Geinsteinn Wilds

In the Kingdom of Dovenar , between the Anderyorn Crownlands and the Keilbarbolk, there is a place where the farms suddenly stop and the forest takes over. This is not a traditional Ederstone wasteland; there are no great walls or constant patrols dividing the "wilderness" from "civilization". 
Instead, as you travel through the fields of wheat, the farms slowly shrink and condense into hains, or walled gardens, with light forest between them. Then, the hains stop, though signs of foraging and livestock continue: firewood chopped around a stone Uvaran shrine, signs of pigs herded to eat acorns, roots and berries harvested with care. Finally, you reach the formal border: great stones carved with the image of Ertinar, and runes for "danger" carved into trees between them. Beyond this line, the Wilds are unchallenged. Only adventurers, exiles, brave eccentrics, and desperate bandits willingly enter here.
The Geinstein wilds are a strange and unique thing. It is not well understood, and the source of the land's magic isn't mechanically known. No Ederstone meteor crashed here, and while shards of the stuff can be found in Geinsteinn, they are rare and fail to explain the land's enchantment. The Uvaran priesthood and the locals simply say that it is the trauma of the land made manifest by Ederstone and blood magic. Geinsteinn does not mutate, it rebuilds, it resurrects, possesses, and defends: it "fixes" changes made to its landscape, replicates old slain monsters, enchants and ensorcles intruders, and lashes out against invaders. It does all these things very irregularly and inconsistently, following some logic of its own. Some paths and places are fine most of the time, but can turn against you in a moment for some perceived transgression. Some new buildings get to remain, while others are destroyed as if with great passion or oddly deconstructed and rebuilt elsewhere. 
The core of whatever is going on here is the Geinsteinn Ruins along the coast, a truly hostile and alien place from which few return. The Exorcist's Guild has spent the last decade trying to study (and potentially cleanse) the city, but was driven out of the Wilds a few months ago in a sudden burst of dangerous magical attacks. However, the wilds have not suddenly become hostile to everyone - the odd skirmish with bandits in the woods have continued as normal.

Geography

The Geinsteinn Wilds are 16 miles across and go 14-15 miles inland. It is primarily composed of dense temperate forest, with three hilly areas breaking up the dense foliage a bit.
The main body of the forest is called the Gravewoods, for both how dangerous they are and for their tendency to preserve grave markers and carvings for an abnormal amount of time. The Northwestern part of the Gravewoods are particularly dense and hostile. There is also a strange extension of the woods, a patch of oddly treeless grassland known as the Terlveer that seems to unnerve most everyone who walks on it and has soil that resists growing most plants. Right where the Terlveer ends and the woods begin, the trees suddenly form a near-solid wall of foliage.

The Northern Hills

On the Northern fringes of the Geinsteinn wilds are the two outer patches of hills: the Alkassan hills and the Dochra hills.
The Dochra Hills are the less hostile and more mundane of the two, in the Northeast. These are the tallest of the local hills, with three ranging into full mountains. This is where most of the exiles live, farming and herding, along with the handful of bandits.
The Alkassan Hills are much more dangerous and odd. They look extremely mundane, but odd things just happen all throughout - things vanish, things are replaced with strange items no one is looking, the trees seem to move slightly to make sure you get lost, sometimes people's hair grows rapidly or starts to fall out. Most notably, magic is frequently affected by wild magic.
A deep and sudden depression/crater in the Southern hills, known as the Alkassan Cauldron, has the most intense effects. There, wild magic invisibly surges in a great vortex that only sorcerers can intuitively sense. For most people, it is just an odd crater with a few weird cave-houses. In these caves, a hermitage coven of wild magic sorcerers, the blue mages (for their permanently-blue skin and clothes from wild magic effects) practice their craft. It takes some truly eccentric individuals to live here; the wild magic is dangerous even to non-mages, as in the Cauldron wild magic style effects can suddenly go off in people who have simply been exposed to magic - which is everyone, in Stildane. So living here full-time means being ready for random fireballs appearing at your location. The blue mages, by definition, are well-prepared, tough as nails, and essentially mad. While similar wild magic vortexes exist elsewhere, the Cauldron is unique in not being deep in an wasteland, where other anomalies and monsters seem drawn to them. Here, the flora and fauna are mundane and safe, and the location is reasonably easy to get to.

