examines the cake can make out the iced lettering on top: "Eat me." A character who eats the cake must make a DC 15 Con save or become poisoned.
The room has wooden doors in the north and west walls and an ornate steel door in the east wall (see area K35 for details).
The harp stands 6.5 ft tall, weighs 300 lbs, and is fashioned from dark, stained wood with taut srings of gut. Approaching the harp causes the invisible stalker in the room to take a position there and begin to play. It will kill anyone who tries to stop it from playing. But if a character approaches the lute, it will run from the harp to play the lute. If characters stand near both, it will run back and forth between them, playing only snatches of music.
Treasure
The lute, though old and dust-covered, has survived the passage of time. It is a magic instrument of the bards called a Doss lute. If someone attempts to take it, however, the invisible stalker attacks.


K37. Library
Text: 'A blazing hearth fire fills this room with rolling waves of autumnal light. The walls are lined with ancient books and tomes, their leather covers well oiled and preserved through careful use. All is in order here. The floor is concealed beneath a thick, luxurious pelt rug. In the center of the room is a large, low table, waxed and polished to a mirrored finish. Even the poker in its stand next to the fireplace is polished. Large, overstuffed divans and couches are arranged about the room. A polished, wooden throne faces the hearth. A huge painting hangs over the mantelpiece in a heavy, gilded frame, covered by a thin, sackcloth shroud.'
Removing the shroud reveals the image of a bewitching, antlered fey. Anyone who looks on the portrait must make a DC 15 Wis save or be charmed by it. Those who are charmed for 1 hr or make the save are immune to this effect for the next 24 hrs.
The chamber has several exits, including a large set of double doors in the west wall, a door at each end of the north wall, and a door to the south.
THe back wall of the fireplace contains a secret door, which is opened by lifting the poker from its stand. The fire must be extinguished to reach the door safely. Otherwise, a creature that enters the fireplace for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there takes 5 (1d10) fire damage and catches fire. Until someone takes an action to douse the flames on the creature, it takes 5 (1d10) fire damage at the start of each of its turns. This fire damage is cumulative with the damage from standing in the fireplace.
The secret door provides access to area K38.
Treasure
The real treasure here is the Beast's collection of books--over one thousand unique tomes in all. The collection is worth 80,000 gp in whatever item is used for currency at any settlement.
Roll a d13 and consult te table to determine the subject matter of a randomly chosen book.
d12 Book
1 Guide to dramatic drama
2 Children's illustrated storybook
3 The Black Turle and you
4 Druidic torture manual, by druids, for druids
5 History of opera in the Unknown
6 Opera number anthology
7 Musical number anthology
8 History of musical theatre in the Unknown
9 Eat me, fey slang (ancient tome)
10 Hip to the fey, fey slang (relatively new)
11 Fireproofing your wooden home
12 Magic without morals
Teleport destination
Those who teleport here from area K78 arrive in front of the shrouded painting.
If your card reading reveals a treasure here, it is resting on the mantelpiece under the portrait of Edelwood.
If the encounter with the Beast is here, you find him sitting in one of the chairs, reading aloud from a tome of your choice.


K38. False treasury
Text: 'Resting on the floor of this smoke-filled room is a closed chest surrounded by piles of...items used as currency in the settlements if not anywhere else in the world. The clawed feet and handles on the chest are evidence of great workmanship.
Attached to the east wall are two torches. The southernmost torch is lit. The other is snuffed and in the hands of a skeleton poised in a frozen fall.'
The items of currency total 50 gp in Tavern Town money, 100 sp in Adelaide money, and 2000 cp in Pottsfield money. The chest weighs 40 lbs and is unlocked. When opened, it releases a cloud of sleeping gas that fills the room. Any creature in the room must make a DC 18 Con save or be paralyzed for 4 hrs. If all PCs succumb to the gas, they're found by Black Turtle witches whose lair is in area K56. The cultists drag the PCs to area K50 for ritual preparation, leaving them unharmed.
The skeleton has been hung on taxidermy wire by Bellevue and contains nothing of value.
Secret doors
This room is concealed behind two secret doors. The door to the west is set into the back wall of the fireplace (area K37) and can be pulled open from within this room by lifting a simple locking mechanism (connected to the poker in the library). It's possible that a character might open this door inadvertently by lifting the poker in area K37. PCs can otherwise locate the secret door normally, but a successful check doesn't reveal the mechanism with a knock spell or the like.
The secret door at the northern end of the eastwall is sealed shut. If the torch in the skeleton's hands is relit, the secret door swings inward, revealing area K39 and beyond. Snuffing or removing the torch at any time causes the secret door to close and lock shut, becoming sealed as before. PCs can locate this door normally, but a successful check doesn't reveal the heat-detection opening mechanism. That can be found only by trial and error, or the PCs can bypass the mechanism with a knock spell or the like.


K39. Hall of webs
Text: 'This ancient, living hall is choked with spider webs broken by single clear path down its center.'
This hall has an arched ceiling 20 ft overhead, hidden behind thick webbing. At the eastern end are a pair of arched and painted doors. They can be pulled open to reveal area K40 and beyond.
Most of the hall is full of giant spider webs (see Chap 5 in the DM's Guide). PCs who stray from the unobstructed path through the webs risk becoming stuck.
Secret doors
At the west end of the hall are two secret doors.
The secret door on the west wall can't be opened from this side, except by magic (such as a knock spell). See area K38 for more on this secret door. If the PCs pass through this door coming from area K38, it closes and locks behind them if they don't take measures to prop it open.
A narrow secret door at the western end of the south wall is hidden behind a mass of webs. If these webs are cleared away, characters can search for the secret door, finding it with a DC 15 Wis (Perception) check. The door can be pulled open to reveal area K31b.


K40. Belfry
Text: 'You can hear the rain and thunder outside, and the air here is cold and damp. Veils and curtains of webbing fill the room, making it hard to guage its width and depth. A single, narrow path leads to the dark center of the room, where a rope dangles from high above.'
The rope is attached to a Dark metal bell mounted in a wooden frame carved out from the god tree 50 ft overhead. Pulling the rope or attempting to climb it brings forth a loud, long "GONG." The sound causes 5 giant spiders to drop from their webs and attack. The spiders attack only if they are attacked or the bell is sounded.
Most of the belfry is filled with giant spider webs (see Chap 5 of the DM's Guide). Characters who blunder into them risk becoming stuck.
At the west end of the north wall, behind thick webs, is a secret door that opens into area K41.


K41. Memento room
Text: 'This octagonal vault is free of dust and cobwebs. The domed ceiling forty feet above is painted in black and sparkles with a display of unfamiliar constellations. Barely contained within this vault is a square tower, 20 ft on a side and 30 ft high, with arrow slits on all sides.'
The domed ceiling is coated with black sap varnish. The stars are bulbs of glowing fungi, each as luminescent as a candle flame. Thanks to the 'night sky,' the vault is dimly lit.
The adamantine tower is actually a Daern's instant fortress (see Chap 7 of the DM's Guide). Only the Beast knows the command word to alter its shape and size, which can't be done until all the 'treasures' within have been removed.
Only the Beast can open the two means of entry: a sealed adamantine door set into the base of the tower on the north side, and an adamantine trapdoor on the roof. The arrow slits are 4 in wide and 2 ft tall, and the fortress walls are 3 in thick. Characters who are able to reduce their size or assume gaseous form can enter the tower through these slits.
Treasure
The ground floor contains small mountains of trinkets taken off every person who has ever fallen into the Edelwood Slumber and become an Edelwood tree.
The upper floor of the tower contains an alchemy jug, a helm of brilliance, a +1 rod of the pact keeper, an unlocked wooden coffer with four compartments, each one containing a potion of greater healing, and an enchanted shield that whispers warnings to its bearer, granting +2 bonus to initiative if the bearer isn't incapacitated. These are the more valuable mementos taken from victims.
If your card reading reveals a treasure here, it is lying atop the coins on the ground floor inside the tower. If your card reading indicates an encounter with the Beast in this area, he's on the bottom floor of the tower, holding up a "dinglehopper" trinket (fork) and breaks into song about wanting to be where the people are (but not being a part of their world).


K42. Bedchamber
Text: 'The crisp, cool smell of an autumnal morning over fallen leaves wafts from this delicately lit room. A great arched window along the west wall is covered by heavy, fall-hued drapes, their bronze tassels glinting in the light of three candelabras sitting atop small tables. Tall, tallow-gold candles burn with bright, steady light.
A large bed, canopied by lace curtains, sits with its headboard sunk into the north wall. Lying amid the velvet and satin sheets is a young woman in a nightgown. One of her dainty slippers has fallen to the floor at the bed's foot.'
Arched double doors lead from this room to the south and east.
The window is divided into four tall panes of glass, each enclosed by a painted wood framework. The window looks out onto area K46.
The figure on the bed is Gertruda (NG female any race commoner), the adopted daughter of Adelaide (see Chap 3, area E3). Gertruda is oblivious to any danger to herself--especially from the Beast, whom she has never once seen (and believes is not present in the Elder Edelwood).
Sheltered by her mother, she was never allowed to leave home as a child. She finally ran away and made her way to the Elder Edelwood, drawn by her childlike wonder. Gertruda has been charmed by the witches of the Black Turtle cult set up in the god tree who plan to use her in a rejuvenation ritual. Though naive before, in her charmed state she is naive to the point of being a danger to herself and others.
Next to the bed, set into the north wall, is a secret door. It can be pushed open to reveal a dusty hall that ends at a similar secret door in the back of an alcove (see area K45 for details). Gertruda doesn't know this secret door exists.


K43. The bath
Text: 'Fall-hued curtains hang in archways at both ends of the south wall in this dark room. Between them, in the center of the chamber, stands a large wooden bathing tub under a metal water pump.'
Both curtained archways lead to area K44.
If a character uses the pump, glimmering water rushes down into the tub. Bright spots shine like stars in the crystal clear water. The spots are bioluminescent fungal nodes that transmit a poison on contact if a character fails a DC 15 Con save. The fluid isn't water but the gelatin in which the fungal nodes are kept in hibernation. The pressure of the pipeworks causes it to liquefy. It is toxic only if imbibed, requiring a DC 20 Con save to avoid being poisoned.


K44. Closet
Text: 'The walls here are lined with metal hooks, on which hang identical black cloaks. Two arched windows in the south wall are covered by heavy, fall-hued curtains.'
34 capes are stored here. The drapes int he archways connect this closet to the adjoining bath chamber (area K43).


K45. Hall of heroes
Text: 'Dark alcoves have been dug out from the living walls of this long hall. The glass ceiling has broken and fallen in places. Lightning from the dark clouds above sporadically illuminates the hall, lighting the life-sized faces of skeletal statues in the alcoves and casting the shadowy bars of the ceiling's latticework over all.'
The ten statues that line the corridor are skeletons of past adventurers posed with taxidermy wire by Bellevue. They've been given faces molded from hardened sackcloth.
The stairs at the west end of the hall descend 40 ft to area K33. An open archway to the east reveals a landing beyond (part of area K20).


