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Concept

Pact of the forest's heart

CanonOfficial lore from the booksBoDp. 87▶ Actual play

The pact of the forest's heart is the bargain that the water spirit Aqua struck with the young mage Jonathan River in the forest of Sınır Sapı, in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained"). The spirit asked him to take the heart, use its power to kill the creature that was preying on the forest, and then leave control of it to Teresa. Jonathan raised another course, sending the creature underground in a way from which it could never return; the spirit answered only that keeping it from escaping would be his own affair.1

The terms

Jonathan accepted. A great snake bit him lightly on the chest, and something dense passed into his body, moving down from around his heart to the nail of his little toe. The spirit said that this was where it would trouble him least: he was not to cut that nail, and once the task was done Teresa could draw the heart out. Then the spirit spelled out the price. If he failed to kill the creature, the heart would rise to his own heart and kill him.23

The spirit made a second request. She asked that a young man who could turn his face into other people's, and who wished to leave because of his family and his duties, be taken away from the town. Jonathan at first thought she meant Olaf; she corrected him and named the young man as Tim. Jonathan promised to help Tim leave if Tim wished it.45

It is commonly warned that the fey are deeply magical and, being changeable by nature, perilous to deal with, and that binding one without harm calls for acts whose outcome is very uncertain.6

The hunt

Back at the lakeside camp, Jonathan told Olaf and Teresa of the bargain and that failure would cost him his life. With the heart his sense of the forest deepened. Through it he found, far off, a cave around which the forest felt fouled, foreign and rank, and he led his companions there by a winding way: the Forest cave laboratory.78

There he prepared an ambush on the rope ladder. Turning his forest sight towards movement that Bold had seen, he felt his vision pulled in directions he did not choose, until the face of the mind flayer came before him with a drow or two at its side, and a voice in his mind said that they were coming.91011

Spoiler: How the pact was fulfilledSpoils: Zincirsiz #18 · Say what you have read

The promise to Tim

Jonathan told his friends that he had promised the fey to get Tim out of the town. Olaf, who could change his own shape, did not mind. Asked whether Tim would be taken by force if he refused, Jonathan said that even a short trip out and back might be enough to keep his word. In the end Tim asked to come of his own will, for fresh air and adventure, and at dawn the three set out south, seen off by the townsfolk.141516

Notes

  1. ↑At the tableKalp | DnD 5E Oynanış #16 (Zincirsiz #16), 1:46:57
  2. ↑At the tableKalp | DnD 5E Oynanış #16 (Zincirsiz #16), 1:48:56
  3. ↑At the tableKalp | DnD 5E Oynanış #16 (Zincirsiz #16), 1:50:21
  4. ↑At the tableKalp | DnD 5E Oynanış #16 (Zincirsiz #16), 1:40:43
  5. ↑At the tableKalp | DnD 5E Oynanış #16 (Zincirsiz #16), 1:42:51
  6. ↑BookBook of Dead, p. 87
  7. ↑At the tableYüzleşme | DnD 5E Oynanış #17 (Zincirsiz #17), 35:36
  8. ↑At the tableYüzleşme | DnD 5E Oynanış #17 (Zincirsiz #17), 42:12
  9. ↑At the tableYüzleşme | DnD 5E Oynanış #17 (Zincirsiz #17), 1:34:41
  10. ↑At the tableYüzleşme | DnD 5E Oynanış #17 (Zincirsiz #17), 1:44:45
  11. ↑At the tableYüzleşme | DnD 5E Oynanış #17 (Zincirsiz #17), 1:45:49
  12. ↑At the tableSavaş | DnD 5E Oynanış #18 (Zincirsiz #18), 1:50:32
  13. ↑At the tableSavaş | DnD 5E Oynanış #18 (Zincirsiz #18), 2:40:44
  14. ↑At the tableSavaş | DnD 5E Oynanış #18 (Zincirsiz #18), 3:12:20
  15. ↑At the tableSavaş | DnD 5E Oynanış #18 (Zincirsiz #18), 3:14:21
  16. ↑At the tableSavaş | DnD 5E Oynanış #18 (Zincirsiz #18), 3:29:56

Sources

This article draws on:

Books

  • BoDBook of Dead(Bad Badger Games, 2024), p. 87

▶ Actual play

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