Train Tuesday P68: Shady Tree Time

Last week, we featured our beloved Angry Acorn minions, so we thought it was time to take you to their leader!

Acorns aren’t exactly the wisest monster in the forest. These quick-tempered fighters need a wise old leader to guide them. That’s where Shady Tree comes in – he’s the protector of The High Forest and doesn’t like anyone messing with his turf, especially anything to do with the Hovertrain variety.

For our 3D-printed miniature, we leaned on Dungeon Classics, a no-brainer $5 a month tribe on Patreon. Our woodland boss man is from their January 2025 release. We think he’s the perfect fit for our forest plans.

DM Ben took the task of coloring this woodland warrior. Nothing fancy here. Army Painter’s Dark Wood Speedpaint did most of the heavy lifting. Then DM Ben applied an offwhite for the powdery mildew beard and the tiny sporadic fungal spores. Lastly, he used Forest Sprite Speedpaint for some green accents/the eyes and drybrushed some Fanatic Moca Skin for color variation.

And just like that, we got ourselves a ragtag warband for the party to contend with The High Forest. We’re planning on printing several more acorns…say a good baker’s dozen, for the first time the players come face to face with his Acorns.

So how do Shady Tree and his Angry Acorns have anything to do with The Forgotten Rails, you ask? Hovertrains don’t fly very far off the ground, so they need travel lines free from nature’s obstacles for all their connecting rail routes. And how does one clear those routes? Well, by chopping down trees, of course.

So, there have been stories of Dwarven Path Finders being ambushed and disappearing around The High Forest. Waterdeep’s Omin Dran is not pleased in the least. He’s going to ask the party to investigate and put a stop to these attacks and unprofitable delays.

The plot twist is that the party’s newly acquired Bastion is in The High Forest, and they might be tempted to make a secret pact with Shady Tree to keep those roaring Hovertrains from getting too close to their new property. Omin Dran is no fool; he could have gifted them the property, knowing full well that The Forgotten Rails would eventually take their land as eminent domain.

Now, funny story: We 3D-printed and painted Shady Tree this past weekend, only to realize at the very end that we already had a serviceable boss miniature here. Don’t you hate when that happens?! Still, this one had a distracting amulet that didn’t really fit our encounter narrative, so we’ll save this cranky fella for a future scenario.

We couldn’t for the life of us, figure out where this STL was from, though…that is until user “Jorden” from the Brite Minis Discord somehow found it. Turns out this is a Verdant Sentinel by Cast n Play. We’re not sure what’s going on in that Discord, but guys like Jorden and Toast can identify STLs like they’re some sorta Super Heroes. 😉

And just like that, you paid homage to a classic James Bond movie and have a whole new storyline to try out! Tread carefully around Mother Nature, y’all. You never know what’s going to come out of the woodwork. 😉

Until next time!