K46. Barkside walkway
Text: 'You stand on a 10-ft-wide walkway that encircles most of the keep below the perpetually autumnal canopy. The drizzle of rain continues, punctuated by the occasional clap of thunder or stroke of lightning. Far below, the tangle of the rooted courtyard shines with slickness.'
The walkway runs around the front of the upper portion of the Elder Edelwood. Walkways extend from the keep north, south, and east to the outer walls as well. (See the ORIGINAL CoS map 2 for the length and location of the walls.) All the windows leading from this area are shut and locked, but can easily be broken.
If the PCs loiter on the walkway or atop the walls for more than 5 minutes, they encounter 1d6 swarms of Business Bats with +1 additional swarms every three rounds.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Rooms of weeping = Rooms in need of sweeping
Dining hall of the count = The cakery
King's bedchamber = Bedchamber
Bath chamber = The bath
Parapets = Barkside walkway

[Guest]

Chap 4: Elder Edelwood, the Spires
Refer to the ORIGINAL CoS maps 6 through 10 of the castle for areas K47 through K60.


K47. Portrait of the Beast
Text: 'You come to a dark landing ten feet wide and twenty feet long. A cold draft of wind rushes down the embedded planks spiraling down the north end of the east wall and whistles mournfully through the room before streaming down the stairs to the south.
A luxiurious but meticulously square pelt covers the floor to the south. Set into the west wall is a painted door with a wooden trapdoor set into the floor in front of it. Hanging on the north wall above the trapdoor is a framed portrait of a cloaked and antlered silhouette before a background of dead-leaved Edelwood trees.'
The pelt rug is actually a rug of smothering. It attacks creatures that move across it or anyone who tries to move or disturb it. Underneath the rug is a bare stone floor.
The wooden, square trapdoor is 4 ft on a side and as thick as the floor, with recessed metal hinges and a metal ring built into the side opposite the hinges. Pulling up on the ring opens the door. Below the trapdoor, PCs see one of two things: either a 170-ft-deep shaft (area K31a) or, if the elevator trap has been activated (see area K61), a stone elevator compartment with a secret hatch in its top.
The portrait depicts the Beast. Its hollow, glowing eyes seem to watch and follow the characters as the explore the area. The picture frame is bolted to the wall and can't be removed without destryoing it. If the PCs attack the rug or picture or attempt to remove either, the guardian portrait (see appendix D), attacks.


K48. Offstair
Text: 'This spiraling staircase is dark and dusty.'
The stairway rises from area K47, past area K54.


K49. Lounge
Text: 'As thunder shakes the tower, the living beams of the ceiling groan over the carved out space beneath them. Three metal lanterns hang by chains from these beams, each casting a dim glow. The curved west wal is fitted with three windows of leaded glass in wooden latticework. A bookcase sits on the east wall between two doors. Massive wooden chairs and overstuffed, patchwork couches are placed about the room. The fabric has faded with age, and the patterns are all but gone. Lounging on one couch with a book in hand is a bewitching fey whose unisex livery, while elegant is worn and faded.'
The fey is Ensign, the LE mage in charge of keeping the Elder Edelwood clean, the head janitor as it were. Ensign is incredibly lazy, however, and has conjured a single Unseen Servant to maintain the entire god tree. Needless to say, entire floors have gone unswept for centuries.
If attacked, Ensign casts greater invisibility and flees...only as far as they need for the players to cease antagonizing them and may remain in the room, reading, if the players immediately stop their attack.
If questioned, Ensign answers all queries with yawns, minimal helpfulness, and maximum vagueness. They want nothing more than to return their book, Goats of the Barking Mountains, Vol. 8. The bookcase contains all the other volumes of the goat soap opera, none of which have value or much use.
If the PCs take books off the shelf, Ensign simply stares at them and screams. Without end. Until they stop harassing the books. Ensign will continue screaming if they leave the room with a book and remain screaming whether or not they return.
If the PCs take the book from Ensign's hand, Ensign attacks, continuously screaming, until the fey has the book back in hand. There's a 50% chance that Ensign's screaming will attract one of the Beast's fog-touched fey.


K50. Guest room
Text: 'A large bed has been embedded into the center of this room, its four corner posts supporting a lace canopy and curtains. Several patchwork divans are placed about the room. There is a banded door in the west wall and a smaller unbanded door in the east wall.'
There is no danger in this area during the day. BUt if the PCs try to take a short rest here during the night, the rest is interrupted by the arrival of 1d4 Black Turtle witches from area K56. They try to subdue the party with sleep spells. A cultist witch retreats to area K56 if wounded.


K51. Closet
Text: 'This small pocket of a room carved into the wall reeks of mildew. Its ceiling stands 10-ft-high. Metal hooks line the walls, and a dusty, black velvet robe patterned with turtles hangs from one hook in the center of the south wall.'
The Black Turtle cultists in area K56 placed it here to help them remember which hook opens the secret trapdoor in the ceiling.
The trapdoor can be found with a DC 13 Wis (Perception) check. Locating the door doesn't enable someone to discover the opening mechanism. The door has a hidden lock and can be opened by pulling down on the hook from which the black robe hangs. Once it has been found, the door can be opened through the mechanism, using thieves's tools, or a knock spell. It swings down when unlocked.


K52. Smokestack
Text: 'Jutting from the steeply sloping trunk of the upper Elder Edelwood, a spindly smokestack, five feet in diameter at the top, rises 30 ft. Thick smoke cascades down its length, smelling of burning Edelwood wood and oil, and joins the blanket of fog.'
The chmeny leads down 60 ft to the blazing fireplace in area K37. A creature that starts its turn in the chimney takes 3 (1d6) fire damage.


K53. Smoky landing
Text: 'Rain that finds the gaps between the many layers of the autumnal-leaved canopy splashes against the sloped landing at the base of the smokestack. Flashes of lightning illuminate stone mushrooms perched on the peaked ridges of the trunk.'
If a character tries to traverse the landing: 'The many fallen leaves slide easily underfoot, over the edges of the landing, and float down into the fog-shrouded darkness to join the mulch at the bottom of the chasm.'
A character must succeed on a DC 15 Dex (Acrobatics) check to traverse the roof. The check succceeds automatically if the character crawls. If the check fails by 5 or more, the character slides off the edge and falls 40 ft to the barkside walkway (area K46).


K54. Familiar room
Text: 'The low ceiling of this 20-ft-square room presses down on you. Torn and broken patchwork couches lie in heaps, their stuffing haphazardly strewn about. Deep claw marks cover the hardwood furniture embedded into the living floor. From the shadows, tree pairs of green eyes stare back at you.'
The three cats are familiars of the Black Turtle cult witches in area K56. If they see the PCs, the witches are alerted to their presence.


K55. Element room
Text: 'Heavy beams support the fibrous ceiling of this large room, the outer wall of which curves to follow the shape of the tower. Dim light filters into the room through the wooden latticework of two leaded glass windows. Several tables stand throughout the room, weighed down by stacks of glass jars and bottles, all bearing labels.'
The labeled glass containers hold material components for spells and rituals. There are no magic potions among the bottles and jars.
If a PC opens a window and leaves it open, there's a 50% chance that 1d4 fog-touched fey crawling the trunk of the Elder Edelwood will crawl inside and attack.
PCs who search the room spot numerous boot prints in the dust, as well as a short trail in the dust on the floor, leading from the northeast corner of the room to the easternmost door. It looks like something heavy was dragged across the floor toward the doorway.
There's a secret trapdoor in the northeast corner of the floor. Because of the dust trail, the door can be found without a chck. Tapping or knocking three times releases a hidden latch, causing the trapdoor to swing down. Area K51 lies below.


K56. Cauldron
Characters who stand outside the door can smell a pungent odor coming from within.
If the Black Turtle cult witches have not been warned that the PCs are coming, the characters can hear them argue about the rejuvenation ritual. They've let it go too long and their aged minds have forgotten the exact procedure. If the characters open the door slightly, they witness the following: 'Green-glowing wisps of steam bubble up from a fat, black cauldron engraved with a turtle pattern in the center of this dark, oppressive room. Surrounding the cauldron are several elderly women with a turtle tattooed on each of their shaved heads. They hunch on tall stools, slapping each others's hands when one tries to add an ingredient into the cauldron. "Frog's breath always goes first, Frog-Breath."'
If the witches know the PCs are coming: 'Green-glowing wisps of steam bubble up from a fat, black cauldron engraved with a turtle pattern in the center of this dark, oppressive room. Surrounding the cauldron are seven tall wooden stools.'
The Beast allows the witches of the Black Turtle cult (see appendix D) to set up shop here for any and all arcane rituals the cult members might require--something of an infirmary/provisions. Seven witches are present when the PCs arrive, minus any encountered in area K50. If the witches are expecting the PCs, they cast invisibility spells and stand quietly in the corners of the room, hoping the cauldron draws their prey inside. Although they prefer to attack at range, they can grow magic claws using alter self.
When the cauldron is touched by someone who also speaks the command word "Hell's shells!", it magically heats any liquid placed inside and remains hot for 3 hrs or until the command word is spoken again within 5ft of the cauldron. Once this property has been used, it can't be activated again until the next dawn.
Captured cultists will trade information in exchange for their lives and freedom, and can be forced to divulge the command word for activating and deactivating the cauldron. They also know how to open the trapdoor in area K55.
Treasure
Each witch carries a potion of healing. There's a 30% chance they flubbed the potionmaking in their senility and made a potion of poison instead.
Not visible from the entrance is a small table behind the cauldron with an opened spellbook, seemingly on the verge of falling apart. The book is evil and a non-evil creature who touches it or starts its turn with the book in its possession takes 5 (1d10) psychic damage. It contains the following spells:
1st: burning hands, charm person, detect magic, find familiar, fog cloud, mage armor, protection from evil and good, ray of sickness, sleep, Tasha's hideous laughter, unseen servant, witch bolt
2nd: alter self, arcane lock, cloud of daggers, darkness, enlarge/reduce, invisibility, knock, misty step


K57. Under-canopy towertop
Text: 'The 60-ft-diameter towertop lies without railing beneath the fall-leaved canopy. A slender stone bridge, also without railing, spans the gap between this landing and a higher branch at a right angle to the canopy itself in the north.'
The courtyard is 190 feet below, the top of the keep 80 ft below. A stone railing does enclose the stones of a spiral stair embedded and descending into the tower.


K58. Bridge
Text: 'A strong wind blows across this slender bridge of stone and masonry set into the trunk of the Elder Edelwood. The bridge is without handholds.'
The bridge connects areas K20 and K57. The wind isn't strong enough to knock creatures off, but a creature that takes damage while standing on the bridge must succeed on a DC 10 Dex save or fall 60 ft onto the top of the keep.


K59. High tower peak
If the PCs climb the stairs: 'The spiral staircase finally ends at a 5-ft-wide stone walkway that circles the shaft of this branch. In the center of the tower's highest floor, a 15-ft-diameter hole drops into the heart of the Elder Edelwood. Cold air rushes up the shaft, sending a chill through you. Arrow slits line the walls. The branch opens up to the fall-leaved canopy and rain occasionally finds the gaps in the many leafy layers to splash down.'
The hole in the floor forms the mouth of an enclosed shaft (area K18a) that descends 450 feet to area K84.
Ticktock Metalman
Hiding the shadows of the branches to the canopy is Ticktock Metalman (see appendix D). A character spots Ticktock with a passive Wis (Perception) score that meets or exceeds its Dex (Stealth) check. If Ticktock is spotted: 'Something lurks in the leaves and branches above--a small, spindly man not much larger than a child. A flash of lightning illuminates his perfectly smooth and featureless face, painted like a grinning jack-o'-lantern.'
Ticktock is a clockwork experiment, the first of his kind, given life by old (ancient) Granny Lee. The metal automaton can't speak or express with his face, so relies on hand gestures and childlike diagrams to communicate. He understands Common but doesn't have the fine motor control to write. Granny Lee believed Ticktock to be a failure so presented him to the Beast as a gift. The Beast accepted and has not thrown him out for the sake of politeness.
If the PCs show kindness to Ticktock, he accompanies them and tries his best to be helpful and entertaining. He knows the way around the Elder Edelwood and can serve as a miming guide.
If one or more are mean, Ticktock will attempt to push an offending member off the top of a staircase, roof, bridge, balcony, etc. The target must succeed on a DC 10 Dex save or fall.


