TreeQuest: Magitech (Riot Quest)

The Forest's first Wise Tree was completed! Aboveground, it just looks like a Tree - though, admittedly, it looks far older than it actually is, appearing bent and bowed by seasons beyond count. Its Roots, however, dig deep into the ground, and spread wide to connect to nearly half a hundred other Trees around it. Messages pass back and forth… Everyone gave a nugget of wisdom to this Wise Tree as it was built - even Arthur Scrat ("Walnuts are the best! Acorns are pretty good, too! Never stand under the Sword-thing when it's falling").

More progress was made into the Basics of Magic. You are perhaps two-fifths done, now. You are fairly certain that, by the time you are done, you could build a Special Tree type to sense Magical things at great detail or range.

The new work into making the Forest dangerous for enemies is perhaps a third of the way done. Already, any invader will face a good deal more difficulty than they would have before.

Work to grow a second Clever Tree continues apace, more than halfway done now.

The Trees in charge of connecting to the local Deer population are close to done, but found an unexpected bonus - thorns! The Deer, realizing you were working on Thorns, brought you a vast array of examples from elsewhere. With the help of these examples, you were able to finish Thorns! (Stockpile Thorns action unlocked. Research Throwing Spikes action unlocked.)

The Deer appear to have eaten all the spare resources we were trying to store. Alas. But at least that was helpful elsewhere.

A lightning-strike against a tree that wasn't part of your Forest, in the middle of the driving rain, wasn't necessarily worth Shielding against. And, indeed, you didn't fully stop the bolt. But the tree was on the edge of your Forest, and it was good experience for the Shield Trees. (19 of 25 cumulative damage blocked by Shields.)

Work on growing a second Collector Tree begins, and gets the new sapling one-quarter grown. Similarly, Research on Lens Trees continues, albeit slowly. We are between one third and one half of the way through this work. Also, the Forest is just under one-third of the way to Magnitude 3.

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Arthur Scrat is now, by squirrel terms, fully grown. As such, you're willing to allow him to wander as far as desired. He decided to celebrate this by tracking down those Minds that you Trees are so interested in!

He takes a dozen-odd squirrels along with himself, and they scout out the North-East edge of your awareness. They find more trees, more path, a small lake, and on the border of said lake - a small village!

There are 19 Minds within the village, and indeed the squirrels find 19 people there. (Though… with a bit more time, the Trees that are Reaching Out to Minds find a 20th mind, out beyond the village.) Four families, you think, based on their Nesting habits. (You're peripherally aware that Humans and Elves build things - indeed, old Tree tales on such subjects supply a number of your brighter ideas. So these would be… houses?)

You can't quite make sense of their chatter - quite different from the Connection of Tree to Tree, quite different from any pollen or pheromone language you're aware of, and notably different even from its closest cousin, the squirrels' chatter.

The town has - including the 20th mind, who the other 19 are clearly aware of and mostly on good terms with - five full adults, two older individuals, and eleven children (which range from almost treated as a full adult, to toddling around barely able to balance on two legs).

One couple has a male Elf and a female Human; their kids seem to have Elven features (including the pointy ears), but less predominantly-so than their father. Otherwise, there are two Elf families and one Human.

The town seems to do a lot of farming outside your current field-of-view. As far as you can tell, they aren't currently doing a lot of tree-killing, though you can see a fair bit of wood used in various projects. Admittedly, little enough that they could probably have gotten a lot of it from already-dead wood, which you'd hardly begrudge them. Their houses are made of stone walls, with some sort of plants for the roofs.

The squirrels have to keep to the Trees, because half a dozen cats and about as many dogs seemingly call this village home. So do a fair few goats and a lot of chickens, though neither of those bother the squirrels. There seems to be a very rough track heading North from the village, which a few people will occasionally follow and return, carrying odd-looking rocks, some hours later.

Two Trees, hearing of these discoveries, decide to spend a bit of time preparing for the possibility that we wind up inviting these strange beings into our own Forest. One puts some work into growing one already-hollow ancient oak into a decent room, that could hold (and shelter) perhaps as much as three or four full-grown two-legs, if it needed to. The other works on building pollen with the Intent of it not being annoying; while nothing particularly interesting was discovered (this time), this could be a help if we needed to play host to these beings.

And, finally, the Trees that were reaching out to these Minds found it far easier with the squirrels already there, watching them. (+50% bonus.) Significant progress was made, and you think started to understand a few of their words by the end of the turn. By the request of other Trees, you have tried to avoid altering their Minds much in any way, and even tried to avoid being obvious to their Minds, but you suspect that you can start negotiating with them directly immediately, or with only a little more effort at the latest (20 full successes).
…
They seem nice, to you, mostly. A few of the younger ones are a bit mischievous. They're clearly quite intelligent, able to alter their surroundings to suit themselves, and occasionally using some very advanced tricks to rapidly fire something much like the Spikes you've been imagining. Of course, there isn't (you suppose) any guarantee that they'll see your Forest as People?

