The Seven Levels of the Candy Cane Forest
A terrifying hex for Prismatic Wastelands Merry Hexmas Blogwagon
Taking a bit of a divergence from my normal Peasantry Content to participate in a Blogwagon! Hope you enjoy.
Blogwagon and Inspiration
Normally I am a stickler for waiting until December to begin celebrating Christmas, but today I make a special exemption: Prismatic Wasteland has put out a new Blog Bandwagon entitled Merry Hexmas, with the goal to create an RPG Hex based on the cinematic universe of Rankin/Bass Christmas films. As much as I would have hoped to wait till December to write this, an idea was firmly implanted in my brain, and I must dispose of it before the big turkey day comes to pass. And so here it is!
And since I am stretching my personal limits on when I would normally celebrate Christmas, I thought it only appropriate to also expand the cinematic universe of Rankin/Bass by making a hex based on the beloved 2003 film Elf, starring Will Ferrell, which drew a ton of inspiration from Rankin/Bass and includes many, many homages to the old films.
CONTENT WARNING: I would also warn readers that my Elf based hex may not be as cheerful and bright as one would expect. According to an interview with Director Jon Favreau, the original Elf script was “a much darker version of the film”. And so, without further ado, here is my “much darker” interpretation of The Seven Levels of the Candy Cane Forest as referenced in the film Elf. Elements of folk horror, cannibalism, gore, and body mutilation can be found in this hex.
Note: This turned out to be less of a hex, and more like a full adventure. Oops…
The Seven Levels of the Candy Cane Forest
The candy cane forest is a massive swath of land where giant candy canes grow straight from the snow. Elf lumberjacks work hard all year long to sustainably harvest enough canes to supply the whole wide world for the holidays.
Roll twice on each 1d4 encounters table before progressing to the next level. If you roll the same number than choose a different one.
To the North West lies the Hearth
To the North lies the Snow Miser’s Houseboat
To the North East lies The Chapel of the Green
To the South East lies the Sea of Swirly Twirly Gumdrops
To the South lies the Babbling Baboon
To the South West lies the Mooncap Manor
Timeline
Five years ago, an elf identifying human named Buddy settled down with his wife and daughter deep in the Fruit Flavored Valley. They dreamt of never-ending candy canes, spaghetti dinners, and the perfect location to visit family between New York and the North Pole.
Last year, due to several Santa sightings in previous years, a human owned candy megacorp discovered and procured a chunk of the candy cane forest in order to produce their own competing candy cane flavors. Their harvesting practices are questionable and many elfs are concerned that they are damaging the forest.
Two week ago, in an effort to outpace the candy cane flavor market, a group of megacorp lumberjacks illegally entered and harvested canes from the Forbidden Flavors Temple. On their way back something happened, and they never made it back to headquarters. Their sleigh and the forbidden candy canes were later discovered by Buddy and reported to Santa Claus.
One week ago, Buddy and his family have gone missing. The Human Megacorp denies any involvement.
A few days ago, strange sightings have been made, several other elfs have disappeared. Buddys daughter is found alive, but stuck in a sugar induced coma. Santa sends an expedition force, headed by Papa Elf, to put a stop to whatevers going on.
Today, a ragtag band of adventurers arrive at the Peppermint Hills. Were they sent by Santa or are they just passing through? That’s up to you.
Level 1 - Peppermint Hills
Rolling hillscape dotted with large peppermint candy canes. The weather here is always frigid in the way elf’s have come to love. The air smells like a crisp dentist’s office. If it hasn’t snowed recently the ground is littered with snowy pawprints and frequent sleigh tracks.
Random Encounters
1. Candy Ecologist Sugarsnaps the Elf works alone tapping a Candy Cane for Peppermint extract. If the party plans to go deeper into the forest, he asks if they can check in on his ecologist buddy Wigglewish. Who left to investigate rumors of illegal logging on level 5. They haven’t come back yet.
