The Root-Crown of Avaruun
The Root-Crown of Avaruun
“Every forest remembers. Some memories would rather be forgotten.”
— Hook · explore
“Dr. Elian Voss offers you a sealed map and a scholar's purse for one task: enter the forest of Veyruun and recover the Root-Crown of Avaruun, an artifact lost with an expedition forty years ago. He warns that strange lights now mark the old trail, and that whatever found the crown may not want it returned.”
— Hook · explore
The adventure begins at the edge of Veyruun Forest, where Dr. Elian Voss presents the party with a weathered expedition map. The ink shifts when exposed to moonlight, revealing a second trail that was not present in daylight. Before the party leaves, Tovin Reed arrives from the woods, shaken and carrying a brass expedition badge that belonged to someone who vanished forty years ago.
Dr. Elian Voss
Dr. Elian Voss approaches the party at a museum lecture, private archive, or roadside camp. He offers a substantial advance, a letter of introduction to scholars, and permission to keep any non-unique relics recovered during the expedition. He is precise, courteous, and visibly uncomfortable whenever the original expedition leader is mentioned.
Rumours
d5 · table- 01The old expedition members were not killed. They still patrol the forest, but they have forgotten their own names.
- 02A crown made of living roots can preserve a person's memories after death.
- 03The forest warden's family has guarded the old trail for generations and refuses to explain why.
- 04The museum's map is missing a page that was torn out by someone who did not want the expedition site found.
- 05Blue lights in Veyruun Forest mark places where the dead are trying to remember the living.
If the party fails, Corvin Hale will use the Root-Crown to animate a permanent order of memory-bound guardians, trapping the forest's living memories and making the old roads unsafe. If the party succeeds, they must choose between scholarly access to the artifact and the forest's demand that its memories remain undisturbed.
Background Lore
The Verdant Archive once catalogued relics of the elder forest clans, including the Root-Crown of Avaruun, a living circlet said to preserve memories stored in ancient trees. During an expedition forty years ago, the artifact vanished when the survey camp was overrun by a supernatural storm. The forest has since grown over the ruins, and strange lights have begun appearing along the old expedition trail.
Dr. Elian Voss, a determined museologist, hires the party to recover the Root-Crown of Avaruun from Veyruun Forest. The artifact was lost during an expedition decades ago, and recent reports of ghostly lights suggest that the old site has become dangerous. The party must follow the trail, uncover what happened to the original expedition, and return the crown before rival collectors or the forest's supernatural guardians claim it.
