So my players are about to set forth on a brief passage through an extra dimensional gate to get from Point A to point B in a third of the time. Our game session ended a little earlier than I'd anticipated, so now I have time to develop this place a bit more. I'd like to add three "landmarks" on their passage, to confirm they are on the right path. I have one, but I'd love to hear what other deliciously terrible ideas others can come up with or suggest.
The environment is thick, steaming, weird rainforest, through which a single winding path goes. The rules of passage in this place are fairly typical: stay on the path and your safe. Stray off the path and things will eat you. The things in the jungle try to lead you off the path through trickery. The players know this ahead of time. I don't expect them to knowingly leave the path. The landmarks are going to be right off the path and let them interact with the environment without making themselves vulnerable to the jungles denizens.
Here's the one I already have:
The Hangman Tree
From a distance, this assign tree appears to have a dozen or more men hung by the neck from its branches. On closer inspection, these are actually strange man-shaped gords. If you prod one once, it moves and writhes as though something within it were alive. Prod one a second time and it erupts in a shower of fat maggots and biting flies.
A couple of other half formed elements I'm considering: a praying mantis, poison dart frogs, and razor sharp fronds. Feel free to incorporate these into your suggestions. The idea here should be to keep the players on their toes. Not everything needs to be terrible.
Got it? GO! And thank you.
Tom.
Expanding from the razor sharp fronds you could import razorvine from Planescape. It is a jungle, so it's just a matter of time before someone tries to do the Tarzan vine swinging thing. Hilarity ensues.
The Screaming Heads
In the middle of the jungle, suddenly you come across beautiful, granite - cut heads. They are of exquisite quality - every small detail included, down to a wrinkle and crow's feet on the eyes of the ones representing the older ones. There are just two problems with them - all of the show wasted faces of a terrible agony, like a cancer patient's last stage. And none of them are whatsoever touched by any form of lush foliage that seems to cover anything else. In fact, the very jungle floor doesn't reach there - they just seem...stuck out of the ground, with a very, very thin path of dead, grey earth circling them. That path is so tiny that only a careful examination'll show it. If the faces are touched, they are neither cold nor hot - in fact, they feel like you'd just be touching another human, temperature wise.
Ooh! Creepy! ::scribble scribble scribble::
The Willow of Power.
In the middle of the Jungle, there's a huge thorny Willow - an unnatural thing in itself. But the thorns are two meters in length, and a quarter in thickness, resembling more impalement stakes than thorns. And as the still writhing bodies of sacrificed humanoids testify, such is the purpose of this Willow - it's trunk is rusty red from all the dry blood. As the players approach, a humanoid will approach the Willow, climb it, and impale him/herself willingly on the Willow, screaming in ecstatic bliss as a group of tribal figures watch as he writhes and dies. If asked what was going on, they will explain that the Willow is a crucible of the Gods, on which the First Hero impaled himself to signify the pact between Man and Jungle, being granted powers necessary to defeat The Darkness. Every now and then, another chosen is granted great powers - but for every one as such, hundreds of thousands instead meet their doom as sacrifice to the everhungry Gods of the Jungle.
Another thing I thought of was some sort of fresh water angler fish that has a lure that looks like a human arm, sticking out of the water. The fact it has a hand makes it able to grasp things, and often they are seen sticking out of the water holding some valuable (often dropped by a previous victim).
Quote from: Krimson;906328Another thing I thought of was some sort of fresh water angler fish that has a lure that looks like a human arm, sticking out of the water. The fact it has a hand makes it able to grasp things, and often they are seen sticking out of the water holding some valuable (often dropped by a previous victim).
Or a the tongue of a monstrous snapping turtle. If one scores a successful snack, a dozen more hands go up.
A nice cool pool shaded by the mega-flora of the jungle offers refuge from the biting insects and the horrific humidity on the forest floor. Unknown to all however, the pool provides the main source of food for a species of tree that flanks it - for the pool is actually the digestive fluids of the tree. Shortly after entering, victims start to feel a tingling all over their bodies - ignore this warning and soon after all feeling is lost and movement is impossible. Luckily for the victims, they soon lose consciousness and their bodies are reduced into the mineral soup for the tree to suck up at leisure.
-Step pyramid full of undead warriors and traps guarding their leaders body.
-Giant pitcher plant that's scent is intoxicating and luring. So that a creature will willingly crawl in and be slowly digested.
