The Glowing Groves

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The Glowing Groves

Overview

Type: Contaminated Coastal Exclusion Zone
Region: The Glowing Groves
Population: Approximately 8,000 scattered across isolated settlements
Government: Survival-based communities with no central authority

Description

The Glowing Groves stretch along Alkebulan’s western shoreline, extending inland to the central heartlands and northward toward the Sundered Mountains. This forested coastal territory exists as one of the continent’s most dangerous zones - a contaminated wilderness where remnant magic has transformed the natural ecosystem into something both beautiful and lethal.

Separated from The Cerulean Reach by a narrow strip of heartland territory, the Glowing Groves present an entirely different model of post-Cataclysm existence. Where the southern regions chose controlled contamination for commerce, the Glowing Groves became something approaching an exclusion zone - territories deemed too dangerous for normal settlement where only the desperate, the exiled, and the extraordinarily resilient attempt survival.

Ancient coastal forests dominate the landscape, their towering canopies creating a multilevel ecosystem where different strata of contamination create distinct survival zones. The massive trees, some reaching over 200 feet in height, have been fundamentally altered by centuries of magical radiation exposure. Their bark displays crystalline veins that pulse with remnant energy, while their root systems spread contamination in visible patterns across the forest floor.

The region’s few settlements exist primarily in elevated positions - forest canopy cities, clifftop communities, and mountain valley enclaves that provide some protection from the worst ground-level contamination. These communities operate on principles of mutual aid and collective survival, as individual selfishness quickly proves fatal in an environment where cooperation literally means the difference between life and death.

The True Nature of the Western Coast

What Makes It Different: The Glowing Groves represent the campaign’s most honest confrontation with environmental catastrophe. Unlike The Cerulean Reach’s profitable contamination management or other regions’ denial strategies, the Glowing Groves force communities to directly face the reality that some environmental damage cannot be controlled, only survived.

The Real Environmental Horror:

• Chernobyl-Scale Contamination: Ground-level radiation that makes large areas uninhabitable for centuries
• Ecosystem Mutation: Every species altered by generations of magical radiation exposure
• Visible Contamination Patterns: Root systems that kill vegetation, creating trackable contamination maps
• Atmospheric Contamination: Air itself carries magical radiation in certain areas
• Cascade Contamination: Environmental destruction that spreads and intensifies over time

Survival Reality: Communities here don’t prosper through contamination commerce - they survive despite contamination presence. Success is measured in children born healthy, not profits generated. The region demonstrates what community resilience looks like when environmental safety cannot be purchased and individual wealth cannot provide protection from collective environmental threats.

Environmental Features

The Twisted Canopy

Ancient forest giants create a multi-level ecosystem where contamination concentrates differently at various heights. The canopy level provides the safest living conditions, with settlements connected by rope and branch bridges spanning between massive trees. Ground level remains dangerous due to root-system contamination and mutated wildlife.

DM Reality: The canopy isn’t “safer” - it’s just differently contaminated. Air-borne magical radiation creates different mutation patterns, while ground-level exposure causes more immediate and visible damage. Communities survive by understanding which type of contamination they can tolerate long-term.

Crystalline Root Networks

The great trees have developed root systems visible above ground as bands of dead vegetation. These contamination channels can be tracked across miles of forest, creating a mapped network of areas to avoid during travel.

Contamination Tracking: The root networks function like radiation readings - stronger concentrations kill vegetation faster, creating navigational aids for travelers who understand the patterns. Some roots pulse with magical energy during certain moon phases, intensifying contamination temporarily.

The Remnant Tree

Deep in the forest stands a single tree whose branches grow in unnaturally twisted formations, its bark fused with crystalline structures that concentrate magical energy. The area around this tree represents one of the highest contamination zones in the region.

The True Horror: This tree functions like the Elephant’s Foot in Chernobyl - a contamination source so intense that proximity causes immediate and severe magical radiation poisoning. The twisted branch formations concentrate and focus remnant energy, creating a localized zone of environmental destruction that spreads outward along the root network.

Campaign Symbol: The tree represents environmental damage so severe it becomes self-perpetuating, contamination that creates more contamination. It serves as a physical reminder that some environmental destruction cannot be cleaned up or controlled - only avoided and contained.

Mutated Wildlife

The region’s wildlife has adapted to magical contamination in unprecedented ways, creating new species that challenge traditional understanding of natural behavior and capabilities.

Carnivorous Rabbits

Small creatures that have developed predatory behaviors and enhanced aggression, hunting in coordinated packs despite their apparent harmlessness.

Phase Hummingbirds

Tiny birds capable of phasing their beaks through solid matter to drain freshwater directly from other creatures, bypassing natural defenses and protective equipment.

Mirror Jaguars

Large predators that reanimate recently deceased creatures as temporary hunting companions, using pack tactics with their reanimated prey.

