This adventure is a botanist's nightmare (or delight, depending on your point of view) as an ecoterrorist druid defends his patch of woodland against all comers. Havung started off as a botanist, I like adventures that make use of fantasy plants as well as fantasy animals...

Location-wise, all you need is an undeveloped forest area with a nearby human village, the frontier settler sort of place - so you can put it anywhere suitable within your campaign world. The DM's background explains exactly what's been going on - and going wrong - and there's a brief adventure synopsis before we get a few hooks to get the party involved. Most involve providing the party for a reason to visit the village in question, a place called Sumpter; but if your party boasts a druid amongst its number, he might be having disturbing feelings about a looming inbalance in the area, and want to do something about it.

The adventure opens the morning after they arrive in Sumpter, with a nasty encounter in the street outside where they are staying. The locals will be happy to supply them with what information they have, they are quite desperate for help. Rations are running low and the forest around the village is full of marauding plants and other monsters. You can see why a bunch of adventurers turning up is a welcome sight for them... and the remainder of the adventure involves exploring the forest and dealing with anything untoward that they encounter.

An area map is provided along with copious notes about what the plant monsters will try to do. They're running out of resources as well and becoming increasingly desperate... Various options for dealing with the situation are discussed, along with ideas for further adventure. It's basically a forest 'weedkilling' scenario, but if your group likes that sort of thing you could play up the horror angle of walking through a forest and not knowing which plant is about to pounce! A neat angle on the druidic love for nature.

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Reviewed: 29 May 2016