DUNGEON DEGENERATES LORE 9 - THE BLACK TREE

The Rotting Swamps were not always such a soggy, damned place. The land was once a healthy, dynamic continuation of the great forest, “the Wald der Verwirrung” that would eventually be known as the Witchwood before the great shadow was cast on the Würstreich. 

The Wald der Verwirrung was always dark & mysterious, but it wasn’t foreboding & dreaded. It was full of animals of all kinds & the trees had a presence that was almost conscious, but that could be said about any ancient forest. The oldest & largest tree was known as Der GrosseBaum. This tree was old & had produced many seedlings over the years. A huge network of mushrooms grew throughout the forest & Der GrosseBaum appeared to be at its center.

When the Cataclysm devastated the North & knocked the Stinkendblut River off course, flooding the south & creating the Rotting Swamps the land was soaked in the waters from the river & a magical energy from the Pearl explosion that settled in a twisted fallout. This magic infused dust settled everywhere, concentrated as silt in the river, soaked into the ground. 

The men of the Würstreich set to the dying trees that covered the soaked land, collecting the lumber for their houses & axe handles. What used to be deep forest quickly turned into swamplands. Bloodflies of many sizes laid their eggs there & soon the skies were clouded with the tiny vampires. Nothing with exposed skin could travel the swamps without being eaten alive by the little devils.

The chemicals that were expelled from the land to the north found their way into the swamps & added their caustic character to the disgusting swamp tea. Soon the swamp started to disintegrate all of the organic matter that found its way into the water. The waters smelled horrible & sometimes the air would ignite, or cause vivid hallucinations or even kill.

The Rotting Swamps seethed with a corrupt, evil energy. The stew of rotting plants & animals, chemicals & the magic fallout combined to release a malevolent energy that permeated everything & was greedily sucked up by  Der GrosseBaum.

Der GrosseBaum gained a wicked intention, drinking this distorted ichor deep from the soil. This energy could be felt by witches, wizards & others in tune with the otherworldly energies. They started to worship the tree, sacrifice animals & people at its base. They hung flayed skin, marked with incantations from its branches. They would throw their extra coin in the swamp as offerings.

Der GrosseBaum grew immense & with its growth, its glamor grew too. One day one of the many storms that constantly battered the swamp passed over the tree & it was struck by lightning.  Der GrosseBaum seemed to draw down the lightning on itself. The tree lit up & burned for several days. Anything on it that could be burned was, the tree was dead. The magicians all mourned the loss of this great figure for them. 

Years passed & the faithful still spilled the blood of sacrifices at its base, hung tatters of skin from its branches & left offerings to the spirits in the bog around it. The front of the tree now had assumed a terrible visage, an enormous gaping mouth & deep, penetrating eyes. Its limbs, devoid of life, clawed the air. The tree emanated a maniacal, misanthropic energy.

Long dead, something else stirred in the tree. A new spirit was left in it, maybe all of the magicians focusing on it, maybe something else, but there was something there. Passing witches & wizards would sense this energy from the tree & they’d leave little offerings, a purse of coins, a dead animal, some food, some crystals, some figurines.

Soon a cult grew around it & they called it the Black Tree. A trail of weird, bent, suspicious people beat a path going to & from it, eager to gain some kind of dark energy from the tree. The bones of sacrifices started to pile up around its base & the skin swayed in the breeze, hanging from the branches.