The Wood-Nymphs Testing Maze

Basic Information:

The 10’ walls of the maze are a growing mass of tightly interwoven willow and similar woods, with the occasional small tree and bush thrown in. However, poison puffballs (level 3+d6 respiratory poison) have been seeded through the maze walls and will explode if the wall is damaged, or on any failure of maneuver (climb, strength roll to peek through, etc.) while in contact with the wall. Hitting the wall in combat will also do this. A STRENGTH roll (max of two people trying) can pull enough open gently to look through. A third person peeking has gets a —30 observation roll, plus the amount the strength roll succeeded over 100. Destruction of the walls is very hard; it will take 500 points of damage versus DB of 0, AT=18 to get a hole large enough for the average person to get through, and the process is dangerous. Weapon fumbles and breakage rolls are doubled — the trees seem designed to catch and trap weapons. Any weapon fumble and the weapon falls through to the other side; remember to check for breakages, too — even if you normally don’t bother. Fire does double damage, puncture none and crushing half. Flora lore can be used as a ‘helping’ skill to improve rolls for these attempts.

Anything getting over 10’ in the maze will attract the attention of the circling scree-crows, who will scream at the person/object and then attack for d6 rounds. d6 birds will see the person/object for each second spent in their airspace. Jumping over the walls, if 100% successful, takes 1 second, climbing 3 seconds, flying 2 seconds. Use the percentage success on the moving MM chart to modify this (so 50% success means TWICE as long, 150% success only two-thirds as long). If you feel inclined, half-seconds attract d6/2 birds, rounding down.

Digging is just doomed to failure. Poison puffballs everywhere around the roots and very, very hard roots. 2000 points needed to get through. Checks as for walls.

Time Trees

Time trees can be spotted with a +30 flora lore roll or a standard alertness roll as their leaves are silvery and somewhat hard to focus on. They can be spotted with no roll once anything moves under them, as they slow down time. Minute trees (‘M’) slow a second down to a minute and hour trees (‘H’) to an hour. The trees have been neatly trimmed so that an aware observer passing them must travel 20’ under them and unaware travelers pass 30’ under them. They affect all passages around them.

Clever players should be happy to find minute trees, once they have worked out, since a quick jog past them should take only a few minutes and they can be used to lure things into and dispose of with missile weapons. Inside the time slow, a single archer from outside will get up a ton of arrows aimed at you (with a +25 bonus for slow-moving target) before you cross the area. Hour trees are much nastier as they can delay for a long time. If crossed pace is very important and should be figured carefully.

People falling in by accident or unawares can be lassoed and pulled back fairly easily, but be careful! Such pulling is time-magnified. Each second of pulling condenses into a 60x strength pull for minute trees and for hour trees can easily kill! Here is the procedure:

Simple Traps

‘D’: dart traps: roll d5 to see which type it is. If any dart scores a critical, a poison resistance roll must be made.

Tumbleweed Traps

At each end of these traps, in the wall is a spherical, very spiky looking plant. When the middle of the tumbleweed route is walked on, these will both start rapidly rolling towards the other end, avoiding each other, but targeting those in between with a +80 Fall/Crush doing an additional puncture critical of one level less severity. Normal DB applies, except parrying is not possible and acrobatics, dodging, tumbling, leaping or the like can be used to avoid them. In each case the base difficulty is medium and any success reduces the attack by TWICE the difference between the success and 100 (so a 130 roll means you get only a +20 attack on you).

If you are at the exact center, only one will get to attack you, otherwise both will in the same round. You get one 100% action before the first one hits you.

Portals

Portals (hexagons marked 1,2,3) are shimmering gates in the air, with the elvish rune "gate" under them. Slowly changing color from red to green to blue (they change every other round). Stepping through when RED sends you to 1, GREEN to 2, BLUE to 3. If you are at the relevant portal already, it rejects you, doing an A electricity critical. The portal moves anything touching it instantly — it’s not a step through thing. Observation at —50 allows you to see very poorly through it. (% result is how well you see).

Special Locations

#1 Puzzled Gnome: Enchanted small forest creature who has the five squares puzzle and cannot figure it out. If you help him he will answer 3 questions about the maze. The puzzle is to remove three sticks and leave three squares.

#2 Pit contents: In this pit is a potion marked "drink me immediately after any damage" with two doses. A dose will undo any damage effects of the previous round.

#3 Wood Elf: is unconscious under the hour tree. Dryflier speaks bad elvish (rank 4) and was put in the maze because she deliberately sang off-key at a meeting 200 years ago. She was knocked out under the tree by the Whirlwind and will be happy to sing healing songs (30 PP), but do nothing else. Songs are (1) Heal d10 (3) Heal minor damage — up to —20 (5) heal damage — up to —40 (1) stop bleeding 1/rnd (2) 2/rnd (4) 3/rnd (7) 5/rnd. (3) Heal burn/cold damage 3d10, up to —30 (3) remove poison.

