Nature-related ideas
From AdamWiki
From LiveJournal's dnd3e community:
Sure, the "save the forest" thing is the obvious way to go, but it doesn't have to be boring. Pick a race that has a biological reason to clearcut the forests. Enhance. Twist.
Why do people clearcut? For wood. Why? Well, wood is good for building and for fuel. Let's go with fuel. Who needs that much fuel and for what? How about huge forges? Who is known for metal forges? How about dwarves?
So let's have a race of dwarves from the underground who dig up into the surface world and send out armies of cutters to clearcut huge areas of forest and transport the wood back to their tunnels. There it's fed to giant furnaces that power their underground world, including their metal forges.
What do they use all the metal for? Well, maybe they build machines? Tunneling machines, sure. Also magical constructs. They have a whole army of mechanical constructs that fight, tunnel, and cut down trees. Some, like the cutters, are rather stupid and fight like animals, or just run unless forced to fight; still, they're dangerous in a fight. Others, like the wartrains, are smart and lethal.
Let's twist it a bit more. The dwarves are in a symbiotic relationship with the formians (ant-centaurs). They share the same space and enjoy each other's benefits. The dwarves supply the formians with technology and magic, and the formians supply the dwarves with near-mindless hive labor, hive communication, and tunneling knowledge. Imagine a giant ant-hill sprouting out of the middle of a forest, hundreds of formians wandering around with magical constructs, cutting acres of trees and carrying the wood back to the hill.
Why are they expanding? Twist again. The dwarves are controlled by an infernal power, some Lawful Evil devil with grand designs. Maybe he wants to corrupt and weaken someone whose power grows from the forests, like (say) the goddess Ehlonna. He's also forging an army of constructs to defeat the elves. As Lolth twisted spiders and elves into the Drow, this devil has twisted formians and dwarves into the Dwormian — essentially Duergar ant-centaurs who can control formians telepathically.
Some possible adventure hooks:
The heroes run across a single, strange metal beast that is cutting down trees. It is malfunctioning and has lost contact with its hive.
The heroes discover an abandoned formian ant-hill. It's like a large earthen hill riddled with man-size tunnels. The ant-hill is incomplete. Why was it abandoned? Perhaps its builders dug into an ancient site that was far more dangerous than was worth it. Perhaps mummies or spectres killed many builders. Imagine ghoulish dwarves and skeleton formians.
Farmers report odd creatures poking around their settlements. The heroes will learn that these are the advanced scouts of the formians. They may be able to track the odd tauric creatures back to their base, but then what?
The Grand Druid calls an assembly and warns all who care for the forest that a great evil is spreading.
Run with it!
