The Hanging Gardens of the City of the Dragon Wives

These were Forest Graves in a previous post, but came up with a way better name.

Gates into Hanging Gardens

The Hanging Gardens are pocket dimensions created by Huitzillah when the dragons descended to heaven. He took biomes from across the world and put them into his city. They are deceptively large; from the outside, they appear as gardens the size of city blocks closed off by strange and stylized gates. On the inside, a Hanging Garden is far larger than even the Heaven Bless'd & Burned itself.


Monthly, groups are chosen to enter into one of the six Hanging Gardens. There, they will hunt for a full month's time. These places are filled with countless beasts and monsters, and they reincarnate upon dying. Thus, they provide large amounts of meat, skins, and other goods for which to keep the city alive. If a human dies inside of the garden, they too are reincarnated into a beast or monster within it.

Prospective Gatherers and neophyte Dragon Wives are thrown into a Hanging Garden early in their careers. They must spend a month there and cannot return unless they have hunted and scavenged a certain amount of supplies. Characters who spend a month in the Hanging Gardens increase their Bushcraft skill by +1, and gain an additional +1 skill point to allocate where they will as well as gaining 1 level worth of experience. Characters 3rd level and above no longer gain any of these benefits.

The six Hanging Gardens are described as follows:

• The Hanging Garden of Obsidian Bells, named for the millions of bells hanging from trees inside of it. These bells ring a different sound depending on what creature passes underneath them. This rain forest is filled with bears, jaguars, puma, panthers, deer, boar, and mystical creatures fit for such loam. Its gate is filled with bells and from the outside, the garden looks like a calm forest.
• The Hanging Garden of Fathomless Oceans is found underneath the surface of the Dragon Wife's Lake. It is an abyss filled with every manner of salt-water creature. Parts of the biome are brackish or fresh water, allowing for a more diverse experience. Fishermen often pull up strange creatures from the lake, and rare is it that group dives deep enough to see what lies further below. Its gate the surface of the lake itself.
• The Hanging Garden of the High King is unattended and forbidden to enter. It was a replica of the Hunter's High Heaven and was filled with every manner of strange and legendary creature. Without the High King to attend to it, the creatures have grown wild, and no one knows what will be found within there. Its gate is found inside the High God's Lodge and is decorated with fantastic creatures.
• The Hanging Garden of Blood Nightmares is entered through shared meditation guided by a scribe. The hunters enter into a dream filled with creatures made of prophecy and omen. Hunts here yield answers for the future, visions of the past, and skills and wisdoms to use. But it is the Hanging Garden where most hunters do not return from--catacombs filled with comatose dreamers serve as the graves for those who do not come back. There is no gate other than sleep for this garden.
• The Hanging Garden of Cold Skies is nothing but countless mountain peaks. Here, massive birds of prey fight for dominance over the sky, and hunt whatever walks the slopes. Feathercatchers venture into this garden for their namesake, and thus entering into this garden is the same as becoming wealthy yourself. 
• The last Hanging Garden is for the Referee to create. Cop out!

HUNTING IN THE HANGING GARDENS

Pick up a handful of dice. Make sure each dice is a different type, from d4 to d10. You can use several of the same dice if desired for a larger hunt. Throw them down and draw circles around the areas. Read what number is on the dice, look at the reference charts, and put that there.

Use these created locations to provide clues for the creature you are hunting. The first three tables lead to the location in d10, where the beast will be found. For each location visited before the d10 location, make a bushcraft roll. On a success, gain +1 to checks and skills to hunt, trap, and kill the beast, including skill checks, attack rolls, and damage throws.

If the bushcraft roll fails, the party doesn't gain their +1. Let them wander blind. It will make the hunt more tense.

This book will not detail what creatures the party is hunting. Use virtually any non-draconic creature from any bestiary of your choice. The High-King's magic was mighty, and all manners of predator have been reincarnated into the Hanging Gardens.

When a creature is hunted, have the party make a bushcraft roll. For each successful roll, harvest 1d10 parts from the creature. Once the players return to the city, each part is equal to having found 100sp of treasure.

d4

1. A band of hunters is camping. One of them is fatally wounded.
2. Hunters lying in ambush for 12 hours. Will attack party by accident.
3. Hunters slaughtered by some quarry.
4. Empty hunter's camp. Supplies but no signs of use for weeks.

d6

1. A river. Tracks lead from it to an empty creature's den, filled with human bones.
2. A pond. The water is still. A bloated corpse of some creature floats in the center.
3. Mangroves. Caiman float in the water, and monkeys dance in the trees. Hanging from a the occasional branch is a a hunter's bloody equipment.
4. A waterfall. It stretches up a solid mile into the air. Hunter climbing equipment litters the slick cliffs.
5. White water rapids. As the players approach, a raft floats by and then crashes. A surviving hunter is drowning.
6. A stream. Something is lurking in the brushes on the otherside. It flees as the party approaches.

d8

1. Mountainous slopes. Dead creatures form a trail to another location.
2. Swaying bamboo trees. Several shoots have been cut down and are impaled into the ground--the work of hunters who fought here.
3. Marks on the trees. This is something's territory.
4. Birds take flight. The creature is nearby, and it is hunting something.
5. As the party sleeps, one of them wakes to see glowing eyes in the brush. The creature is stalking them.
6. Large footprints. They are recent, and human blood fills them.
7. A lone hunter, wounded by the beast. He will not live long, and will give you what he knows.
8. A herd of animals unrelated to the hunted creature. They suddenly flee--the creature is nearby.

d10

1. A dozen broken trees litter the landscape. The creature is among them.
2. A nest filled with carrion and humans. A strange sound in the distance signals that the creature is returning.
3. The sky goes dark. The creature approaches.
4. The sun begins to lower, but the moon does not rise. The creature will soon strike here.
5. At night, something stalks out of the shadows and leaps onto the fire, locking the party in darkness. The creature is ready to kill.
6. Anyone more than 30 feet away from one the rest of the party is ambushed by the creature here.
7. Something is breaking loudly. A corpse is flown into the midst of the party. The creature leaps out alongside it, ready to defend its meal.
8. Something begins to howl in the distance. As it does, the creature howls back, and both creatures move rapidly to strike the party.
9. A fine mist rolls throughout the area. In it lurks the creature, silent and sulking.
10. A party member awakes to find the creature looming above them.