Menaces of the Forest

The Gamboge is a dangerous place indeed. Ogres and hobgoblins are both indigenous to the forest, and to the cast more humanoids, including some gnolls, goblins, and especially orcs, are filtering into the woodlands from the Bone March and across the Rakers.

The western fringes of the woods are home to desperate bandits, mostly men from the Bandit Kingdoms who managed to flee this far eastward, but also a few from Nyrond itself who have taken to a life of banditry in the face of hardship. For this reason, all the Gamboge races patrol their lands and the fringes of their settlements. High elves, gnomes and woodsmen tend to cooperate and share what they have learned on their patrols. The wood elves do not, outside of their limited contact with the gnomes.

The evil intruders into the Gamboge Forest are badly organized and chaotic. No dominating, intelligent evil foe faces the Gamboge peoples, and for this reason this woodland is not faced with the possibility of inexorable defeat by malign, magic wielding evil forces in the way the Vesve Forest may be.

One of the consequences of these infiltration’s into the forest is that woodsmen in particular have begun to draw back into an increasing number of small hamlet settlements, clearing areas of some 100-150 yards radius and building stockades around groups of wooden cabins. There are many fewer small groups of perhaps two or three families living together in the Gamboge in isolated glades than previously, although many still live this way simply because they have always done so and they're not going to be driven away from their homes.

In the safer areas of the forest, such small communities still thrive from hunting and gathering. The woodsmen keep a few hives of bees for honey, and use dead wood for fuel and charcoal.