K60. Branch in the North
If the PCs climb the stairs: 'The stairs end at a dark and dreary room with manacles attached to the walls. In the middle of the room is a wooden frame and restraints attached by cables to a metal wheel and crank. A chest sits against the wall, its lid inscribed with the letter B.
A wooden ladder leads up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Water occasionally drips through the cracks to a small puddle at the base of the ladder.'
The ceiling is 9 ft high. The manacles are rusted and can be easily torn from the walls. The trapdoor leads to area K60a.
The B stands for Bellevue (see area K62) who stashed the chest here for safekeeping.
Treasure
The chest is locked and its key is with Bellevue in area K62. It contains 2500 gp in the item of currency in Tavern Town, resting on a silk pillow.
If your card reading reveals a treasure here, it is inside the chest as well.
Teleport destination
Characters who teleport here from area K78 arrive in the middle of the room.
If your card reading reveals an encounter with the Beast, he's on the ladder with most of his body outside the trapdoor. The PCs see only his long black socks but his whistling fills the room and resonates from the wooden walls.


K60A. North under-canopy
Text: 'A cold wind greets you below the many whispering, autumnal-leaved layers of the canopy. Rain occasionally finds the gaps between the leaves and splashes down on the sky-reaching branches. Through the constant drum of rain above, you catch snatches of true and mercantile murmuring.'
PCs who remain on the roof are accosted by 10 swarms of Business Bats, which arrive in 3 rounds. The Bats don't follow if the PCs descend into the tower, instead flying into the arrow slits of the tower in area K59, descending the central shaft (area K18a).
The courtyard lies 260 ft below and the keep 130 ft below.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Escher = Ensign
Rooftop = Smoky landing
Tower roof = Under-canopy towertop
North tower rooftop = North under-canopy

[Guest]

Chap 4: Elder Edelwood, Larders of Evil
Refer to the ORIGINAL CoS map 11 of the castle for areas K61 through K72.


K61. Elevator trap
See area K31 and the ORIGINAL CoS accompanying Elevator Trap diagram before running this encounter.
Text: 'This dusty, 10-ft-wide, 30-ft-long corridor has a flat ceiling ten feet overhead. To the south, a web-filed stairway spirals down into darkness. The north end of the hall ends at a wooden door.'
This hallway contains an elevator trap, triggered when at least 400 lbs of pressure is applied to the 10-ft-sq section of the floor in the center of the hall (marked T on the map), or when the lever in area K31 is raised. A party moving in close formation down the hall will trigger it.
A PC who searches for traps while crossing the hall and succeeds on a DC 15 Wis (Perception) check detects seams in the floor, walls, and ceiling that suggest the middle section isn't atached to the rest of the hall. A PC who makes a DC 15 Int (Investigation) check discerns that the trap can't be disarmed from this location.
The middle 10-ft section of the hall is a cleverly hidden elevator compartment, open tot he north and south so it appears part of the passageway. When the trap is sprung, two metal portcullises drop from the ceiling at lightning speed to seal off the compartment, trapping within the triggering creatures.
An instant later, the closed-off elevator is propelled up the western half of a 20-ft-wide, 170-ft-tall shaft (area K31a) to the sound of the Beast humming a smooth and jazzy tune. This is a harmless magic effect similar to prestidigitation, but it blares loud enough to cover the sounds of turning gears and rattling chains.
Magic sleep gas fills the compartment as it rises, and a creature trapped inside must succeed on a DC 15 Con save or fall unconscious.
As the elevator rises, a 10-ft cube of granite suspended from heavy chains descends in the eastern half of the shaft, acting as a counterweight. The massive block lands gently at the bottom of the shaft, filling the previously open 10-ft-by-10-ft space adjacent to where the elevator stood. The block weighs thousands of tons and pulverizes anything in the space where it comes to rest.
Once the elevator starts rising, its portcullises are locked in place and can't be lifted. The walls of the shaft are nearly flush with the elevator compartment; only a few inches of space exist between the portcullises and the shaft walls.
All creatures in the elevator (including the unconscious ones) must roll initiative. The compartment takes 1 round to reach the top of the shaft, stopping just under area K47. Each creature has one turn to act before the compartment stops, the initiative determining the order. Conscious party members can take whatever actions they like. They might search for a way out, wake sleeping party members, cast spells, or take other actions. Unconscious ones can do nothing.
A character who uses an action to search the ceiling finds a secret trapdoor with a DC Wis (Perception) check. It opens downward.
Any creature on top of the elevator when it reaches the top of the shaft must make a successful DC 15 Dex save to avoid being crushed against the ceiling of the shaft. The character takes 44 (8d10) bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one. When the elevator stops, its portcullises retract.
The elevator remains at the top of the shaft until the lever in area K31 is moved to the 'down' position. When that happens, the trap resets in 1 round: portcullises down, compartment descends to its place, stone block rises to the top of the shaft. When the elevator reaches the bottom, its portcullises rise again.
Development
The music of the elevator can be heard throughout the Elder Edelwood. Characters trapped or asleep in the elevator are easy prey from the Beast, who can reach them by the trapdoor in area K47.


K62. Service hall
Text: 'This hall stands in palpable silence. Heavy beams have been added to support the living but sagging, 10-ft-high ceilings. Fog clings to the floor, obscuring everything that lies less than three feet above it. A giant shadow lurches across the ceiling as a dark figure stalks down the corridor in your direction.'
The figure is Bellevue, a Pumpkin-Eater (see appendix D) formerly from around Pottsfield, and the Beast's interior decorator. The poised skeletons are his piece de resistance. He stands 7ft tall with the body of a man but the head and neck of a wolf. He has the Keen Hearing and Smell feature.
The light in the hall comes from a lantern on the floor behind Bellevue. If the PCs have their own light, he sees them, but will not attack first. He will instead hold out his fingers in a frame and picture the best way to arrange their impending skeletons.
He wears a loop of twine around his neck, hanging from which is an iron key and a decorative wooden pendant fitted with a varnished eyeball, a gift from the Black Turtle cultists after he arranged a skeleton for them in the Black Turtle room. The cult witches enchanted the pendant as a hag eye used for surveillance. Bellevue refuses to wear a shirt while wearing a pendant despite the cold drafts in the mistaken belief that such clothing would impair the pendant's magic. (The PCs may point out that such pendant could be worn OVER a shirt.)
Bellevue is obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed. Though often obtuse, he will realize when he shouldn't give information away and instead laugh with an expression of "Good one!" or the like.
He good-naturedly encourages the PCs to retire to their "room in the tower" (area K49). If the PCs don't know what he's talking about, Bellevue offers to take them. If they follow him, he tells them to stay close as he leads them through the south door to area K61 and sets off the elevator trap...with himself inside.
If Bellevue is conscious at the top, he opens the trapdoor to area K47 and either leads the characters to area K49 or carries them over his shoulders like potato sacks. After assuring the conscious ones that the Beast will come shortly, he makes his way to the downstairs kitchen (area K65).
If the PCs don't go to their room, Bellevue shrugs, sighs, and returns to the work of preparing his dinner in area K65. If the PCs take his key, he tries to convince them to give it back while trying to avoid saying anything about it. A DC 15 Cha (Persuasion) check will make him divulge the key's purpose, the location of the chest, and its contents.
If he isn't being threatened, Bellevue will tell poor jokes at inopportune moments and dance (surprisingly well) whenever he hears any music. His jokes give clues of everything he refuses to divulge in speech. He loves to hear jokes in return and will laugh at anything, especially his own.
Stairs at the east end of the north wall lead up to area K23.
Along the east wall is a rusted by sturdy iron portcullis that bars the way to area K63. (If the PCs peer through the portcullis, give them the text for area K63.) The portcullis bars are 1 in thick and spaced 4 in apart. The portcullis can be lifted with a DC 20 Str check or if the PCs convince Bellevue to do it.
The double doors at the west end are made of heavy, painted planks. They open to area K67.


K63. Parched fountain
Text: 'Arched frames of stone reinforce the low, wet ceiling of this cellar. A massive stone pool and fountain has been set into the floor. Great wooden casks line the walls, their spigots over the rim of the cracked and empty pool. A swarm of rats sleep in the tiered basins of the fountain. They crack a lethargic eye at your sudden arrival.'
The rats are harmless pets of Bellevue (see are K62) who's been trying to train them as spies and messengers. They can come and go on command but he's failed to find a way to understand their report. PCs who search the room find a crack at the southern end of the west wall. It's half an inch wide, 5 in tall, and 12 in deep; it leads to area K18.
Casks
Each of the 12, barrelsome caks rests on its rounded side in a heavy wooden brace. Three stand against the north wall, six against the east, and three against the south.
Northern casks--all three contain glowing fungi in crystal clear hibernation gelatin that will sludge out from the spigots.
Eastern casks--five are rotted and empty, but the interior of the sixth is lined with a patch of yellow mold (see Chap 5 in the DM's Guide). A character who inspects the cask closely with a DC 13 Wis (Perception) check sees yellow mold in the cracks between the planks of the cask. If opened, the yellow mold releases a cloud of spores.
Southern casks--two are rotted and empty. The middle is home to a black pudding that bursts or oozes forth if the cask is opened.
If your card reading reveals a treasure, it's inside one of the empty casks.


K64. Featureless stair
Text: 'The long, hollow sigh of the wind breathes a semblance of whistling life into this otherwise featureless staircase.'
The stairway starts at area K68 and goes up past area K13 to area K46.


K65. Kitchen
Text: 'A horrible odor of decay fills this steaming hot room. A huge pot bubbles over a blazing fire pit in the center of the room, its green, muddy contents churning. The far wall is lined with pegs, hanging from which are numerous and oversized cooking implements--some of which seem more suited to torture than food preparation.'
If a PC looks into the pot, three flying swords shoot out of the pot and attack. Bellevue received this 'recipe' that enchants swords from the senile Black Turtle witches, all of them believing it is for a hearty stew. If Bellevue is with the party, he grabs kitchen implements and tries to beat the swords back into the pot, claiming the stew is simply not ready yet and ask for the characters's help in finding the pot's lid.
The swords will attack the characters, pursuing those who run, until destroyed or driven back into the pot and trapped under the heavy lid.


K66. Bellevue's room
Text: 'This 20-ft-sq room is filled wall to wall with childlike clutter. A long, sagging bed sits to one side under a huge faded tapestry depicting a ring of druids in mid-shapeshifting silhouette dancing around a heavy-laden tree. Dusty lanterns sit in various places, and garishly hued are draped haphazardly around the room. Long pairs of pants are piled here and there while trinkets hang from a wooden model of the Elder Edelwood.'
Bellevue (see area K62) uses this room as his lair. There's nothing of value here. On the bottom of the model it's maker, Mr. Toymaker, has inscribed, "No fun for you!"
If Bellevue is with the party, he invites them to make themselves comfortable. If they touch the toy model, he believes they want to play and will pick up on of the trinkets off the Elder Edelwood and play as the Beast. The PCs may gather information about the Beast and his past as Edelwood or information about the Elder Edelwood if they play along. Although Bellevue will have the Beast speak of Bellevue himself only with exaggerated praise.


