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Materials Two trees, marked with ribbon.   Or if you live in the forsaken desert, any two other objects will do.  

Setup

Pick two trees a good distance apart but within earshot of each other.  Pick one area for Nirvana equidistant (but not directly between) the two trees.  The trees should have roughly the same amount of cover around them, and a good well defined trunk.   Do not pick trees with spines or thorns.

Each team starts at their tree.  Teams should be the same number of players, picked by whatever means you use to try and split into two sides (captains, pick'em, line up 1-2, one guy splits the players the other picks which team is his, etc).

Rules If you die, go to nirvana, 50 count to come back.   No class abilities, no healing.    

Victory A player must place both hands on their enemy's tree and do a 100 count (seconds), loudly counting each count so it can be heard at nirvana and the other tree.   They must have two hands intact, though a legged player may count.  They must keep both hands on the tree, if they let go they must start over.   They may however slide their hands around the tree to avoid hits as long as they do not let go.   They may not hold weapons in either hand, though they may keep them around in easy reach (grabbing one would break the count).   

Misc

Even with teams that are not well balanced it is not easy to pull off an quick win.   If you die while a team is counting you should in theory have a second shot to try and at least dislodge them since 50 count is less than 100 count.   It is possible for each team to be counting at the same time.

Game created in Silverwater in the late 90s by Tonbo, Roger and Olok after a complaint about having no consequences in a shatter battle for taking the enemy team's base.   The rules were posted and it gained popularity quickly in other florida groups.  Someone from Falling Fire proposed the name "treehugger", which stuck.  (prior to that it was called "base count" or something like that).

Variations

A variant uses one "keeper" for each side that has a death count of 25 but cannot cross to the other half of the field.   They return near their tree.

A night version uses glowing circles (glowstick hoops) on the ground, the count must be made inside the circle.  This version allows the counter to wield weapons.

Both these variations slow the game down somewhat.   The normal version is very fast paced.

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