The Party Spots the Ring
As the party travels toward Amatropho, they reach a wooded area just outside of town. As they pass through a clearing, there is a large ring of mushrooms with an oddly huge anthill sitting next to it. Up ahead, a man is hanging from a tree. He appears to have been beaten or mauled and has large curved marks across his entire body. There is also a strange tribal marking carved into the tree where the man hangs. It looks like it could be the market of a Pheres centaur band, but it's been changed a bit, and the hasty scrawlings are dirty with old blood like fingernails carved them.
The Crater
Further on, they'll discover a huge crater with the remains of a shimmering rock. It looks like the black starry expanse of Nyx, but solid and unmoving like the sky there always seems to do. The pieces remaining are small, faintly magical, and vibrate slightly. There is an aura of transmutation magic. It's unstable, and the longer they remain near the stone, the sicker they feel. They must make a DC 14 CON save or take 2d6 poison damage. If they search the crater for more clues, they'll find the shredded remains of centaur leather armor discarded in a heap. The forest area around the crater also seems oddly full of life, like fewer hunters from nearby settlements are roaming into the woods for game.
As they leave and see some of the dust from the "meteor" strike seeping into the nearby pond, the plant life there is weirdly large and oversized. There are roses whose blooms are as big as your head, and a couple of huge bugs fly past.
The Trap is Sprung
A horrendous scream erupts from nearby. It is shrill and full of pain. A rabbit has been caught in a snare, and a hunter is there to take his catch home. As he retrieves his kill, something too fast to see swoops past and grabs him. He screams, and his shouts echo as he's pulled deeper into the forest. If the party gives chase, they'll be led to a small camp, the home of the mutated centaur. They can try to talk to him, wait it out, or just attack.
Spotting the Mutated Centaur
The party will hear him address the hunter regardless, saying, "You think you can just hunt in my forest without paying dues to our ancient bargain?! My ancestors are why your kind even knows how to trap and hunt! No one takes the debt seriously! Not even-- To hell with all of you! You'll pay for hunting on MY land without paying your debt to the legendary Pheres Bands!" The man screams in fear. He begs to return to his home in Amatropho and promises never to return to the forest again.
He intends to kill the human hunter, Jaxim, and string him up from a tree like the other hunter as a warning.
Additionally, this mutated centaur is much larger than a normal one. The magic of that rock increased his size and bestowed strange powers. It also seems to be amplifying his emotions and anger as well.
He has trouble controlling his emotions and will fight blindly, even if gravely injured. He also seems to be carrying a shard of the rock that acts as a sword. In reality, it's coming out of his arm and is another part of his mutation.
Nyx-Cursed Centaur Encounter
