Thread: THE GREEN - Magical Adventures Beneath the Canopy

Some say it began as a garden planted by the old gods when the world was young, so they might shade themselves from the fiery sun and take rest from their divine pursuits. Others maintain that a strong, healthy magic infuses the mountain waters that feed it, giving its flora and fauna their prodigious health and size. Still others have called it a verdant hell where the spirits of the prideful and cursed are damned to spend eternity among the insects, hounded by venomous predators. Perhaps there is a bit of truth to each…

Stretching eastward from the windswept coastlines to the Skyshelf Mountains, lie the forest lands of Verduria - more commonly called the Green. Unknown to most of the known world and long thought to be legendary by the rest. Verduria is slowly becoming a fabled destination for those seeking the bounty of its resources, the adventure of its giant beasts and unholy creatures, and the secrets of its ancient magic. It is a land beautiful and harsh, populated with fierce tribesmen and intrepid explorers, forgotten races and creatures of myth.

To enter the Green is to enter a land strange and foreboding. To newcomers it appears to be a landscape made for giants or towering gods, for the trees rise hundreds of feet in the air and spread a lofty maze of branches easily large enough for man to traverse. The dense leafy canopy allows only broken shafts of sunlight into the dim interior. Far below, the land is dark and wet, with mist curling among pillars of giant roots, and creatures moving in the shadows of swamps and vine-choked channels. The rivers that pass through Verduria are the arteries of the land, stretching from their reedy, mangrove-choked deltas to the mountain gorges of their source. This book explores this world, providing details on its inhabitants, magic, and history.

By Scott Heiney. 144 pages. Published by Chaosium December 2009.

I think I know already how to make the best use of The Green in my next
campaign.

The "Big Bad One" of my pseudo-Arabian Merasan setting is The Iblis, a crea-
ture that lives in Merasan's Dreamlands, from where it sends dream messages
and occasonally some of its servants (djinn and ghoules) into the real world
to cause chaos there.

Near the beginning of the campaign, some archaeologists from the Miskatonic
University will begin to excavate the ancient ruins of Thibba, a place where
the Iblis was worshipped before the Merasani tribes came to the region. Du-
ring this excavation the scientists will uncover a gate to the Dreamlands and
accidentally destroy the wards that kept this gate closed.

Soon afterwards a series of strange events will begin in Merasan, with people
becoming more and more aggressive and desperate because of nightmares in-
citing them to evil deeds, there will be rumours of djinn and ghoules roaming
the countryside at night, and so on.

The Emir will ask his scholars, and they will learn from the book Kitab Sfyd
that the influence of the Iblis is growing, and that someone has to close the
gate at Thibba to stop this - but the gate can only be closed from the other
side.

So the Emir will send some of his best men (the player characters) through
the gate to deal with the problem.
They will have some advantages, for example modern (= 1920s) firearms and
the protective magic of the Sufi scholar(s) accompanying them, but on the
other hand the environment of the Green - totally alien to desert dwellers -
and its fantastic inhabitants and creatures will easily balance out these ad-
vantages.

And after a couple of adventures the characters will find out that the Iblis
only uses the Green for "transfer", he and his servants come from yet another
part of the Dreamlands beyond the Green's ancient gates, and to stop the
Iblis from devastating Merasan the adventurers have to find and close one of
those ancient gates, too ...

You see, Puck, the Green really feeds my imagination - thank you.

Cool. It is neat to see the Green growing in ways I never imagined.

You may find ideas that you can use in your campaign toward the back in the section on the Ancients. Their is a blurb on the gates themselves.
There may be other ideas in that section that you can grab to use in your campaign. For instance, one of the Ancients is a blind twisted little man who plays a flute and "watches" over one set of gates.

The other thing that may help out is the material dealing with the Une. Unec magic and spells are in the magic section and then there are a small number of unec monsters is the bestiary that may go well with the Lovecraftian theme.
I hope you have fun with it. :thumb:
Please let me know how the adventures turn out.

Thank you very much for the tips, and I will of course tell you
about the characters' adventures in The Green - although this
may take some time, because I am still working on the Merasan
setting itself, and there ist still no end in sight.

Will The Green be offered in deadtree version in the foreseeable future?

Originally Posted by joela

Will The Green be offered in deadtree version in the foreseeable future?

This will probably depend on the number of PDF sales, I think.

Well I hope that they do a Deadtree copy of the work, because I like and only buy "printed" versions of any book to add to my ever growing gaming library.

Penn

I sure hope they do a printed copy too. Originally, they mentioned it may be out in January, but I have not talked to for a while. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

As with all things, it will take time I know. I guess I will just have to stay tuned and keep watching for it to be released in a "printed" version.

Penn

Ok I have sent a email to Chaosium's Customer Service, asking when the product will be offered in a 'printed" format for sale by them. Hopefully I will get some type of a answer from them. If I do I will post it here for the rest of you to see.

Penn

Originally Posted by Bygoneyrs

Ok I have sent a email to Chaosium's Customer Service, asking when the product will be offered in a 'printed" format for sale by them. Hopefully I will get some type of a answer from them. If I do I will post it here for the rest of you to see.

Penn

Coolio! Thanks!