Spirit of the Forest

From: buserian_at_juno.com <buserian>
Date: Wed Feb 22 17:46:00 2006

Hi All,

Just had an interesting idea while looking at some of the Shadows Dance counter illustrations William Church drew back in the late 70s. One of them is a bunch of flowers, another is a group of fir trees of some kind. Originally, I thought the trees ought to be the spirit of the forest in Shadows Dance, but of course that should rightly be The Stump. And I thought the flowers were a treasure, but that was never satisfying.

Just now, I had a different idea -- make these the Spirit of the Forest for the Stinking Forest and the Vale of Flowers, respectively. (The Stump becomes the Spirit of the Forest for the Shadows Dance forest.) I wrote the following text as a brief explanation of how they might work.

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Give each elf forest a specific "Spirit of the Forest" unit. It is a pure spirit, with a special factor for its MgF. Its MgF is equal to the number of elf units within the bounds of its forest, no matter how many that is.

It automatically appears (sort of like the Protectresses) in any of its own forest's hexes that is invaded by outsiders (or maybe invaded by _specific_ outsiders, such as trolls in the Stump Forest). A specific group of outsiders who defeat it are not subject to attack again unless they leave and then return to the forest. If multiple groups enter the forest in a single turn, the Elf Player decides which stack it attacks BEFORE examining the units in the stack. It can only attack one stack in a turn, but even if eliminated will appear again to defend the forest in subsequent turns. (Maybe special magic or defeat by certain units can permanently eliminate it? Or maybe it cannot reappear in a game if it is actually eliminated [which requires Spirit Magic or Defensive Spirit Magic, of course], but even if disrupted in one turn appears at full strength in subsequent turns.)

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I don't think there is a Spirit of the Forest anywhere in Dragon Pass except the Stinking Forest, but there would probably be several in the Great Forests (i.e., Arstola Forest would actually have several of these, but only one would appear in MoLaD). There MIGHT be one in the Elder Wilds, but I don't think so -- their forest was decimated by Arkat/Gbaji in the First Age, their great tree consumed in magical fire that still burns today, but other places would. Hell, Dorastor would have two, one of them chaotic!

Any comments, suggestions, etc?

Steve