#4 Toothed Sword: A big, broad sword with teeth embedded down the side and the word "ripper" on the handle. Holding the handle and saying ripper starts it up until dropped. The teeth will then start rotating rapidly along the edge and down into and back out of the handle. This will turn the sword from being a —20 sword into a —30 sword of ripping — any critical does another slash critical, all bleeding damage is doubled and L/SL crits are resolved with +20 on the roll (no extra slash crit). It also slays any plant/tree or other fauna (for example, the walls….). If not prepared to use it, you must make a weapon fumble roll immediately. Usable 2 x day. It is very, very loud.

#5 A box: Sitting on the floor is trapped (0 detect, -10 remove) with a jack-in-the-box which casts FEAR (100’ radius) and takes one bite at the opener (+50 M bite). In the box is a glass bottle labeled ‘Concentrated fear. Throw at least 50’’ It does indeed cast fear at that radius.

#6 Sighing Wood Golem: Has the ‘how much did the cloak cost?" puzzle and will be so happy with the result, he’ll give you the cloak.

#7 Five named Gnomes: These will run up to you, appearing from the walls, and ask their question. If you help them they’ll tell you about Dryflier at #3 and tell you they’ve heard the word "gerroutait" used down the western corridor just after a crackling sound and a burning smell. It stopped the crackling and burning.

Gary has a green hat and red coat

Reg has a red hat and a green coat

Pip is all in purple

Bob has a blue hat and brown coat

Who is wearing a red hat and yellow coat?

#8 A blackend section of wall houses this Flying Fireball Amulet. When hung in the air, as this one is, it acts as a ward. Anything coming within 40’ of it will be followed at a pace of 60’ per round and it will start producing a 10’ R fireball centered on itself. This fireball is +30 to anyone touching it and lasts 6 rounds or until dispelled (Essence, level 10 spell) or it takes 50 points of cold/water/vacuum based damage in which case it flies back home at 120’/round. It has 3 charges per day and a —80 Use Items roll on the exhausted from will discover the command word "gerroutait" which stops it attacking

#9 Floor writing: In the floor, written in elvish in stone which looks like frozen mud is:

"Baoz is a stupid ugly giant who puts his big ugly feet in other people’s writing.
Baoz is a stupid ugly giant who puts his big ugly feet in other people’s writing.
Baoz is a stupid ugly giant who puts his big ugly feet in other people’s writing.
Baoz is a stupid ugly giant who puts his big ugly feet in other people’s writing.
Baoz is a stupid ugly giant who puts his big ugly feet in other people’s writing.
Baoz is a stupid ugly giant who puts his big ugly feet in other people’s writing.
Baoz is a stupid ugly giant who puts his big ugly feet in other people’s writing.
Baoz is a stupid ugly giant who puts his big ugly feet in other people’s writing.
Baoz is a stupid ugly giant who puts his big ugly feet in other people’s writing.
Baoz is a stupid ugly giant who puts his big ugly feet in other people’s writing"

A little further back is written (in normal mud):

"Diary of Zoro-aha. Day 193. Taught Boaz to write. Hooray"
"223. Forgot my crusade"
"1 day after tree: THE SILVERY LEAF TREES ARE DANGEROUS"
"95 AT: bored"
"385 AT: still bored"
"820: Boaz eats people and it makes him brighter"
"1412: Boaz ate again. Maybe 820 is wrong. Thick as a plank"
"2459: bored"
"5000: celebrated by setting Boaz on fire. He wasn’t amused"
"6000: spells getting erattic again"
"7000: Boaz tried to swap me for a sword. DO NOT TRUST BOAZ"
"7920: DO NOT ERASE: I remember— I am on a crusade to XDGTDFF".

The final words have been trampled on by giant footprints. It takes a —50 read tracks success to make out the words "destroy wood-creatures".

Forest Giant Boaz

Blob

Whirlwind

Weak In: +50 Grapple (‘B’ impact if caught)
Strong In: +100 Grapple (‘D’ impact if caught)
Weak In: +50 Grapple (‘B’ impact if caught)
Pause: +0 grapple
Weak Out: +50 L Bash (+100 Huge if caught)
Strong Out: +100 H Bash
Weak Out: +50 L Bash
Pause: +0 grapple

Hits: 150

Zoro-aha the Crusader

An intelligent wand. Add bonuses for IT + EM + 2*PR + 2*SD and make a roll at -20. Success means total control, under 25 and fall under the wands control. Otherwise persuasion needed. Zoro-aha is a pleasant silver wand with mithril runes and a gem each of red, gren and blue. He has bad memeory problems and tends to forget things (like what he is crusading for). Also, when he cast spells, he tends to make mistakes:

SPELL %yes/%both/%other other spell

3 spells / day

SpellCloak, made of magically toughened spider silk

+10DB AT 3