K67. Opera chamber
This room is descecrated ground (see Chap 5 in the DM's Guide).
Text: 'A sea of stuffed chairs surround a long wooden platform at the center of the room. Skeletons pose in the chairs in various sophisticated affectations, some with fans, glasses, and other accoutrements, all held in place by taxidermy wires.
The walls and twenty-foot-high vaulted ceiling are upholstered in rich red soundproofing. Bones have been sewn into the fabric in rain-like streams to the dark wood of the floor. The lines of bones rain down as delicate chains from a chandelier, also made of bones, hanging above the long stage.
The doors to the north and south are sheathed in the bone-lined soundproofing, but the double doors in the center are simply painted to match the rich red fabric.'
Bellevue created this work of art from the bones piled in the Elder Edelwood over the centuries of adventurers who met a happier fate than the Edelwood Slumber. He's extremely proud of his work and will happily give the PCs a tour of the room, inviting them to try the seats, the stage, and admire all.
If your card reading reveals a treasure, it's hanging from the delicate bone chains of the chandelier.
If there's an encounter with the Beast, he's onstage, singing operatically with his back to the characters. He turns toward them only once all have passed through the door.


K68. Guards's run
Text: 'This 10-ft-wide arched corridor is cold and moist. The cold seems to emanate from an open archway in the west wall.'
The archway leads to K69. A door at the north end of the hall opens into area K67. To the south, the hallway ends at the foot of a staircase (area K64) that spirals upward.


K69. Guards's quarters
Text: 'Sickly yellow lichen covers the ceiling of this cold, damp, 10-ft-wide passage running east and west. Opening off both sides of the passage are 10-ft-square alcoves that contain rotting cots and lumpy rags. A deathly silence fills the hall.'
The yellow lichen is harmless. When one or more characters reach the midpoint of the hall, ten fog-touched fey rise up from under the raggedy blankets in the alcoves. They use their surprise round to sit up and leave the beds to attack.
If Bellevue is with the party, he is genuinely surprised by the fog-touched fey whom he believes are "creepy" (because their bones don't move correctly) and will refuse to look at, much less help the party.


K70. Kingsmen hall
Text: 'Two neat rows of centaur skeletons face each other, 10 in all. The pose with arms outstreched and armaments crossing with just enough room to pass beneath.
Two doors stand opposite one another in this 30-ft-sq room, one in the center of the north wall and the other south. A dark archway leads out the through the east wall.'
Bellevue arranged the centaur skeletons with taxidermy wire. Removing a shield or spear from their skeletal hands requires a DC 10 Str check.


K71. Druid quarters
Text: 'This dark passage runs for 20 ft, connecting an archway to the west wall with the planks of an ascending staircase to the east. Six large, but shallow indents have been worn into the living floor. Black sap smeared along the walls depicts the forest of Edelwood trees except that all the roots are shown together as though growing from and into a single root network.'
Beyond the archway to the west is area K70. The staircase (area K20a) that goes up along the east wall leads to area K20.
If Bellevue is with the party, he suddenly recalls that there are six druids here and encourages the party to leave out the way they came as fast as possible (within 3 rounds). Druids boil bones down to the gelatin base they use to preserve the poisonous, glowing fungi.
If one or more PCs reach the midpoint of the room, six druids shapeshift down from the ceiling where they hid as vermin and attack.


K72. Steward's office
Text: 'This shadowy room is in perfect, meticulous order. A great desk set into the floor stands here with its wooden chair centered precisely. An inkwell and quill have been set carefully beside a thick ledger protected by a waterproof, leather cover.'
If he has not been defeated elsewhere, Steward the steward (see appendix D) is here. The automaton is hiding under and behind the desk, waiting for the shadow demon in this room to either kill or be killed by the PCs. The shadow demon was conjured by the Black Turtle cultists, whom Steward doesn't particularly like with their penchant for clutter, so he pretends it doesn't exist. He will continue pretending even if the characters discover him in the midst of their battle.
The characters don't notice the shadow demon unless their passive Wis (Perception) score meets or exceeds the demon's Dex (Stealth) check.
A secret door is set into the north end of the west wall (which Bellevue is not aware of). It can be pulled open to reveal a dusty, web-choked staircase of ancient, worn stone (area K79) that descends into darkness.
Steward will attack the PCs only if they attack first. Otherwise, he will guide them to the Beast whether they are ready or not. Steward and Bellevue do not get along, as Steward constantly nags Bellevue about his penchant for clutter and the asymmetry of his artwork. If Bellevue is with the party, he will leave if Steward joins them unless convinced to stay with a DC 15 Cha (Persuasion) check. He will, however, be childishly sulky about it and silently echo everything Steward says with exaggerated miming.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Seravants' hall = Service hall
Guards's stair = Featureless stair
Butler's quarters = Bellevue's room
Kingsmen quarters = Druid quarters
Chamberlain's office = Steward's office

[Guest]

Chap 4: Elder Edelwood, Root Tangle
Refer to the ORIGINAL CoS map 12 of the castle for areas K73 through K88.


K73. Dungeon hall
The following assumes the characters arrive by way of the staircase to the east (area K21). Adjust as needed if the characters enter this hall from another direction.
Text: 'The stairs descend into opalescent black oil that fills an arched hallway before you. The air above its slick, glassy surface smells of cold Edelwood smoke. Twenty feet ahead, arched doorways lead downward from each side of the hallway. In each arched doorway, a wooden door splashed bright black stands closed and partially submerged. You hear a weak cry for help beyond the south door.'
The oil is 3 ft deep in the hallway of root and stone of the Thronestone. The steps on both sides of the hallway descend another 2 feet before ending at the doors to the north and south.
The floor beneath the water isn't as solid as one might expect. There's a safe path around several weight-sensitive trapdoors (see Traps in the ORIGINAL CoS AreaK37 diagram), but the oil makes it impossible to see where the trapdoors are. For every 10 lbs of weight on a trapdoor, there is a 5% chance it will open. The 10-ft-deep pit under each trapdoor contains a magic teleport trap that activates as soon as the trapdoor opens. Any Medium or smaller creature on a trapdoor when it opens plunges into the pit and is teleported to a cell in either K74 or K75, as the ORIGINAL CoS diagram indicates.
When a character sets off a trap, other characters in the hall see an explosion of air and oil fly up around the triggering character (air that was trapped in the pit is released when the door opens). The triggering character falls from sight. An instant later, the trapdoor closes, leaving only a slowly dissipating swirl in the oil. It doesn't open again until 24 hrs have passed, at which point its teleport trap is recharched.
Characters who fall victim to the teleport traps are transported to dungeon cells closed with iron bars and under 5 ft of oil (areas K74 and K75).
If characters set fire to the oil, the entire dungeon hall goes up in flames that will burn for 24 hours but are contained to the hall itself by the Beast's magical and mundane fireproofing measures. After the 24-hr fire, all the original oil is gone, but the hallway begins to fill again from streams of oil that fall in sheets from the seams of the ceiling. The hallway returns to its original state after an hour pouring oil.


K74. North Dungeon
The fireproofed door connecting this hall to area K73 is submerged in 5 ft of oil and requires a DC 10 Str (Athletics) check to open.
Text: 'A mold-covered ceiling of Thronestone and Elder Edelwood root hangs three feet above the still, black oil that fills this dungeon corridor. The oil is five feet deep. 10-ft-square cells, their entrances blocked by metal bars, line both sides of the hall.'
The corridor is 40 ft long. Branching off it are 8 cells, four along each wall.
A hinged door made up of 1-in-thick bars spaced 4in apart, closes off each cell. Each door is fittered with an metal lock. A character using thieve's tools can try to pick a lock, which requires 1 min and a successful DC 20 Dex check. The check is made with disadvantage if the PC is trying to pick the lock from inside the cell. If the check fails, the PC can try again.
A character can force open a barred door by using an action and succeeding on a DC 25 Str check.
The Beast visits the dungeon occasionally to see whether anybody has become trapped recently. He's always in mist form, however, to avoid setting himself on fire.


K74A. Forgotten treasure
This cell is linked to a teleport trap in area K73. Characters who enter the cell can feel the item used as currency shifting beneath their feet.
Scattered across the floor are 3000 gp's worth of currency item from Tavern Town. If the item is small, the PC can scoop up 100 of them every minute.


K74B. Forgotten treasure
Text: 'The door hangs slightly open.'
PCs who enter this cell can feel the item used as currencey shifting beneath their feet.
Scattered across the floor are 300 pp's worth of currency item from Adelaide. If the item is small, the PC can scoop up 100 of them every minute.


K74C. Ritual corpse
Text: 'An oil-slicked rope tied around the cell bars dips into the glassy black.'
This cell is linked to a teleport trap in area K73. Characters who enter the cell can feel a fleshy mass under their feet. Pulling up the rope yields a victim of the evil druids's ritual torture and sacrifice feet-first. A thorough search of the corpse reveals an unopened potion of heroism inside them.


K74D. Empty cell
It contains nothing of interest.


K74E. End of the ride
This cell is linked to a teleport trap in area K73.
A secret door is 5 feet up from the floor on the north wall of this cell. The secret door can't be opened from this side without the use of a knock spell or similar magic. Behind the secret door is a chute of polished black marble that slants upward (area K82).


K74F. Empty cell
It contains nothing of interest.


K74G. Gray ooze
Clinging to the floor of this cell is a gray ooze that attacks anything that enters. While under the oil, the ooze is effectively invisible. It appears black if it surfaces.


K74H. Lost sword
This cell is linked to a teleport trap in area K73. Characters who enter can feel something metallic underfoot. It is a sentient, lawful good, +1 shortsword (Int 11, Wis 13, Cha 13). It has hearing and normal vision out to a range of 120 ft. It communicates by transmitting emotion to its wielder.
Its purpose is to fight evil. It has the following properties:
--(Once removed of oil) The sword sheds bright light in a 15-ft radius and dim light for an additional 15 ft. Only be destroying the sword can this light be extinguished.
--A LG creature can attune itself to the sword in 1 min.
--While attuned, the wielder can use the sword to cast crusader's mantle. Once used, the sword can't cast this spell until the next dawn.


K75. South dungeon
The fireproofed door connecting this hall to area K73 is submerged in 5 ft of oil and requires a DC 10 Str (Athletics) check to open.
Text: 'A mold-covered ceiling of Thronestone and Elder Edelwood root hangs three feet above the still, black oil that fills this dungeon corridor. The oil is five feet deep. 10-ft-square cells, their entrances blocked by metal bars, line both sides of the hall. From one of the cells, you hear a gruff croak, "Who's there?"'
The corridor is 40 ft long. Branching off it are 8 cells, 4 along each wall. The voice comes from one of the southernmost (area K75a).


K75A. Prisoner
Text: 'A muscular, anthropomorphic frog clutches the bars of their cell. Much like their body, their clothes are shredded but also soaked in oil from head to toe.'
The prisoner is Frogfolk Emil, one of the cursed, shapeshifting fey. He has 72 hit points. Unless the PCs are accompanied by Frogfolk Julie, he claims to be a resident of Tavern Town who was chased by dire wolves to the Elder Edelwood. He begs them to rescue them, offering his help in exchange.
In truth, Frogfolk Emil caused a schism in his Frogfolk colony (see Chap 15), so Frogfolk George gave him up to the Beast.
The oily imprisonment has weakened his will. If the PCs don't claim to be allies of his wife, Frogfolk Julie, or accompanied by Frogfolk Julie (see Chap 15, area Z7), Frogfolk Emil will succumb to Edelwood Slumber in 24 hrs. Otherwise, he will do his best to help the PCs to escape the Elder Edelwood to reunite with her.


