Healing Spring (Hee-al-ing Ss-puh-rr-ing)

Uncharted Area

The outermost fringes of the border area are difficult terrain by all standards, as only a native resident from inside the region could navigate the natural maze. Outside of that is standard difficult terrain of the deep briar and thicket of shrub height variety. Mixed dangerous and deadly plants, additional natural traps like pitfalls into nowhere and quicksand aid in the essential "wall" before the maze. Inside the maze is the same, but more intense and taller vegetation reaching 16-20 feet high. Visible as a maze from the outside only in side-angled patches on account of the rolling hills of the area being covered in it. No mountains are visible beyond, and the highest hillocks keep anything inside from being seen in anyway, shy of flying over them. Most of what is seen by air is dense swamp thicket, no notable forest or features, and a boggy fen with a central point of dead trees and thorns. It appears to be darkly cursed due to the ever present thorns, mists, and fog that very few choose to land, and as those who do do not return alive, if at all.

ADVENTURERS: As you go deep into the thicket on the ring of hills, you note the fire flies and glowing plants immediately close in a 400 foot radius all around you, keeping the area in a dark misty gloom, only rekindling once you are far away. The vegetation grows in walls so dense you cannot peep through to the other side, and so thick a person, were they child sized, could walk through them standing with a lot of space to spare, were they hollow. This includes the tall archways that allow for the traversable areas to connect. With everything coated in thick sharp thorns across the whole of every plant wall, its hard not to imagine this as a maze to be solved.

After cresting the maze coated hills, you begin to hear and smell flowing water, and the ground grows weaker and sodden down the inside of the hilly ring. At the bottom the thicket grows taller and more dense over a broader, less penetrable area leaving small few corridors, as though underground, save for the spongey muck of a floor.

     

GM/DM: This is where Humblefolk live in secret on the Plateau. Their network spans the area, and throughout the entire island. They keep to their own, don't have deep history, and they don't bother mapping beyond their home region, however they know a few secrets such as the healing waters that pour from the stump at the center of the area they, and the Bronze Dragon who knows them, call Healing Spring. They also know of the half born local deity the healing attribute springs from, as they worship it.


Though they and the Bronze Dragon have spoken and traded information, the Humblefolk don't allow the dragon freedom to come and go from Healing Spring. They're very protective of the pseudo-deific force they believe to be the region of their domain its self. They know of the the deities of the two geat mountains of the Plateau, and the death of the Goddess that spawned the three, but not any deep Lore, as the Bronze Dragon is withholding information and the local Deity only knows of the time of its birth, which is just as the dead Goddess of the Plateau was passing into the astral.
The walls of the maze are hollow and safe for Humblefolk (halfling size to Fival/Ratatouille/N.I.H.M. sized) with paths for each size class. The outer scouts and guards know the maze like their own childhood home. The inner sanctum is a city in the middle area of the fen with the stump spring in a natural temple at the dead center. The temple bottles the healing water for trade (always in disguise) outside the realm, and the city does the same with rustic and earthy wears. Mostly they trade with the fey and the Mushroom people, but any clever Humblefolk mage can trade elsewhere in disguise. This is largely an unspoken black market, as officially the Humblefolk stance is isolationism and complete autonomy, but everyone enjoys a good trade.
The natural pitfalls are the travel roads of the Mushroom people. They go all the way down to the Myconid City hidden in the Underground.

•"uncharted" on the COMMON map •"waste" on the New Cradle (secret) map •"Healing Spring" on the (super Secret) map by the Bronze Dragon and the murals in the Alcove

Type

Spring