1) Chaos Storm Events

2) Chaos Plants

Chaos Storm Events

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This section contains a list of ideas meant to make the characters feel paranoid and jumpy, and be aware that they are not in a safe place. Drag this out if the PCs want to take a short cut through Snakepipe Hollow, or are skirting the edges of Dorastor, or any other place poisoned with chaos. For example one night, while looking for a place to sleep they might find a nice clearing next to the rock with lips, deciding that that doesn't look good, you can offer them a nice spot next to the steam, taking that, they are woken halfway through second watch when the guard notices the stream lapping at the fire. They get up and move, and have an eventless night only to find a baby broo (slimy little thing with a slug like tail instead of legs) sleeping on one of their packs.

1) A tree starts growing very quickly, about 2 feet/minute, going through its whole life cycle in 30 minutes.

2) The party's campfire screams

3) Trees have human like skin.

4) Branches have bones.

5) Grass grows back/leaves blow into place so that PCs leave no trail

6) Moss grows on a backpack overnight, and bleeds if it is cut off.

7) Slugs infest the area, covering everything, including a life-size, and very realistic statue of a troll warrior.

8) In the swamp the cypress trees move slowly, about 1 foot/minute, you can't be sure because their bases are under water.

9) A rush of vines grows over anything left on the ground for 5 minutes.

10) A grove of trees, which are continually ooze sap.

11) Rocks appear or disappear while the PCs aren't looking. ("you pick up your pack from the mud puddle you were resting it in.", "I was not, I put it on a rock", "Well, that's what you remember, but it's in a puddle now, and there isn't a large rock within 10 feet of it.")

12) A small tree impales a fairly fresh corpse (2-4 weeks) as if the tree had grown through a sleeping body.

13) A rock with large lips.

14) Tumbleweed rolls through the camp (there is no breeze).

15) A single tree blows in the breeze.

16) A baby broo crawls into camp (possibly getting into the food).

17) Wood animals (raccoons, squirrels..) become unusually aggressive

18) A scorpion lays eggs (or leaves young) in someone's pack.

19) Alcohol goes sour.

20) Hardtack grows mold.

21) Sand creeps over a person while they are sleeping, the person wakes upon inhaling the first mouthful of sand.

22) All the leaves fall off of a tree.

23) A plant spontaneously ignites.

24) A piece of wood form the chaos woods (a staff, or firewood) goes limp.

25) Sparks can't be made, any method of starting a fire short of an ignite spell fails.

26) On relatively level ground a creek wanders through the camp, moving about 5 meters/hour, in a direction perpendicular to the flow of the creek. In the desert this can be replaces with a large wandering puddle.

27) An iron item rusts completely. The iron is still there (unless you want it to blow away) if they have anything to store the metal in it can be reforged.

28) Footprints appear all through and around the camp.

29) Methane gas leaks through the ground starting small fires everywhere.

30) Blood curdling screams from three sides of the camp startle the party.

31) A heavy crash happens about 100 yards away, a large boulder will be found at the site. Maybe it fell from the sky, or maybe it leapt off of a tree.

32) Lichen grows all around the camp, walling the party in. The lichen is surprisingly thick and difficult to cut through.

33) A boulder which can be used to cross a wide creek turns out to be floating, when the first PC steps on it she must roll DEX*3 to avoid falling into the creek. (Where is the creek? Is it polluted by chaos slime?).

34) Water turns to blood.

35) A fissure opens up under a sleeper, waking him. The fissure closes up about a minute later burying the sleeper alive if she chose to stay there.

Chaos Plants

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Chaos does not limit itself in which runes it perverts. Here are a few plants you're likely to find in a chaos infested area.

Appears Extremely Dangerous Tree:

This tree has the chaos feature "Appears extremely dangerous". It is a large oak tree positioned along the path, just as the path goes through a gap between two large boulders. The boulders serve two purposes.  First, they channel any faint breeze through the branches of the trees, so that the branches will wave towards the PCs. (I describe it as "As you near the huge oak, you notice that the branches reach towards you and withdraw, then reach and withdraw, coming closer with every step you take").

Additionally the boulders narrow the path so that the PCs must walk right under the tree, they can of course go around the boulders, but this will require cutting a path through the chaos woods, and will add 2 hours to travel 200 meters.

If the PCs look very carefully at the tree they will see a bark formation which looks like a huge grimacing face, about 10 feet up the trunk.

Sitting in the upper branches of the tree are large black ravens, which will caw loudly, (one of the ravens is semi-intelligent, int 4, and will make trouble if the opportunity presents itself). If you wish you may want to bind a hostile ghost into the tree so that it will detect as an enemy, but this shouldn't be needed.