Innerwoods

Getting closer to the ruins, there are a few more unique locations worth noting here.
Tower Valiance is a tower atop an ancient temple to the Lunar Pantheon, the last remnants of a ruined village that has long since vanished. Tower Valiance was, until recently, the semi-official safe area and base for official expeditions into the wilds. In particular, the Exorcist's Guild had a significant permanent presence here, and had even rennovated the place a bit. Several months ago, monsters attacked tower valiance in a swarm and drove its residents back out of the wilds. The government has wanted to reclaim it, but has been too cautious to try yet - they do not want to escalate the conflict. So for now Tower Valiance is a point of danger, where monsters linger, rather than the safe haven it could be.
The Ghostmire is another current danger hot spot worth avoiding. It is a gloomy swamp, which is already unpleasant, but the wilds here are openly hostile to any intrusion. Not only are the hateful spirits here frequent, but they are necromantic. Undead servants rise from the muck to besiege any party foolish enough to enter. Plus, there are other monsters. Why this area is so hostile is unknown, but at least they only leave the mire if they are provoked from beyond its boundaries. If they do cross their threshold by provocation, they can wander a bit to lash out at any other travelers in the nearby woods - hence the fortifications directly to the East to stop them from approaching farmland or towns. While most people think the Ghostmire is just a bad place haunted by particularly bad memories, some people think the area is hostile because of some great treasure being guarded there.
The Lonely Tower sits on the coast to the Southwest. It is a large lighthouse covered in barnacles and marks of the sea, as if pulled from the ocean itself. It is functional, and does help passing ships avoid the point here. A small coven of warlocks devoted to the Elder Leviathan called The Vile Mass operate the lighthouse. This is a site of worship for it, but arguably a site of punishment as well - the warlocks here cannot interact with each other, but each are trapped in a lonely dreamlike world of their own. While their master does let them have regular meetings to discuss logistics, they spend most of their days haunted by each others' invisible presences. They are largely invisible to outsiders as well, and many assume this place is haunted. While the warlocks do have their powers enhanced and their connection to their patron strengthened while they are voluntarily trapped here, only a true devotee of alienation and isolation would bind themselves to this place. The surrounding coastline is rather dangerous, not just because of the wilds, but because of the Leviathan-touched beasts that wash in with the tides and nest in the area. The tower itself is safe, but typically marked on maps and information as dangerous because of the "hauntings". A warlock of the Vile Mass on decent terms with their patron may find the Southwestern beaches safer than the maps say. 
The Yovkirsh Hills are the hills closest to the Geinsteinn Ruins. These hills may not be that tall, but they are steep and carry a hostile geometry to them - it is clear that while they may appear very normal, every inch of this terrain was hand crafted by hateful spirits who wanted to maximize the general unpleasantness of the experience. Hidden caves dot the landscape - it can be easy to trip and fall through what seemed to be ordinary shrub or foliage into a deep pit of jagged rock if you aren't careful. For the truly desperate, the caves can also provide sanctuary, as they have for ancient peoples fleeing the last apocalyptic war. In fact, the caves used to protect those ancient people centuries ago are still there and still act as a pocket of safety, complete with old overgrown gardens that shed bountiful fruit. This garden-cave area is extremely difficult to get to and monsters like to roost in the surrounding area (it was defensible for a reason), but is there. 
Surrounding the safe-caves, the singular Yovkirsh mountain stands - an odd peak in otherwise smallish hills. The mountain is crescent in shape in a top-down view, but is otherwise a sheer arrowhead peak. Trying to climb it through mundane means is discouraged; it is a lethal challenge even for natural climbers like Kobolds, not because of its height but because it was, again, designed with the intent of hurting you. At the very top of Yovkirsh mountain sits the enigmatic tower, an inexplicable magical tower that just appeared from nowhere about fifty years ago. Odd buildings appear and vanish in the wilds, so this isn't too weird for most observers, but the Exorcist's Guild expeditions uncovered some odd details: the architecture is distinctly modern with foreign influence (largely Sunekan and Calazan  the tower is specifically placed on non-native stone to keep it from touching the mountain directly; the tower shows signs of regular cleaning; the tower has signs in several languages to not trespass; the tower has magical wards. The Guild feels certain this is a Darzan University research outpost, or at least some wizard who worked with them to secure such a tower. Whoever they are, the Guild is unhappy their magic wards and traps killed a research team and that they refused to apologize (or at least comment). 
And, of course, the epicenter of it all is the Geinsteinn Ruins,