-Giant venus flytrap
-animated grabbing vines that entangle and strangle
-Band of native warriors that are not happy with characters intruding on their sacred land
-arrow attack ala Heart of Darkness (Arrows possibly poisoned)
-Dinosaurs!
-King Kong type monster
Giant leaches. In streams, or falling from trees
-Giant trees supporting a population of stone age monkey people
-Carnivorous semi intelligent apes (ala Congo)
-Witch doctor
Spider Hollow - A large depression full of trees and shrubs, covered with sticky webs. Within the hollow are thousands of fist-sized spiders that swarm over and overcome anyone who approaches.
Centipede Alley - A winding path frequented by giant, poisonous centipedes that run along the ground and the trees, dropping on victims and biting them, injecting them with poison.
Ruined Temples - Made of stone and hidden with dense jungle, these can be dedicated to evil deities, long-lost deities or inhuman deities and are the source of ancient powers.
Sucking Mire - A swampy hollow around a slow-moving stream, this is full of sucking mud, quicksand and vines that reach out and grab the unwary, dragging them into the mud. Also a place where you can find medicinal plants and fruits with magical properties.
The Eyestalks.
A most peculiar form of vegetation - a simple stalk. Except instead of beans, it bears a much creepier fruit - eyes. Blinking with green eyelids, they constantly look at you, until plucked, when they suddenly stopped. Interestingly enough, they are perfectly edible and very tasty.
- A house-sized boulder that looks eerily like a cyclops curled up in the fetal position. Stare into its eye socket for long enough and the awful wisdom of the jungle will start to fill your fragile mind.
- A great golden weather vane that is curiously positioned at ground level and looks like a chameleon godling. Turning it actually controls the weather for half a mile around it, summoning rain or deadly heat, devastating winds or impossible blizzards at the slightest nudge. Figuring out exactly what its settings are is a dicey affair.
- The Veiling clearing, a space where any living creature that enters becomes invisible until they leave. This can be useful at times, but one mustn't forget that the jungle's creatures frequently have an excellent sense of smell.
@Shipyard You totally need a stack of cards that have "Awful Wisdom of the Jungle" written on them.
"If you see a suspicious pile of leaves do not look underneath."
"Never bare your teeth when you smile at... Well anything. "
"George of the Jungle is not a myth."
"Quicksand isn't very quick. "
"Low hanging vines are only really vines when they are razorvine. Otherwise they are snakes."
You come across what seems to be a crossroads on the trail. As you get closer, you see the crossing path is a curved indentation into the ground, and then you see that the ground is covered in old crushed and decayed plants, and the path itself is quite round and straight and only about 10-15 feet high, as if something very heavy rolled straight through. As you reach the crossroads, you notice what seems to be two (?) bodies flattened into the ground.
Before and after finding this, they may hear some distant crashing sounds that seem to go on and on and move through the distant jungle.
A crude wooden sign is nailed to a tree by the path. On it in red paint (or is it paint?) is written '2 silver pade for each ear deliverd.' Next to the alliteration on the sign is a red arrow pointing off the path.
Quote from: One Horse Town;906375A crude wooden sign is nailed to a tree by the path.
"A crude WOMAN is nailed to a tree".
Wait, what?
"A crude
wooden sign..."
Oh. Damn. Well, it makes sense.
Ahem...
There's a constant, faint stench of decay, vegetable and plant matter and meat. It's not strong enough to make one gag, but just enough to make your nose miserable.
Whenever it rains (and it rains a lot in a jungle) it's always slimy and warm, like touching a frog, and it even carries that same stench as above.
(Off yet on topic: I am so stealing ALL Of these, *Copy pastes!*)
Quote from: Krimson;906359@Shipyard You totally need a stack of cards that have "Awful Wisdom of the Jungle" written on them.
"If you see a suspicious pile of leaves do not look underneath."
Actually, that's a fantastic idea! The players will have a guide. It would be great to whip out these quotes as really odd sage warnings.
This is fantastic stuff, guys. You're going to make it very hard to keep it to 3 (or 4) landmarks!
More prosaic than most of the great ideas posted: a giant skull
1. An actual giant's skull
2. Skull of an enormous dinosaur
3. Skull of King Kongs Grandfather, may be difficult for PCs to differentiate from 1.
Oh, and I suppose I should add leeches dancing amongst the tree tops.