K75B. Forgotten treasure
Characters who enter the cell can feel the item used as currency shifting beneath their feet.
Scattered across the floor are 2100 gp's worth of currency item from Tavern Town. If the item is small, the PC can scoop up 100 of them every minute.


K75C. Empty cell
It contains nothing of interest.


K75D. Ritual corpse
Text: 'An oil-slicked rope tied around the cell bars dips into the glassy black.'
This cell is linked to a teleport trap in area K73. Characters who enter the cell can feel a fleshy mass under their feet. Pulling up the rope yields a victim of the evil druids's ritual torture and sacrifice feet-first. A thorough search of the corpse reveals an unopened potion of heroism inside them.


K75F. Ritual corpse
Text: 'An oil-slicked rope tied around the cell bars dips into the glassy black.'
Characters who enter the cell can feel a fleshy mass under their feet. Pulling up the rope yields a victim of the evil druids's ritual torture and sacrifice feet-first. A thorough search of the corpse reveals an unopened potion of heroism inside them.


K75G. Forgotten treasure
PCs who enter this cell can feel the item used as currencey shifting beneath their feet.
Scattered across the floor are 450 pp's worth of currency item from Adelaide. If the item is small, the PC can scoop up 100 of them every minute.


K75H. Empty cell
It contains nothing of interest.


K76. Laboratory
Text: 'Dark, low shapes thrust up out of the still, black oil that fills this 50-ft-square room, the ceiling of which is festooned with hanging chains that look like thick, black web strands. A balcony set into the north wall overlooks the room and has a large stone table atop it, with a tapestry depicting a massive, heavy-laden tree behind it.'
The ceiling is 17 ft above the surface of the oil, which is 3 ft deep. The balcony to the north stands 7 ft above the oil's surface, 10 ft above the floor.
If the characters approach the dark, low shapes: 'The dark shapes are black-stained racks, oil-slicked implements of torture on hooks, and fireproofed tables and stools piled in a corner.'
As soon as one or more PCs move more than 10 feet into the room, six giant centipedes uncurl from the shadowed ceiling to attack.
This room was once the laboratory of the inventors, innovators, engineers, and artisans who helped the caretaker transform his abandoned body into the keep of the Elder Edelwood. Once they completed the Elder Edelwood, the Beast rewarded them with eternal life tied to the life of the Elder Edelwood by turning them into Edelgaunts (see stats below). But doing so near-vegetized their brains, so they now spend most of their time sleeping in their respective roots of the Elder Edelwood. The Beast, no longer interested in innovation now that his innovators were violent vegetables, turned the laboratory over to the evil druids to serve their ritual or other purposes.


K77. Sacrificial balcony
Text: 'A large stone table rests on this balcony. Bloodstained grooves carved into its surface circle and twine in an endless knot. Behind the table hangs a sackcloth tapestry depicting a tree bearing black orbs of fruit, 30-ft-long. The ceiling here is 10 feet high.'
The room is desecrated ground and continues behind the curtain an additonal 10 ft to a wall that has a door in its center.


K78. Brazen room
Text: 'This room is thirty feet square, rising to a 20-ft-tall flat ceiling. A stone brazier burns fiercely in the center of the room, but its tall white flames produce no heat. The rim of the brazier is carved with 7 cup-shaped indentations spaced evenly around the circumference. Within each indentation is a spherical globe of fungi the size of an eyeball. No two globes are the same color.
Overhead, a wood-framed hourglass as tall and wide as a direwolf hangs ten feet above the brazier, suspended by thick black chains. All the sand is stuck in the upper portion of the hourglass, seemingly unable to run down into the bottom. Written in glowing script on the base of the hourglass is a verse in Common.
Two statues draped in thick black chains stand in deep alcoves, possibly facing one another. The chains obscure all but the vaguest outline of a humanoid form. The brazier sits between them.'
The two statues are chain devils bound to the hourglass by those who made it for the caretaker. They cannot level the room and attack only under specific conditions (see Development below).
The hourglass has AC 12, 20 hit points, immunity to poison and psychic damage, and vulnerability to thunder damage. If reduced to 0 hit points, the glass shatters, causing the sand within to fall to the floor. The magic writing on the base reads:
Cast a fungus into the fire;
Violet leads to the mountain spire
Orange to the god tree's peak
Red if lore is what you seek
Green to where the coffins rest
Indigo to the hilltop crest
Blue to wintrous magic sealed
Yellow to whence the master we peeled
The brazier's flame is magical and sheds no warmth. A successful dispel magic (DC 16) extinguishes the flame for 1 hr. The fire is permanently extinguished if the brazier is destroyed. The brazier has AC 17, 25 hit points, immunity to poison and psychic damage, and resistance to all other damage.
The globes set in the rim are colored red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Tossing one in causes the flame to change from white to the color of the fungi, and the sand begins falling through the hourglass. Any creature that touches the flame is teleported to a location determined by color:
Color Teleports to...
Red Library (area K37)
Orange Branch in the north (area K60)
Yellow The Beast's hole (area K86)
Green Coffin maker's shop (Chap 5, area N6F)
Blue Winter Place (Chap 13, area X42)
Indigo Hill of the Pumpkin Eaters (Chap 8, area S17)
Violet Winter Road (Chap 9, area T4)
After 5 rounds, the sand runs out, and the color of the flame returns to white. When the flame does so, the sand instantly reappears in the top part of the hourglass (provided it is intact), and the globe cast into the fire is teleported back to the brazier's rim.
Development
If the brazier, the hourglass, or the chain devils are attacked, or if a character tries to remove the chains from a chain devil, the doors of the room magically slam shut and lock (unless they are being held or wedged open), and the chain devils attack. On the first round, the chain devils animate the chains holding the hourglass, their long loops and ends. When there are no creatures left to fight in the room (either because they've teleported, fled the room, or managed to escape the devils's senses, the chain devils return to their alcoves, and the doors unlock. Forcing open a locked door requires a successful DC 25 Str (Athletics) check. Each door has AC 15, 25 hit points, and immunity to poison and psychic damage.


K79. Western stair
Text: 'This staircase of ancient stone is worn smooth. Thick dust covers its steps, and cobwebs choke the passage.'
The stairs rise at a 45-degree angle for a distance of 40 ft horizontally, leading to a 10-ft-square stone landing buried in the root of the god tree (see below). A second set of stairs continues upward to the east at a similar angle for a distance of 30 ft horizontally, ending at a secret door that opens into area K72.
Landing
Inscribed on the landing, hidden under years of dust, is a glyph of warding. If the characters brush away the dust, someone can spot the glyph with a DC 15 Int (Investigation) check.
The glyph triggers the first time a living creature passes over it. Triggering it activates a major image spell, conjuring an illusion of the Beast that appears either halfway up the stairs leading to area K72 or halfway down the stairs leading to area K78, so that the Beast appears in front of the triggering character.
When the image appears: 'A mist cloys the stairway with a heavy perfume of burning wood and oil. The Beast steps out from the fog, the lights of his hollow eyes growing colored rings in the dark silhouette of his antlered head. "Sorry, dear guests, but you've worn out your welcome." Though you cannot see his mouth in the dark shadows of his body, you hear the smile in his voice. "I think it's time for a deal--leave or die."'
Have the PCs roll initiative. Any attack or spell that hits the image passes through, revealing the illusion. On an initiative count 0, the image dissipates in a cloud of fog, all of which vanishes as though teleported. The glyph disappears.


K80. Center stair
If the characters enter this area through the door at the bottom of the stairs: 'The door creaks open to reveal a stone staircase between walls of rough masonry and Elder Edelwood root. There is a little dust on the steps, but light fog tumbles down the steps from above.'
If the characters enter at the top of the staircase: 'The rough-hewn corridor ends at a stone staircase that descends to the south. Flanked by walls of masonry and Elder Edelwood root relatively free of dust, these stairs descend before ending at a lonely door.'
The stairs slope at a 45-degree angle for a distance of 20 ft horizontally, connecting areas K78 and K81.


K81. Tunnel
Text: 'This tunnel is cut into the Thronestone and the roots of the Elder Edelwood. Its surface is slick, and its ceiling is barely 6 ft high. A lingering fog limits visibility to a few feet.'
The tunnel is 120 ft long, with a stone door at its eastern end.
Near the midpoint of the tunnel is a trapdoor hidden under a layer of fog. Characters can't spot the trapdoor passively, but an active search accompanied by a DC 20 Wis (Perception) check locates it. Unless the trapdoor is fastened shut, it opens when 100 lbs of weight or more is placed on it. When the trapdoor opens, everyone who is standing on it slides into the marble chute below (area K82). The trapdoor then resets.


K82. Marble slide
If one or more characters fall through the trapdoor in area K81: 'You fall into a chute of polished black marble and slide into the darkness.'
The chute plunges from the trapdoor in area K81 through a one-way secret door into an oil-flooded cell (area K74e). Characters who slide all the way to the bottom are deposited in the cell, but take no damage. The slide contains no handholds and is slicked with oil, making ascent impossible without magic.


K83. Spiral stair
Text: 'Behind the door lies a dark spiral staircase.'
The staircase starts a area K78, climbs to a landing at area K83a, and continues upward to area K37.


K83A. Spiral stair landing
An extension of area K83 is shown on the ORIGINAL CoS map 11.
Text: 'This forty-ft-long corridor connects to two spiral stairways, one leading up and the other descending into the Thronestone and rootbed of the god tree. Hanging from an iron rod bolted to the eastern wall is a dusty, 10-ft-square tapestry depicting figures in silhouette surrounding a Beast-shaped hole at the center of a massive, endless tangle of roots. A gaunt hand outlined in white sitches reaches out from the dark hollow.'
The stairs at the north end of the west wall descend to a door leading to area K78. The stairs at the south end of the westwall lead up, ending at a door that opens into area K37.


