The Infernal Forest
Magineering Trees
With their vast lifespans and cultural focus on magic, many D’Aroine wizards engaged in magical engineering, modifying and creating beings in accord with their needs and within the limits of their ethics. When the renowned crafter of wands and staves Draoi Crann reached the limits of traditional materials, she sought to break that barrier. After learning of the radiant trees of the Verdenfey and the necrotic trees of the Ashenfey, Draoi was inspired to imbue a tree with elemental fire. After several generations, she found that wands and staves created from the wood and enchanted with fire magic had improved qualities. After perfecting the process, she created trees for other energy types. When experimenting with psychic energy, she found the trees developed intelligence. Unwilling to use intelligent beings as raw materials, she stopped this line of research. Some claim this is the origin of treants. While the D’Aroine perished, Draoi’s trees lived on, spreading from their original groves. While the land has changed over the eons, the descendants of the original groves still grow where their ancestors did in what is now known as the Infernal Forest.The Rise of Karathyl
Over the centuries, other wizards imitated Draoi, creating their own special trees. Among these was the wizard Leluna, who was also an engineer and naval architect. Wishing to build stronger warships, she studied the energy trees and then created the iron oak trees whose wood is reputed to be almost as strong as iron. She also created Bow Trees to use in the construction of siege engines. The strong, yet flexible, wood of these trees can be used to build siege engines and bows with extended range. The village of Karathyl grew up around Leluna’s workshop and produced siege engines used during the wars that led to the formation of the Republic of Merak. The nearby town of Dralamand grew up around a shipyard and Leluna sold the town Iron Oak for use in their warships. Which also figured prominently in the creation of Rel as a sovereign state. The special trees helped fuel the economy of Karathyl and it grew to absorb Dralamand. When Merak was a thriving nation, Karathyl was a prosperous city. In addition to the magical and mundane lumber, there were profitable mines in the area and major merchant houses called the city home. To protect this economic powerhouse, Merak built fortifications, garrisoned troops, and maintained a strong naval presence. Unfortunately, this military might contributed to the city it was intended to protect.The Fall of Karathyl
As Merak descended into civil war and then fell into chao, the people of Karathyl turned against each other. Once unified military units splintered into factions, fighting each other, and often slaughtering those they had sworn to protect. While the city temples initially tried to hold the city together, some priests saw the conflict as an opportunity to settle old scores, gain followers and exterminate rivals. This forced the other priests into the conflict and divine magic made things worse. Summoned fiends and celestials battled in the streets and undead stalked the night. The wizards of the city and other arcane casters were also drawn into the conflict, their intelligence serving the madness quite well. Fireballs were used indiscriminately, filling the streets with charred corpses that were animated by necromancers. Wizards who had been commercial and intellectual competitors were now murdering each other and anyone else caught within their areas of effect. At the peak of the conflict, the necromancer Valyssa flooded the main part of the city with her horrific creation, the Green Miasma. While the fact that those slain by it arose as zombies was bad enough, these undead could spread the miasma to others. The streets soon belonged to these zombies, and some made the grim choice of starving in their hiding places rather than risking joining their ranks. But there was one positive effect of the Green Miasma: some sense of unity was briefly restored to the surviving citizens as they battled the zombies. But these efforts proved to be too little, too late and the streets ultimately belonged to the undead. Having run out of victims within the city, the zombies shambled out into the forest. The Green Miasma would have spread across the land were it not for an unlikely alliance between goblins, forest creatures and survivors from the city. While slavery was technically illegal in the Republic of Merak, imposing forced labor on certain humanoids was tolerated. Goblins were especially likely to be victims, given their small size and the fact that many other species viewed them with contempt. While Karathyl’s wood cutting businesses preferred to employ strong humanoids, some found goblins useful and, more importantly, eminently expendable. While the goblins were cruelly exploited, some reconnected with their fey roots in the forest and, ironically, they were free of the tyranny of Maglubiyet. A few secretly embraced druidism and those who could escape their enslavement sought out the fey creatures and treants of the most ancient part of the forest. These goblins did what they could to interfere with the logging operations and to free their fellow goblins from slavery. At first, these forest goblins were overjoyed when Karathyl fell into chaos. Tree harvesting ceased and the goblin slaves were abandoned by their owners, allowing them to be taken in by their free brethren. But then the goblins learned of the horrors of the city from the fleeing refugees. While some refugees were murdered by the newly free and vengeful goblins, the goblin druids and treants intervened to allow the refugees to pass through the woods, provided they did no harm. When the Green Miasma