Coilleskog
Geography
The entire region is scarred with large fissures, often raised to become ledges or small cliffs. There is a river running the length of the forest that originates from a spring in the middle, flowing both North and South as the forest expands. There are a few long ranges of hills in the Coilleskog, which are not tall but are very steep. We know little of the exact mapping as most who have been far enough in to get an accurate map have not returned.
Ecosystem
There is very little bare ground, the forest is impossibly thick, tangled roots being the primary floor of the forest. In those places where soil is visible, it acts more like bog mug or quicksand, there to punish those who are not on constant alert. There are some places where crags have created a stone face on the ground, which are often covered near completely by bioluminescent lichen.
Ecosystem Cycles
Summer does not seem to exist here. There is a season of growth, a season of dying and a dead season which can be called analagous to spring, autumn, and winter respectively. The temperatures in the 'winter' do not get low enough for snow but are consistently at or just above freezing, slowing down most creatures and killing off those that were only barely able to get by during the 'spring' or 'fall'.
The 'spring' and 'fall' are barely distinguishable from each other in an immediate sense except with outside knowledge of the date. The differences can be observed over the course of a few weeks as the forest gets louder or quieter as the 'season' would demand. A hypothetical demarcation1 has been put forward by the naturalist community of [Southwest Country] and theoretically validated by the Azendelian Society of Naturalists, but lacks data due to difficulty in experimentation in the region.
Localized Phenomena
There are frequent storms above the Coilleskog but relatively low levels of rainfall, with superaverage amounts of lightning and a significantly high proportion of ground strikes. The nature of these storms should leave significant portions of the forest burnt at any given moment, which is not seen in what airborne observations have been made thus far, but the thick canopy may be occluding the results of the storms.
These storms are also known to be semimagical in nature, though the etiology of the storms is unclear, as no rituals are known to have taken place at significant enough scale during either the inception of the Coilleskog or during any one of the storms, nor is any religious sect dedicated to maintaining these storms or the forest as-is.
Fauna & Flora
Flora
Much of the flora that has been reported to the outside is carnivorous. This includes a higher proportion of Corpse Flowers, twig blights, and flesh-eating fungi. There are a few Treants which are known to hunt outsiders, toying with them before trapping them in their branches to rot. All the non-tree flora are accustomed to low light on the forest floor, developing dark green pigments or using other beings as energy sources. Bioluminescent lichen grows on many surfaces, acting as the main source by which many things see below the canopy.
Fauna2
Flightless Fauna
The Fauna of the Coilleskog is primarily undead, with ghouls, nightwalkers, and various slimes comprising the priamry sapient life forms in the forest. There are several new species of normal fauna that have been sighted only in and very near the wood, including one species of deer, three of bats, seven of various rodents, and a distinct species of wolf which seems to be symbiosing with some form of flora. Slimes tend to stay near to their lichen cousins, as they can communicate concerning food sources and energy.
Ettercaps and spiders have also enwebbed large paths worn into the forest by the movement of the other fauna. They rely on poor visibility and fast chases to catch prey that stumbles unwittingly into their traps.
Finally, there are several types of amphibians, including 2 species of frogs, 5 species of salamanders and one Caecilian not seen outside the Coilleskog. The known species of amphibian are in the minority but generally have defenses enough to get by, where the novel species have enhanced colouring as well as improved defenses-- for example, some of the salamanders spit fire, others are simply more vibrant with toxin much more potent.
Flying Fauna
The primary flying inhabitants of the Coilleskog are insects, including several species of beetle, four reported species of moth, two species of Lampyridae, or beaconflies, and three genera of flesh-eating insects, including vampire-flies.
The main avian population of the forest are Corvidae, primarily of genus Corvus, which encompasses ravens and crows (of which two new species have been reported), with a smaller population of jays filling out the rest of the Corvids. There is a thriving population of vultures and hawks, the latter of which has speciated significantly within the forest based on observations of the skies over Coilleskog.
History
The forest is known to have appeared by the 955th year of the Inverani organization, in all its many forms, and the 521st year of the Herzen Kingdom, just before the settlement of modern-day Azendale3. The years have been measured from its discovery since the second decade of its existence as it proved itself a major threat to the integrity of three and then four of the six major nations in existence on Vequist.
The origin of the Coilleskog is unknown, though Cynas is assumed to have some role, and the reason for its expansion beyond even the possibility of guessing for the naturalistic and religious communities alike. The forest was discovered in the second month of the modern year 0, by an Inveran who had planned on deserting South to Waldbend who reported back after being stricken with foreboding upon seeing the forest.
Since that time, the Coilleskog has grown in fits and starts, though it has, since the naturalists began obvserving it in 12 AC, never fully ceased growing, growing inches or feet instead of miles on the years where it is 'calm'. The mechanism behind the seemingly coordinated growth and the transformation of the terrain, ecology and environment of the space that the forest claims is unknown and investigation is currently untenable due to significant casualties for each attempt.
In the early years, the thicket expanded at a rate of approximately three hundred fifty square miles-per-Monar, followed in the year 153 AC by a spike to approximately one thousand miles-per-Monar which held until 237 AC. The rate of growth slowed beginning in Exand of that year to a near-standstill with no warning, a pace of a mere quarter-square-mile per Monar, maintaining pace for 12 years. The following decade saw the expansion slow further to the year 260, where the documented growth was a mere 17 square feet, measured multiple times. The following year, the expansion resumed in relative earnest, increasing to 20 square miles per year on average. The Coilleskog currently occupies a tract of land some 200 miles across at its thickest, curved down the continent with an arclength of some 720 miles4. As of 1 Enad, 407 AC, the preceeding three decades have seen a near-complete stagnation of growth of the Coilleskog, though with no way of predicting the whims of the forest, preparations must be made by every affected nation before disaster strikes once more5 6.
1: This hypothetical demarcation between Coilleskog 'spring' and Coilleskog 'autumn' lies in the activity of the bioluminescent lichen and was proposed at the International Naturalists' Conference in the year 330 AC. The increase in the size and danger levels of the Coilleskog have since rendered testing this hypothesis nearly impossible, though it is considered theoretically valid.
2: These writings are consistent with accepted naturalistic documentation as of 407 AC
3:The area in which the Coilleskog was discovered was uninhabited at the time and had relatively low traffic, so it is unknown if the discovery date is, in fact, the date of its inception or how long the bramble had been there if it began earlier.
4: The Coilleskog takes up a space largely similar in shape to an arc of a circle, though researchers have also measured by hypotenuse and approximate "side" lengths and found similar results.
5: Growth in the last 3 decades has slowed to, at its lowest, in the year 400, literal square inches. These measurements were validated by the placement of stone-anchored markers that were overrun by the forest over the course of the year.
6: The change in growth rate has been theorized to be correlated to a number of things but none have been validated on a historical case-study or evidentiary basis.
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