Crying Woods

The Crying Woods, also called Nemorlachria, is a malevolent, magical, near-sentient forest located to the northeast of the Elennian Peninsula. It rises up on a plateau, ranging in 50' to 75' above the surrounding country, and is bounded on the west by the sea, on the north by The Great Prairie, and on the east and south by rivers leading to and from a large lake, which is the current home of the The Floating City.

Scale is approx 50 miles per hex

In ancient days, this forest was home to both drow and a race of intelligent reptiles. After a brutal war, which ended in the devastation of both races at the end of the second age, the Crying Woods rejected all animal life, and became malevolent. In the Cataclysms that followed, it barely managed to survive, and its hatred toward all creatures became stronger. Now the forest is actively hostile to all non-plant creatures, and it fights them in its ways.

In the weeks proceeding the Sargrass Crossover, the Wood sought to protect itself by concentrating in the northwest corner of its former self, and lifting the land up to a plateau. By concentrating itself, the Crying Woods is even more powerful than before.

Therefore, any living creatures (except plant creatures) are attacked if they enter the Woods, without exception. Non living, or beyond living creatures have been known to enter Woods - the gods, the undead, elementals, and the like. Since the Crying Woods concentrated itself, no mortal being has entered and returned to tell the tale.

All manner of creatures live in the now non-sentient portion of the old Woods, including:

• A clan of green dragons.
• A tribe of elves have found a way (via an ancient Teucri artifact) to merge an elven soul with the heart of the Wood. The merged soul can mitigate the Woods' longstanding animosity toward some creatures. The current merged soul is a former adventurer and member of The Crimson Shields of Hope adventuring party.
• The drow. They still possess magic crystals that allowed them to move safely through the Woods. But these crystals are ineffective on the plateau.
• There are rumors that reptiles survive on the fringes of the Woods, but if true, no one knows how.

There is a rumor in the Float that a Lost City of Gold that exists somewhere in the Crying Woods.

Some of the flora of the Crying Woods includes:

Purple orcs. These are not orcs at all. They are some kind of a plant in humanoid form, spawned by carnivorous trees, and born in pods that hang from the branches. These ‘orclets’ are fast, and able to swarm and overpower much stronger creatures. Their claws seem enchanted, causing those they hit to fall into a deep sleep. When slain, orclets grow with magical speed into trees themselves, as if they were seeds all along.

Other plants include:

• Vanilla Pods – brown, about 6” long, carrying a beautiful aroma of rich vanilla.
• Spiny Sunflowers - grow in bog mud (which is, by the way, beneficial to the skin as a softener). These flowers shoot out spines, like arrows, at intruders, usually waiting until they are stuck in the mud. The spines are strong as steel and vary in length.

Recently the Crying Woods has retreated from the rest of the forest and raised itself up on a plateau to limit contact with the mammalian world.

Here are two maps of the lands around The Crying Woods:

The Lizard Folk have made a treaty with The Float and now control the outlined area of the forest. They are rebuilding an ancient city they are calling Riverton.

The Beast Folk Village is an ancient pyramid that the Beast Folk of The Float colonized recently.

Cutter is a wood cutting and lumber village set up by Torbin Cook a lumber merchant in The Float.

Merfolk City (what the Float calls the city) is an underwater city of Merfolk at the bottom of Lake Turtle.

It-lal is a city of surface Drow.

On this the map, the scale is 25 miles per hex.