consumed the city, the last refugees fled into the woods. Fortunately, among them was Jelthera, an urban druid known to the fey of the forest. Jelthera told the treants about the Green Miasma and warned them of the zombies. The treants and druids appealed to Ashalla for aid, and she responded by sending coilltear from the Verdenfey. The coilltear are related to dyrads and can cause forests to grow with incredibly speed. They arrived on the prime material plane with seeds from radiant trees, swarms of radiant butterflies, and several radiant treants. Aided by the goblins, the coilltear rushed to plant the trees. Meanwhile, Jelthera slipped back into the city and reached the Temple of Ashanalla, which was one of the last holdouts of the living remaining. Jelthera explained the situation to the Knight of the Temple, who agreed to assist with the desperate plan. Through the clever use of portable holes and wild shaping druids, the forces of the temple and a handful of other survivors departed the city and took up positions in the woods to await the green tide of zombies. As the zombies emerged, the knights of Ashanalla lured them into the woods, grouping them into an open box of radiant trees. Strangely enough, Shadash provided unasked for help, sending necrotic treants and necrotic trees that somehow drew the zombies to them. While wisely remaining silent, some druids speculated that Shadash was afraid of missing out and hence got involved. Over the course of many days, the zombies were drawn into the zombie pen, and, at great cost, the pen was closed, trapping the horde of zombies within the radiant walls. Zombies attempting to move past the trees found themselves consumed by radiant butterflies. This, and the appealing energy of the necrotic trees, has kept the zombies contained across the centuries. While the zombies presented the largest threat in terms of numbers, other horrors also intruded on the woods. Some wealthy families of Karathyl maintained forest retreats and when the troubles began, they fled the city for these retreats. But this brought the troubles into the woods—once amiable neighbors found themselves engaged in savage conflict. In one awful incident, the wizard Trenol attacked the retreat of the Hemlen family, slaying their guards and turning the adult family members into undead. To ensure their ongoing suffering, Trenol sealed them within a magical barrier and departed, only to be slain himself. After the zombies had been contained, the goblins and their allies began to scout the woods, looking for stray zombies and other dangers. The retreat was found and after the druids recognized the magical barriers, the goblins undertook the task of keeping the barriers intact on the principle that the undead could do no harm if they were contained and trying to fight them would be a needless risk. The goblins also came across corrupted battlefields in the woods around the city where would-be invaders and defenders had clashed. Many of these areas were contained with radiant trees, protecting the rest of the world and saving countless lives. The goblins and their allies then settled into their role as guardians of the forest, carefully keeping an eye on the horrors contained within the woods and those remaining in the city. When a force of orc raiders from the Bear Fang tribe showed up in the forest, the goblins warned them of the horrors of the city, but the courageous orcs did not heed them and marched into the city in search of plunder. By chance, the orcs blundered into the last sizable enclave of survivors. The orc leader, Oruke Bearjaw, was unsettled by the horrors and so moved by the plight of the survivors that he rescued them (and, truth be told, a fortune in gems and coins). Some of the tribe elected to stay in the area, albeit away from the city. Their descendants remain in the area, near Rel, and keep a watchful eye on the city and the Infernal Forest. Thus, goblins and orcs became unsung heroes.Treants
The ancient forest around Karathyl has been home to treants for ages. As noted above, some claim that the first treants were accidentally created by Draoi Crann. Others claim that Draoi Crann merely created a new population of treants, pointing to the existence of treants in places far from her forest. Scholars are even divided about the origin of the “energy” treants. Some say that these were surely created by Draoi Crann while others assert that they arose in the “usual way” treants awaken from trees, albeit these awakened from the energy trees created by her. The treants have said nothing about this matter. Even during the height of Karathyl’s woodcutting operations, treants still dwelled in the deepest parts of the forest and the woodcutters wisely left them undisturbed. At least for the most part—a few unwise expeditions never returned. Out of prudence and good sense, Karathyl carefully maintained its woods and the treants largely tolerated these harvesting operations—in part because they realized that a battle with Karathyl would be disastrous. After the fall of Karathyl, the treants spread throughout the woods, tending to the forest, and ensuring the maintenance of the zombie pen and other areas of containment.Rel & The Infernal Forest
During the collapse of Merak, the people of Rel remained largely ignorant of what had happened in the forest. However, the fragments of information that reached the town convinced most to avoid the woods. Those who went to investigate did not return and eventually the people of Rel started calling the area the Infernal Forest. After the fall of Merak, the forests close to Rel sufficed for its needs and thus the Infernal Forest and its inhabitants were left to their own devices, at least until now.
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