The Painted Garden

tanya shatseva

i am surrounded by paintings and carvings and etchings and murals and sketches and tapestries and so on and so on, one after the other after the other, of trees and flowers and vines and bushes and ferns, etc. etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum, in greens and reds and purples and yellows and pinks and purples and blues and-

You see them. Petals, leaves, vines - but no roots. You can't see them. Where are they?

The Painted Garden is a disease, a sort of graphomania carried by dungeon dwellers. It is contracted from the sort of cave lichen only the starving will taste.

; Shan the Elder called it a "most beautiful cancer." The compulsion to depict the Garden overrides all other inst

cave paintings in chalk and spit and oil. when the paint runs out, they turn to scratching with tools and nails. when the nails run out, they look for paint within

70% afflicted die from starvation in stage 1

stage 2: the afflicted reaches into a painting. they can eat the fruit, drink dew from leaves, sip nectar from flowers. though the fruit can be taken in the hand, it turns to black bile on Unafflicted tongues

idiot. you shouldn't have looked. never trust an artist. authors and musicians too; they're just talking about trees anyway.

20% afflicted are eaten by their companions in stage 2

stage 3: a psychic parasite in full bloom. the roots go deep, behind the eyes. you, the afflicted, can step into the Painted Garden, although little is known about

take the stairs past the blue lilies sunflowers; keep going; under the overgrown bridge; left then left; plug your ears; wade thru green poppies lotus roses yellow; there is the Tree the tree the Tree

take the fruit - purple pink pomegranate

often return with food - black oranges, blue venison. It all tastes terrible, but Below, whole communities can pop up around this kind of food source. And the more afflicted in an area, the more the Painted Garden grows.

*

Painter - stats as mercenary; can step into a painting, then emerge from another 1d4 turns later (1/day). the destination must be within line of sight or in the same dungeon.

Poet - stats as scholar; 1d10 (conjure strangling vines from throat); can step into spoken word or song, disappearing for 1d4 turns (1/day). While disappeared, the sound ricochets sourcelessly from room to room at a rate of 1 room/round.

both return from the Garden accompanied by 1d6-1 (min. 1) gardenthings (as wolves made of thorned roses)
- if 4+, instead accompanied by garden knight (as ogre made of wet wood; nearby spellscrolls warm and vibrate - on the second round, they explode d6 kaboom