Localized Phenomena

Aside from the location-specific phnemenon addressed in the Geography section, there are some general cross-wilds magical anomalies worthy of note:
Firstly, the monsters. The monsters of Geinsteinn are odd for Stildane in their consistency: rather than generate entirely unique creatures like in an Ederstone waste, Geinsteinn instead resurrects monsters, sometimes with edits, at seeming random intervals. New monsters that wander in from the wastes and die in the wilds are added to the local "vocabulary". Over the years, the lines of edits have grown rather complex and allow for quite a few monstrous possibilities, so it is best not to be over-confident in identifying one creature or another. Additionally, the monsters that resurrect in the wilds are seemingly semi-bound to the forest, and rarely wander far from it. 
While people typically think of the monsters as the primary threat, the enchantment of the forest is just as dangerous. Food from the depths of the forest can create illusions in the minds of people who eat it, and continual consumption can lead to periods of time under the control of an unknown presence. This enchantment isn't permanent and is not always hostile, but it can make longer expeditions and projects in the wilds disorienting and dangerous. It also makes the woods a place of inherent distrust.
Lastly, there is the mysterious appearing and vanishing ruined buildings. These are rare, and often don't last long. While they rarely appear or vanish when observed, there are plenty of rumors of them vanishing with people inside - taking those people with them.

History

The Fall of Glorious Geinsteinn

The history of the Geinsteinn wilds is an odd one. In 520 ME, Geinsteinn (also called Geinstenn) was the likely the largest urban settlement in Stildane. The city was the crown jewel and imperial capital of the ancient Empire of Andrig; it and its sister city of Mocksteinn were the great cities of middle Stildane, rivalled only by Trostev. In 495, though, a shadow loomed over Andrig. A terrible invasion, the First Kivish Scouring, had slain much of Trostev and burned every city and kingdom North of Andrig. Andrig marched against the Kivish, arrogant and ignorant of the power of their enemies. They were crushed, unlucky and foolish at once.
While Andrig's political elite shattered like glass and the empire crumbled away, the survivors rallied to defend what they could. Geinsteinn became their sanctuary - as far as they knew, it was the last city in the entire world left alive. The Kivish war machine ground them down slowly. Refugees crowded into the great city, fighting tooth and nail against what they knew as the apocalypse itself. The land known as the wilds were their final strongholds, surrounded by foes on all sides. Thrice they were offered surrender, but thrice they refused. The Kivish, they believed, would eat them or mutate them or enslave them, and surrender was not an option. They spat in the face of Verkohn the Truthful, the aging founder of the Kivish faith. And so, that ancient warlord and prophet declared that, as his final act of glory, he would personally oversee the absolute desolation of Geinsteinn. Much of his wrath focused on the city, what is now the Geinsteinn Ruins. No slaves were taken, but the city streets were alive with a mat of irradiated bodies. The Kivish brought out such quantities of Ederstone that the city melted around them. For non-Kobolds, time itself folded in; some did not end, but were forced to experience this moment of terror forever. Prisoners of war were herded into the melting city in droves. Once the voices were silent again, the Kivish tore up the shivering flesh-city, the sanctuary-and-citizenry-mixed, and planted it with salt across the Geinsteinn farmlands. Verkohn retired knowing that no one could ever live here again, and having proven the fundamental malleability of the world.
The Geinsteinn wilds blossomed with horrors for centuries after this macabre salting of the earth. Ghosts of raw malice stalked the ruined towns and castles as the growing horrors under the soil opened wide and brought entire fortresses down into their earthy maws. It was all nightmare, with no active Ederstone.