STAT ALTERATIONS/ADDITIONS

Edelgaunt
Traits
Regeneration: The edelgaunt regains 10 hit points at the start of its turn. If the edelgaunt takes acid or fire damage, this trait doesn't function at the start of the edelgaunt's next turn. The edelgaunt dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn't Regenerate.
Variant: Loathsome Limbs: Whenever the edelgaunt takes at least 15 slashing damage at one time, roll a d20 to determine what else happens to it:
1-10: Nothing else happens.
11-14: One leg is severed from the edelgaunt if it has any legs left.
15- 18: One arm is severed from the edelgaunt if it has any arms left.
19-20: The edelgaunt is decapitated, but the edelgaunt dies only if it can't Regenerate. If it dies, so does the severed head.
If the edelgaunt finishes a short or Long Rest without reattaching a severed limb or head, the part regrows. At that point, the severed part dies. Until then, a severed part acts on the edelgaunt's initiative and has its own action and Movement. A severed part has AC 13, 10 hit points, and the edelgaunt's Regeneration trait.
A severed leg is unable to Attack and has a speed of 5 feet.
A severed arm has a speed of 5 feet and can make one claw Attack on its turn, with disadvantage on the Attack roll unless the edelgaunt can see the arm and its target. Each time the edelgaunt loses an arm, it loses a claw Attack.
If its head is severed, the edelgaunt loses its bite Attack and its body is Blinded unless the head can see it. The severed head has a speed of 0 feet. It can make a bite Attack but only against a target in its space.
The edelgaunt's speed is halved if it's missing a leg. If it loses both legs, it falls prone. If it has both arms, it can crawl. With only one arm, it can still crawl, but its speed is halved. With no arms or legs, its speed is 0, and it can't benefit from bonuses to speed.
Actions
Multiattack: The edelgaunt makes three attacks: one with its bite and two with its claws. If both claw attacks hit a Medium or smaller target, the target is Grappled (escape DC 14), and the edelgaunt uses its Engulf on it.
Bite: Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 4) piercing damage.
Claw: Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage.
Engulf: The edelgaunt engulfs a Medium or smaller creature Grappled by it. The engulfed target is Blinded, Restrained, and unable to breathe, and it must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw at the start of each of the mound's turns or take 13 (2d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage. If the edelgaunt moves, the engulfed target moves with it. The edelgaunt can have only one creature engulfed at a time.
Attributes
Size Large
Type Plant
Alignment Unaligned
AC 15 (Natural Armor)
HP 136 (16d10+48)
Speed 20 ft., swim 20 ft.
STR 18
DEX 8
CON 16
INT 5
WIS 10
CHA 5
Senses Blindsight 60 Ft. (Blind Beyond This Radius)
Passive Perception 10
Skills Stealth +2
Condition Immunities Blinded, Deafened, Exhaustion
Challenge Rating 5
Roll 0 1d20 + 7 2d8+4

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Rotting corpse = Ritual corpse
Torture chamber = Laboratory
Observation balcony = Sacrificial balcony
Brazier room = Brazen room
Abbey of Saint Markovia = Hill of the Pumpkin-Eaters

[Guest]

Chap 4: Elder Edelwood, Root Tangle (Pre-crypts)


K84. Root beds
Text: 'Buried deep in the Thronestone lies the massive heart tangle of the god tree's roots. Arched stone ceilings are supported by wide, hollowed roots still strong enough to serve as living pillars. Cobwebs hang limp in the musty air. A thick fog clings to the floor, blackened by the heady remnant of oil refined from Edelwood sap.'
The root beds fill an area roughtly 110 ft east to west by 180 ft north to south. The oil doesn't slick the ground because its mixed with sticky Business Bat guano. It does, however, overpower the guano odor with that of its cloying scent of burning.
The heart tangle is made up of 10-ft-sq wide arched walkways running between 10-ft-sq root beds, which serve as pillars that support the 20-ft-high ceiling. The area has five means of entry and exit:
--The door adjacent to Bed 1 (connecting with area K81)
--A barred archway to the north (connecting with area K85)
--A barred archway to the south (connecting with area K86 but warded by teleport traps)
--A barred archway to the east (connecting with area K87)
--The high tower stair (area K18) or the shaft (area K18a) to the west
Each root bed is sealed with a chiseled door measuring 3 ft wide, 5 ft tall, and 3 in thick. Removing or resetting a door requires an action and a successful DC 15 Str check.
Each root bed houses the Edelgaunt sleeper or remains of the person or persons whose epitaph is inscribed on the front of the bark. If one of the Beast's faithful died before the Edelgaunt conversion could finish or even begin, they did not become an Edelgaunt.
Unless noted otherwise, each root bed contains a 3-ft-by-6-ft rectangular cot of black marble, 3 ft high, with a sleeping Edelgaunt lying atop it.
The root beds are home to tens of thousands of Business Bats. The Bats hang here during daytime hours and fly out in the evning through the high tower's central shaft (area K18a) to hunt at night.
If one or more Bats within a 10-ft-sq on the map are attacked or caught in the area of a harmful spell, 2d4 swarms of Bats wake up and form in that area to attack. No more swarms can be formed in that square until the next dawn.
An Edelgaunt is a massive creature that fills the entire marble cot with what appears to be a sharp tangle of roots but is in fact their resting body. They assume a wicker-like humanoid form, woody and full of black hollows, upon exiting the root bed. They move in perfect, unnatural silence as long as they are on Elder Edelwood terrain, the god tree also granting them regeneration.
If an Edelgaunt is set on fire in the oil-slicked root bed, there is a 50% chance that the fire will catch on the oil in a 5-ft radius of the Edelgaunt, wherever it ends its move action while on fire. The root beds are fireproofed, but the oil and guano is not.
Teleport traps
Invisible teleport traps are located between root beds 37 and 38, between 37 and the wall south of it, and between 38 and the wall south of it. The traps can't be perceived except with a detect magic spell, which reveals an aura of conjuration magic in the trapped areas. Although the traps can't be disarmed, a successful dispel magic (DC 16) suppresses a trap's magic for 1 min, allowing characters to move safely through its area. A trap is also suppressed while wholly or partly in the area of an antimagic field.
These teleport traps form a protective ring around the entrance to the hole of the Beast (area 86). Any creature that enters one of these 10-ft-square spaces is instantly teleported away to a reserved root bed: 27, 32, or 36.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Catacombs = Root beds
Castle Ravenloft coin crypt = Budded root
Crypt of General Kroval "Mad Dog" Grislek = Root of the wood mason
Crypt of Gralmore Nimblenobs = Root of the glassblower
Crypt of Endorovich = Root of the refiner
Crypt of Artank Swilovich = Root of gardener
Sergei's tomb = Root of the Dark metal miners
Tomb of King Barov and Queen Ravenovia = Root of the Fungais's ancestors, the First Spores
Crypt 1 = In loving memory
Crypt 2 = Art the Painter
Crypt 3 = Lady the Weaver
Crypt 4 = Ariel the Antiquer
Crypt 5 = Root of the gardenter
Crypt 6 = Mark the Doorman
Crypt 7 = Root of the refiner
Crypt 8 = Dolly the Quilter
Crypt 9 = Picky the Fool
Crypt 10 = Leo the Bookbinder
Crypt 11 = Tasha the Pumpkin Farmer
Crypt 12 = Trots the Mirrormaker
Crypt 13 = Katy the Inventor
Crypt 14 = Stabs the Organmaker
Crypt 15 = Khazam the Magicman
Crypt 16 = Elsa the Engineer
Crypt 17 = Cedric the Science Guy
Crypt 18 = Reserved for Granny Lee
Crypt 19 = Muscleman the Builder
Crypt 20 = Sasha the Musician
Crypt 21 = Patty the Fey
Crypt 22 = Eric the Taxman
Crypt 23 = Reserved for guests
Crypt 24 = Ivan the Dogracer
Crypt 25 = Steve the Entomologist
Crypt 26 = Valery the Librarian
Crypt 27 = Reserved for intruders
Crypt 28 = Bassman the Chef
Crypt 29 = Duff the Diabolist
Crypt 30 = Rom the Intern
Crypt 31 = Budded root
Crypt 32 = Reserved for intruders
Crypt 33 = Chophand Tom
Crypt 34 = Hellsy the Necromancer
Crypt 35 = Jarn the Batbreeder
Crypt 36 = Reserved for intruders
Crypt 37 = Root of the glassblower
Crypt 38 = Root of the wood mason
Crypt 39 = Wonderhorse the Wonder Horse
Crypt 40 = Taz the Transporter

[Guest]

Chap 4: Elder Edelwood, Root Tangle (Crypts)


1. In loving memory of those whom I could not make my Edelgaunts
The door connects not with a bed, but with a hewn tunnel of stone (area K81).


2. Art the Painter
Text: 'The domed ceiling of the root bed is painted with an image of a tiefling holding bouquets of rainbow-spewing flowers. A skeleton lies atop a marble slab in the center of the root bed. A wooden box is tucked under one bony hand.'
The unlocked box contains wood-handled paintbrushes, full paint jars, and a paint pallet.


3. Lady the Weaver
Text: 'A skull pops out from a rolled tapestry on the marble slab in the center of the root bed. Woven, tasseled cords hang from the domed ceiling.'
If the PCs unroll the tapestry, it depicts a woman weaving at the center of a web. Spiders at the ends of the web wave their fore arms over their mandibled heads. As the characters leave the center of the room, 1d6 swarms of spiders crawl down the cords to the ceiling.


4. Ariel the Antiquer
Text: 'A woody mass like tangled roots takes up the marble slab on the center of the root bed. Piled all around it, covering the floor, are heaps of old baskets, braziers, bundled tapestries, candlesticks, chairs, chests, cooking utensils, cressets, curtain rods, decanters, dishes, jugs, lamps, scroll cases, tankards, and tinderboxes. None of the junk looks valuable. An old chandelier hangs from the domed ceiling.'
PCs could spend hours searching the root bed.
As they leave, Ariel the Edelgaunt awakens from hibernation and attacks.


5. Root of the Gardener
Text: 'You are greeted by the pungent smell of dark, loamy earth. A woody mass like like tangled roots takes up the marble slab on the center of the root bed. Heaped around it, covering the entire floor, are clay pots and watering cans full of black earth.'
As the characters leave, the Gardener awakens from hibernation and attacks.
If your card reading reveals a treasure, it's buried inside a watering can or clay pot with an additonal 5% chance of finding it with every container searched.


6. Mark the Doorman
The 10-ft-sq section of the floor in front of this root bed is a pressure plate that releases four poison darts hidden in tiny holes in the north wall (see Chap 5 of the DM's Guide). The trap resets when the weight is lifted and can be triggered 4 times before the supply of darts depletes.
If the door is opened: 'The root bed smells of sickly sweet acid. The remains atop the marble slab have disintegrated, leaving only a thighbone.'
A detect magic spell reveals that Mark's thighbone radiates an aura of magic. See appendix C for more info Mark's thighbone.


7. Root of the Refiner
Text: 'The door of this root bed lies on the floor, black oil pooled in its slight curve. The root bed gapes open to a floor covered in inches of the heady, burn-scented oil. A woody mass like like tangled roots takes up the marble slab on the center of the root bed. Black oil has stained every inch of the woody mass.'
As the characters leave, the Refiner awakens from hibernation and attacks.
If your card reading reveals a treasure, it's in a secret compartment in the side of the marble slab.


8. Dolly the Quilter
Text: 'A skeleton draped in a patchwork quilt lies atop a marble slab in the center of the crypt. Hanging on the back wall is half of a quilt depicting a party with a massive cake.'
The lower half lies wrapped around Dolly, showing those who partook of the cake falling ill or dead while the Beast sings between a harp and a lute. Both quilts are magically preserved but not valuable.


9. Picky the Fool
Text: 'A small skeleton wearing the remains of a fool's costume lies atop a stumpy marble slab in the center of the root bed.'
The slab is 4 ft long instead of the usual 6 ft. If the PCs explore this root bed, they find a small wooden box in a secret compartment in the slab. It contains two decks of cards, a full deck of illusions and one of tarokka cards.


10. Leo the Bookbinder
Text: 'A skeleton draped in a waterproof leather binding lies atop a marble slab in the center of the root bed. Leaning against the slab is a dusty pile of tomes, similarly bound.'
There are four, 20-lb tomes: Beasts of the Unknown (an incomplete bestiary), Tomorrow's Weather Today (a centuries old almanac predicting the same, foggy fall mornings and stormy nights for every single day), Modern Marvels: Elevator Edition (the marvels of elevators and potential applications for the 'future'), and Pumpkin Tales (a series of children's fables all of which end in the unlucky pumpkin person getting eaten).


