🍂 Random Map of the Week: The Witherwood Hollow

Behind the Die by Charlie Stayton

A twisted autumn grove where the forest floor is littered with damp leaves and half-rotten pumpkins. The canopy above is skeletal, branches like claws scratching at the orange sky. In the center of the hollow sits an abandoned scarecrow shrine, its hay stuffing moldy and its stitched grin wide and crooked.

This map can be dropped into any campaign as a seasonal encounter location—whether as a haunted grove, a harvest festival gone wrong, or a cursed resting place.

Map Areas & Features

1. Pumpkin Path

• A winding dirt trail marked by smashed gourds and lantern-like pumpkins carved with eerie faces.

• DC 12 Investigation reveals some pumpkins ooze black ichor instead of seeds.

2. The Scarecrow Shrine

• A crude wooden effigy lashed to a post. The head is a rotted pumpkin, half collapsed.

• At night, the scarecrow animates—or worse, whispers in dreams.

• Anyone who rests here must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom save or gain unsettling visions of harvest sacrifices.

3. The Withered Oak

• A giant oak with gnarled roots that form natural hollows.

• Inside one root cavity rests a pile of offerings: bundles of herbs, dried apples, and a rusty sickle.

• DC 14 Religion reveals it once honored an old harvest spirit, now twisted by neglect.

4. The Hollowed Clearing

• The ground is soggy and sunken, water pooling in shallow pits.

• Perfect ambush spot for shambling undead, lurking spiders, or animated vines.

• At midnight, ghostly children’s laughter echoes through the clearing.

5. The Misty Verge

• The outer edges of the grove are wrapped in thin, rolling fog.

• Passing through the fog without blessing or protection teleports travelers back to the shrine.

• Only a successful Nature check (DC 15) reveals the “true exit” marked by crow feathers.

Adventure Hooks

• The Cursed Harvest: Locals ask adventurers to burn the shrine to end a blight—but fire only awakens the scarecrow spirit.

• Lost in the Hollow: A child wandered in during the festival and hasn’t returned. The PCs must brave the looping mist.

• Rotten Feast: A traveling merchant sold cursed pumpkins that all lead back to this grove’s corruption.