Tower of Ascension

The Feywild Forest is dense, green, and strangely luminous. In some places it resembles an ancient natural woodland of towering trees, moss-covered stones, deer paths, clear streams, and heavy canopy. In others, it becomes unmistakably unnatural: flowers bloom out of season, pools reflect unfamiliar moons, and birds repeat conversations they should never have heard.

The forest does not always behave as a normal landscape. Distances vary. Paths appear and vanish. A traveler may spend three days walking east and emerge one mile from where they began, or step through a curtain of willow branches and find themselves beneath a sky full of unfamiliar stars.

The deeper one travels, the less useful ordinary certainty becomes.

The Feywild Forest should feel mysterious rather than fully explained. It is not necessarily evil, but it is rarely safe. It does not hate mortals, but it does not think like them.

Common traits include:

• Paths that change when unobserved.
• Groves where time passes differently.
• Animals with unusual intelligence.
• Old stones marked with elven, druidic, or unknown symbols.
• Music heard from no visible source.
• Clearings that appear only under moonlight.
• Fey courts, ruins, or crossings that may or may not be present in any given campaign.
• Bargains that sound harmless until years later.

Little certain history exists regarding the Feywild Forest. Elven traditions suggest that parts of the forest predate several nearby settlements, including older forms of Sharlore and Laz’klennar. Druidic oral histories claim that certain groves were never planted, but “arrived” from somewhere else.

Some stories describe the forest as a place of sanctuary. Others describe it as a prison, a wound, a borderland, or the remnant of an ancient pact between mortals and fey powers.

No single version is universally accepted.

• A road through the forest leads directly to the Feywild, but only if followed by someone who has been invited.
• The oldest trees remember the names of every king, prince, and murderer who ever passed beneath them.
• Children lost in the forest sometimes return years later, unchanged and carrying impossible flowers.
• A court of fey nobles holds revels in a moonlit glade that appears only once each season.
• Some refugees from Laz’klennar vanished into the forest and now live under fey protection.
• The forest dislikes iron, bells, oathbreakers, or liars; accounts vary.
• A white stag appears before great political upheavals.
• Somewhere inside the forest is a door that opens only for those who have lost their home.
• The forest is expanding.
• The forest has always been this large; the maps are what changed.

The following possibilities may be used, ignored, or combined as needed by the DM.

The outer forest contains ordinary deer, foxes, birds, wolves, owls, insects, and old-growth trees. Deeper within, more unusual creatures may appear.

Possible inhabitants include:

• Talking beasts.
• Dryads.
• Satyrs.
• Pixies and sprites.
• Eladrin wanderers.
• Blink dogs.
• Displacer beasts.
• Awakened trees.
• Fey-touched wolves.
• Unicorns.
• Hags.
• Green knights.
• Lost travelers changed by the forest.

The presence of any creature should depend on the needs of the campaign. The Feywild Forest is large enough to support many different tones: whimsical, eerie, tragic, beautiful, hostile, or sacred.

Sharlore treats the Feywild Forest with caution and respect. Some old families maintain stories, warnings, or half-remembered protocols concerning the forest. Younger elves are more likely to dismiss these as superstition, usually until the forest proves otherwise.

The arrival of refugees from Laz’klennar has increased pressure on the woodlands near Sharlore. Some refugees seek shelter near the forest edge, while others avoid it entirely.

Sylro has less direct involvement with the forest, though its dye-makers, herbalists, and horse breeders sometimes covet rare plants or strange pigments said to grow near the Feywild border.

Most Sylro merchants prefer to hire guides rather than enter the forest themselves.

Since the fall of Laz’klennar, the southern edges of the forest have become more unsettled. Refugees, scouts, deserters, Triad patrols, and desperate families may all be found near its approaches.

Some believe the forest is sheltering survivors. Others fear it is taking advantage of the chaos.

Travel through the Feywild Forest is unreliable. Even experienced guides cannot guarantee a route once the deeper wood begins to shift.

Common travel rules include:

• Do not follow music after sunset.
• Do not eat food offered by strangers unless you know their name.
• Do not thank a fey creature casually.
• Do not cut living wood without permission.
• Do not sleep inside a ring of flowers.
• Do not promise what you cannot pay.
• Do not assume the same path leads home twice.