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(TFT) Ents



Hmm... time to feed the list!

This is something I cooked up (ripped off?) for our current campaign. It ended up being a great plot twist - details in a minute.

Ents:
(Also called tree-Ents, but the wise know that's redundant terminology.)

ST: 15 for a very young Ent, to well over 100.
DX: 9-11
IQ 12 to 24 or better
MA 4

Basically like in LOTR - or, for that matter, the talking trees from Chronicles of Narnia. Because of their tree-like form, and the fact that they live in forests and keep to themselves, it takes a roll of 3vIQ to notice an Ent standing still in a forest, which is what tehy spend most of their time doing. 4 dice if it's been standing there a while and has "settled in", 5 if it's trying particularly hard to escape notice. 1 less if you know it's there and are looking for it, 1 more if you didn't know they existed. (Most people who aren't a Naturalist or Scholar, and don't live near a forest with Ents, won't.)

In combat, they typically punch with their wooden fists for (at least) 2 dice damage. Bark/wood stops 4 hits, except against axes and lightning. It does work against fire, but only for 2 turns - after that, they're on fire, and take 4 hits/turn until the flames are extinguished (via Magic Rainstorm, dunking in a body of water, or some other means.) They also stop 8 hits of fireball damage before igniting.

Some large, old Ents are hollow, and can trap (smallish) 1-hex figures inside them. To do this, they attack that figure for HTH, and attemt to trap, making a 3vDX roll. The target figure gets a saving roll of 7 dice vs. combined ST and DX. If that fails, they are trapped until a) their friends kill the Ent and chop them out, or b) the Ent decides to release them. An Ent can kill an entrapped figure anytime it wants, by shutting off ventilation, or by crushing, but Ents are not violent by nature, so rarely take that option.

Ents don't like dwarves, orcs, humans, or dragons very well, but do like centaurs and some elves and hobbits. They have never been known to train as wizards, but some Ents know spells just the same. Magic Rainstorm is a popular choice.

Ents have males and females, and need both to reproduce. However, instead of methods of reproduction used by most humanoids, a male and female Ent will dance together (yep - PG-rated sex if ever there was!). This ends up distributing the male's pollen quite nicely over the female's carpels, and the female will bear seeds later that season. Many of the seeds will not sprout, though. Of the ones that do, they don't "awaken" to become full Ents until they're at least as big around as an average human, and many never "awaken", remaining merely semi-sentient (IQ 3) trees (which can be contacted via Telepathy, and may, very occasionally, have useful information). So the Entish reproduction rate is usually barely above a replacement level.

The wooden flesh of Ents, harvested while they're still Entlings that haven't "awakened" yet, happens to be really good to make things out of. It resembles a dark walnut, but with a deep shimmering grain, and can take a high polish. Weapons made from it are 1/3 as likely to break during combat, and shields stop 1 extra hit. The wood is worth at least 3 times its weight in silver, due to its desirability and occupational hazards of harvesting it (destroying Entlings is probably the only way to make an Ent really murderously angry).

Ok, so now for the use as a plot twist: The party had been sent out to find this amazing wood. The king who sent them had found out what it looked like, and approximately where it was, via Crystal Ball, but didn't know the full story of its origins. So the characters, after some aimless wandering through the forest, find a stand of trees that fits the description and pictures they were given. Gleefully, they take out their axes and saws - unaware they're being very intently watched...

- Meg
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