The multiverse is a diverse and wonderful place. Why settle for stock stone temples and vaulting churches when your holy sites can be as varied as the planes themselves?
This series explores several places of power considered holy by some. This series is primarily for GMs to provide meaningful backdrops to their adventure concepts. Players may find this article useful to establish personal goals for their characters or to flesh out their backstory by connecting themselves to these sites.
Bower of the Twin Willows
Giant twin golden willow trees meet in a draping embrace over an empty glen. Cut logs, stones, and vines lay about in peaceful disarray, but serve as seats, swings, and standing stones for the attendants. Butterflies and fireflies flit about the glen, clouding the trees in a wreath of tiny beating wings.
This is the Bower of the Twin Willows. Many stories exist about the twins throughout the multiverse, and they share many names. Accounts from different worlds depict them as siblings, lovers, or both. Some stories claim they are gods, some claim they are incarnations of the natural world, or offshoots of the World Tree itself. Whichever is true, the Bower stands as a place of power for those who revere these nature-based entities.
The Hunter, often depicted as the male twin, represents the predatory nature of woodland creatures. He stalks, hunts, kills, and eats his prey. The Hunter is not necessarily cruel or savage, but a provider for the community.
The Maiden is often depicted as the female twin, a vision of nature’s growth and beauty. She represents growing things, flowers, birds, and the magical aspects of the natural world.
Who Is Worshipped at the Bower?
The bower presents differently in each world. On Earth, it could be associated with Apollo and Artemis in a grove of two giant olive trees or Mixcoatl and Ilancueye in a glen of two entwined kapok trees. In Midgard, the Bower is important to Freyr and Freyja with vibrant, ancient, ash trees.
In parts of the Labyrinth, the grove is dedicated to Solana and Sabeteus, containing a tree composed of a starry night sky and a tree of burning light. Here, students study the dichotomy and balance of darkness and light. The Bower is a philosophical staging ground in the war against the Void, where ideas and strategy are explored freely without judgment.
The Bower’s Appearance
A Twin Willows grove looks different in each world of the Labyrinth. In an arid, wasteland world, The Bower might be an oasis with two immense Joshua trees dedicated to the Hyena (Hunter) and Cheetah (Maiden). For worlds underwater, the grove might be well-lit coral reef dedicated to a shark god, and kelp goddess. A crystalline cavern covered in bioluminescent moss serves as the Bower in underground settings. However it appears, the Bower serves as a place where people learn, live in harmony, and commune with the natural world.
The Bower itself serves as a gathering place. Creatures gather here to either passively or actively pay homage to the Twins. Many revere the Maiden by teaching others how to plant and grow herbs, practice medicine, or tend to animals. Those who revere the Hunter help teach others in bowmaking, fletching, tanning hides, and teaching how to track prey.
Available Services
Traditional temples ask for or require a monetary donation for their services. Bower patrons ask for certain services instead of coin. Downtime activities are explored more fully in the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide.
| Service | Description | Cost |
| Binding | Bower clergy can marry those willing to be bound to one another as part of a carousing downtime acitvity. | The married folks spend the next seven days helping and serving the community. |
| Great Feast | Participants engage in a heroes’ feast ritual. | The PCs must hunt and kill a great Beast that has found its way into the grove, and the Aberration that has corrupted it. |
| Haven | The PCs engage in the carousing downtime activity. | PCs engaging in the downtime activity must each tell a story of hope, love, or heroism. |
| Trading | The PCs gain access to herbs and materials used to make common or uncommon potions or other consumables. | The PCs must help gather other useful materials from the wild lands outside, requiring them to succeed at three separate DC 13 Wisdom (Survival) checks. |
| Tutelage | PCs can learn a proficiency, using the training downtime activity. | The PC wishing to learn a proficiency from the Bower must teach a proficiency they know to someone else at the Bower, increasing the time spent at the Bower. |
| Revival | Bower clergy can cast the reincarnate ritual on a target creature. | The PCs must scour the dangerous wild places to find the rare plants needed for their use of the ritual and two other castings of the ritual. |
Controlling the Bower
The Bower can be attuned to, like certain magic items, granting the attuner certain liberties in controlling the Bower’s lair actions. Situations or powerful items (listed only by name in this article) reduce the time to attune the Bower to 1 action, allowing the power of the Bower to change hands in the middle of battle!
To attune to the Bower, a creature must do one of the following:
Time: A creature must spend 1 hour in peaceful meditation, following normal attunement rules. At the end of the hour, the creature must make a successful DC 15 CHA (Persuasion) check to convince the spirit of the Bower to allow attunement. On a failure, a creature can try again as an action. For each additional attempt after the first check, the creature suffers one level of exhaustion.
Relation: A brother and sister, or two creatures bound by a marriage ceremony, may attune to the Bower as an action, forgoing the hour of meditation. They still must succeed at a DC 15 CHA (Persuasion) check to convince the spirit. Both creatures have advantage on the CHA (Persuasion) check. Creatures involved in the action suffer one level of exhaustion and are paralyzed until the start of their next turn.
Item: Possessing an important artifact to the twins (determined by the GM) allows an individual creature to attempt attunement as described in Relation.
When two or more parties wish to attune to the Bower at the same time, each party must meet one of the requirements listed above (time, relation, or item). The Bower grants attunement to the party that is most convincing, instead of whoever beats a set DC. Each round, all involved sides make a CHA (Persuasion) check. The highest result is the most convincing in the round. The GM keeps the results of NPC checks secret until the end of the third round. The side to plead their case best two out of three attempts controls the Bower.
Once attuned, the Bower allows the attuned creature to use the following lair actions.
Lair Actions
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), anyone in command of the Bower takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the creature can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:
- The willow branches from the twin trees lash out, ensnaring enemies of the grove. Two creatures must make a successful DC 16 STR save or become restrained. Creatures that fail the save can attempt it again on their next turn as an action. Creatures that fail by 5 or more are stunned until the end of their next turn.
- The butterflies and fireflies of the grove scatter, causing confusion in intruders. Creatures in a 30-foot sphere are blinded unless they succeed on a DC 16 WIS save. Affected creatures can make another saving throw at the end of their turns to remove the condition.
- The Bower marks its foes. Each target chosen by the attuned creature within 30 feet of it takes 1d6 extra damage from attacks this turn. Attempts to use stealth by enemies of the Bower are made with disadvantage.