2. A tattered piece of green fleece with a maple syrup stain lying in the snow.
3. An arctic puffin, baby walrus, and a polar bear cub wave as you pass by.
4. A small band of Elf lumberjacks stacking giant Candy Canes onto a Sleigh. They warn you that harvesting candy canes beyond Level 4 are off limits. All other levels require a permit to harvest.
Peppermint Candy Canes
Tastes like: like sweet peppermint candies.
Risk: tongue freezing to the canes
Level 2 - Trademarked Orchards
Major human-owned candy megacorps purchased a large chunk of the forest to produce and create their own unique flavors of canes. The landscape is flat, and the canes grow in orderly rows, smog fills the sky, billowing out from the massive smokestacks of industrial candy cane processing plants. Elf Ecologists are concerned over the company’s excessive use of corrosive candicides, overproduction practices, and terrible flavor palette. But due to strict legal doctrine they have no rights to intervene in the company’s business.
Random Encounters
1. Human lumberjacks complaining about the cold and cracking tasteless jokes about elf’s. Standoffish to outsiders. They know about illegal harvesting on the lower levels but won’t say anything due to an NDA they signed.
2. The Trademark Factory! There is a heavy presence of Enforcers, lumberjacks, candy chemists, and factory workers. Great machines process the canes and package them for Black Friday sales. A discrete office contains a lockbox with incriminating company records and an unsettling photograph of a shadowed tall lanky creature with antlers wearing a tattered green tunic, a note written with shaky hands reads “is this buddy...?”
3. Megacorp Enforcers Ski Patrol looking to enforce the no-trespassing signs that are posted literally everywhere. They wield various candy cane-based weaponry like nun-chucks and spears.
4. Elf revolutionaries attempting to sneak into the Trademark Megacorp Factory to clog their machines with sprinkles and taffy.
Trademarked Candy Canes
Taste like: 1. Spittles, 2. Sour Patch Elf’s, 3. Kershey’s Misses, 4. Gummy Squirms
Risk: Sickly sweet abundance of sugar causes terrible toothaches
Level 3 - Fruit Flavored Valley
Deep valley of multicolored and vibrant swirling fruit Flavored Candy canes growing in abundant groves. Small streams of sugar water trickle along the winding trails of snow. The temperature here has warmed significantly and sits just barely below freezing. Lumberjack elf’s working in this region prefer to strip their heavy coats in favor of green fleeced sleeveless shirts.
Random Encounters
1. A group of elf lumberjacks scratch their heads in bewilderment as they investigate their destroyed logging camp. Sleighs torn in half, heavy metal machinery dented and bent at odd angles, candy canes shattered into splintering fragments. None of the original crew can be found. One of the lumberjacks thinks it might have been a massive polar bear, probably the biggest they’ve ever seen.
2. Frozen trails of dripping maple syrup lead to a small, abandoned cottage. The abode is odd, it clearly has many cultural characteristics of an elf home, however it appears to have been purpose built to house a human sized being. The place is an absolute mess, syrup splatters the walls, family photos lie shattered on the floor, ornaments and tinsel form piles in the corners, and claw marks gouge the walls and furniture. All the photos feature a tall man wearing an elf tunic, his face is cut out from all of them. Even odder is a plate of spaghetti covered in syrup, sugar, sprinkles, chocolate, and candy lies untouched and frozen on the dining table. Eat any of the spaghetti and a deep insatiable hunger will begin to grow within (Krampus Cane Level 7). Neatly tucked under a disheveled Christmas tree is a gift. Inside the gift is the skeletal remains of a woman.
3. A large candy cane with the words “I love you! I love you! I LOVE YOU!! Buddy+Jovie”, Endearingly carved into its trunk, surrounded by a heart. Below that another message is desperately clawed into the cane: “i still love you, im sorry, i still love you, im sorry, i still love you, im sorry, i still love you, im sorry” it continues like that all the way to the base of the trunk.
4. A grove of candy canes lie half melted like wilted flowers. The faint whiff of maple syrup can be smelled amongst the strong odor of fermented fruit. Discerning players may notice scratches along the candy canes. Even more perceptive players may notice that the scratches resemble an elk rub on a tree. Eat these candy canes and a deep insatiable hunger will begin to grow within (corrupted by the Krampus Canes).