Making the New Wilds

Of course, the world didn't end. Andrig wasn't actually the last bastion of civilization. Stildane grew back. Later iterations of the Empire of Kizen and a new contender, The Kingdom of Hain, ran down the beasts of Geinsteinn. For centuries, the two states would periodically try and cut down the things that grew out of Geinsteinn, but they just kept coming back. But so did trees and shrubs. Animals returned to the forests that grew alongside the monsters. After 900 years, the land seemed to finally be back to mostly-normal. People even tried farming, with mixed results, in the 1300s and early 1400s. Odd things would come up with the crops, though, and the food could sometimes do strange things to those who ate them. Sometimes buildings would come out of the ground and kill people for no reason. Evil ghosts sometimes attacked. People still tried to make it work. It was free land, after all, and there was a sense that farming here would fix something that had broken long ago in how the world worked.
The Fourth Scouring of 1440 ME re-awakened Geinsteinn's problems. Ederstone rained down again. People fled to Geinsteinn, thinking it's taboos would save them. For some Kivish, Geinsteinn's horrors only made it more appealing as Verkohn's final piece of art and wisdom. Horrors ensued. The land re-awakened, in patches, in new and frightening ways. And, most strangely, a ruined city - the Geinsteinn Ruins - appeared. Parts of the city had been reformed or had not been scavenged, but this was a whole haunted dreamlike cityscape. The mystics that provoked its return celebrated and sought its wisdom. It offered precious little in the way of wealth or knowledge. The Chaos Magic Vortex in the hills also dates to this period of atrocity.

Recent History

Post-1500, the Geinsteinn wilds settled down into faux-normalcy fairly quickly. It did not, however, react well to resettlement. It did allow a small temple-village to be created, known as Toldril, but the inhabitants had to mostly hunt, gather, and garden rather than farm. When the next Scouring came in the late 1600s/early 1700s, the community of Toldril sheltered as many as they could from the neighboring fishing and trading town of Keilbar. When the Kivish came after them, the people of Toldril fled into the mountains near the city ruins, to hopefully lead any pursuers into the cursed ruins themselves. The ruins of the old settlement of Toldril are mostly gone, but what is now called the Tower of Valiance was actually the old temple at the center of the community.
Oddly, the Geinsteinn wilds seemed to care for these survivors, and sheltered them well through the next thirty years. The survivors lived traumatizing and strange lives in Geinsteinn's heart, but it didn't kill them or assume control over their bodies - and at the worst moments for them, it even seemed to try and give survivors food and shelter. The Scouring army, after some probes into the Wilds, concluded that the survivors were dead and that the Wilds could be safely ignored for the most part, though their hunters still pursued any survivors they spotted (mistaking them as escaped slaves). When the Scouring ended, the Wilds strangely had monsters dissemble the buildings the survivors had made and reassembled them outside of the wastes as a great tower; what is now called Alvain Tower in Keilbar.
Since 1750, Geinsteinn has remained uninhabited for the most part, but small groups have found their corners to nest in. Starting in the 1980s, the Exorcist's Guild even started running regular expeditions into the ruins area, as well as excavating for deep soil samples in search of whatever old Verkohn buried down there. These intrusions have not gone well.

Alternative Name(s)

Geinstenn wilds

Type

Region

Location under

Anderyorn Crownlands

Included Locations

• Geinsteinn Ruins

Owning Organization

Kingdom of Dovenar