11. Tasha the Pumpkin Farmer
Text: 'Pitchforks stand alert along every wall of the root bed. Rags and shadows swirl above a marble slab like liquid darkness. The mass turns toward you, a grayed, hollow face at its heart, addressing you with a voice of sandpaper. "Are you here for my pumpkins?"'
Tasha, a powerful mage turned wraith in death, attacks only if the characters proceed further into her root bed, or if they are accompanied by a Pumpkin-Eater. She will focus all her attacks on the Pumpkin-Eater first. Tasha will not leave her root bed, as she believes that she's protecting her Pottsfield pumpkin crop.
If asked without threats, Tasha speaks lovingly about the first pumpkin golems she brought to life in Pottsfield. If the characters tell her about current events in Pottsfield, including the rise of the Pumpkin-Eaters, Tasha orders them to wipe out all the Pumpkin-Eaters. She gives them a pumpkin made from the weaved tines of pitchforks with a faint aura of magic and implants directions to a place in Pottsfield (Chap 8, area S7). She then telekinetically forces them out of her root bed and slams the door shut. They can hear faint wailing and mourning from behind the door.


12. Trots the Mirrormaker
Text: 'A skeleton lies atop the marble slab in the center of the root bed. The walls, ceiling, and even the back of the door are mirrors.'
If the characters attempt to disturb the skeleton, their hands pass straight through, but the illusion will not dissipate until every mirror in the room is broken or removed.
A compartment under the slab contains a small, black leather case containing three spell scrolls (wall of fire, passwall, and greater invisibility).


13. Katy the Inventor
Text: 'A woody mass like like tangled roots takes up the marble slab on the center of the root bed. Lying amid the tangle is a stoppered drinking horn, a fat pouch, and a weird-looking scepter made of metal and wood. Above the bones, hanging from the doomed ceiling by wires, is a wooden flying contraption that looks like a set of folding dragon wings fitted with leather straps, metal buckles and taut leather wings.'
The slab on which the roots and items rest is weight-sensitive. If anything is removed without an equivalent weight replacing it, poisonous gas pours out of the slab's hollow interior and fills the room. A PC who searches the slab for traps and succeeds on a DC 12 Wis (Perception) check spots tiny holes bored into the slab's marble base.
A creature in the crypt when the gas is released (including Katy the Edelgaunt) must make a DC 14 Con save, taking 22 (4d10) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Katy wakes only if she takes damage from the poison gas, if characters remove an item from the slab or trigger it by standing on it to get the glider.
The stoppered drinking horn is a water-resistant powerder horn loaded with gunpowder, and the weird-looking scepter is a musket. (See Chap 9 of the DM's Guide.)
Any Small or Med humanoid can wear the glider. It takes one min to don or doff. It can't support more than 200 lbs, though the weight limit is not evident unless a PC makes a DC 15 Int check. It descends 1 ft for every 10 ft of horizontal distance. If the user tries to accelerate, the glider breaks and the wearer falls.
The glider has AC 12, 1 hp, and a 15-ft wingspan. Any damage causes the glider to become inoperable. A mending cantrip can repair damage, provided all the pieces are present.


14. Stabs the Organmaker
Text: 'A ten-ft-square shaft plunges into darkness. The sound of slowing dripping water echoes up the metal shaft.'
Characters with darkvision or sufficient light can see the shaft descends 40 ft to a vault. The metal walls can't be scaled without magic.
At the bottom of the shaft: 'This dank vault has a 10-ft-high metal ceiling. The room is awkwardly shaped and smells of rotten meat. Organ pipes stand together like fenceposts throughout the vault.'
Behind the pipes are fifteen mummies, all preserved victims of Stabs, organmaker and serial killer. His modus operandi was to kidnap and kill whenever an instrument needed new gut strings, as he preferred the sound of human to sheep gut. Stabs own remains were cremated in the fire used to make the finishing metal touches to the Beast's organ at Stabs's own request.
The mummies will attack only if awakened on a DC 10 Stealth fail. Or if the character intentionally disturbs them.


15. Khazam the Magicman
Text: 'A pile of rags lies atop a marble slab in the center of the root bed in an almost human-like slouch. A solitary pitchfork lies on the floor before the slab.'
If the PCs approach, Khazam the wraith hovers up from where he slouches and faces the PCs, watching. He will attack in 1 round unless...
Khazam was a powerful archmage and the self-proclaimed rival of Tasha the Pumpkin Farmer, for whom he still harbors unrequited love. If he sees her metal pumpkin symbol with the PCs, he will immediately lose the will to fight and break down in sobs of "Tasha! Tasha, why?" (She rebuffed him for always coming on too strong and interrupting her work.)
If the PCs mention another wraith or mage, he will stop to ask them of whom they speak. He will not follow them out of his root bed.
The pitchfork is actually a staff of power.


16. Elsa the Engineer
Text: 'A skeleton lies atop a marble slab in the center of the root bed. Nine shallow alcoves are carved into the surrounding walls, each holding a stone chest.'
The chests are unlocked and contain preserved scrolls with magically written script that can only be deciphered and read when the nine scrolls are pieced together, DC 15 Int (Investigation) check. They form a complete map and floorplan of the Elder Edelwood, though make no mention of its inhabitants.


17. Cedric the Science Guy
Text: 'A six-ft-long, three-ft-tall glass tank of translucent green gelatin sits in the center of the root bed. A perfectly preserved Fungai in a white lab coat floats within.'
Cedric is, in fact, alive. He's a CN Fungai noble who will revive in 5 rounds if the characters break open the glass tank with a DC 20 Str check. While non-hostile so long as the PCs don't threaten him, Cedric speaks only Undercommon. If the PCs take him out of the Elder Edelwood with them and he is unable to find anyone with whom to communicate within 24 hours, he will succumb to Edelwood Slumber.
If someone in the party can communicate with Cedric, he will gladly take them on a tour of the Elder Edelwood but will run at the first hostile encounter, taken completely aback by the new and violent state of the future.


18. Reserved for Granny Lee
Text: 'The root bed is empty and has been swept clean as though in the hopes of a speedy occupation.'
The Beast has a love-hate relationship with Granny Lee after she both created the Dark lantern to hold his soul yet also crafted the one item capable of tearing through the Dark lantern, the Dark metal Claw Hand Maw, in case he ever threatened her.


19. Muscleman the Builder
Text: 'An exceedingly large skeleton hangs just over the sides of the marble slab at the center of the room. Builder's tools lean against the slab at upright angles.'
There's all kinds of handheld tools but only one of each kind.


20. Sasha the Musician
Text: 'A woody mass like like tangled roots takes up the marble slab on the center of the root bed. Lying atop the woody tangle is a dusty lute. Roots twine around the lute's neck and pegs. As the mass rises up, the pluck of fragile gut strings echoes in the root bed.'
True to her pre-Edelgaunt self, Sasha sits up and plays a delicate melody on her lute. She will not attack unless she or her lute are threatened. If the PCs listen to the entire tune (1 min), they receive a boon akin to a potion of heroism, and Sasha returns to hibernation. She will rise again if they try to take her lute.


21. Patty the Fey
The creature inside attacks as soon as the door is opened.
Text: 'From the darkness comes a horrifying visage, a spectral dusk elf twisted by undead existence. She wails, and the sound claws at your soul.'
Patty is currently a banshee that attacks the PCs on sight on her way to "freedom", using her wail immediately. Once awakened, she is free to roam the Elder Edelwood but can't travel more than 5 miles from her root bed.
In life, Patty was a dusk elf and sister of the Highwayman. But to escape poverty, she offered her magical talents to the Beast, who encouraged her in any and all pursuits as long as she helped him maintain the Elder Edelwood. Drawn to the sisterhood of the Black Turtle cult witches, her pursuit became that of necromancy. She learned of past mage's successes in becoming wraiths and decided to aim higher, at lichdom. Patty ultimately failed, partially severing her soul from her body, the latter of which succumbed to complete physical decay.
When the PCs investigate the root bed: 'In the center of the root bed, a skeleton lies atop a marble slab. It grasps a spellbook in its bony hands.'
The spellbook contains those listed for an archmage in the Monster Manual.
If Patty is restored to life by her brother (see Chap 13), she returns as an archmage with no spells prepared. If the characters have her spellbook, she asks for it back to help destroy the Beast. If the characters oblige, she joins them in the final fight against the Beast, but her harrowing experiences have left her extremely susceptible to the mists and she will become a mist-possessed during the encounter. As a mist-possessed, she will attack the nearest moving creature, friend or foe alike.


22. Eric the Taxman
Text: 'A gilded skeleton lies atop a marble slab in the center of the root bed, surrounded by thousands of items used as currency.'
The thin layer of gold, if peeled from Eric, is worth 500 gp in the item of currency used in Taven Town. There are 250 pp of the currency items from Tavern Town, 1100 gp of currency items from Adelaide, and 5200 sp of currency items from Pottsfield.


23. Reserved for Guests
The first time the characters happen upon this root bed, they see one of their names (randomly determined) etched into the door. Opening the root bed releases the cloying odor of burning Edelwood tinder and oil and reveals a body in Edelwood Slumber that, despite all the shoots sprouting from their flesh, looks just like the named character. Touching the corpse causes it to dissipate into a falling cloud of fog. On later visits, this root bed is empty.


24. Ivan the Dogracer
Text: 'A skeleton is draped in pelt rug that tumbles down the sides of its marble slab. The walls and celing are covered with plaster painted with images of dogs both running and guarding.'
The root bed contains nothing of interest.


25. Steve the Entomologist
Text: 'A skeleton covered by an enlarged replica of a beetle's shell lies atop a marble slab at the center of the root bed.'
If the PCs disturb the shell, 2d6 stirges fly out and attack.


26. Valery the Librarian
Text: 'A skeleton lies atop a marble slab papered with preserved index cards. Most of the bones appear dusty, but the skull is well polished.'
A detect magic spell reveals that the skull radiates a faint aura of necromancy magic. As long as the skull remains in the root bed, it will answer up to 5 questions per day as though with a speak with dead spell. If questioned about the Beast or the Elder Edelwood, Valery provides true information between scathing criticisms of the fey Ensign about their inconsiderate book-borrowing habits and ineptitude as the head janitor.
The library cards belong to books that were never returned, as the PCs can determine by the missing stamps on the last lines with a DC 15 Int (Investigation) check.


27. Reserved for Intruders
Text: 'This root bed is missing it's door.'
Three giant wolf spiders infest this otherwise empty room. They make no noise and leap out to attack anyone who moves in front of the root bed's gaping doorway.
This is also the teleport destination from the trap between beds 37 and 38.


28. Bassman the Chef
Text: 'A woody mass like like tangled roots draped in a white linen apron and chef's hat takes up the marble slab in the center of the root bed. It twines around a cleaver lying at its center.'
As the characters leave, the Chef awakens from hibernation and attacks.


29. Duff the Diabolist
Text: 'Opening the door causes the air around you to turn as cold as the coldest hell you can imagine. Every surface inside the root bed is covered with thick, brownish mold.'
A patch of brown mold (see Chap 5 in the DM's guide) fills the root bed. Characters within 5 ft of the open doorway are affected.
If the brown mold is killed off, PCs find the bones of Duff lying atop a marble slab.
Hidden under the brown mold next to Duff's bones is a luck blade with two wishes. If a creature wishes to escape the Unknown, the blade transports them into the center of the vault at the bottom of Stabs the Organmaker's root bed (14). If a creature wishes for the destruction of the Beast, the sword teleports him within 5 ft of the sword.


30. Rom the Intern
Text: 'A marble slab in the center of the root bed displays a skeleton in a white lab coat and leather goggles and gloves. Swarms of white rats sleep in one massive ring around the slab.'
2d4 swarms of rats attack if the PCs enter the root bed beyond the doorway. They do not pursue characters once they leave the root bed.


