Hey guys,

So this is my first forum in the community, been wanting to join on here for awhile but got lazy 'till now.

Anyways, I could really use some advice. I'm running a knight-level campaign on the lovely sh*tty jungly Myrkr. PC's are there to uncover a Sith artifact in a city that was recently discovered in the jungle (skimming details here). Turns out the city is the fortress of Darth Lovec, who was obsessed with escaping time itself.

The group is coming close to assaulting Lovec's spire (where, duh, they're absolutely gonna have to deal with this guy), but I wanted something SUPER creepy for them to deal with before they do, and I wanted community opinion on it.

Here's my inspiration.

I'm making a walled courtyard surrounding Darth Lovec's tower filled with these creepy ass white trees. In the book it's called the Wasting, and those trees are the only thing alive in it. When the characters finally go to sleep, they wake up and find that these trees have tiny roots laced through the desert, and overnight they grow upwards into you and feed off of you until you die, basically nailing you to the ground and sapping the life out of you.

So in my campaign, once the PC's get into this courtyard, it's gonna have that daytime-misty haze where its high noon but they just can't see very far, and all they'll be able to spot are these trees poking out of the ground. They'll see a mirage in the distance that looks like the tower but as they approach they'll just cross this big courtyard and hit the far wall. When they turn around, the mirage will be in the same place.

I'm working on mechanics for them to get through this illusion and make it to the tower, but I want it to take long enough that they have to fall asleep and deal with these trees.

The trees themselves I thought should be benign, and instead of causing Wounds or Strain damage, they're going to damage your Strain Threshold for every hour that you're sleeping there after 2 hours of sleeping there, so that if they stay there for two full nights, they'll be incapable of waking up again because their Threshold will be reduced to 0.

Long story short, I need help with options and mechanics for this place.

Thanks!

Maybe the trees have a reverse oxygen effect going on? Maybe they're stealing your oxygen? lol

Perhaps they're vaguely Force-sensitive and as the tendrils wrap around a person (or spread roots beneath them?), they pull the very Force energy of a person. Kind of like a mini-Nihilus from KOTO 2.

Maybe the trees have a reverse oxygen effect going on? Maybe they're stealing your oxygen? lol

Ooh I like that idea.... You mean something like the PC's could take say, double the Strain damage from movement so that they get tired faster?

Perhaps they're vaguely Force-sensitive and as the tendrils wrap around a person (or spread roots beneath them?), they pull the very Force energy of a person. Kind of like a mini-Nihilus from KOTO 2.

Mechanically how'd that work though? Reduce their Force Rating while the tendrils are in them?

Cuz see my big problem is that I want the PC's to feel trapped in this courtyard. It's not that big, but there's some illusion that's keeping them from getting to the tower at the center. I want them to feel trapped and scared but obviously not to the point of frustration. So even if the Nihilus thing would work (which I'm definitely curious about), what checks would be reasonable to get them through? A Daunting Perception? Discipline to find their center? Survival to see through the illusion maybe? Unsure!!

Knight-level rolls get ridiculously large ridiculously fast lol. It's dumb.

Perhaps they're vaguely Force-sensitive and as the tendrils wrap around a person (or spread roots beneath them?), they pull the very Force energy of a person. Kind of like a mini-Nihilus from KOTO 2.

Mechanically how'd that work though? Reduce their Force Rating while the tendrils are in them?

Oh, for some reason I though you wanted the trees to drain strain/soak and wanted thematic justification for them.

I assumed: some mechanic for getting through the illusions (independent of the trees), and trees as consequence for if they fail to leave the courtyard. I have no explicit thoughts on that mechanic right now, but what I was getting at with the trees was that if they could temporarily reduce the PCs' strain threshold or strain (and possibly Force rating on a failed resilience check - we need more excuses to use that skill, since in my experience it's extremely neglected!), with an effect duration of "until you leave the courtyard".

Perhaps they're vaguely Force-sensitive and as the tendrils wrap around a person (or spread roots beneath them?), they pull the very Force energy of a person. Kind of like a mini-Nihilus from KOTO 2.

Mechanically how'd that work though? Reduce their Force Rating while the tendrils are in them?

Oh, for some reason I though you wanted the trees to drain strain/soak and wanted thematic justification for them.