Fruit Flavored Candy Canes
Tastes like: fermented and slightly alcoholic version of 1. Cherry’s, 2. Strawberries, 3. Blueberry’s, 4. Lemon
Risk: the fruit canes are unnaturally fermenting, it is sickening, nauseating, and partially alcoholic, something is wrong with these canes.
Level 4 - Cinnamon Fields
The warmest level of the candy cane forest. The snow gives way to dull red grass, hydrothermal steam vents, and the whole place smells like the spice cabinet at grandma’s. The candy canes grow in small scattered patches. Any elf’s you find here might be suffering from acute levels of heat stroke.
Random Encounters
1. A steaming hot cinnamon geyser explodes just underfoot. Anyone nearby risks getting caught in a spray of boiling hot steam and water.
2. An abandoned sleigh filled with cursed candy cane flavors from level 6. The sleigh bears a mark of the trademarked candy cane megacorp. A plate of chocolate chip cookies and milk rest atop the sleigh seats. The milk is nutty and creamy, made entirely of bone marrow. Their is an nose baked into one of the cookies.
3. An elf lumberjack feverously eating a candy cane, small candy cane horns begin to pierce out from his skull, maple syrup slowly trickles from the wound, soaking his green fleece tunic. Black fur has begun to grow in patches along his skin, cloven hooves burst from the seams of his boots. He is very much hostile. When slain, if anyone cuts open his body, they may find a Krampus cane from level 7 tangled around his heart.
4. A stocking saturated with blood, nailed to a candy cane. Inside are the remains of a trademark company lumberjack, stuffed into the stocking like candy on Christmas day, notably the eyeballs and teeth are missing. At the bottom of the stocking is a journal. The journal contains records of harvesting trips to off-limits levels. One of the entries reads: “we lost another taste tester today. fools. the red and black canes are off limits for a reason. we put him down before he could hurt any others.”
Cinnamon Candy Canes
Tastes like: 50/50 chance its sweet cinnamon or dangerously hot cinnamon
Risk: the dangerously hot canes can and will burn you. If the canes are sweet, you can’t get the cinnamon flavor out of your mouth for 1d4 hours.
Level 5 - Canceled Flavors Canyon
Random Encounters
1. A staggering reindeer with candy spilling out its punctured stomach. The velvet of its antler’s bleed and peel revealing candy cane patterned bone underneath. It hungers for flesh to fill it's ever emptying belly. If anyone cuts open its body, they will find a Krampus cane tangled around its heart.
2. A Christmas tree is decorated with bone ornaments, fleshy ligament garland, and a human skull as a tree topper. A gift under the tree is addressed to one of the party members. Inside is a single black and red candy cane (Krampus Cane)
3. A trail of blood, ribbon, and wrapping paper leads to the crumpled, barely alive elf Wigglewish dragging themselves across the ground. Their lower half is horribly mutilated and partially wrapped into a Christmas gift. His eyeballs are missing. Wigglewish shutters and gasps, any medicine applied now won’t save his life, but it will give him just enough energy to spit out a single phrase: “it was buddy... he’s not himself anymore…”
4. Human Lumberjacks and Megacorp Enforcers, they are here harvesting canes illegally. They are under strict orders not to be caught. If there are any elf’s in your party, they will attack immediately and try to capture the party to bring back to headquarters. If the party is all human’s, then they will see if they can be trusted first, signing an NDA is required.
Canceled Flavored Canes
Tastes like: 1. Coal Flavored, 2. Bah Humbug! Flavorless Flavor, 3. Naughty List Canes, 4. Homemade Candy Canes
Risk: you lose all your Christmas spirit
Level 6 - Cursed Flavors Cavern
The temperature has dropped significantly. The moisture of your breath feeezes on contact with the air. Rock candy stalactities hang from the ceiling, dripping cold sugar water into small pools below. The air is thick and gross with the saturated scents of a New England family dinner of grilled hot dogs and boiled clams. The candy canes grow like crystals from the walls, and are definitely the source of the smell. This cavern would be dark, if it weren't lit by hundreds of Christmas lights made of eyes and teeth.
