Encounter 6: The Treetop

The True and Rightful King

Encounter 6:  The Treetop

Level 2:  Easy (party’s level -1 = 1), 100 xp ea.

4 Fell Taint Drones, Level 1 Lurker Minion, 25 xp ea. (1 player)
1 Fell Taint Lasher, Level 1 Soldier, 100 xp (2 players)
1 Fell Taint Darter, Level 1 Skirmisher, 100 xp (3 players)
1 Fell Taint Pulsar, Level 1 Artillery, 100 xp (4 players)
1 Fell Taint Lasher, Level 1 Soldier, 100 xp (5 players)
1 Fell Taint Darter, Level 1 Skirmisher, 100 xp (6 players)

Setup

You ride out of the village of Wildepond on the road that heads northwest, around the banks of the Wildepond.  To your right is the normal forest of pine and oak and elm.  To your left, however, is a lake, wide and smooth.  Long-necked birds swoop low over the water, catching fish, and tiny insects flit here and there among the weeds along the shore.  Along the banks, all around the lake, there are large cypress trees, obviously ancient, their roots reaching down into the water and their trunks reaching up into the sky.

You have ridden no more than half an hour when Thoeak raises a hand and points.  “Look!”

Ahead of you, perched on the bank of the lake like all the others, is a cypress tree unlike any of the others.  This one is thicker, older, and taller, seeming to reach the clouds.  It’s branches are thick enough near the base for a man to stand on and probably keep his balance, and the bark is ridged so that there are many handholds, though climbing would not be without effort, and it would clearly get harder the higher you go.  Likewise, the lower branches look as if they would be easy to stand on, but as you go higher, balancing on the branches would get harder and harder.

You gaze up, toward the top of the ancient tree.  The sun sparkles down through the leaves from a sky so blue it hurts your eyes.  At the very top, fully a hundred feet or more above you, you see, hanging from what seems to be a peg or nail set into the massive trunk, a leather bag on a strap.  The bag is clearly large enough to hold a shield.

Tactics and Development

The adventurers have to stand on the tenth level of branches to reach the bag and retrieve it.  As soon as it is off the hook, a dark shimmery spot appears in the air on the same level as the top of the tree.  The Fell Taints begin to appear, one player level a time, working their way through the planar rift as if squeezing out of the opening of a bag.  The 4 Fell Taint Drones appear first on a surprise round.  After that, one Fell Taint per turn appears each round on its initiative.  They fight to the death.

Features of the Area

The tree:  The cypress is over 100 feet tall, but the top branches which will support weight are 100 feet above the ground (Level 10).  Climbing the tree, up or down, requires the following Athletics DCs:

Level 1-2:  5
Level 3-4:  5
Level 5-6:  7
Level 7-8:  9
Level 9-10:  11

Each time a character is hit while standing on a branch, he must make an Acrobatics check or fall:

Level 1-2:  10
Level 3-4:  11
Level 5-6:  12
Level 7-8:  13
Level 9-10:  14

If a character falls, he or she gets to make a saving throw at each level, starting with the one he or she is on.  If they save, it means they are hanging from the branch at the level they saved on.  No matter what, they save 20 feet below where they started, so they never take more than 2d10 damage from the fall.  A hanging character is helpless.  Regaining the branch is the same climb check as climbing a level.

A character who falls all the way to the ground level falls either on the ground or in the water.  The water is deep and they have to swim to shore, but if they fall in the water, they take no damage.

Any character who enters another encounter’s level starts that encounter, but the creatures of the encounter do not pursue if the character moves up from their level.

Treasure

Perception DC 10:  When you get high enough to reach the bag, you realize that it probably contains more than just a shield.  If you open it, you find that, in addition to the shield, it also contains two smaller pouches.  One of the pouches holds two potions of healing.  The other contains 190 gold coins.