The Blackbriar Hunt
The Blackbriar Hunt
“The woods remember every trespass, and tonight they are hunting back.”
— Hook · kill
“For three weeks, no wagon has returned from the Blackbriar Road. Reeve Mara Vell offers your company a heavy purse to enter the woods, find the creature responsible, and bring back proof of its death. She warns you that the last patrol found only blood, broken weapons, and bodies hanging high among the branches.”
— Hook · kill
The party meets Reeve Mara Vell in Greyfen's rain-darkened watch hall. A map of the Blackbriar Road is pinned beneath a hunting knife, and the reeve lays out the contract beside a sack of silver. Tomas Rusk, the sole survivor of the latest patrol, waits nearby with a bandaged arm and refuses to look toward the window.
Reeve Mara Vell
The party is summoned to the watch hall by a sealed contract and offered an advance payment. Mara Vell treats the characters as professionals, but presses them to leave before the next storm traps them in town.
Rumours
d5 · table- 01The monster hangs its victims so their shadows cannot reach the ground.
- 02A patrolman heard his dead brother calling from the trees.
- 03The old shrine in the Blackbriar Wood predates Greyfen by centuries.
- 04The reeve's loggers refuse to work near a circle of white stones.
- 05A masked hunter has been seen walking through storms without leaving footprints.
If the Briar Warden remains alive, travelers will continue to die and the Blackbriar Road will close. If the damaged shrine collapses completely, the forest's violence will spread toward Greyfen, threatening homes, farms, and the settlement's water supply.
Background Lore
For generations, the Blackbriar Wood has swallowed travelers, hunters, and deserters. Recently, a monster began stalking the forest road, leaving bodies suspended in the branches and entire camps abandoned overnight. The local reeve has hired a band of mercenaries to kill the creature before trade through the region collapses.
A monster known as the Briar Warden has been killing travelers in the Blackbriar Wood. Reeve Mara Vell has commissioned a band of mercenaries to hunt it down before the road becomes unusable and Greyfen loses its trade. The forest is dangerous, the survivors are frightened, and the creature appears to know every path through the trees.
