The Gray Roots
Hook
Gray decay is spreading through gardens in Rivalis and can animate surrounding plants into violent creatures.
Evidence
- Gardeners reported more than one gray bush or root.
- The party found gray rot growing on an otherwise healthy bonsai root.
- Cutting it awakened holly goats and a large thorn-and-vine creature.
- After the creatures died, the gray decay retreated into the ground.
- Residents are expected to pluck such growths and report them to the Baron.
- Failure to report gray growth can result in property seizure.
- Von Anbach judged the party’s first growth shallow and primitive, suggesting more advanced stages exist.
- Carver detected a magical network like a nervous system connecting the plants in the Crystal Gardens.
- An alien creature’s remains were drawn into that network after its death.
- The alien blight emerged from Lamordian soil accepted by the druids.
- The central garden tree appeared healthier and workers cleared rot more effectively after the creature died.
Resources
- Von Anbach possesses the party’s gray-root sample.
- Carver carries the party’s alien garden heart as communal loot.
Open questions
- Where does the corruption originate?
- How widespread is it?
- Is it connected to the Crystal Gardens or the Shroud?
- What does the Baron know, and why is reporting mandatory?
Next steps
- Examine the alien heart.
- Explore the Spring and Winter Gardens, where the rot is reportedly densest.
- Learn what Von Anbach intends to do with the sample.
- Determine whether the alien creature caused, carried, or merely exploited the corruption.
- Investigate the halfling-faced plants now growing in the Gardens.