The Mist

This is no ordinary Mist, children - nay! For it has swept up the Soul of every Beast, every wolf, every vicious creature that lurks in the shadow of those great trees. Anything that lays down to die on the floor of the Ancient Forest will be caught up by the Mist, and its life force will help fuel the savagery of its cruel, cold embrace...

— A Varsii Droll Teller on a street corner in Alahnis, Kredashmi

The Ancient Forest

Versarna (pronounced Ver-SAHN-ah) is the second largest country in that makes up the Saeric Lands, situated on the northern side of the Saeric Basin. It is unique amongst the Searic Lands in that it has not been extensively mapped. The Ancient Forest is thought to take up the majority of the landmass, and is considered impenetrable because of the aggressive nature of the hostiles that call the forest their home.
It is said that each night, just after sunset, a heavy chill enters the air. All across the forest floor, tiny whisps of smoke begin to drift through the leaf-litter, as if a pyre has been lit below the stage of the world. They flail and claw their way up into the air, like some giant squid rising up out of the depths of the Unaidin Sea. As the moon rises into the night sky, the sight of it shielded by the dense canopy of the Anciet Forest, the Mist takes its ethereal and hulking form.

Appearance

There have been scant few travellers and wanderers who have become lost in the Mists and lived to tell the tale. In the immediate aftermath of the encounter, victims are unable to do anything beside babble incoherently. Most are quickly rendered unconscious by the local Healer, though it is uncertain as to whether this is to impose a healing sleep on the victim's mind, or to prevent their hysteria from spreading to onlookers nearby.
The description of the terrors seen in Mists are varied in their detail, but horrifying in the victims' absolute conviction in their experience. Some accounts describe the sight of an entire armies emergying from the heart of the Mists, while others claim their are pursued by a pack of savage wolves.

by Abeer Khan

by Nathan Anderson

Behaviour

by Evgeny Nelmin

The Mist is a terrible foe. It cannot be halted. It cannot be fought. It cannot be slowed. It cannot be killed. Man has no chance of fighting back. Our onlydefence is to climb out of its merciless reach, or hide behind our walls.

— Captain of the Wall Watch to new recruits, Trenerry.

The one constant from the accounts is that, regardless of the figures or creatures that chase them, they act like a single entity rather than a group. This has given rise to the thought amongst the Varsii that the Mist is an entity with its own intelligence.
The Mist does not stay low to the ground, and is only present until sunrise. It can reach heights of up to 12 feet, but inexplicably cannot penetrate defensive walls that are built higher than this. The potancy of the Mist lessens the nearer it gets to the coast, which suggests that the Mist may be a construct of Ancient Faerii Power. The Mist is not known to appear often outside of the Ancient Forest; despite this, coastal towns and cities maintain their defensive walls and impose curfew on their inhabitants, demanding they be back inside the safety of the settlement's gates an hour before sundown.

Deaths in the Mist

Despite the differing accounts of the horrors contained in the Mist, bodies recovered of victims caught out in the Mist are similar. Sallowed cheeks; expressions of abject terror; bruising around the throat; blood-shot eyes. Worse to behold are the horrendous gouges in the victims' faces, self-inflicted by the victim judging by the blooded and broken nails.