Finally, if this is making the PCs nervous, make sure that they trip over the roots while they watch the branches for hostile movement.

Cherry Bomb Tree.

The cherries from this classic tree are quite volatile, and explode for 1d4 damage when sudden pressure is applied. If someone is actually foolish enough to eat one she should take 4 points to her head from the confined explosion.

Road Apple Tree:

These otherwise normal looking apples taste like horse manure.

Venus Fly Tree:

This tree has what looks like a baby stuck in its upper branches. The baby is screaming and crying loudly. If the PCs try to rescue it they discover that about the branches are covered with sticky sap. The sap acts like the glue spell, holding a person with a strength of about 2/100 square cm, this is about an 8 strength for both hands and feet, but climbing a tree while touching it with only your hands and feet is quite difficult (about 3 climbing rolls at climb/5). Normal climbing will very quickly result in the person getting glued to the tree with a strength of about 5str/size point of climber. (since the trunk isn't sticky they'll get caught about 20 feet up the tree) If the person isn't
removed within an hour they slow eating acidic sap will begin to eat him alive. The process will take about 24 hours. Note that if the person was removed from the tree immediately they will feel all the sap that they hadn't washed off begin to burn. The baby is, of course, just part of the tree.

The Reversed Lewis Carroll:

As the characters approach this tree they see a housecat sitting in mid air, watching them with the look of a contented cat. The cat (known to be of the Cheshire variety to any PC who makes his animal lore roll) is
sitting on an invisible tree. The cat can see it. The characters can't. This is unfortunate as a branch from this tree crosses the path at a height of 4 feet. The cat thinks all of the people running into the branch is very funny. Due to the many intervening (invisible) branches,95% of the missiles shot at the cat will be deflected by the branches. The invisibility of this tree is chaotic, and dependent on the tree being alive, thus any characters who cut down a branch with the intent of wielding an invisible maul will find their weapon fading into visibility within the hour (an elf who can bring himself to try to keep a chaotic plant alive may be able to keep it invisible for a day or so).

Warrior Of Stone:

This stone tree is not particularly hostile, unless it observes other trees being abused (are the characters using a machete to go through the forest more quickly? Do they have a campfire?). The tree also destroys other trees as it is passing through the forest, thus all but the most deaf (or noisy) characters will hear it coming.

Skills: Smell smoke 85, Notice use of machete 70

The tree has a total of 8 useful branches, however due to his low DEX (which, admittedly is higher than most trees) he can only use one at a time. After his first one is incapacitated he will switch to the second, if he loses about 4 he may begin thinking about a strategic retreat. For each useable branch he loses he will lose 4 points from his hit points, and every 20 points done to his useless branches does 1 point to his hit points. Note, that this tree does leave a comparatively nice path through the forest, so you may want to use it to encourage your PCs to go somewhere. (or they may find it, and walk along it, slowly approaching the crushing and tearing sound of trees and bushes being destroyed.)

The Sacred Shrub

This enchanting bush has a charisma of 14, roll charisma vs. INT or be utterly enchanted by it, and dedicate your life to protecting it.  Aldryami who make their plant lore, and Stormbulls who make their sense chaos are, of course, immune. There are already several other devotees at the shrine of the sacred shrub, who are all wearing garlands made of fallen leaves (well, in the broo's case the leaves are stuck in the mud he has caked on his head, and the leaves just stick to the dragonsnails gooey skin). All of the plants within 10 meters of this shrub have been
burnt away.

The guardians are:
Delch: Broo regenerate 5 hp/rnd.
GlockToz Ogre None
Ethal Dragonsnail +d6 pow, Vomits fire 7 times/day
Dontz Scorpionman None
Jontz Scorpionwoman None

Pomegranate Tree

This is a normal pomegranate tree, except that the red stain one normally gets from eating pomegranates is permanent. One will have red hands and chin unless something exotic is done to clean it. (regrow limb will work, but it's a bit pricey)

Blood Plum Tree:

Normal red plums, with thick red juice, which looks and tastes like human blood. It is also at body temperature.

Hypnotic Tree

This tree attracts many different colored insects which crawl all over the tree in fascinating patterns. The result is that more intelligent people are likely to be fascinated by the complex interlocking patterns.

Roll (21-int)x5% or less, or stand hypnotized by the tree. People will probably recover when they faint (CON hours later). If the PCs are unlucky (and are all trapped) they may be found by the scorpionmen who know of this tree as a great source of insects.

Crab Apple Tree

Another of the Chaos woods family of apple trees. The apples here taste like crab meat (which the PCs won't recognize unless they are from coastal towns, and they cook the apples). If left for several days the apples will "hatch" to let several nasty crabs loose.