Caenareth
Caenareth, the realm of the Court of Blight, is a land draped in decay’s sacred hush—not dead, but dying beautifully, eternally caught in the slow unraveling of nature. It is a place where every root aches with rot, every breeze carries the perfume of fungus and wet bark, and the trees weep sap as thick as blood. The sky above is seldom visible, veiled in a sickly, silver-grey mist that clings to branches and limbs like mourning cloth. Shafts of pale, sick sunlight occasionally pierce the haze, illuminating mold-slicked trunks and puddles of oily water, but even this light feels tired—half-hearted and haunted.
The landscape is a labyrinth of withered woods, fetid bogs, and fungal meadows blooming with grotesque beauty. Towering trees, long dead, still stand in solemn rows, their limbs draped with moss and black-veined ivy, while others sag under the weight of parasitic blooms—orchids the size of skulls, lichen that pulses faintly with inner light, and mushrooms that burst from bark like mouths gasping for air. Pools of stagnant water dot the lowlands, filmed over with sickly rainbow hues or blooming with hyacinths that feed on carrion. The ground itself is soft and swollen, thick with decomposing leaves, mulch, and a network of roots that seem to squirm underfoot when no one watches.
At the heart of Caenareth lies the Withering Court, a natural amphitheater formed by a ring of towering, hollow trees whose trunks spiral open like rotted teeth. There, grown impossibly aged, withered and gnarled, but still alive is the Eldest Oak, the ancient ArchFey of decay and dissolution. The ground around the Eldest Oak is thick with boneblossoms—flowers that bloom from the remains of animals and mortals alike, their petals curling like tongues.
To the east, the Festerfen stretches in brackish pools and sinking trails. Here, the air is thick with spores, and strange fey creatures known as Mirewives wade through the reeds, offering dubious cures or gathering ingredients for their toxic crafts. Clusters of sorrow-willows line the mirebanks, their roots straining toward the water like hands reaching for something long lost. Visitors here often return ill—if they return at all—with memories that rot or dreams that grow mold in the corners of the mind.
In the west lies the Hollow Bloom, a vast expanse of fungal forest where mushrooms grow as tall as trees and tower over the crumbling husks of forgotten structures. The fey of this region do not walk, but drift—carried on threads of mycelium like marionettes moved by unseen wills. Spores drift constantly in the air, forming halos around those who dwell within, and the ground breathes, rising and falling as though the very realm is alive… and slowly digesting.
Caenareth is not a place of misery—it is a place of truth, of endings honored and decomposition revered. Here, nothing is wasted, and everything has its place in the cycle. The Court of Blight teaches that even rot has a rhythm, and from every collapse grows a new kind of beauty. In Caenareth, death is not a punishment. It is a promise. And it blooms slowly, with patience, and the quiet dignity of all things returning to the soil.
Geography
The geography of Caenareth is somber, fetid, and richly layered—a decaying sanctum where life returns to the soil, and the land exhales through rot. The terrain is predominantly low and sunken, riddled with sodden hollows, marshy basins, and lichen-choked woods. The forest canopy, such as it is, is formed of ancient trees—some long dead, others clinging to half-life—many of which have been hollowed by fungus or split open by black-rooted ivy. These trees lean at unnatural angles, their trunks spongy with rot and their branches heavy with parasitic growth. It is a realm where gravity favors decay, and even the tallest things seem to be slowly bending downward into the earth.
The ground is soft and untrustworthy—a quilt of mulch, moss, and decomposing leaves, stitched together by webs of fungal mycelium that glow faintly in the dark. In some areas, the soil swells and breathes like a living lung, while elsewhere it opens into sinkholes filled with stagnant water or slick mud that moans when stepped upon. Stone is rare, and when found, it is often overtaken by lichen, black moss, or clusters of bone-white mushrooms that bloom from cracks and veins in the rock. Paths are few, and those that exist are often overgrown, shifting, or hidden beneath mats of creeping mold and ivy.
Water is everywhere—not in clean rivers or babbling brooks, but in slow-moving rivulets, fetid bogs, and sunken ponds thick with duckweed, algae, and floating hyacinths that conceal bottomless depths. These waters reflect little light, often murky with decay or tinged with iridescent films. Some pools are surrounded by whispering reeds or weeping vines, while others are entirely encircled by fungal trees that lean inward like mourners around a grave.
Scattered throughout Caenareth are rotted clearings, where the trees have fallen inward, forming soft craters in the land. These serve as natural gathering spaces for the Court, and are often rich with boneflowers, deathcap groves, or creeping vines that bloom only in shadow. In higher elevations—rare in this realm—sludge-slick ridges and moss-choked barrows rise above the swampy floor, providing dry ground for the Withering Court’s rituals and processions.
Even the air is part of the geography—thick with mist, spores, and the sweet-sour tang of fermentation. Wind is sluggish here, dragging fog and scent along the ground rather than lifting it. Sounds carry strangely, muffled by rot-dampened wood and layers of moss, and visibility is often limited to a few paces unless one stands beneath the hollow eye of a dead tree or atop the swollen rise of an ancient fungal bloom.
Caenareth is not wild in the way of the hunt—it is wild in its reclamation, a place where death is the architect and rot is the sculptor. Every ridge sinks in time. Every path is swallowed. Every map is rewritten in mold. And the land, in its quiet, decomposing majesty, remembers every root, every ruin, and every breath that was ever given back to the earth.
Climate
The climate of Caenareth is warm, wet, and unrelentingly humid—a fevered breath that never quite cools, thick with the scent of loam, mildew, and slow decay. Rain falls often but gently, a constant misting drizzle that keeps the ground damp and the air heavy. Even on drier days, fog clings low to the earth, rising in languid coils from mossy hollows and fungal groves. The sun, when it appears, filters weakly through grey clouds or the mold-laced canopy, casting a wan, sickly light that nourishes more fungus than flower. Nights are no cooler, only darker—lit by bioluminescent spore clouds and the faint glimmer of mycelial veins pulsing beneath the forest floor. There are no clear seasons in Caenareth—only a slow, perpetual waning, where growth collapses into decay, and decay births strange, unwholesome beauty.