Emerald Enclave Portals

By Jeff Quick
The High Forest
The High Forest is dense with nothingness. Unprepared wanderers can travel for days without finding a friendly face, or even an unfriendly one. Because of its forbidding reputation, people who don't know how to treat nature responsibly tend to stay out, minimizing the danger to the local ecology.
As a result, the Caretakers of the Emerald Enclave are more concerned about internal threats to the forest than external threats. There are sufficient external threats, true. But as balance-loving worshipers of nature can tell you, evil entities are not the only threat to nature.
More than a year ago, the Emerald Enclave began discussions with Turlang, a great treant and de facto ruler of most of the High Forest. The Chosen of Eldath and Mielikki requested that they be allowed to send representatives to the wood to see if they could be of any assistance. Since the High Forest is said to be under the direct protection of these two gods, Turlang gladly accepted representatives in their name.
So the Caretakers constructed a portal from Ilghon to a cave mouth near one of Turlang's homes and sent two Caretakers to assess threats to the forest: Kressna Pisacar (LN female human Drd9) and Naeva Waterborn (N male moon elf Drd5/Brd5). After several months of travel and observation through the High Forest, the two druids came to a sobering conclusion: The chief threat to the High Forest's long-term safety is Turlang himself.
Turlang has spent the last 400 years pushing the boundary of the forest north, toward the Nether Mountains. While druids would normally applaud arboreal expansion, it must be done with an eye toward long-term consequences. After some study, Kressna and Naeva have come to believe that pushing the High Forest north creates more problems than it solves, borrowing trouble the forest wouldn't have otherwise. The treant's expansionism has become a threat to the entire wood.
The main instance of this threat is Turlang's behavior around Hellgate Keep. Having pushed the treeline past the Hellgate Keep crater, the treant claims to have sealed off the area. The Caretakers believe that this so-called "sealing" has made both the treant and his protectorate a target. If the High Forest did not cover Hellgate Keep, the baatezu trapped within would be less of an issue and easier to keep out. Instead, they're already in it and not shy about recklessly using fire magic.
Further, Turlang has become fixated on destroying the baatezu and tieflings he has contained in a long, slow siege. He takes his fight against the Hellgate Keep fiends personally and as an affront to all he has created, while forgetting other problems -- mainly the pillaging orcs streaming off the Spine of the World mountains.
However, one does not simply tell a treant that he is mistaken and then carry on, especially one who takes his duties so seriously as Turlang does. Using all their diplomacy and reasoning, Kressna and Naeva are attempting to redirect their ally as a vine up a trellis. They tell Turlang tales of the wood to the west and south, toward the Dessarin and Larch Hills, where they believe expansion would be simpler and less troublesome. They also discuss with him the malignancy of war and how it affects surrounding nature. They hope that with enough indirect cues, Turlang will allow them to take over the "war effort" in the north, and go back to planting trees in safer areas.
Turlang, however, is fixated on his current plans and will not be swayed by pleasant alternatives. Further, he has suspicions that the Enclave druids who come in the name of Eldath and Mielikki are trying to steer him away from where he is most needed in the High Forest -- away from the trees he has worked so hard to plant and nurture.
The situation is not quite tense, but not as cordial as when the druids first arrived. As diplomatic entrappings drop away and both sides' true positions become clearer, residents of the forest are beginning to pick favorites. Turlang and the Caretakers probably will not come to blows over the matter, but the repercussions of a conflict between the forces could be as damaging as a natural disaster.
What might push it over the edge is the portal the druids use to travel between the High Forest and their home island. The portal is situated squarely within territory controlled by Turlang and is guarded by some of Turlang's best agents. Originally this was done to honor his esteemed guests, but with Turlang's increasing suspicion about the Caretakers' motives, his agents eavesdrop as much as they guard.
The druids themselves know that they have increasingly less freedom to speak openly in the High Forest, but they must remain to continue the delicate negotiations with the treant while helping the fight against pressing forces within the wood. They hope that they can get through to the treant before his shortsightedness brings trouble none of them can contain.
How to Incorporate the High Forest Portal Into Your Campaign
This situation is just waiting for a catalyst to set things in motion. If the PCs so much as set foot in northern parts of the High Forest, they're likely to run into somebody who knows about the difficulties.
Player characters who are known to be impartial or friends of the High Forest might be called in to arbitrate the situation.