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Actions:

Communication:
[ ][Action] Reach Out to Minds (Psychic)
-Successes sort-of stack. You're not sure how difficult this will be. Better results if more successful. Possibility of finding "there's nothing within X miles" - but even something like that will be good to know.
-16 successes banked.

[ ][Action] Connect to Local Wildlife (Psychic)
-Wolves - scouts? Bears - heavy combat? Beavers - creek work and construction? You know you've seen all these; you have only vague ideas on what to do with them.
-Feel free to write in a specific request. The Forest is reaching that point where it can target specific classes of animals.
-13.5 successes banked. 15 successes gives Deer.

Research:
Note: Your Clever Tree grants you +10% on Research actions.

[ ][Action] Research Lens Trees
-12.4 of 30 successes; Lens Trees will give a permanent Growth Bonus

[ ][Action] Research Throwing Spikes
-0 of 10 successes; let's figure out how to throw larger Thorns!
-Like Thorns, but an Offense action that is thus capable of reaching beyond the Forest's borders. Also, it won't stockpile and will need to be done when an enemy is actually present.

[ ][Action] Basics of Magic
-19.2 of 50 successes; begin the systematic study of this, this Magic/Intent/whatever, that you're starting to use. A larger project, but expected to grant immediate benefits and unlock further possibilities.
-Most attempts to research the Magic(?) Sword are currently considered part of Basics of Magic. This may change when that action is completed. If you have a specific request, write-in your Action accordingly.
-Bonus from Clever Trees doubled for this highly-cerebral very-theoretical generally-mysterious task.

Survival:
[ ][Action] Store Resources Against Future Need
-22 stored; this will function as a spare HP pool against anything that gets through your Defense, and may be useful for other things

[ ][Action] Prepare Dangerous Terrain
-5 of 15 successes; this alters the Forest to be as dangerous as possible to intruders. Mostly it involves working with the squirrels to dig small pit-traps, plant sharpened stakes, and such. Between the Mind Trees and the new Clever Tree, you might even manage some snares, rock-fall traps, and maybe even a log-fall trap or two.
-This will be ineffective versus creatures significantly smaller than squirrels or larger than your own smaller Trees (about 15 feet or 4.5 meters tall). The first would require something more like a plague-resistance Survival Roll and the second… yeah, you don't have anything that would work versus the second, yet. Except maybe "position Magic(?) Sword under giant's foot and hope for the best."

Defense:
[ ][Action] Raise the Shield
-Use magic to defend the Forest. Effectiveness is generally fairly high, but depends on the exact nature of the threat. (Not effective against a plague of locusts or similar - that's a Survival roll.) Like most defenses, this does little to nothing if you are not attacked.
-Gains 2 automatic successes from Shield Trees, if at least 1 Player-Tree votes for this action.

[ ][Action] Stockpile Thorns
-Successes stockpile up to 10 times the Magnitude of the Forest. These will automatically damage hostile intruders that enter the Forest.
-0 of 20 stockpiled.

Growth:
[ ][Action] Grow the Forest
-This has a +25% bonus from Analyze Creek and Tree Placement until we reach Magnitude 3.
-15.4 of 50 successes to Magnitude 3

[ ][Action] Grow <Treename>
-Replace <Treename> with the name of a Special Tree from the Front Page. Variable cost. You can have up to 10 Special Trees per Magnitude of the Forest.
-This has a +25% bonus (and any Drought penalties halved) from Shore up Creek Banks until we have 12 Special Trees total.
-10.55 of 20 successes banked on Clever Tree.
-2.5 of 10 successes banked on Collector Tree.
-2.25 of 10 successes banked on Wise Tree.

Offense:
[ ][Action] Release Annoying Pollen
-Not a terribly powerful attack, but it could annoy invaders, at least. Like most attacks, this does little to nothing if you have no nearby enemies.

Focus

Choose any two actions from the above for the Forest to focus on. These are voted upon by the entire group, and are in addition to the individual actions taken by each member.

[ ][Focus] Action Name
[ ][Focus] Action Name x2

These Actions will receive a number of automatic successes equal to the Magnitude of the Forest (currently 2) and any bonuses from other sources.

Squirrel Actions

Choose what to ask Arthur Scrat to do.
[][Squirrel] Explore your Forest
[][Squirrel] Lead the squirrel watch over your Forest
[][Squirrel] Lead a search-party in (write-in Direction)
[][Squirrel] Lead a search-party along the (east OR north OR south) path
[][Squirrel] Focus Tree efforts on (write-in Wildlife Type)
[][Squirrel] Write-in

Your Votes should look like the following:

[ ][Action] Action
[ ][Focus] Action
[ ][Focus] Action x2
[ ][Squirrel] Squirrel action

Newcomers should add one of the following:

[ ][Tree] Heart Tree
[ ][Tree] Mind Tree
[ ][Tree] Root Tree

This vote will always be open.