Random Encounters
1. A chilling Christmas carol sung by 2d6 possessed elf lumberjacks, they sing “Now bring us some figgy pudding” and aggressively approach the players. They are missing their eyes and wield black and red Krampus Canes sharpened to a lethal point. They track the party with sound and will try to gut them and eat their innards. If given any figgy pudding they will be distracted for the length of time it takes to eat.
2. A jack in the box sits closed in the center of the floor, after a few moments it cranks itself, a terrible tune escapes from the machine. (Drag this out for as long as humanly possible, make your players think something terrible is going to happen, shadows dancing on the walls, eyes in the darkness, laughter echoing down the halls) and then the music stops, the machine possibly broken? (The jack in the box will not pop open until someone touches it, upon which it pops and reveals a horrifying severed elf head) nothing bad will happen here.
3. A squad of 2d4 Megacorp Enforcers, are being grappled and tangled by a sentient black and red Krampus cane that was loaded into their sleigh. It lifts them up and shovels its cane tendrils down their gullets. The victims shutter and spasm as the sugars flood their nervous system and transform them into horrid diseased creatures. They become possessed by the cane.
4. A pile of 7 well wrapped gifts lie half buried in snow. Inside are the remains of an elf expedition team, faces frozen in horror, eyeballs missing, entrails gouged from abdomens. They are all slightly sticky with maple syrup. An elderly elf clutches a blood-soaked note in their hands. It reads: “I know he is like a son to you, but there is no saving him. He is gone. Take him out before he takes you. -S”
Cursed Flavored Canes
Tastes like: 1. Pickles, 2. Clams, 3. Hotdogs, 4. Ketchup
Risk: you permanently smell like that candy cane
Level 7 - Forbidden Flavors Temple
An ancient structure made of hard coal bricks looms at the bottom of the caverns. It is insanely cold here, too cold for the coal bricks to even catch fire (and if the players do find a way to light the coals, then they will almost certainly tpk themselves when the oxygen runs out). Eyeball Christmas lights, intestinal garland ropes, skeletal lawn ornaments, flesh stuffed stockings, and any number of horrid Christmas decor adorn this temple.
Inside the temple numerous possessed elfs are hard at work creating terrifying gifts. Imagine that one scene from Nightmare Before Christmas where all the monsters are making the toys.
Massive horrid candy canes grow like sacred monoliths within the temple. Elfs dedicate themselves, groveling before the canes, sacrificing their flesh, and licking its surface.
Their is an empty throne of tangled Krampus Canes at the end of a grand hall. The possessed elfs do not attack the players, but watch with malicious delight and slowly begin to sing “you better watch out…” exactly like they do in the Polar Express Movie
A ghoulish humanoid figure with lanky double-jointed limbs sits on a darkly lit shelf high above the throne. It grabs the ledge and flips itself to dangle upside down before letting itself drop to the floor. It moves slowly, but its long limbs cover distance surprisingly fast. Its hungry eyes never break contact with the players. Candy cane antlers sprout from its scalp and its blood-soaked claws drag along the ground. It vaguely resembles the famous drummer Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers mixed with the folk horror Wendigo and the mythical Krampus. It wears a tattered elf tunic and drips maple syrup from open wounds.
If this were once Buddy, it is certainly no longer. It crawls forward, its massive jaw dripping maple syrup saliva, it excitedly attacks the party and exclaims “the best way to spread Christmas cheer is screaming loud for all to hear!”
Forbidden Flavored Canes
Tastes like: 1. Krampus, 2. Bigfoot, 3. Dante’s Inferno, 4. Possum
Risk: you get possessed by the evil spirits inherent in those canes.
Ending the Adventure
If the players successfully slay Buddy the Wendigo then Christmas is saved!!!
If the players fail to stop Buddy the Wendigo then Christmas is lost forever.
If the players find a way to treat/save Buddy the Wendigo he will forever be thankful and will owe them a life debt. If ever you need Christmas Cheer, Buddy will be their!