Dragon magazine

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Monster Manual III

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Dragon #79

?Slow down! I have to rest now,? said
Clarissa as she staggered to a halt. She
unslung her backpack and dropped it
heavily on the ground near the roots of
an oak tree, then sprawled next to it in
exhaustion.

With a sigh and a faint smile, Andrar
stopped as well. He set his longbow care
fully against another tree and looked
around at the forest. It was late spring,
the air was warm and dry, and a breeze
occasionally stirred the leafy sky above
them.

Clarissa, a halfling, panted for a
moment and then muttered something
about ?long legs and no brains.? Andrar
grinned and shook his head, which only
made Clarissa repeat herself in a louder
voice.

?Shame, shame,? the half-elf teased as
he took a seat on a fallen log overgrown
with ferns. ?The woods have ears and
might be offended to hear such talk.?

?They do, for a fact, and I don?t care,?
said Clarissa. She sat up and shrugged
out of her green cloak. ?I hurt all over
from trying to keep up with you. We?re
not going to a party or  something; we?re
just here to look for mistletoe. We don?t
have to hurry.?

Andrar grinned at her again. ?I apolo
gize,? he said, then continued in a less
serious tone, ?Do you really think the
trees can hear us??

Clarissa rubbed her shins as she looked
around at the seemingly endless wood,
and nodded. ?It is very quiet here,? she
said. ?We?ve seen no sign of evil in this
forest, and the trees are well tended. No
broken limbs, no blight, the undergrowth
is thinned away, and there are no signs of
fire damage anywhere.? She paused, both
for a breath and for effect. ?Treants. At
least one travels here, probably more.?

Andrar looked around with considera-
bly more interest now. ?Can you tell
where they are??

The young druid shook her head.

?They know where they are. We could
have passed a dozen of them already and
never known it, if we weren?t looking
carefully. Privacy is their greatest trea-
sure. If we were to go wandering into a
treant?s cave, which isn?t likely, they
would shoo us out and be in a bad
temper; if we were orcs, we?d be worse off
than that.?

Andrar leaned back and looked up into
the green canopy. ?Have you ever met a
treant??

?Yes.? Clarissa stared into the distance,
remembering. ?When I was initiated into
the druidic service of our goddess, Sheela
Peryroyl, I was taken by my parents to see
Alkharn the Ancient, a treant who lived
in a great wood by my home. The druids
of our village accompanied me. They
made a gown of daisies that I wore to see
him, and they gave me a potion of resist-
ing fire to offer Alkharn on behalf of
myself and the other druids. Alkharn, I
was told, would help decide whether I
was fit to take up the shillelagh.

?Alkharn was immense, and he was
older than the oldest elf. He said he
remembered things from as long ago as
ten thousand years, and he knew the
names of all the kings of the land in all
that time, of every race. In order to help
him recall them all, he had made the
names into a long verse, a memory-helper
. . . a nem-something . . .?

?Mnemonic,? offered Andrar, proud of
himself. If Clarissa noticed the smirk that
came over his face, she ignored it.

?That?s the word I was looking for. It
was a great poem. Alkharn said that tre-
ants have to create these poems. They
have long memories anyway, but they live
so long that they?d still forget things if
it wasn?t for their mnemonics. I
remember part of what he recited to me:

    ?Hero-king, Telaring, silver-eyed, elven- born,
    Goblin-foe, steady bow, ruled long the North.?
 

?The poem went on and on. It was
almost frightening to think of all the ages
of time he had seen, and how things had
changed so much since his earliest memo-
ries. He knew more about his own woods,
though, than about any human or elven
empires. The rest of the world was a
vague memory to him, but Alkharn knew
the names of every tree in his wood, and
all the ones that had been there since his
time began.

?He even recited part of his great poem
where he had remembered the names of
the trees he had met, but he said it all in
his own language and I couldn?t under-
stand a word of it. When he spoke to me
in my language, it was in a slow and
rhythmic drone that I had trouble under-
standing, but it sounded very relaxing.?

Clarissa absent-mindedly smoothed the
hair on her feet and brushed the dust
from her legs as she continued. ?Alkharn
said that treants knew many languages,
even those of the bears, the birds, and the
druids. He told me about the special lan-
guage that treants share with trees and
other treants ?  nothing spoken, but they
wave their limbs and leaves, and touch
and make rustling sounds, and all of it
just to say ?Hello, how are you?? ?

Andrar broke in, remembering one of
Clarissa?s earlier remarks. ?Why did you
say treants lived in caves??

?They don?t, really; they live in the
outdoors most of the time, but groups of
treants keep large caves, in which they
store mementoes, brew their drinks, and
stay safe from their most feared enemies,
lightning and fire. The treants know that
fire is often good for a forest, but this is
true only for those forests that have no
treants moving about to clear away thick
undergrowth and decayed wood.?

For a moment Andrar was silent, then
thought of a story he heard long ago.
?My father once told me there was great
power in the drinks of the treants. Some
who were allowed to drink from their
wooden bowls found that they grew
stronger, or that they could speak with
plant life, and some lived far longer than
they and others expected them to. My
father said that one of his friends drank
from a treant?s bowl when he was
wounded, and found himself healed of
his injuries within seconds.?

Clarissa nodded. ?Your father?s friend
was blessed to share drink with them.
Only those they trust completely are
allowed to do that. Usually, they don?t
even communicate with ordinary folk,
unless one is of the druidic profession
like myself, or perhaps a ranger-type, or a
bard, and they generally prefer to share
their forests with elves, rather than
humans or dwarves ? or even halflings.?

