I took a slightly different track on treefolk in my campaign world. They are a plant species where the ents are the males and the dryads are the females. Dryads take pollen from ents to make a seedling which then grows in the soil like a normal plant until it "wakes up".
“I am not going to tell you my name, not yet at any rate.' A queer half-knowing, half-humorous look came with a green flicker into his eyes. 'For one thing it would take a long while: my name is growing all the time, and I've lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time saying anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.”
Hmm, wonder if a Dryad can be connected to a Treant like a regular tree? If so if that Dryad becomes attracted to a mortal wich is a common theme would the Treant act as paternal father or a angry husband in a sense or even care for that matter simply being a tree only caring if you harm the Dryad. It would also be interesting if Treants could create Dryads, but this would be forbiddin knowledge to non tree people i guess fun to play with this idea though.
That just gave me an amazing idea for an encounter, a dryad and treant bickering like an old married couple because ... well I don't have a reason yet but it will come to me
During the time of 3.5 i remember reading something about a dryad merging with a treeaint in a dragon magazine but the tree before awakening had to be an oak tree that and the dryad had to join with it before hand. And in Eberron special oak trees in mineral rich environments could soak iron particles into the tree slowly making what was known as green iron, similar to the magical green wood. The iron would gain special self repairing properties. So it would be possible for a treeaint to not only have a dryad but also gain a fast healing property. Again this is all from memory i dont have the magazine or the 3.5 eberron book that referenced the green iron. But hope this gives you an idea or two
I often wonder how treants of different tree species would differ. Different stats, or just behaviour (evergreens tending to be more immutable, deciduous trees having moods that last entire seasons, etc...) What about a treant formed from a clonal colony of many "trees" sharing a single root mass? I guess it'd be like a tree hydra!
.....on another note I found the character "Old Man Willow" from the Old Forest that bordered the Shire in the Fellowship of the Ring to be a fascinating example of a treant gone bad as it tries to murder the hobbits almost immediately after encountering them!
Random idea for an adventure hook, a farmer has had a tree stolen. When the party investigates they find that a treant took it, because it is growing into a treant.
My buddy's character Mabonga is an immortal Hierophant of the Cabal and as a deity his avatar appears as an 800ft tall Giant Sequoa,it's one hell of an intimidating sight when he's forced to physically attack in that form! The amount of dmg his character is capable of doing is staggering and he also has a giant ape companion that hangs around "kong" lol. Treants are a favorite in my elven campaign too! Spot on vid with a great description of the destruction these creatures are capable of dealing...thanks A.J. well done!
"Treants could be in all sorts of environments". Stranded in the desert with just a giant cactus for shade?Turns out that cactus is a Desert Treant, Spiky hugs for everyone!
Speaking of corrupted Treants, Second Edition Ravenloft not only described the Treants corrupted by being from Ravenloft, but also detailed how some of them would eventually become undead.
be careful waking the great old ones of th forest for when they awaken the whole forest awakens with them. i would imagine they have the ability to influence other plants around themselves as well. an ent flanked by 2 giant vamprie roses is no joke. what if they influence nearby vegepygmys or myconids? this can just be such a fun encounter.
+trenton maloney I was giving some thought to the idea of Clone colonies of trees, such as Aspens, and how they could all join together to form one colossal Treant (kind of like Transformer robots or Voltron). Also, I looked up how old those sort of trees can get.. a single clonal organism has been around for nearly ten thousand years! In the D&D world, that is long enough for the colony of gestalt minded Aspen Treants to breed a race of sentient Squirrels who worship the Treants as living gods.. and in times of harsh climate conditions, will go to extraordinary lengths to keep the Treants alive and healthy.. including murdering 'civilised' humanoids to turn into compost.
I want to put together a civilization that has the elves, dwarfs, and gnomes working together as a unified government (as several of the nations in Faerun are). Problem is, the dwarves do use some lumber. I'm concerned about this angering the Treants, elves, etc. Can you think of any work around for this? The only thing I can think of it having the elves be in charge of the lumber gathering as they know how to get lumber from a tree without chopping it. Or take the Dwarf Fortress route and buy the lumber (even then that can still backfire).
Make it be a continual sore spot with the elves. Maybe tree farms start up as a response in some places? But in general it is a matter of constant diplomatic haggling between kingdoms.
This gave me 2 wonderful ideas: One character concept and one creature concept: The creature concept is treants awakened from the elementally-aligned trees used for wands and magic items in Eberron. A walking, talking tree with fire immunity that can conjure fire elementals 1/day sounds awesome. The character concept is a prematurely awakened treant of Medium size (+1 Str , +1 Con, +2 Wis) using its Animate trees ability (Awakened Tree stats instead of Treant) to animate their 2 parent trees (wether literally related or they had a similar role) in order to bring them on a quest to awaken them too. It be a Druid, either of the Land (Forest) subclass, or custom made treant subclass. It would be amazing fun to play.
