The Encroaching Deadwood

The Encroaching Deadwood is Mordonia's most recent and most terrifying region—a festering scar upon the land birthed just twelve years ago during the catastrophic event known as The Sundering of the Veil. In that fateful moment, a portion of an unknown layer of the Abyss was violently torn from its plane and transposed into the material world. This eldritch upheaval ripped through the planar boundaries, birthing a twisted, demonic forest steeped in blood, brimstone, and chaos.
The Sundering of the Veil united the fractured lands of Mordonia like never before. City-states and proud kingdoms alike rallied to resist the abyssal invasion. The war was won, but only at immense cost. Among the fallen were two of the realm’s most storied leaders: the noble King Albrecht III of Solania, and the fierce Sultan Prince Jahan of Al-Zandhar, who both perished in the final siege to drive the demon lords back through the rift. Their sacrifices sealed most of the breaches… but not all.
Now, the Deadwood stands as a nightmarish monument to the conflict. A blighted, crimson-tinged forest choked with fiendish growth and demonic corruption, it continues to pulse with unstable planar energy. All manners of fiends stalk its gnarled paths, drawn to the remaining tears in the fabric of reality—temporary portals that flicker open like wounds between realms.
The Kingdom of Solania has declared the Deadwood a forbidden zone, with elite patrols and magical wards meant to monitor its borders. Travel within requires royal sanction, although desperate adventurers, occult scholars, and foolhardy glory seekers have been known to sneak in. Many never return.
Those who do speak of horrid wonders: wells of infernal power, cursed temples, and ancient altars still oozing with demonic influence—each often associated with a specific demon lord or abyssal entity. Some whisper of dark pacts made within the trees, and artifacts too dangerous to be allowed into mortal hands.
At the center of this cursed sprawl looms its most infamous landmark: The Dreadroot, a vast, floating tree of blackened bark and blood-red leaves. It hovers impossibly above a crater of scorched earth, marking the exact point where the Abyss tore through. Its branches coil in agony and its roots drink deep of the realm’s lifeblood. No soul who has approached the tree and returned has done so sane—or living.
To the east, Flangleton lies in eerie silence—once a modest Solanian town, now mostly abandoned and cut off from the rest of the kingdom, clinging to the edge of the Deadwood's shadow.
The Encroaching Deadwood remains a reminder of what lies just beyond the veil—and what happens when the walls between worlds fail.