Archived GM Notes: This page is unsealed GM-notes pertaining to PRPG2. It is not canonical to PRPG2. It main contain contradictions (even with itself), and preliminary ideas that were merely written down as I thought of them, for later consideration. The absence of something mentioned here from the canon does not necessarily mean that the party "missed" it, it could have been mooted for other reasons or simply discarded by me.

Daverwood music - Underground: Hans Christian / Phantoms, Sanctum: Garden of Orient, Behelit Approach: Tahgira Ice Fields, Roads Shadowed by Green Leaves

Eyesaac should start drawing images of mushrooms.

The road from Penna Plain to the Daverwood appears to have once been a good road, but it has now be neglected. Judging from the tracks, there have only been a few wagons passing this way since the last dust storm. It runs on an old karst landscape of limestone, now bone-dry.

Encounter with bandits? No, not enough merchants to make it worth their while. No random monster to be anything other than just a waste of time...

A quite anomalous pine forest sticks out of some of the most rugged terrain you've seen. It looks very lush, more verdant even than those on the well-watered shores of the Lake of New Equestria. Yet it begins much more abruptly than those forests - the terrain goes from desert to forest in half a meter. Drifts of sand pile up at the windward edges of the forest, repelled by some subtle, primeval sort of magic that was old when ponies were nothing more than a highly-social species of sight-based pack hunters stalking great motile vegetable creatures through the dark Everwood forests.

There is a path through the forest here. The surface of the road is made of pine needles, all aligned end to end as if magnetized. Your steps displace them, but no sooner is a hoof lifted than the needles realign themselves. To the sides of the path pinecones and other debris accumulate, perhaps pushed out of the path by the same mysterious forces.

At length, you reach a fairy ring of large mushrooms, each three or four meters high. In the center of the fairy ring is the gaping vertical mouth of a cave. Some of the mushrooms have doors and windows in them. Most give no sign of current inhabitation, but one has a light inside and a sign on the door reads, "TRADING POST."

Enter cave -> Some sort of kinetic magical field repels you from approaching the entrance.

Marrowstem the Merchant. You see a fungus gnome sitting behind the counter, with greying red hair. His mustache curls upward to meet his unibrow, encircling his eyes in a ring of hair. He is smoking a pipe fully as long as he is tall - about 30 cm.

Mostly mushrooms and pine nuts are for sale. Alchemical reagents and medicines are for sale, along with gift baskets of magically preserved edible mushrooms. One sort of mushroom strongly resembles a plunger. "Preserving the possessor from plunging perils."

Marrowstem is fifth generation. He will let them down into the village if they show their elements to him.

Generation one - Before the uplift of ponies by En-Mequnan. Generation two - Moochick and contemporaries. Generation three - Classical era through Royal age. Generation four - Solar age through Catastrophe. Generation Five: since catastrophe. No generation six. "I do not think there will be a sixth generation."

the Learned Leatherbean. Somewhat less stout than most of his race, he is also taller than most. His height is further accentuated by an exceptionally tall conical hat. He is cleanshaven except for a goatee. Leatherbean is a fourth-generation fungus gnome, born 711 AE in Northern Ponyland.

Eastmumsie the Everliving. born 7 BE in Maretonia, the niece of the Mystic Moochick. Eastmumsie came to possess the corrupted Element of Loyalty, which was traded to the Daverwood in the 23th century. It inspired loyalty to her, enabling her to become the Elder of the Daverwood in 2375 after Wisenpig the Wonderworker went to spore in 2340. However, by 3326, Eastmumsie was battling ennui, tired of living and frustrated by the fact that the anticipated Sixth Generation had not emerged from the Deep Mycelium of the Daverwood, attributed by Leatherbean and his faction to the fading magical power of the fungus gnomes. Eastmumsie began to think that her abuse of the Element had lead to this, and when Wild Strike visited her to ensure his daughter's succession, Eastmumsie essentially foisted the element on him. She also cast a spell on the element to prevent the bearer from being harmed by changelings ("turned it inside out"), but it mortally injured her.

Ruby will probably beat the party to the Daverwood, sneaking in with her invisible party when some gnome goes into the cave. However, she won't learn where the element is since she isn't talking to people; she'll lurk invisibly when the party talks to Eastmumsie, then decide to attack. (Music: The Trap.) She has previously had Rev Zed put explosives on the cables holding up the underground village buildings. Ruby's main opener will be an illusion of

Ruby's party: Herself, Rev Zed, Horseshoe, El Cochino, the multi-armed monkey Waldo, six pegasus mercenaries. + many more illusions of everypony concerned, including of party members (e.g. go to save a falling pony, but it's actually an illusion - valuable time wasted.)

Rev Zed - alchemist stuff. Horseshoe - physical combat, Ruby's bodyguard. El Cochino - physical combat. Has anti-magic armor making him TK-resistant. Waldo - weak changeling powers. Pegasi have crossbows and will fly around their non-flying party members. Ruby will also try to get Rosie to betray her comrades by promising her the EoL (in such a way that it sounds less stupid, i.e. by emphasizing her loyalty to the princess. If Rosie resists, then she can purify the EoL when it is obtained.)