Tree nerd here, retired private forest manager. I do like the idea of a waking walking forest. I've long advocated reforesting what I suspect is the largest clearcut in the world... USAs I-5 freeway corridor
My brother ran a Pathfinder game once where he used an Undead Treant against the party. This was a huge treant that had, in its branches, a monkey swarm which was also undead. He rolled to see who the undead monkey went after, intending to go after different party members. As the dice gods decreed, the entire swarm of undead monkeys (18 of them) went for our Paladin while the treant went for the rest of us. Not fun. at. all.
Treants are one of my favorite encounters. There is so much to make a story with & they make for awesome fights and ex machina circumstances. I could make a weed treant that requires a CON save versus the '70's
As a magical entity I always make them immortal. Only magical fire and extreme violence (magic slashing weapons ov +3 or higher) will kill them otherwise Mielilki would most likely bring its consciousness back into being. I have a one for each species ov tree but that is just in my game. And some species are tied to specific deities (such as birch being allied to Freyja & Mielikkil, which is due to real-life mythology)
Plus I tend yo use them as messengers or champions ov their patron deity. So I give them a little more power thru advancement and a few special abilities & powers which usually takes the form ov some low level spells and mastery over one element.
Immortal unless killed because they are essentially a fey being. I like it. Maybe they just go into dormancy for long periods of time. Soaking up magical vitality for those times when they wake back up and move around.
Imagine if you will, a dark plant familiar, it travels with the druid as a faithful companion, not until a creature dies does the druid discover it's real purpose, as the hungry roots tear apart the body and acidic slimes break down the dismembered flesh, greedily, the plant slurps up the remaining slop, engorged, it sits for a while, before swollen pods break open, releasing a cloud of young spores... a few minutes later, the plant uproots and is mobile again.
Ents should act like weeping angels or skinwalkers. They protect the forest, they can't be killed because no one can ever catch them, they can look like trees when you watch them and disappear when you aren't watching them. The ent's goal isn't to kill you but to watch you and creep you out so you leave. Imagine you come out of the woods and sit down in a meadow to have a picnic and after you have unpacked your lunch you look up to see that you are no longer in a meadow.
Out of interest would a bonsai treant be possible? A bonsai awakening after being carred for for many generations. Maybe as q guardian of an ancient garden or as a observer hiden as a poted plant alarming others when it spots intruders.
Druid:"I wonder what stories the trees could tell if they could talk" Treebeard:"let me tell you about this family of squirrels that made a home in my canopy..."
-But you are so little? -We may be little to an ent, but our hearts are big! -I do not know what hearts are, but i can see your wood is hard. -umm..? -And your bark strudy. -Thats better...
I'm here because I played in a one-shot off shoot of our main campaign Another character took some seeds from a treant they'd persuaded to be friendly. I'm uncertain how I feel about this since very few people agree they have seeds. I have held back on casting druidcraft on the seeds just to see what our main DM does about it. I don't particularly know how I feel about this scenario What do you think of this situation?
There are so many real life exotic trees to use as inspiration with a tiny bit of research to add so much flavor to the game. Cannon ball trees, red woods (truly massive), any fruit tree (magic apples), banyan, also setting spacifc trees like ebberons lift wood add so much, the diminutive bonsai trent (all the power fraction of the size) and so many others. Go wild.
this inspired me to create a Treant figure today. So fun! Cardboard tubes, wire, TP, jar lid, hot glue, and some cheap little RR trees, just need to finish painting. Thanks for the inspiration (dice)!
A massive live oak. A master strategist from years of constant conflict in the blood war. The greatest military mind the multiverse has ever known. The Tree of Woe.
I like the idea that the elves think they created the first treants, but the treants know that they are older than the elves. A treant Druid could have witnessed the Crown Wars as a sapling and lie sleeping deep in the heart of forests that are older than the kingdoms of the giants and the dragons. They were the first to migrate from the fae to the material worlds, but they feel little need to remind lesser beings of it. That would also mean that Yggdrasil is a treant god, so old that the gods themselves have forgotten or never knew it.
Is the hangman tree on the video list or possibly the ever bizarre orc wort (I think that's what they are called) the one that has big fruit that grows into orcs of all things.
I am totally putting a Treant in the forest in my game, it is known there is a huge tree in the forest in the Great Tree Glade. thanks! also your Yuan Ti video helped inspire the main plot in my campaign.
thanks, i find huge inspiration in your videos for campaign ideas. the Yuan Ti are attempting to take over a port city to establish a foot hold in the land which is in a weakened state after loosing a war 5 years earlier and a Yuan Ti anathema is trying to impress Sseth so he may ascend to full divinity. once again your videos are amazing and i look forward to hopefully seeing many more :)
I've always been against the fact that tree kin are weak to fire. Even seasoned lumber has a higher flashpoint than animal tissues, which contain volatile fats and oils. This doesn't account for living wood, which would if anything possess a resistance to fire in comparison to most organic material
I actually heard of a tree in Africa which grows taller than a Redwood. Elephants feed off them constantly and are endangered now. I forget their name. Quite opposite of a Bonsai.