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Quote from: Ronin;906338Giant leaches. In streams, or falling from trees
Already had you covered ;):)
Quote from: Ronin;906430Already had you covered ;):)
Yup. You did. I missed that. Honestly, watch leeches doing summersaults across the jungle canopy is one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen in a nature documentary. That and botfly larva. Gah!
Combine leeches with that fungus from Last of Us. They don't just suck your blood...they suck your very soul, until you are nothing else but a zombie, who then starts travelling to their breeding grounds.
Quote from: Blusponge;906428Oh, and I suppose I should add leeches dancing amongst the tree tops.
What are these called?
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;906629What are these called?
I think it's a tiger leech. But I'm not in a position to do in-depth research at the moment.
A campsite for travellers - well attended one, with an actual iron pot left in the middle, firewood, even a sack of grains by the site. Obviously the local community cares a lot about safety of human travellers. There's a trash pile a healthy distance away from it, about 40 - 50 meters away. If someone, especially trained in medicine, examines the trash pile, they'll notice that the bones left in there are only of one kind of animal...
The Strangler:
An odd form of purple vegetation, something that looks a bit like fungi yet has a distinctive floral quality of strained stalks, is covering the jungle floor in uneven but large patches. Should anyone or even any animal, small ones too, step on the, suddenly, the whole path erupts and covers the unfortunate victim, choking them, consuming...and then, the path grows a bit larger.
No jungle would be complete without an ancient tomb hidden by the encroaching vines and moss. This tomb is guarded by a proud, warlike clan of natives. If they catch the PCs in or near the tomb, they will be brought before the chieftain/witchdoctor of the tribe, who will offer the PCs their choice of punishment for violating the tomb of their ancestors. The PCs must choose between "booga-booga" or death...
A perfectly round and polished stone spheres (http://www.world-mysteries.com/guest-authors/stone-balls-spheres-costa-rica/). They can be found almost anywhere with a surface that can hold their weight, some of them are up to 16 tons. Though they seem inanimate, there are often trails where it looks like they have been rolled. Along some of the paths, unfortunate creatures and sometimes people are found embedded in the ground and often crushed flat. It is unknown who moves these spheres. There are rumors that they are in fact alive or animated and move themselves, but if they do then they move so silently that no one hears them and to date not a living soul has witnessed one moving.
Be super weird. Put old, ancient stone face statues covered in moss. Except have it 'breathe'.
Ancient metallic spire can be seen on the horizon. Nobody knows what it is or who've built it. What everyone knows is that it's cursed, so if you see it and from the distance it seems to be bigger than an average human dick, I mean your thumb, then you're too close and you must go back as soon as possible. If you won't, your hair and teeth will fall off, you'll shit your lungs out and you're gonna die no later than 3 days later.
It makes it a well known landmark.
Oh, if you really need to know, it's a derelict starship and it seems its nuclear reactor, although broken and leaking, is still intact.
Nevertheless, describe it as just a piece of exotic ruin made of shiny metal, surrounded by decaying land and mutated vegetation.
(http://orig11.deviantart.net/21e9/f/2015/296/5/f/crashed_spaceship_by_jbrown67-d9e3am8.jpg)
Heh. JR, that might be a bit too extreme for the six hour tour that was promised by the party's guide. Cool idea, though. They would never expect such a thing.
Quote from: Crüesader;906905Be super weird. Put old, ancient stone face statues covered in moss. Except have it 'breathe'.
This dove tails nicely with the Screaming Faces up thread.
My plan had been to make this "world" uninhabited save for some strange wildlife. I'm not sure if that makes these "human" remains creepier or if it works against the mood.
Quote from: Blusponge;906911Heh. JR, that might be a bit too extreme for the six hour tour that was promised by the party's guide. Cool idea, though. They would never expect such a thing.
You might be right. There's no better magnet for PCs than a sign telling "danger: biohazard, absolutely no entry, certain death".
Dammit. I should've known better.
Ok, how about a broken carcass of an ancient warmachine called "the Guardian"? It's broken, molten, covered with foliage - there's no way to tell whether it was a robot, a warrior-giant wearing armor, or a sculpture made by unknown hands. It simply stand there and reaches for something laying almost precisely to the west.
