Druid's Grove

A druid grove in the great woods north-west of New Halfwood, home of the elder Stunghelm Elkheart and the order he leads. Long marked on the party's map (and identified earlier by Daewynn); Stunghelm Elkheart forbade his apprentice Clover to visit it until trained. By the time the party reaches it, the grove is corrupted and sealed in lockdown — and is the suspected origin-direction of the woods' spreading undead blight. It is breached in Session 47, where its entire order is found murdered by the necromancer Dreadweaver Corpsefortune and fused into a single monster; the creature is slain, but the grove remains sealed and dead.

Session 46

• Reached via Tree-Stride. Stunghelm Elkheart opens a tree portal to a hardy tree at the grove's corrupted edge and brings the party through (after leading the plague-spreader horde away on a blood-trail).
• Corrupted. The grove is wrapped in gloom and fog thick enough to stare straight at the dimmed sun; nature here is wilted, blighted, and dying (medicinal herbs rotted, plants keeling over). Half-dead trees have animated with glowing red eyes, skittering about; needle blights and stray plague-spreaders wander; and a distant chorus of pained groaning sounds from within.
• Sealed. The grove has thrown up an archdruid-grade barrier — a Stonehenge-like stone fence gnarled shut with high-level thorns and brambles, domed over the top (so Thalia can't fly in and Jex can't slip an eye through without taking grove-defence damage). Stunghelm notes the druids "only do this if it's really bad." Whether the lockdown is keeping the corruption out (and the druids are fine inside) or failed to keep it in (the worst case) is unknown.
• The plan. The party must circle the wall to find a weak point and get inside to dispel the corruption — roles assigned by Stunghelm (Fenric dispels, Thalia scouts, Lash contains, Jex clears, Silithane steals/hides). The horde will loop back in a few hours. The session ends on the choice of left or right.

Session 47

• Breached. After lapping the thorn-dome, the party gets in via a goat-sized gap — Stunghelm Elkheart heals the snared giant goat and Thalia Speaks with Plants to talk the lockdown-minded wall into spitting it out, opening a 15-ft hole they rush before it re-knits.
• The interior. As dead inside as out: cracked dry soil, stagnant pools, felled trees, red-eyed needle blights, and a large pond holding floating corpses and the lurking amalgam. Sacred features: a stone-stack nemeton (a spell-amplifier that multiplies druids' magic — almost certainly what powers the dome; its counter is to topple the stones, permanently breaking their bound magic), and a teleportation circle linking to other groves (unused in ~2 years — the druids did not evacuate by it). A nest on the nemeton holds a lone giant moorhen egg.
• The cabin & the necromancer. A battered cabin (set in the teleport circle, a mimic in its cupboard) housed the disguised teen necromancer Dreadweaver Corpsefortune, Sunbeamed to dust by Stunghelm Elkheart. His diary and ritual-book revealed he used the corpses beneath the grove to kill and fuse its ~42 druids.
• The amalgam, slain. All the grove's druids — fused into one 55-ft monstrosity — rise from the pond and are killed (see Session 47 combat). Magra later separates the bodies for burial; Silithane identifies the archdruid Vedanis the Evergreen among them.
• Still sealed. Stunghelm Elkheart keeps the dome up and refuses to claim the dead grove. With no living trees for Tree-Stride, the party plans to grow an exit from a pocket acorn, possibly carrying the moorhen egg out.