Spies from cities in the North report that orcs have been massing just north of the High Forest. The orcs seem to think it's a good time to attack, and no one knows if anyone in the High Forest is paying attention. The PCs are asked to check on that.
The situation is further exacerbated by an erinyes who escaped from Hellgate Keep. She thinks the perfect getaway from the High Forest would be through the portal. Though the portal is well within Turlong's territory, the Caretakers and the treant might be too busy with their own smoldering conflict to keep a close eye on other matters.
Emerald Enclave Portals
By Jeff Quick
Cormanthor
Queen Amlaruil has been secretly establishing ties with governments and organizations across Faerûn. The Emerald Enclave is one of those organizations. In exchange for unspecified favors, the Enclave commissioned one of their number, a male wood elf named Selsian Earthenhands (N male wood elf Drd4/Exp12), famed for his artistry in landscaping, to construct an elven garden to welcome the slowly returning brothers and sisters from Evermeet. Begun nearly ten years ago, the entire project has become more of an effort than anyone ever envisioned.
Originally, this was just what it seemed: an opportunity to restore order and balance to what had become an unruly magically tainted wilderness. In an area pockmarked with overgrown plants and hidden mythals, Selsian first went in with a pack of disenchanters and cleared unwanted magic out of several square miles of forest near the ancient Elven Court.
Then, he developed a blueprint for a garden so rich and beautiful, the like has never been seen outside of Evermeet. The shapes, colors, textures, architecture, and plant choices combined in interlocking layers of meaning that evoked historical, philosophical, religious, and sociological commentary on elves in Cormanthor. The whole effect was designed to welcome and challenge returning elves to their millennia-old home. The design had a beauty and complexity that was nothing less than inspired, and the first phase of implementation went flawlessly.
So it was understandably hard for Selsian to accept the tribes of wild elves that overran his vegetable opus during a complicated inter-tribal contest that amounted to a bloody game of "capture the flag."
Committees formed. Meetings were called. Discussions took place. The wild elves cared nothing for it. They continued their barbaric existence unfazed by the high art being constructed around them.
Rather than fight, Selsian wisely incorporated the wild elves into his masterwork, using thick shrub barriers and subtle psychology to channel his wild kin into certain places and away from others. Logically, wild elves are part of the elven tapestry within Cormanthor. In retrospect, it seemed only fitting that they should be a living part of the welcome garden, and it was serendipitous that they "intruded" into the plan before its completion, allowing for their inclusion. He soon drew up the plans again, and if anything, the garden took on a deeper, more satisfying subtext in the interplay of history and present-day life that everyone agreed was really superior to the previous work.
So it was understandably even harder for Selsian to accept when the surface drow in Cormanthor began vandalizing the garden.
Drow cannot be incorporated. Drow must be eliminated.
But Selsian is a landscaper, not a warrior -- he used the tools at hand. Soon, seemingly random sections of the garden would spring to life at the very mention of the word "drow." Tendriculoses, shambling mounds, assassin vines, and even stranger plant creatures would attack any elf with skin darker than deep tan. Even spiders larger than four inches across are killed on sight by scuttling, low carnivorous shrubs.
This too has worked surprisingly well. The constant foliage ambushes not only discourage drow incursion, but also poignantly represent the elves' struggle against their dark kin through their race's long memory. Once again the garden neatly encompassed another layer of meaning.
Unfortunately, so many layers have been inadvertently added to Selsian's original plan, that even he has forgotten some of the original signs and meanings locked within the garden. Among other things, the landscaper has lost the original portal to Ilghon that brought him to Cormanthor.
Before he started redrawing plans and giving the landscape free reign to rearrange itself, Selsian had tried to hide the portal from marauding drow by having misdirection and permanency spells cast on it, making it seem to be grass. Now, not even an analyze portal spell can find it, and the chief landscaper has no idea how to locate it again. No one of sufficiently high level to cast a limited wish spell has appeared to help yet, and Selsian needs to find the portal again before any drow do.
All Selsian can say for sure now is that the portal is bordered by an archway surrounded by rosemary somewhere within the shifting boundaries of the garden. He hopes good elves can find it before the dark elves discover a way to spread their taint to the hoe of the Emerald Enclave.