31. Budded Root
Text: 'A massive root drops from the ceiling down over the marble slab at the center of the room. Thick, bulbous tendrils have twined around the slab, cracking and crushing it in places. These tendrils sprout from the entire length of the root with bulbs ranging in size from a skull to a small child.'
This is the root from whence the Woodcutters bud. If the PCs cut inside the root (DC 30), they discover a Woodcutter inside, sprouting roots and tendrils. The Woodcutter sees them with their open eyes but is in too deep a trance to move or speak. Any who tries to communicate with the Woodcutter telepathically must make a DC 15 Wis save or fall unconscious.
Cutting the bulbs open (DC 15), exposes asexually reproduced fetal Woodcutters, killing them, and may be subject to alignment penalties at the DM's discretion.
If your card reading reveals a treasure is here, it's stuck and protruding from the trunk of the budded root and requires ten minutes to carve out.


32. Reserved for Intruders
Text: 'This root bed is empty except for two alcoves in the back wall.'
A character who examines the alcoves (DC 10 Int (Investigation)), discovers two stone buttons in each one's walls. Pushing the button drops a retractable marble-topped slab from either. Characters within 6 ft of the wall must make a DC 15 Reflex save or take 22 (4d10) bludgeoning damage. The slabs retract after 5 min.
This is the teleport destination from the trap between 37 and the south wall.


33. Chophand Tom
Text: 'In the center of the root bed, atop a marble slab, a disarray of bones lies above a puddle of black rags.'
Approaching the puddle causes Chophand Tom to rise up from the dead as a N male wraith who doesn't know he's dead or a wraith. Chophand was a notoriously clumsy and unobservant servant of the Beast, considered a dead man walking by the most pragmatic of the Beast's allies.
So archmage Khazam staged an 'accidental' death for him to use Chophand as his guinea pig for the wraith-turning process. The experiment was mostly a success, except for Chophand's great confusion. To avoid Chophand from getting out and accidentally spreading word of what Khazam did to him, Khazam charged him to guard this root bed and simply sealed the door with Chophand inside. Chophand has been on unrelieved guard duty ever since, passing the time in a mild trance of stupefication.
He interrogates the PCs to discover if they mean to bring harm to his root bed and drops his guard if they claim they will not. Chophand immediately reveals his true, genial and talkative nature, providing mostly unverified gossip about people he doesn't know now occupy the root beds. When the PCs turn to leave, he is having such a grand time doing something for the first time in centuries that he follows them, chattering away unless asked to be quiet.
He will not attack the PCs unless they threaten him or his root bed. He will not attack anyone he knew in life (most of those in the root bed), expressing only great confusion about why everyone is fighting. If the PCs succeed on a DC 20 Cha (Persuasion) check, they can convince him to fight with them against the Beast. If they fail, he will deliver a sad goodbye and return to his post.


34. Hellsy the Necromancer
Text: 'Resting in the center of this root bed is a broken marble slab. A crown of twisted horns rests at its center.'
This root bed is desecrated ground. After entering this root bed, there is a 10% chance that the PCs will encounter the fey Hellsy in the Elder Edelwood whenever a random encounter is rolled in addition to the encounter. This chance increases to 30% if they take Hellsy's crown.
Hellsy is not actually a Necromancer but an archdruid who became an Edelgaunt, decided they didn't like it, and is now stuck permanently using their wild shape ability to maintain fey form. Most current residents of the Elder Edelwood, however, believe that Hellsy brought themself back to life with necromantic magic.
Hellsy no longer has the mental concentration to prepare spells. When encountered, Hellsy simply runs around naked (but smeared in black sap), laughing and screaming their name, which causes any animal or vermin (including Business Bats) to frolick joyfully after them.


35. Jarn the Batbreeder
Text: 'The sickly sweet smell of guano fills this root bed. Bat droppings blanket the skeleton lying on a marble slab at the room's center.'
PCs who coat themselves in this un-oiled guano will prevent Business Bats from attacking them for the next 1d4 hours or until they wash it off. This property can be revealed with a DC 15 Int (Nature) check.


36. Reserved for Intruders
Text: 'An empty marble slab sits in the center of this room'
The root bed contains nothing of interest.
This is also the teleport destination from the trap between bed 38 and the south wall.


37. Root of the Glassblower
Text: 'Lying on a marble slab in the center of this root bed is perfectly preserved dusk elf encased in glass. Grooves along the sides of the marble slab have been set with glass that extends down and across the entire floor like liquid crystal.'
If your card reveals a treasure here, it sits on top of the glass coffin.
Applying more than 50 lbs to any 5 ft square of glass causes it to shatter, and anyone directly on top of the square takes 5 (1d10) piercing damage. The walls can be scaled with a climber's kit or magic.


38. Root of the Wood Mason
Text: 'A woody mass like like tangled roots takes up the marble slab on the center of the root bed. Six wooden mannequins stand poised with carving tools all around the room in a circular progression of movement.'
If your card reading reveals a treasure here, one of the mannequins is holding it.
The Wood Mason awakens and attacks when a PC approaches within 3 ft of a mannequin.


39. Wonderhorse the Wonder Horse
The door to this root bed is larger than all the others, 6 ft wide by 8 ft tall. Removing or resetting the slab requires a successful DC 20 Str check. When the door is opened: 'Dry, hot air and smoke billow from the root bed as a black horse with a flaming mane and fiery hooves emerges. Smoke billows from its nostrils as it rears up with an ear-piercing whinny.'
Wonderhorse is the Beast's former bodyguard, summoned and bound the to the Beast by Duff the Diabolist. But his mane kept catching the Beast aflame, so the Beast fired him. By that time, Duff had already died and could not unbind Wonderhorse. Enraged, Wonderhorse went on a rampage, burning everything he could--mostly other servants of the Beast as the Elder Edelwood had been fireproofed. So the Beast trapped him in the root bed.
If released, Wonderhorse (104 hit points) will set everything in his path ablaze on his way to the root bed of Duff the Diabolist, which he means to descrate and defile by any means possible. He will attack the players if they attempt to stop him, get in his way, or attack him, but focuses his efforts on destroying Duff's rootbed.
Wonderhorse blazes a trail in the oil of the rootbed area, causing the Business Bats to swarm and attack him. Edelgaunts and other land-bound hostiles in the root beds, however, will not cross a square of fire.


40. Taz the Transporter
Text: 'A skeleton lies atop a marble slab in the center of the root bed.'
A detect magic spell reveals a powerful aura of conjuration magic. A creature who steps on a 5-ft-sq in the root bed is randomly transported to another 5-ft-sq.
Taz was the archmage responsible for all the teleportation devices in the Elder Edelwood. But he had the misfortune of being best friends with Duff the Diabolist and ended up getting burned to death by Wonderhorse because of his acquaintance.

IMPORTANT CHANGE NOTES
Saint Markovia's thighbone = Mark's thighbone (enchanted acid weapon)

[Guest]

Chap 4: Elder Edelwood, Root Tangle (Post-crypts)


K85. Root of the Dark Metal Miners
A portcullis is closed in the archway into this root. Lifting it requires a successful DC 25 Str check.
Text: 'White marble steps descent into the massive, woody root with a vaulted ceiling 30-ft overhead. A stillness is felt here, frozen dust in stagnant air. At the center, a woody mass like a tangle of roots rests on a white marble slab. To the north, behind the slab, are three alcoves. A skeleton poised with wire, wearing a miner's light, and wielding a pickaxe stands in each. A metal lever protrudes from the south wall, west of the entrance.'
Raising the lever lifts the portcullis at the top of the stairs. Pulling it down lowers the portcullis. The Edelgaunt awakens when a PC approaches within 3 ft of a skeleton or opens its marble slab.
There are 2d6 precious gemstones (randomly determined) in a secret compartment in the slab that can be sold for 250 pp's worth of currency item at any settlement.
If your card reading reveals a treasure here, it is in the leather utility belt of one of the skeletons.
If your card reading indicates an encounter with the Beast, he's stepping jauntily around the room with a miner's lamp on his head, a pickaxe over his shoulder, and whistling a mining tune.


K86. The Hole of the Beast
A heavy portcullis closed in the archway leads to this room deep within the root tangle. Lifting it requires a DC 25 Str check.
Text: 'Black marble steps descend past the storm-gray rock of Thronestone to the pure wood of a massive root in the root tangle. The slight sting of loamy, freshly turned earth permeates the chamber up to the vaulted ceiling 30 ft overhead. The walls have been smeared with black sap that adds its heavy, burning odor to the stagnant mix. Settled into the back wall of the chamber, cut into the central root itself, is the carved outline of the Beast. The walls of the hole extend endlessly into the wood and darkness behind them.
A metal lever protrudes from the north wall, east of the entrance.'
Raising the lever lifts the portcullis at the top of the stairs. Pulling it down lowers the portcullis.
Lying under the earth near the east wall are the three Edelgaunts of the miners represented by skeletons in K85. Each wears a leather utility belt and broken miner's lamp. They rise to attack anyone who approaches the hole of the Beast.
There is a hidden western alcove that can be detected with the detect magic spell for its strong aura of conjuration magic or with a DC 20 Wis (Perception) check. It teleports any who enter to root bed 32 in area K84.
Treasure
One miner carries gold brick in their utility belt worth 850 gp's worth of currency item at any settlement.
One miner carries jewels in their utility belt worth 2250 gp's worth of currency item at any settlement.
One carries platinum brick worth 250 pp's worth of currency item at any settlement.
Teleport destination
Those who teleport here from area K78 arrive at the bottom of the stairs.
If your card reading reveals a treasure, it sits in the mouth of the hole of the Beast.
If there's an encounter with the Beast: 'A spot of light twinkles from the center of the darkness in hole of the Beast. As it grows, a tide of cold fog spills out from the hole and around your ankles. The fog rises, obscuring the growing light. But it is enough to illuminate the outline of a Dark metal lantern in a hand like a living silhouette.'


K87. Guardians
The following text assumes the characters are approaching from area K84. If they approach from area K88, references to descending stairs should be changed to ascending stairs.
Text: 'Wide steps descend to a landing flanked by two alcoves. Within each alcove is a humanoid silhouette shrouded in mist. A soft curtain of mist and shadow flows between them. Dimly visible on the other side of the curtain are more descending stairs.'
The curtain has no effect on creatures that move east to west (from area K88 to area K84).
A creature with a lawful good alignment that moves west to east through the curtain is teleported back to the top of the stairs behind them. A Small creature can squeeze behind and around the immobile, mist-shrouded figures to circumvent the fog curtain.
Attacking one of the figures will cause the curtain to dissipate, but the PCs must then deal with 2 mist-possessed. If they kill one of the mist-possessed, the other is freed of their charge to maintain the curtain and will leave. This mist-possessed can be encountered again randomly.


K88. Root of the First Spores
Text: 'This root bed rests in hushed silence. Tall, stained glass windows dominate the eastern walls, allowing dim, colored light through. They depict the silhouette of the Beast calling up pastel-skinned gnomes from deep within the earth. A great woody mass like a tangle of roots rests on each of two, white marble slabs. The vaulted ceiling 30ft overhead is inlaid with a gold mosaic depicting a the shadowy figure of the Beast with a gnome to one side and a much larger but still gnome-like figure on the other, an axe in hand.'
Anyone who looks upward through a window can see, 110 ft above, the Elder Edelwood's overlook (area K6). Anyone who falls out a window here plummets 900 ft to the base of the Thronestone.
The Edelgaunts do not rise up to attack unprovoked unless your card reading indicated an encounter with the Beast. The Beast has pressed himself against the life-size figure of himself on the mosaic and drops down after the characters look up.
If your card reading reveals a treasure, it lies in the pool of stained light between the two marble slabs.
The Edelgaunts will not rise unless attacked.