Wild touch victims

When a Tomnt successfully touches a victim at the base of the neck that person or creature is afflicted with the wild mind.

The best way to discover about the wild mind is to meet someone in the throws of it. From the time they are touched until they turn fully feral is 2d6+1 days. First thing to go is the ability to concentrate this is accompanied by vacant stares and  the feeling of having lost ones train of thought this stage also sees grooming habits go out the window. The next manifestation is physical, either hair has started to grow on unusual parts of the body or scales, nails become thick and claw like, this stage is accompanied by a penchant for eating unusually things. At the third stage speech is lost and the ability to make meaningful communication follows close after. This whole process can take between 3 days and 2 weeks. A lucky person has enough time to find a magical healer who has the ability to remove curses. The less lucky person reaches full wildness and condition becomes permanent. Optionally players can make a saving throw to slow down the process: a con save of 12 can double the time the curse will take before fully going into affect.

 

The rangers' tower contains a victim which can serve as an opportunity to freak the PCs out. Alternatively I can make them tell the table about a person they know and then bring that person into the story as a victim of wild mind that they run into wandering aimlessly in the wild.

 

NPC: overseer Kolmo

The logging camp on the western edge of the circle of Torenwœl is run by Kolmo. After years of operating the camp for his brothers Kolmo's city manners have been mostly forgotten. Spurning social niceties he's a rough fellow and fiercely practical. For example, though he is neither a scholar or a cleric he wears his beard short, a practice that would have him  ostracized in the city.

The lumber camp is a penal institution meant to provide a way for debtors to restore their place in society. Ever practical, the delvers would balk at the colossal waste of resources inherent in prisons and the dishonour of working with wood makes a term in the lumber camp a suitable deterrent. 

In a way Kolmo's own post at the lumber camp was originally a punishment but his lack of concern for honour and dishonour has made him thrive in the isolated context that would be hell for most delvers.

Yushek's library (continued)

Reflections on Mummery in the great woods- mummery was a dramatic art form predating the urbanization of Torenwœl. A set of repeating archetypal characters would get into one of approximately a dozen scenarios divided into humorous tableaux and spiritually uplifting moralistic skits. This book provides, in an albeit terse academic tone, the most common narrative tropes of this artform. A few examples of theses tropes include: Child finds parents having sex outdoors (spiritual allegory), Doctor accidentally kills patient (comedy), Traveller takes a wrong turn and saves the day (moralistic fable), Country person outwits city person  (high symbolic drama), sisters work together to outwit a talking animal (comedy), a wiley aristocrat is unsuccessful at securing good marriages for their offspring (tragedy).

Magus in the Hedgerows 

This work is a country witch's recipe book for agrarian spells etcetera. 

Chapter one wards for livestock .

Chapter two how to appease faekind.

Chapter three hexes against landowners.

Chapter four wards for hunters.

Chapter five/six the acquisition and maintenance of humunculi 

Recipes for salubrious tinctures 

With this book one may brew potions such as: barkskin, Cure light wounds, bear's strength, a love potion of dubious efficacy and a paralyzing agent for hunters to put on their arrowheads. In the forest there is a 70% chance of finding all necessary ingredients within four hours. Of note is the need for cockatrice gizzard in the barkskin potion, the egg of a lizardfolk female in the love potion, and the spores of the Söpplungr's less intense cousin the dholungr in the paralyzing agent.

Druidry of the four directions 

Unlike the current prevalent pseudodruidry primal druidry is built with a symbolic language based around the four directions. This manuscript was penned by the erudite Father Lanobuck in the prewar generation. Though it is only a cursory work it is a dense read and provides a basic metaphysical underpinning for Oamnic thought in general. The benefit of reading this tome is unclear as of yet.

Possession: a guide

How to trade your agency for favours from ghosts. This work is written in dwarven and has been mostly defaced. The first readable page is about halfway in and contains nonsensical onomatopoeia written in block runic. If a hapless individual stumbles upon this book and reads this page they will experience the indwelling spirit of baroness Glitzbein, one of the original invaders of the third aeon.

Untoward allegories

A series of peculiar tales meant to illustrate the true nature of creation. (Contains no useful information)

Quoth the riddle-man

A gnomish riddle book

Transmigrations of the Inner Soul 

Mystical mantras meant to stimulate past life regressions. This type of book was popular among the dwarven elite late in the third aeon which was partially responsible for a flare up of ecstatic practice which in turn sparked the first dwarven war of religion. These mantra books were outlawed but are highly sought after among the extremely devout.

