Fantastic Forest

Fantastic Forest

Have you ever wanted to really get down to delivering the details of what a forest looks and feels like to your PCs? Have you ever wanted to use the names of trees in descriptions? Have you ever wanted to generate detailed fantasy flora to adorn your fantasy world? This table generates tree names. A name alone can be worth all kinds of inspiration. After all, a tree called "Lord Avyeza's Wolf-Root" probably isn't going to be as nondescript as your common pine! Ever wanted your players to have to go looking for a strip of bark from a rare tree? Call it something like the "Prairie Gryphon Bane Tree"! This table will generate a nearly endless pile of mostly reasonable fictional names for the largest plants.

Here's what the table is capable of:

This table can generate actual trees.
eastern oak
walnut tree
mango

This table can generate trees described by their similarity to other trees.
yew-harrow
northern oaksop tree
echac hawhickory
seqoiamaple tree

This table can create trees with wholly descriptive names.
jowy's yellowstraw
frevysia's hareflower tree
northern bluelaurel

This table can create entirely original tree types.
coastal redeye tree
ironbane
hornnackle
local walmeg tree

This table can create food trees.
captain efrone copperseed tree
northern date tree
plum

This table can create trees that could only exist in fantasy.
ecramus harpy-blossom
dragon-cypress tree
master floni phoenix-spruce

This table can create awesome trees.
southern hackharrow
hellwillow
grimroot tree

And... occasionally... it creates hilarious trees:
emperor tethedar's assbane
harpysuckle
southern banana
mainland horn-eye tree

So now, when you go to your players, you can say things like...

"As you leave the silent, darkened halls, the last of this autumn day's light is slipping down beneath the shroud of the horizon. In the palace courtyard, princess Aelriial kneels before a tombstone, darkened under the shade of a massive dragon-yew, its red thorns and yellow flowers rustling in the gentle evening breeze. She stands, pauses, and looks to you and your companions with a fury you have never seen, 'My great grandfather planted this tree. My grandfather was buried beneath it. My father shall be saved by it. Cut it down.'"

"Beware the wychrue elves, for they are every bit akin to the Northeast wychrue tree from which they take their name: celestial beauty to the sight, infernal poison to the touch."

"Nay, dear heroes, for that is King Samius's bronzeberry. These trees are known to be as hard as steel- requiring magic to even be fell at all! These claw marks were not made by anything so droll as a bear..."

"Suddenly, you hear a loud clattering, cracking, and breaking of wood, as though something very large is rapidly forcing its way through the gnarled and tangled branches of the huckleholly woods! Distant at first, it rapidly draws near, and as it does, you begin to hear a chittering-chattering sound, a horrid noise like the gnashing of some giant rodent's teeth! There is a rumbling crack, as a jabberwocky the size of a wyvern uproots a nearby tree, its bulging yellow eyes trained directly on your weapons! Roll initiative with advantage!"

"You passed the check? OK. You can make a remedy, but you need the flowers of Saint Afoha larchsuckle. It's a thin white pine tree common to this area, that grows along riverbanks."

& etc.

One compatibility issue: It is dependent on the original human names generator that comes with the current install of IPP3, so if you purged those files for whatever reason, you will have to replace that use command and sub table roll in order for this table to function.

Here's the download: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_k6DcpbFJl1bVZBOW9mcVBOVVk

Comments

Leave a Comment