You know, something resembling these:
Spoiler
(http://img.hdwpics.com/4C028BE93A3F/giant-robot-and-rider.jpg)
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/84/08/92/8408928a6a215af721ec3c2fb3b1bd53.jpg)
(http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/bionicle/images/2/27/CGI_Mata_Nui_erwacht.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20091210134858&path-prefix=de)
Quote from: JesterRaiin;906918You might be right. There's no better magnet for PCs than a sign telling "danger: biohazard, absolutely no entry, certain death".
Dammit. I should've known better.
Ok, how about a broken carcass of an ancient warmachine called "the Guardian"? It's broken, molten, covered with foliage - there's no way to tell whether it was a robot, a warrior-giant wearing armor, or a sculpture made by unknown hands. It simply stand there and reaches for something laying almost precisely to the west.
You know, something resembling these:
Spoiler
(http://img.hdwpics.com/4C028BE93A3F/giant-robot-and-rider.jpg)
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/84/08/92/8408928a6a215af721ec3c2fb3b1bd53.jpg)
(http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/bionicle/images/2/27/CGI_Mata_Nui_erwacht.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20091210134858&path-prefix=de)
? A mountain off in the distance showing this?
Spoiler
(http://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hyper-Light-Drifter-5.jpg)
A termite hive. 150 feet tall and composed of several towers interconnected by gangways and made from hardened forest floor materials and spit. The complex stretches endlessly below ground, who knows where one might end up from there. The inhabitants have just gotten civilized enough for formalized religion. Visitors might be taken for gods. Gods of course being the finest kind of treat for the endlessly hungry hive-mother, herself a demigod of no small power.
A good excuse for the adventurers to go exploring, only to appear somewhere far away and completely different through the web of interconnected tunnels. Some of them end up in alternate dimensions, on other planets and far in the past, future or some alternate version of the now, all owing to the Hive-Queens slowly evolving divine powers manifesting themselves in erratic ways.
Quote from: Battle Mad Ronin;906949A termite hive. 150 feet tall and composed of several towers interconnected by gangways and made from hardened forest floor materials and spit. The complex stretches endlessly below ground, who knows where one might end up from there. The inhabitants have just gotten civilized enough for formalized religion. Visitors might be taken for gods. Gods of course being the finest kind of treat for the endlessly hungry hive-mother, herself a demigod of no small power.
A good excuse for the adventurers to go exploring, only to appear somewhere far away and completely different through the web of interconnected tunnels. Some of them end up in alternate dimensions, on other planets and far in the past, future or some alternate version of the now, all owing to the Hive-Queens slowly evolving divine powers manifesting themselves in erratic ways.
We had something like this but with Formians, which are fairly closeish... Don't mind me, I spent a good chunk last week reading on ants, bees and wasps and their behaviours for a Bug Hunter game I'm working on. The scenario I played years ago, the plot twist was that the Formians were actually co-operative and benign and would only attack humans when their homes were invaded. In a scenario like this, I would probably do something similar, and maybe even have the ants or termites or whatever your creatures end up being as potential allies against some larger threat.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;906946? A mountain off in the distance showing this?
That's a nice finding!
Quote from: JesterRaiin;906910Oh, if you really need to know, it's a derelict starship and it seems its nuclear reactor, although broken and leaking, is still intact.
Nevertheless, describe it as just a piece of exotic ruin made of shiny metal, surrounded by decaying land and mutated vegetation.
Nice rationale for a nega-dungeon.
Quote from: Bren;906971Nice rationale for a nega-dungeon.
Nothing of that modern,
ragged shit near me table, arrrrrr. TOMB OF HORRORS! Only futuristic, FTW! ;)
Quote from: Elfdart;906876No jungle would be complete without an ancient tomb hidden by the encroaching vines and moss. This tomb is guarded by a proud, warlike clan of natives. If they catch the PCs in or near the tomb, they will be brought before the chieftain/witchdoctor of the tribe, who will offer the PCs their choice of punishment for violating the tomb of their ancestors. The PCs must choose between "booga-booga" or death...
Death by booga booga!
I just noticed that Dariel Quiogue recently posted the Balete or strangler-fig tree (http://hariragat.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-strangler-fig-balete.html) on his Hari Ragat blog. He has created a fantasy Philippine/Southeast Asian/Island game and setting so he has a lot of jungle-related posts.
A-ha! Thanks for the tip, Bren! Consider that bookmarked.
I want to thank everyone who posted ideas. There is some fantastic stuff in here, enough for 4 or 5 journeys through the Invisible World let alone one weird jungle world. You guys n gals rock!
Tom