Monsters: Söpplungr

These uncanny fungal colonies have the bizarre ability to apparently reanimate corpses. For stats of skeletal fungus slaves use the monster manual entry for myconid spores combined with npc stats in the back of the book for bandits.

The spore slaves must only be employed in furthering the interests of the fungal colony, and these are fairly simple. In order to thrive moisture must be provided to the sovereign, as well as crystalline matter and rotting matter. A healthy colony of söpplungr will support a sovereign "Söpp" which is constantly gassing off clouds of entheogenic spores. At the centre of the Söpp sovereign is the heart of the colony, which is a large stone conglomerated as a byproduct of the gassing off and the crystalline matter. This stone is highly valued and few are extant... But beware, to breath the spores and meet the gods may be more than a mind can handle.

Votive breastplates of the devout

Among the dwarven folk the most devout venerators of the ancestors wear votive breastplates hung around the neck. The respective motifs of these breastplates correspond to which figure the wearer has devoted their worship.

Silverbeard devotees wear a plate made of silver often emblazoned with either a bearded face or a shaggy dog or, rarely, Oak leaves. Poor devotees may not be able to afford a silver plate and must use steel instead, for some this is asource of great embarrassment. It would not be uncommon for one of these poorer practitioners to spend a lot of time polishing their breast plate in order to not bring dishonor to the silverbeard name.

Bogomash's emblem is the dragonfly but any flying insect immediately signals his cultus. Bogomashian breastplates tend to be made of the more "flamboyant" alloys such as brass. Bogomash is known as the resourceful, a quick witted prankster whose tales all conclude in irony or surprise.

Gerdagûli is the matron saint of tinkers and is often esteemed by lower class and worker dwarves.  These breastplates tend to be of the less noble materials tin,  pewter, and aluminum. Any sort of tool depicted on a breastplate indicates Gerdagûli.

Méoythr's followers tend to be solemn and contemplative and their breastplates reflect this made of dull zinc without imagery other than a simple rune or two.

The many followers of the more general cult of the council of ancients wear a golden breastplate shaped as a heavenly body. This cult is favoured by merchants and its adherents are not restricted by genealogy. 

 These five groups encompass a large amount of the devout Valeans. There are other groups but only with very small adherence.

Flavour text for Torenwœl

The circle

The circle is the inhabited part of the forest. It is mostly coniferous long needle pines without much underbrush. The ground  is covered in a thick layer of needles which makes for soft quiet pathways. The tree branches don't start until about ten or fifteen feet off the ground making visibility relatively good. The forest has a dry resinous smell and is often permeated by the swishing sound of branches in the wind. Much of the wildlife is of the burrowing variety, large brown badgers, needle-worms and the like. The outer edge of the forest has the odd preditorial dahrérv (a variety of horned wolf) venturing in from the blood plains, but they rarely hunt prey other than the splendour-elk a beast held sacred by the berry pickers of the northern quadrant. 

The Penumbra 

The penumbra is considered the part of the forest which is safe enough for a capable adult to traverse through during the day but ideally it is avoided to spend the night there. The flora of the penumbra is much thicker with brambles and large leafed ferns. The penumbra contains most of the moon berry groves and the Torenwœli berry harvesters will venture out into it at night but only on the full moon and with great trepidation. The primary fear of the penumbra stems from the difficulty of navigation there combined with the large amount of predators.  Bears and strongbeak swarms wander the penumbra by night and the elusive cockatrice is also known to avail itself of this shady region. Often these beasts become afflicted by the moon beetle larva making them unpredictable and even more dangerous. The lizard folk of the south western quadrant are also known to venture into the penumbra in their hunting triads to harvest eggs orother quarry. And while on friendly terms with the human berry pickers they don't often interact with each other.

The Umbra

People don't venture into the Umbra. This is mostly because the foliage is so thick and the vines so congested that it is not feasible to make passage. Here the ferns of the penumbra grow bigger and taller [some as tall as trees] and their large leaves block out any light from above. Legend has it that there are far worse and more mysterious predators within the Umbra but first-hand accounts are hard to come by.

Creatures of the Penumbra

Within the penumbra there are plenty of unpleasant beasties to discourage travel through its shadowy passages. They are mostly natural beasts but often they have been touched by incursions of the Tomntoi or have eaten Lunagrub larvae and have the rage or the wild-mind.