Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder 2 for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This week it’s time to rejuvenate ourselves and… Well, you’ll see, at the Breeding Pool.
Breeding Pool
The Breeding Pool started life (ironically) as a place where animals migrated during their mating season. Even now, animals of all kinds flock to it whenever it is “that time of year” for them, whether they have a normal cycle or not. For a time, they put aside any racial animosity and the animals that mate here have healthier young than they would otherwise be capable of, including ones that are often bigger, smarter, and stronger than their brethren. It always seems to be whatever type of “strength” that the creature needs that their young have.
Approximately a decade ago, the Breeding Pool was discovered by a mixed group of explorers that included members who were elves, humans, dwarves, and more. They were intrigued by what they saw here, and spent a while here, with many of them indulging in their passions with each other. They almost instantly saw the result when the young were born. Even those races that normally would produce no young when in a relationship suddenly found themselves with children. And so, they determined to keep the place safe.
Lay of the Land
The Breeding Pool is technically an island, but the place actually called that is a cave about a mile underground, one that is reachable through a series of organic feeling tunnels. The cave is filled with a large pool of fresh water, with an idyllic beach around it, one with plenty of room. A waterfall descends from above, but the sound is somewhat muted here, due to the strange acoustics, so instead of the roaring you’d expect from a waterfall, the cave only has the sound of a light rainfall on a spring morning. (Unless you’re standing within 10 feet of the waterfall, in which case you’re likely to go deaf).
The island itself is a pleasant near-tropical environment with temperatures hovering around 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and dropping to 50 during the night. Food is plentiful in the form of both animal and fruits, vegetables, and roots.
Dangers
Anyone who comes to the Breeding Pool is likely to be overcome by their emotions. All saving throws that involve emotion take a -2 penalty (disadvantage in 5e), and passions run rampant here.
The explorers that originally found the place, who have been spreading the word far and wide about it, are also its protectors. Most of them are the equivalent of normal scouts and soldiers, but their leader, a dwarven woman called Helga Grimmhammer is a powerful priest of the goddess of fertility (PF2 / 5e), and she has little tolerance for people causing trouble. Romantic entanglements are inevitable here though, and she’ll turn a blind eye to them, even sometimes helping young couples as a matchmaker – which is the work she takes the greatest pleasure in, though she has yet to find a man that suits her needs, in spite of how badly she wants children of her own.
Kim Frandsen
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