Veilwood Maidens
The Veilwood Maidens are the central figures in a haunting and mysterious tale that has been passed down through generations in the lands surrounding the Veilwood Enclave. The tale is usually used to keep children away from the dangerous forest. According to the stories revolving around the Veilwood Maidens, they are cursed sorcerers, damned to live within the mist-shrouded depths of the Veilwood Enclave.
Following the myths, the Veilwood Maidens were mortal sorcerers who bound themselves to the mystical powers that haunt the forest to gain more power. When the time came to fulfill their part of the pact and protect the forest against intruders, the maidens tried to betray these powers. They were then cursed to never find love and peace until they returned to the forest and seduced another mortal to fulfill the task they had failed in.
While the maidens spent their lives searching for true love and peace, they never found it. When the time came that they were going to die, they returned to the forest they betrayed, and disappeared between the huge heartwood trees.
Up to this point, this is true. But even in the darkest places, humanity likes to twist myths to their liking. And while nobody knows what happened to the cursed maidens, the story goes on.
According to legends, the maidens lost their age as soon as they entered the heart of the forest. They lost their bodies and became the ethereal beings, that they are in the stories. They couldn’t speak anymore, but they were given the beautiful melodies of the mists and the forest, damned to sing for all eternity, to seduce children and men into the forest.
Those who follow their songs and enter the forests are used to feed the powers within the forest and nurture the enormous trees. Some people state that those men following the Maidens became the source of Lover’s Embrace, the plant that only grows there.
And there are other tales, too. Tales of children, that turns up on the door of males who gathered plants and wood in the forest. Children, that have a strange and striking resemblance to the man living here – and a beauty that no mortal child could ever possess. Nobody knows where these children come from, but all tales are sure that these men paid with their bodies to gather the resources of the forest, and therefore made their own pact with the strange powers within.
And the children? They are strange. Beautiful and haunting at the same time. Powerful and seductive, with no idea what’s right or wrong. And they don’t want to learn these mortal terms…
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