0401 The Hanging Tree

Sodden ground with heaps of decaying plant matter. Twisting wisps of yellowish mist grasp at travellers.

• Terrain: Bog (3), Northern Scratch
• Lost/encounters: 2-in-6
• Ley line Hoad ( p18): Arcane spell-casters perceive the feeling of having just awoken from a dream.

Wisp Lake

A broad, shallow expanse of brackish, yellowish water, shunned by all living creatures. Wisps of mist dance and twirl above the lake’s surface at all times.

Roiling fog: An unholy sympathy exists between the eerie waters of Wisp Lake and the gallowgeist spirits that haunt the Hanging Tree on its shore. While gallowgeists pursue adventurers, a thick fog rolls off the lake, making navigation difficult. The chance of getting lost rises to 4-in-6.

The Hanging Tree

Near the western shore of Wisp Lake, a great tree stands gnarled and dead amidst a small copse of willows. 5 corpses dangle unmistakably from its twisted branches like macabre fruit.

Inspecting the corpses: Reveals them to be identical to the bodies of up to five of the PCs, down to the smallest scar or blemish. Carved into the flesh of each corpse is a word or short phrase describing the worst crime or vice of the person mimicked (e.g. “murder,” “theft,” or “greed”) in the course of their travels in Dolmenwood.

Departing: The hanging corpses are gallowgeists and pursue once the party is out of sight, accompanied by a roiling fog (see Wisp Lake).

History: Many years past, the now-abandoned village of Smerne (hex 0301) used the tree for hanging accused criminals—both the guilty and the innocent. The spirits of the hanged inhabit the tree, with several manifesting as the gallowgeists.

Gallowgeists

Ragged skeletal remnants of people hanged and left to be picked bare by crows, now reanimated as hateful undead. Still hanging at the site of their execution, these monsters can mimic the form of a living person, aiming to kill them and assume their identity.

Medium Undead—Sentient—Chaotic

Level 3 AC 13 HP 3d8 (13) Saves D11 R12 H13 B14 S15 Att Bite (+2, 1d3) or weapon (+2) Speed 30 Morale 9 XP 90

Undead: Silent before attacking. Immune to biological effects (e.g. disease, poison) and mind-affecting spells (e.g. Vapours of Dream, Paralysation, Dominate).

Doppelgänger flesh: When a living person approaches a hanging gallowgeist, dead flesh manifests around its bones, exactly mimicking the appearance of the person approaching. The corpse has no possessions and is clothed in rags.

Pursuit: Once out of sight of the living, the corpse unties its noose and creeps after the person mimicked, magically sensing their location. It does not stop until the victim is slain.

Identity stealing: If a gallowgeist slays the person it has mimicked, it steals their soul, gaining access to their memories. The monster then enters a semi-living state, with warm flesh and blood (but is still treated as undead, for magical purposes). Until the gallowgeist is killed, attempts to raise the victim from the dead fail.

If killed: The gallowgeist’s restless spirit returns to its site of execution and re-manifests its physical form after 1 day.

Burial: Can only be permanently dispatched if buried and given proper rites.