FOR THE GM: everything about Gorrow's Holding in one place. The same rules also sit on the location, on Marjory Gorrow, and in each monster's file.
Gorrow's Holding is a forty-acre tenant farm of House Durnmere on the east bank of the River Vire. This bank was Arinn until a treaty twenty-five years ago, and under the river field lies the Vire Stone: raw Arinn crystal the size of a calf.
This autumn Marjory Gorrow ploughed the river field deeper than it had ever gone, and the share struck the Stone. She dug down to it by night to sell it. Her spade cracked it, and three nights later it began to sing. Every root on the Holding woke. The farm folk call it the Rootwake.
Marjory is a widow of fifty-six with a Registry contract: forty cartloads of roots to the Grey Harbor garrison by first frost, or House Durnmere takes the farm. A free company killed her husband Hob three autumns ago; his grandmother Nan died the next winter.
She hires at the Broken Axle: 10 gp a head, paid as 2 gp each per field cleared, plus all the produce the party can carry. When the party reports a field cleared, she pays, feeds them, and hands over:
- Kitchen Garden: herbs.
- The Clamp: a jar of marinated vegetables and Nan's receipt for Blushing Little-Bird Cakes.
- Long Rows: she teaches her Tavern Marinated Vegetables.
- Neep Field: Nan's receipts for Wake-Night Onion Tart and Groom's Horse-Radish Relish.
- Parsnip Headland: Nan's Singing-Pot Pottage receipt, off the nail over the hearth.
The party can Short Rest in her kitchen between fights, and Long Rest there free.
Her secret: she found the Stone and dug for it to sell across the river. Anything found under Durnmere land is Durnmere's, and so is her gold, advanced by Durnmere Castle against the contract. She tells hirelings the pit is "where the lightning hit." She touches the book in her apron pocket when she lies. She lies once. The pit gives her away (spade-cut steps, a spade and bucket at the rim, her hoe grown into Mother Mangel's flank), or a direct question does. Then she tells it plainly and asks the party to take her side anyway. Never have her confess before that.
- The hedges hold. No Rootwake creature leaves the Holding, crosses the lane gate, or steps onto the farmyard cobbles. The yard and farmhouse are always safe.
- The yard's gates are choke points: fight in one and the roots come a few at a time.
- Rooms assume four characters. For three, drop one of the smallest creatures from each fight. For five or more, add two Radishlings. Chits give no XP and no loot.
- The farm rewards crowd control over raw damage.
A field stays awake until every fight in it is won. The fights run roughly in this order:
- Kitchen Garden (level 1–3): Radishling swarms in the herb and radish beds, then Radishlings with Jack-Carrots under the apple tree by the bee-skeps.
- The Clamp (level 2–4): Chitting Spuds on the potato mound; Spuds with a Weeping Onion behind it; then the pitch-dark root cellar, down steep steps one abreast, full of Spuds and Radishlings.
- Long Rows (level 3–4): Jack-Carrots and an Onion at the cart-gap; Radishlings between two Onions; Jack-Carrots ambushing under two Onions' tear-clouds.
- Neep Field (level 3–5): three Lantern Neeps in the hay barn; a Horse-Radish and Radishlings in the paddock; three Neeps and a Horse-Radish in the open field.
- Parsnip Headland (level 3–5): three Choir Parsnips healing four Jack-Carrots; Spuds under Onion tear-clouds, with the first view of Mother Mangel; three Parsnips healing a Horse-Radish.
- The Mangel Field: one Bleeding Beet on each approach, then the Pit (level 5).
Pepper: a walnut-sized Radishling hides under a bee-skep in the Kitchen Garden and never fights. It can be befriended with a cup of well-water set down and left alone; rushing it makes it play dead. It is the one root that keeps squeaking when the Stone falls silent. Never explain why.
- Radishling: swarms in threes and drags people prone.
- Jack-Carrot: burrows in tilled soil and strikes from below with advantage. Watch for the soil bulging.
- Chitting Spud: every blow that doesn't kill it splits off a 4-HP chit; fire doesn't. While one can see you, you can't hide.
- Weeping Onion: everyone near it weeps and has disadvantage on attacks. Thunder or wind clears the air.
- Lantern Neep: floats, spits fire, and flares to blind. Water hurts it; killed any other way, it bursts. The great one on the pole in the Neep Field is the Harvest-Home Lantern.
- Horse-Radish: charges through a line of people and flattens them. Trip it or tie it and it can't charge.
- Choir Parsnip: its hum heals every other root nearby. Silence it first.
- Bleeding Beet: cutting it spills a slick that knocks people prone; it crushes whoever it grabs.
