#treepy

Treepy

ALSO KNOWN AS: Oh, shit, this one’s moving, Larry! RARITY: ★★☆☆☆ | THREAT: ★★☆☆☆ SIZE: Tree-sized; variable.

HABITAT: 

Found wherever logging and deforestation occurs. This is often in the woods near active logging sites, but can also be in meadows and open areas where most of the trees have already been cleared. Sometimes they’ll be in someone’s backyard after the owners cut down too many trees.

OVERVIEW: 

Treepies are the wrathful spirits of chopped down trees taking physical form. Springing up in the woods wherever trees were cut down, or even on peoples’ properties, they seek revenge for their fallen brethren. They look like trees with glowing, jagged green mouths splitting their bark, and eyes located near their roots. They have branch-like arms and can resemble any type of native tree species. When their mouths and eyes are closed, it isn’t even apparent that treepies are anything more than ordinary trees, though mediums and plant-like nymphs can sense there’s something off about them even from a distance. Treepies aren’t typically thought of as being aggressive without cause, but they often take lumberjacks and even hikers by deadly surprise if they feel the nearby trees and forest are at risk due to human presence. Unfortunately, this can also happen when someone leans against the wrong “tree” to take a rest.

The resilient bark of treepies can be used to make some interesting weaponry. While it isn’t so useful for the purposes of hunters, mediums and exorcists find the spectral properties of the wood to be helpful. Ghosts can be physically harmed by weapons made of treepy bark – unlike iron, which causes them to dissipate, treepy bark weapons will wound them. The bark loses spectral potency after about a month, at which point it will no longer be a threat to ghosts.

ABILITIES: 

While treepies sometimes just swing their branch-arms around to knock perceived threats out, some mysterious deaths in the woods can be attributed to them crushing people to death like a falling tree.

They’re covered in a thick bark that’s resistant to most types of weapons. 

Despite being ghosts, treepies are tied to their physical vessels, and don’t possess the typical spectral abilities (being intangible, etc).

Treepies seem to be able to sense which people mean to cause harm to the forest and its inhabitants, even when they’re not seeing it happen first-hand. Unfortunately for anyone using sticks as kindling or wood to build a cabin, they don’t have very nuanced opinions on the use of natural resources.

WEAKNESSES: 

They can be damaged with axes, but that means getting close to them (at which point they’re likely to fall on you). 

They may also be set ablaze like normal trees.

Treepies are very slow moving, as they use their roots to drag themselves along the ground.

It’s typically recommended to just avoid causing treepies – and their forest homes – any harm.