I assumed: some mechanic for getting through the illusions (independent of the trees), and trees as consequence for if they fail to leave the courtyard. I have no explicit thoughts on that mechanic right now, but what I was getting at with the trees was that if they could temporarily reduce the PCs' strain threshold or strain (and possibly Force rating on a failed resilience check - we need more excuses to use that skill, since in my experience it's extremely neglected!), with an effect duration of "until you leave the courtyard".

Ha ohh well in that case, yes, I actually think we are on the same page. I just don't know how to narratively describe their escape and attempts to leave:

ex of scenario (simplified of course): "You enter the courtyard, you see a creepy white tree, and then you see more. The air is hazy. You expected to see the tower looming in the center, but instead you see a desert mirage of it way off in the distance. You can't see anything further than Medium range distant, not even the curving courtyard walls."

Assume they check for danger and--finding none--they march forward.

"The trees loom every few meters. There is no sign of life, etc."

A bit later... "The mirage hasn't moved, but even though you can't see it, you get the feeling that you're coming up on it. The sensation of a wall is ahead of you. But as you approach, the mirage disappears, replaced by the courtyard wall. Unsettled and uncertain, you turn around to see the stragglers in the party bringing up the rear, and behind them.... the mirage is back in place."

So at this point I'd imagine they would want to explore a bit, maybe hit the trees (which will do nothing), and so on. They'd probably do a Perception check, but I really want something more interesting than throwing 3 or 4 or even 5 reds at them and then if they beat roll I'd say "well, you blink and the illusion breaks, the tower is just ahead." Cuz that's incredibly anti-climactic.

In short: I've been wondering how to narratively make sense of this illusion for them. Why can't they see the tower? Is it the Force? Are they exhausted and going crazy? Is it just a trick of the light and if so, how do they get around it? My friend had a suggestion that the courtyard is just big enough and the haze is just thick enough that the PC's need to mark trees or pull out a string line from end-to-end of the courtyard and then just do a sweep until they hit the tower. I really like to convey that, but I'm not sure how to lead them to it, and it also seems a bit too... idk, non fantastic, if you know what I mean. Too mundane.

Does that make sense? I realize I went kinda deep here haha.

And semi-related: you know I completely agree on Resilience, funny thing is, I centered a ton of this very campaign on them doing Resilience and Survival checks in the jungle (I'm probably gonna post some of the creatures I came up with, I'll be happy to let you know when I do), but I think poison and disease often get the shaft cuz I feel like they're hard to make sense of over a long period, and they take a lot of work to craft fairly.

Rather than relying on a single roll, you can assign a success threshold. This allows several different skill checks of varying difficulty, also allowing any skill the players think is appropriate.

Ex: You decide to set the threshold to ten uncancelled successes. Player one decides he wants to do a Knowledge: Lore check to see if he's come across anything similar in his studies in the past, and he succeeds the check with 3 uncancelled successes. The party is now 30% towards reaching the success threshold.

Order 66 podcast did an episode on these. I really liked the mechanic and I use it often.

I like Holzy's idea, as it doesn't require coming up with a solution that the party might never think of, like tying things to trees. Possibly assign a boost die to checks or give 1 success for doing these sorts of things? Or, if your party isn't giving explanations for their checks (they should be, though... maybe if they aren't detailed enough?) you can narrate them doing such things. Maybe a Knowledge (Lore) check recalls a fable where this sort of thing happens and people mark where they've been, so they do that?

Rather than relying on a single roll, you can assign a success threshold. This allows several different skill checks of varying difficulty, also allowing any skill the players think is appropriate.

Ex: You decide to set the threshold to ten uncancelled successes. Player one decides he wants to do a Knowledge: Lore check to see if he's come across anything similar in his studies in the past, and he succeeds the check with 3 uncancelled successes. The party is now 30% towards reaching the success threshold.

Order 66 podcast did an episode on these. I really liked the mechanic and I use it often.

Holzy, that's genius!

A good thing too, because my PC's wanted to accelerate our timetable to finish the campaign in the face of summer so there's actually a very good chance I'll be introducing the trees tomorrow X-D But that sounds brilliant.

Clarification though: You're saying that I set a success threshold for this one event at X, then PC's can use multiple skills multiple times to pass said event, but rather than over-complicating with hints and clues, they just have to succeed X times to beat it?

If I'm getting that right, then I'm gonna use it, absolutely. Thanks for the tip!