?I didn?t think that treants were able to
create magical things, though,? said
Andrar. ?That has always confused me.
How can they make these potions??

Clarissa chewed her lower lip, search-
ing for words. ?It?s hard to say, and I
guess no one really knows exactly how.
Treants make their potions from their
own living sap, and add many sorts of
materials that they find in the forest or
receive in trade from friends like elves and
dryads. Some say the drinks must age for
many years before they are ready to be
consumed. The effects the potions have
upon people like you and me are prob-
ably related to the effects they have upon
the treants themselves. A draught made to
give a treant energy would gift me with
the strength of a giant. I could throw
boulders, bend bars, poke bothersome
companions in the nose . . .?

Andrar grinned and tossed a twig at
her. ?Have your fun. But tell me more.
Where do treants come from??

?They just appear, as far as anyone
knows. A young tree that has grown up
straight and strong might someday start
waving its two largest branches like arms,
blink two eyes that were once just thin
spots in its bark, and shuffle forward on a
trunk that has split into two legs. When
it does these things, it has become a tre-
ant, but no one ? not even the oldest elf
or the wisest druid ? can predict if any
particular tree will do that.

?Any sort of tree can become a treant,
and treants have seeds like a tree. But
those seeds do not grow into treants. The
seedlings grow into trees, and only a few
of them ever develop into treants. Then,
as a treant gets larger and much, much
older, it reaches a time when it turns back
into a tree once more, forever. It takes
thousands of years for a treant to pass to
this stage, and they do not fear it as we
fear death. For all we know, they simply
fall asleep and dream, for as long as their
tree-lives continue.

?This very tree,? she said, patting a
gnarled and dirty root beside her, ?may
once have been a great treant. The tree is
certainly big enough, and the trunk seems
to have a division where legs might have
been, here near the base.? Clarissa gave
the root a final absent-minded pat and
then stood up abruptly. ?Well, that?s all I
have to say, and we?re supposed to be
looking for mistletoe.?

Andrar, now the reluctant one, got to
his feet slowly, then turned and on
impulse called out to the forest. ?Hail,
treants! My blessings for your work! The
gods grant that you may yet walk another
thousand years among us!?

His exhortation over, Andrar reached
for his bow ? and froze. A rustling sound
grew in his ears. The leaves above the
halfling and the half-elf moved as if
stirred by a quick wind, and then the
sound rose into a storm of nature-noise:
branches rippled, squirrels chittered, and
birds called out to one another. The two
travelers felt no breeze against their faces,
yet the blast seemed to stir every tree in
the wood. After a few minutes, the dis-
play subsided except for the calls of the
excitable sparrows and larks.

Clarissa?s eyes were wide. ?By Sheela?s
daisies! They did hear us!?

?I thought you knew they were listen-
ing,? said Andrar, just as shocked.

?I was just guessing, or hoping,? she
said, picking up her pack slowly. ?No
need for us to be afraid. The treants are
watching out for us, and they wanted us
to know that. They just startled me.? She
hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders
and sighed. ?Back to mistletoe hunting.?

With some of their composure restored,
the companions set out again into the
woods. This time, it was Clarissa who
remembered her manners. She paused at
the edge of the clearing they were leaving,
picked a daisy from her pocket, and
tossed it back the way they had come.

"Good-bye! We'll be back sometime!"
she called. Then she and Andrar disap-
peared into the trees.

APPENDIX
The list below can be used to determine
which potions are found in a treant lair,
and what their effects on characters
would be if they were consumed. Note
that any of these treant ?drinks? can
affect any character who imbibes one,
regardless of class.

    1. Extra-healing
    2. Giant strength (Hill, Stone, or Frost)
    3. Growth
    4. Healing
    5. Longevity
    6. Plant control (this potion has no
        effect on treants or trees
        controlled by treants)

Treants vary widely in appearance,
having variable numbers of branch-like
fingers or root-like toes, different types of
leaves, and so forth. Individual personali-
ties may vary widely as well, from joyful
and outgoing to quiet and introspective.

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The only substance besides their
potions that treants consume is pure
water, which they drink through their
?feet? (roots) and mouths. They have no
great like for other liquids, and cannot
tolerate salt water. Drinking is important
enough to them that their words for
"understanding" and "listening" are
derived from their word for "drinking."

One of the greatest gifts that may be
offered to a treant is a potion of fire re-
sistance.  In exchange for such, treants
may offer their services, anywhere within
their woods, to good or neutral charac-
ters. This offer will be quickly and force-
fully revoked if the recipients are careless
with fire, cruel to the forest, or prove
themselves later to be of evil intent.

Treants and algoids will cooperate if
both reside near a lake or swamp. The
algoids? immunity to  fireballs  and  light-
ning bolts makes them valuable allies.

OUT ON A LIMB

Dear Editor:
I'm writing in reference to "The Ecology of the
Treant" in issue #79. In this article, a halfling,
Clarissa, is a druid. This presents a great problem,
for in the Players Handbook it clearly states
that halflings cannot be druids. Therefore, it may
create some confusion to AD&D players who read
DRAGON Magazine.
    <UA update: YES, hobbits can be druids>
 

Greg DeGruccio
Round Rock, Tex.
(Dragon #82)
 

Neither of these characterizations was a mistake,
because both of the characters in question
were portrayed as non-player characters. It is
perhaps unusual, but nonetheless legal, for an
NPC to have a characteristic outside the normal
racial or class limitations, which are meant to be
strictly adhered to only when player characters
are considered. Similarly the rules do indeed
prohibit PC halflings from being druids, but the
Players Handbook just as clearly allows them to
be druids if the character in question is a nonplayer
character.

— KM
(Dragon #82)