Forest of Dread

The Forest of Dread is it's own territory in the west. The name comes from the terrifying beasts that live with in and the eerie twilight of never-ending dusk that looms heavily within.
Folklore tells of a disease the creates living corpses held together by sentient plants. Others say that the disease turns people into plant hybrid monstrosities. Still, others claim the disease only exists to scare people off. Rumors have it that Umber sends clockwork guardians in to explore and excavate, but even they rarely return.
All the same, people regard this forest as cursed by the Shadowfell and disregards any natural order found in the Prime Material Plane. It is said that trees, fungi, flowers, and all other forms of flora grow to unnatural heights and often illuminate the forest with an ominous bioluminescence. Fauna have strange parasitic or symbiotic relationships with the plantlife with no distinction between what is the host's natural form and where the plant growth really begins.
However, sources for this information are only those who return from the forest sputtering on their deathbed from whatever foreign parasite they contracted from within.