The Margreve Forest

The Old Margreve Forest is an ancient place, already old when most of the gods were young. In time immemorial, it cradled the great spirits of nature, and its loam felt the footfalls of the old ones. As millennia passed, its roots swallowed rivers, its canopy stole the sun from vast tracts of land, and its groves crested mountains that have since weathered to hills. In all that time, the Margreve has changed little. Time seems to flow around it, lapping at its edges like the sea around an island. As kingdoms rise and fall beyond its borders, the Margreve remains a world apart—a place where memories and old magic linger in the rings of trees and where new ideas never quite take root.
Very little is known in the world at large about the Margreve’s interior. There is simply something wrong with the place, something that unsettles the nerves, plays upon fears, and discourages exploration. Too many stories of danger exit the wood, and too many travelers do not. The few adventurers who dare the Margreve’s deep trails return with strange scars, stranger stories, and too few prizes to warrant either. From the outside, the Margreve looks like any Old World forest. In some places it is dark, tangled, and foreboding. In other places, it is sun-dappled and open, like an evergreen palace of towering tree pillars, ivy carpet, and wind-rustled canopy. But there is something more to it. Something hiding behind the wind and the leaves and the trees. Something living and vigilant. A presence that none who stand dwarfed among the trees can deny.
The Margreve unsettles the nerves of interlopers, evoking fear and trembling, especially in first-time visitors. It conjures awe and intimidation as the intruder delves deeper. And nearest the heart of the forest, the unsettling feeling of being in proximity to a supernatural or divine “other” is intensified. Most describe this faceless “other” as a dark, sinister presence, but perhaps they are simply not in touch with the natural order of this ancient place. Deep-woods druids cast the Margreve in a brighter, if not wilder, light, describing the supernatural presence as beautiful, terrible, and bestial. They talk of “Margreve” as if it were a living creature with a personality and a will of its own. Religious figures reject the idea that the forest is alive but acknowledge that some great presence lives therein. Worshipers of Nylea and Pharika claim to hear the whispers of a withdrawn aspect of their "Green" Gods. Others sense older gods, inimical to man and dwarf, brooding in the forest’s vastness and waiting for the age of man to pass. Perhaps they are all right. Even Baba Yaga confesses, “The Margreve came before such recent inventions as gods and spells and names and language.”