How to Incorporate the Cormanthor Portal Into Your Campaign
While walking along a normally safe road in the forest, a bedraggled, nearly dead drow staggers into the road, begging for amnesty. One round later, a tendriculos smashes through a line of trees and tries to grab and swallow the drow. It has no qualms about going through a PC to do the job.
If the PCs have anyone in the party who is wilderness oriented -- druid, ranger, barbarian, or otherwise -- the whole party is asked to help comb the garden one day for the lost portal. Every willing forest creature for miles around is pressed into service in a great portal hunt. From their hiding places, the drow want to know what's going on.


Джерело: <http://www.realmshelps.net/faerun/portals/emerald/cormanthor.shtml>
The Wealdath
War-torn Tethyr is entering a new period of prosperity under the united rule of Queen-Monarch Zaranda Star Rhindaun and King Haedrak III. After decades of civil war, a single civilization is emerging, growing, and driving monsters out of the land.
For once, logging and mineral resource exploitation are not cause for the Emerald Enclave's involvement. Rather, the exact definition of "monster" is of concern. Fey creatures, gnolls, giant spiders, wyverns, dragons, and even (accidentally) elf inhabitants of the Wealdath have been targeted by lone hunters and angry mobs intent on "clearing the forest of all evil doers and ne'er-do-wells."
The Enclave hardly considers "evil" punishable by death. Gnolls perhaps do not make the best neighbors, but they generally show more respect for nature than humans. The druids don't defend their behavior, and they certainly won't protect any gnoll causing trouble outside the wood. But they do not allow the villagers on the forest's outskirts to hunt them.
Similarly, giant spiders, wyverns, and fey are woodland creatures, not be dispatched simply because they are dangerous or inconvenient. And though dragons can take care of themselves, self-appointed dragon slayers tend to harm the forest more than help it. The druids direct them do their slaying north in the mountains of Amn where blue and white dragons can be killed with less damage to the local flora.
Understandably, this stance makes the Enclave unpopular. Yet, their druid cell staunchly remains, visible and active, protecting the interests of nature. To offset familiarity and retaliation by local "civilized" inhabitants, four druids of the Wealdath cell rotate out every new moon.
The portal they use is formed by the arcing of two oak tree branches near a stationary elf village deep within the forest. Dryads who have seen enough action in their time to gain druid and ranger levels protect these trees. The dryads agreed to let their trees be used as part of a portal and understand the potential danger. They also understand that having the friendship and protection of the Emerald Enclave outweighs any danger that association could cause. The dryads themselves have the ability to open the portal from the Wealdath side, while the portal is continually open from the Ilghon side.
The exception to the rotation cycle is Meller Handspan (NG halfling Drd11), a halfling druid with a green thumb and a silver tongue. Meller is a better diplomat than many court professionals, with a background in Waterdeep which suits him for the job of civil liaison. The halfling smoothes over potentially messy situations between those who live in the forest and those who live off the forest.
Though an excellent speaker and an amiable person, Meller's secret weapon is nothing more complicated than a civilized residence -- i.e., he lives in town. As a visible, friendly figure, he provides a face for the Enclave that the stereotypically remote, stoic druids lack. He drinks at the inn every evening and explains in simple, down-to-earth terms why the Enclave druids do what they do. Meller also makes himself useful, healing the sick and helping people with their animals at no charge. He moves every few weeks to spread the word or quell little problems before they become big ones. He also meets with local mayors and lords to negotiate responsible logging and discuss current events.
Predictably, response is mixed. Some people appreciate that for once in their lives someone explains the reasons behind mysterious movements of great powers. Others are belligerent despite Meller's best attempts, while still others are inconsolably grieved when a loved one walked too close to a forest danger. Still, the higher Enclave circles think Meller is useful enough that he remains assigned to the area indefinitely.
How to Incorporate the Wealdath Portal Into Your Campaign
Before the PCs enter the Wealdath on some other mission, Meller approaches them for a chat. He offers them magic or some bit of information that they want to know in exchange for a promise not to kill indigent wildlife on their mission -- especially the monstrous wildlife.
When a farmer's son dies at the hands of a gnoll, Meller stands alone trying to talk down an angry mob. They might just take it out on the halfling if the party doesn't intervene.
One of the dryads whose tree forms the portal to Ilghon has become ill. Meller is the highest-level druid in the area, but in order to reach the tree in time, he'll have to go through some dangerous territory that he would normally go around. He could use some assistance from any nearby adventurers.