Adri Forest

The Adri Forest is a large forest located mostly within the Great Kingdom of Aerdy. This vast, ancient broadleaf forest is filled with game animals and fine wood. It has shrunk in area by about half since the Great Kingdom was founded, thanks to land-clearing for farms, fires, logging, and woodcutting. Resources from the Adri include wood for shipbuilding, homes, furniture, and weapons; game animals hunted for furs, food, and trophies; fruits and nuts; and fish from the Harp River. Excluding Innspa, the only settlement of note here is Elversford, on the east bank of the Harp, eight-five miles east-southeast of Innspa.
The whole of the forest has been regarded as part of the Great Kingdom historically, though the lands west of the Harp River are considered part of Almor or Nyrond. The forest can be divided into three distinctively different regions:

• The ancient, deep forest woodland. Here, few humans enter, and the terrain is fraught with danger.
• The remaining bulk of the woodland. This is home to foresters, rangers, bandits and others.
• The city of Innspa and the forested hills. The hills abut the southern extension of the Flinty Hills range.

Armed foresters led by rangers resist incursions by the Great Kingdom. A half-dozen druidic faiths are present, notably that of Obad-Hai, led by Archdruid Immonara. Ehlonna’s faith supports the rangers and is very militant.
A legendary ancient elven city is said to lie at the heart of the Adri, in a dangerous region called the Coldwood. No elf will ever go there or allow anyone else to do so.

Overview

About 90% of the mass of the Adri is mixed deciduous woodland, with the broad and sluggish Harp River cutting a swathe through it to the west. The forest is plentiful with game, and its fringes always have seen their share of nobles out hunting. In addition to deer, the rabbits of the forest are plentiful and are trapped for food, as are squirrels, mink-like animals, and larger birds. Fishing is productive along the banks of the Harp. Add to this good supplies of mushrooms, herbs, fruiting plants, berries, and tubers, and the riches of the forest.
Races other than humans are rare outside the deep forest. There are a few hundred wood elves, no more, and very few high elves or forest gnomes. The humanoids who live in this forest keep to themselves, and they defend their homes with snares, tripwires, pit and net traps, and poisoned weapons. There are so few of them that they do not take chances with outsiders. This applies even to the normally peaceable gnomes.
This is a surprise to many who do not know the history of the forest. The elves have a good reason for disliking this forest, as the history of the Coldwood reveals. Likewise the gnomes, who might have been expected to have taken to the wooded hills, shun them.
This leaves a human population which, though sizable, is sparse in terms of people per square mile. There are areas of the Adri where no man has ever set foot.

Notable locations

• The Coldwood
• Ettin's Mound
• Prince Myrhal's Hold
• Tower of Azal'Lan

Type

Forest, Temperate (Seasonal)

Characters in Location

• Elmennanibinaquen