I have a treant that was corrupted by this shadow cult in my game, which basically had hanging bodies dangling from its branches and arms. That was a fun fight in the hanging woods
+Kurt Terfloth Well Nymphs would be the species the Dryads are members of, and the name/kind of Dryad is based on what sort of tree they come from. So yeah, certainly worth a mention, thanks Kurt!
At any point, can a dryad be bonded to a treant? Not like Wrenn and Seven from Magic the gathering, but a naturally occurring treant with a dryad attached.
@@AJPickett I was thinking how cool would be to for a treant to deal a group threatening its forest. While any spellcaster threats are getting sniped, and no one figures out that there's a dryad with a bow. Popping up in different places on treant's body, getting the best angles and occasionally freaking someone in the middle of a sneak attack.
Hmm, that little note about Treants not having wives is interesting, maybe the females died out or simply never existed, so they had to look elsewhere. You know, I originally had the idea to make Shambling Mounds more like entities out of folklore than mindless eating machines, and responsible for creating the Goblinoids. I wonder what that would mean for the relationship between Elves and Goblinoids if Treants and Shamblers became intertwined. If you want to know more, keep reading, but be forewarned, it's a long post. Essentially made as byproducts from the scraps leftover from when Hobgoblins are made, Goblins are the most numerous and show alot of variation in appearance. From wiry or flowery Halfling and Gnome types, to more alien like the Pathfinder variety having warts with sensory hairs, Blood absorbing Fungal Redcaps, cyclopian Nothic-like visages or even a variation of the Dekanter Goblin. As a Player Race I'd let them pick a Druid Cantrip, and since I tend to think of Hobbits as very food-like in appearance, I'll drum up a Halfling/Goblin hybrid race. Hobgoblins on the other hand, are made when a Shambling Mound absorbs enough prey, be it animal or humans, and it converts it a Hobgoblin. I envision them looking like the alien from The Thing from Another World (1951), with the hard, thorny growths on their knuckles, knees or other places, which carry a disease kinda like the Blue Slaad do, although maybe not quite so terrifying. Looked at by Goblins as symbols of physical perfection, they practice selective breeding like their standard canon counterparts, but would be more Monk-like in appearance. I'd give them all +1s like the standard Humans. I also thought about making the standard, green-skinned Orcs originate from when a strain of Hobgoblins were bred to become bigger and stronger, but being berserkers, became too hard to control. When their common ancestor got his ass handed to him by the Hobgoblin's leader, his nose was ripped off, and they were banished, where they eventually split off to their own separate race, in very isolated tribes in remote parts of the world. They'd get a +2 to Strength, and another +2 to Con, Dex, or Int, depending on which subrace you pick. Half-Orcs get a +2 strength, +1 depending on their ancestry, and a floating +1 to any other stat like Half-Elfs do. Bugbears are much more rare because they form when a piece of a Shambler falls off. and look more like a 3rd Ed Troll, except the "warts" would bloom into flowers, cottonous plants or other hair-like growths. With bugs crawling on or flying around their bodies, they use alluring pheromones to lure prey towards them, and enjoy the smell that other, hairless humanoids bodies perspire when frightened. They get a +1 to Str, Dex and Wis, and an additional +1 they can only use in one of those stats. I know it's a long post, but if you manage to read all of it, let me know what you think.
+imlaughing2death Have you much familiarity with the Orks of Warhammer (and Warhammer 40K), they are an amalgam of fungus and humanoid, literally sprouting from the ground they were spored into. This gives them a tremendous survivability and requires the very earth to be scorched, lest they pop up again in continual outbreaks. Bred by an advanced alien race for pure warfare, Orks are a self contained and virulent intelligent macro biological weapon. They spawn Squigs, Gretchins, and Orks, the squigs serving as both livestock and able to by grown to enormous Squiggoth size, for use as living siege engines. Gretchins are a servitor sub race, very cunning, but physically puny. Orks are genetically coded with technological know how, able to assemble weapons and modify vehicles from birth, they gain additional knowledge, size and aggression they more Orks are present in the area, to the point where they reach a critical mass and surge out in a Waaagh.. horde warfare that rampages across whole planets, and even across multiple star systems. Leadership is through strength and aggression, with the dominant ork leaders growing physically in size and strength every time they achieve victories. Ork's are fearsome and formidable.
imlaughing2death Trees have both male and female reproductive parts in their flowers. I would imagine that treants produce a few large seeds, sprouts or seed pods from their large, main flower or a few large flowers that they nurture and care after, but they do not mate or court with other individuals as animals do.