Mother Mangel is a barn-sized mangelwurzel in a raw pit thirty feet across. She can't move, but reaches the rim. The pit's slope is difficult terrain. A Bleeding Beet the party slipped past follows them down.
Three Taproots run from her base to the Stone, one at each side of the pit. Each whole Taproot heals her 5 HP a turn. Let the players find them by looking. Once one Taproot is cut, a character beside the Stone can try to heave it out: an action, DC 16 Strength (Athletics), three successes from anyone.
While the Stone sings, the field keeps giving birth: new roots climb out at the field's edge every round, and more for each field still awake. When all three Taproots are cut or the Stone is lifted, the hum stops and the whole field goes still. She is Going to Seed: no more healing, no more spawns, and she wilts a little every turn. Silence the Stone and hold on, and she falls. If the party flees, nothing follows them out of the Pit. The fight is not over until she is dead and the party has decided what to do with the Stone.
- The Registry. After the party has cleared two fields, Eadric, the Registry clerk from the Crossroads, rides into the farmyard with two toll-guards. If he learns of the Stone, it goes to Osgar Miller, House Durnmere's man, who claims it for the house and forfeits Marjory anyway.
- The apothecary. The licensed Arinnese apothecary on the Durnmere Road hears of it within a week. He offers 300 gp for it.
## Who gets the Stone
Nobody settles this for the table. Each choice costs something.
- To Marjory: she keeps the farm and sells it over the river. If Durnmere ever learns, she loses the tenancy and the party has an enemy in the Registry.
- To the Registry: the lawful choice. House Durnmere pays the party 150 gp, and Marjory loses the Holding at first frost.
- To the apothecary: 300 gp, and it goes over the border. That is smuggling under Durnmere law, and a small gift to Arinn.
- Broken: a lifted Stone takes 30 damage to smash. It shatters into worthless glass and the Rootwake is over for good.
- Left in the ground: Mother Mangel dies, but the Stone keeps singing. The Rootwake returns next autumn, and so does one more Mangel-Heart.
Whatever happens to the Stone, once Mother Mangel falls Marjory gives Nan's receipt-book to whoever ended the Rootwake, and to no one else. She offers her cart and the forty jars on the root cellar's far shelf for a run east to Elswyth, the healer of Ulceby. She offers it even if she has lost the farm.
If the party brings Turnip, the mare the Gorrows lost to the free company, Marjory calls her by name before anyone says it and holds out a turnip. In the paddock, the Horse-Radish stands beside Turnip and can be quieted without a fight. She never asks for the mare back.
- Harvest-Home Lantern Flail (from the Harvest-Home Lantern): uncommon martial weapon, 1d8 bludgeoning plus 1d4 fire, bright light for 10 feet; plants have disadvantage on saves against being frightened while they can see it.
- Gorrow's Singing Hoe (grown into Mother Mangel's flank): uncommon simple weapon, 1d6 slashing, reach; on a hit, the target's speed is 0 until the start of your next turn.
- Mangel-Heart (Mother Mangel's core): rare, 40 gp, the size of a small cask.
- Every other root drops the produce named in its file (Wakened Radish, Sprung Carrot, Many-Eyed Potato, Tear-Onion, Candle-Neep, Horse-Radish Root, Humming Parsnip, Heartblood Beet). The recipes below use them.
They are written in Arinnese, and Marjory has never cooked them. Each receipt names a signature ingredient from the Rootwake. Cooked with it, the dish gives its effect; cooked with the ordinary root, it is only a good meal.
- Singing-Pot Pottage (over the hearth): a root pottage with a Humming Parsnip, fire kept low until the pot stops singing. Until the next dawn, advantage on Constitution saves against cold and against exhaustion from a march or a long day's labour.
- Blushing Little-Bird Cakes (the Clamp): rose-pink festival honey cakes coloured with a Heartblood Beet lobe. That evening, advantage on Charisma checks to charm or court someone at a dance, feast or festival.
- Wake-Night Onion Tart (the Neep Field): four Tear-Onions, cut by the cook alone and stewed three hours. Until dusk, advantage on saves against being frightened.
- Groom's Horse-Radish Relish (the Neep Field): a Horse-Radish Root grated straight into vinegar. Until dusk, advantage on Constitution saves against smoke, spores, fumes and poisoned air.
- Harvest-Home Loaf (Nan's receipt-book only, for an expert cook): a great loaf baked around the grated Mangel-Heart. Until dusk, advantage on saves against being pushed, pulled, knocked prone, lifted or thrown. There is only one Mangel-Heart unless the Stone is left in the ground.
- Tavern Marinated Vegetables (Marjory teaches it; not Nan's): vegetables in oil, vinegar and garlic, left three days. Eaten with a day's dry rations, advantage on the next save against travel exhaustion that day.