Mutation Mechanics:

Carnivorous Rabbits (Contaminated Beast variant)

• Use stats for Jackal with pack tactics
• Appear harmless until attacking (Deception vs Insight)
• Bite causes minor remnant contamination (CON save DC 12 or gain 1 contamination point)

Phase Hummingbirds (Contaminated Monstrosity)

• AC 16 (phasing defense), HP 2, Speed 60 ft fly
• Phase Beak: +6 to hit, ignores armor, 1d4 damage + target loses 1d4 gallons of water
• Can phase through any non-magical material thicker than 1 inch

Mirror Jaguars (Contaminated Beast)

• Use Panther stats with Animate Dead (1/day, corpses only, duration 24 hours)
• Reanimated creatures are obviously dead but retain basic movement and attack capabilities
• Pack tactics with both living and reanimated allies

Environmental Threat Level: All creatures in the region carry minor contamination. Extended contact (more than 1 hour per day for a week) requires CON saves to avoid contamination accumulation.

Settlements and Communities

Thornhaven

The region’s largest settlement, built in the canopy of ancient trees along a clean river delta. Thornhaven has developed a controversial social system where periodic trials determine who receives contamination protection and who faces exile to ground level.

Other Communities

• Cliffhold: Coastal settlement built into cliffsides above the contaminated shoreline
• Deepwater Haven: River community using underground springs for clean water access
• Skybridge Village: Canopy settlement connected entirely by elevated walkways
• Rootward Station: Research outpost studying contamination patterns and wildlife mutations
• Exile Camps: Temporary settlements for those cast out from protected communities

Settlement Survival Strategies:

• Elevation-Based Safety: Higher locations have different contamination types, not less contamination
• Water Source Control: Clean water becomes the primary political currency
• Mutual Aid Networks: Communities share contamination exposure risks through rotation systems
• Exile Systems: Social Darwinism disguised as “survival necessity”
• Research Cooperation: Scientific communities studying long-term survival strategies

The Real Politics: Unlike other regions where environmental damage creates profit opportunities, Western Coast politics center around collective survival. Resources are scarce enough that hoarding leads to community collapse, but contamination makes individual solutions impossible. Political conflicts arise over who gets protection during high-contamination periods and how communities decide “acceptable losses.”

Regional Challenges

Contamination Navigation

Travelers must understand seasonal contamination patterns, root network intensities, and mutated wildlife territories to survive movement through the region.

Resource Scarcity

Clean water, uncontaminated food, and protective equipment represent life-or-death necessities that cannot be easily acquired or replaced.

Social Survival

Individual skill matters less than community cooperation, as environmental threats require collective responses and shared risk-taking.

Information Exchange

Knowledge about contamination patterns, safe routes, and survival techniques becomes the most valuable trade commodity between settlements.

Campaign Themes in Practice:

Environmental Justice: The Western Coast demonstrates that environmental catastrophe affects everyone, but communities can choose how to distribute the suffering. Some settlements practice mutual aid while others create hierarchies that protect elites at workers’ expense.

Community Resilience: Shows both positive and negative models of collective survival - communities that share risks equitably versus those that sacrifice vulnerable members for elite safety.

Moral Complexity: Every decision involves choosing who faces environmental risks. There are no clean solutions, only choices about how to distribute contamination exposure and survival resources.

Institutional Corruption: Even in communities founded on mutual aid, power accumulates to those who control access to clean water and contamination protection, creating opportunities for exploitation.

Imperial Pressure: The Amunrai Imperium views the region as both a source of contaminated materials and a convenient disposal site for political dissidents and environmental refugees.

Adventure Opportunities

Environmental Survival

• Navigate contaminated territories using root network maps
• Establish supply routes between isolated settlements
• Rescue communities cut off by contamination storms
• Investigate new mutation outbreaks and their causes

Community Support

• Mediate resource distribution conflicts between settlements
• Organize mutual aid networks for contamination protection
• Help exile communities establish sustainable survival systems
• Facilitate information exchange about environmental threats

Scientific Investigation

• Study contamination patterns to predict environmental changes
• Research mutation causes and potential treatments
• Locate pre-Cataclysm environmental restoration technology
• Document ecosystem changes for future community planning

Political Resolution

• Address corruption in community protection systems
• Expose Imperial manipulation of environmental refugees
• Organize resistance to contamination dumping from other regions
• Negotiate resource sharing agreements between communities

Campaign Integration:

As Environmental Mirror: The Glowing Groves show what happens when communities face environmental catastrophe without the resources to profit from it. They serve as a counterpoint to The Cerulean Reach’s environmental apartheid and other regions’ denial strategies.

As Moral Laboratory: Forces players to confront how communities should distribute environmental risks when everyone faces danger but some protection is possible. There are no perfect solutions, only choices about who suffers how much.

As Imperial Threat: The Imperium can use the region as a dumping ground for contaminated materials and political dissidents, while also extracting valuable mutated resources and researching contamination weapons.

As Hope Example: Despite extreme environmental challenges, Glowing Groves communities demonstrate that mutual aid and collective action can create survival where individual wealth and power fail.

Party History

Notes

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The Glowing Groves: where environmental catastrophe cannot be controlled or profited from, only survived through community cooperation and shared sacrifice.

The Glowing Groves prove that when environmental destruction becomes absolute, communities must choose between mutual aid and mutual destruction - and individual wealth cannot purchase safety from collective environmental threats.