Dark Oak Grove

A halfling caretaker and her many companions once tended a wondrous forest of towering black oak trees on the outskirts of Tol Kerdywel. In her capable hands, the grove flourished, and travelers from across the kingdom came to admire the wild sanctuary of rare and beautiful flora and fauna. In her spare time, the halfling took in sick and injured animals and nursed them back to health, maintained the underground springs, and tended to the trees, who she maintained whispered secrets of old to her.
However, travelers today will find no such splendor. The grove has become a place of death and decay. Its once-magnificent oaks have rotted from the inside out, spotted with mushrooms and furred tendrils.
The burbling springs that used to flow abundantly have turned to stagnant mires filled with quicksand and waterborne insects. The scent of wildflowers and pine has turned to rotting wood and the decaying corpses of half-eaten creatures. The animals of the grove in the time of the halfling fled shortly after her disappearance, and those that stayed became prey for the new predators who took up residence. Those who have attempted to cultivate the grove and restore its former beauty find that introduced species are eaten or perish from disease, plants wither and die from the now-salty soil, and the water is brackish and undrinkable.
Some say a terrible bargain was negotiated in order for such a foul place to persist, while others maintain that the grove is an extension of Tol Kerdywel. One thing is certain though: those who venture into Dark Oak Grove return permanently altered as if the decay and stagnation have settled into their very being. They are plagued with dreams of death and cruelty, and often experience vivid hallucinations of being a walking corpse. Regardless of their destination, wise travelers avoid the grove at all costs.

Type

Forest