Region: The Gloaming — the old forest west and south of Marin’s Hold, beyond the old stone bridge
Status: Explored along the Fairy Path as far as the Blood Falls (Session 5)
Notable Hazard: Giant webs, wolves, a man-eating tree, and the woods’ own name
Overview
The villagers call it the Demonwood. It is old, thick, primeval country that rises and falls in little hills and hollows threaded with streams, loud with birdsong and the calls of animals, and full of game: hares, foxes, deer, moose. For whole days it can seem almost pleasant. Then the birds stop.
The old tales of girls called down the Fairy Path to a school in the woods date from before the forest had that name. Brielle’s view is that the name makes perfect sense, since the woods are very obviously full of demons.
Landmarks
The Old Stone Bridge
A single weathered arch over the river, about six miles from Marin’s Hold and older than the village. Script that is not Common is written on the algae under the arch, and on the bank stands a shrine of stacked stones heaped with fish bones and a small stack of mismatched coins from many eras and lands. Broad webbed footprints come up out of the river and go back in; discarded flint-tipped spears lie in the mud. Ivek prayed here for safe passage and the weather was kind for the rest of the day.
The Spider Woods
Northwest of the bridge, where the Fairy Path runs among fallen trees: webs far larger than a person slung across the path and into the deep wood, with a wrapped deer and smaller shapes caught in them. The spiders were never seen. The party camped in a nook of leaning deadfall nearby, detoured north around the webs, and left half a moose at the southern edge as an offering to the Spider Queen.
The Hollow Tree
North of the spider woods in the hilly deep forest: an enormous old tree hollowed out and open to the sky where its crown broke off, warm inside with the slow heat of rot. The party camped in it with their fire in its mouth.
The Wolf Hollow
Below the hollow tree, at the foot of a loose scree slope: where Brielle fell in the night and found five wolves waiting. Two died there, the alpha among them, its pelt just coming into a thick white winter coat; three fled.
The Hangman’s Tree
Southwest of the spider woods, alone in a clearing where the forest falls silent. A withered, twisting tree hung with vines rather than ropes, half-decayed bodies of beasts and perhaps a horse hanging from its boughs and bones heaped beneath. The vines seize anything within about twenty-five feet of the trunk and strip it with tiny teeth. It bears huge red apples. Beyond its clearing the tiles of the Fairy Path are lost.
The Rock Shelter
Some miles south of the Hangman’s Tree: a deep hollow in the side of a rocky hill, half a cave, reached only by a rope that can be pulled up after you. Dry and easy to hold.
The Giant’s Playground
Further south: a sunken box canyon with a spring at its north end and a narrow stream running out of the south end toward the river. Its floor is scattered with great granite stones in shapes that have no business being there — a polished cylinder, two crossed slabs, three leaned together like a pyramid, a weathered cube — all furred in moss and algae. The party camped above it and did not go down.
The River of Webbed Feet
Southwest of the canyon, a river running west. Broad webbed footprints run along its banks in both directions, in and out of the water, beside the track of a barrel rolled through the dirt. Brielle saw something shiny in the water.
The Blood Falls
West along the river, where it pours over a cliff and turns a deep blood-red before breaking in the rapids and running muddy brown below. The air smells faintly of iron. Over the roar of the water, girls can be heard singing.
Compiled from what the party has seen on the road. Most of the Demonwood remains unexplored.