The Winterwood is the largest forest in the Celedrim Plains region, a vast expanse of ancient conifers that clings to the northern foothills of the Kharvorn Mountains. It marks the transition between the frozen steppe and the mountain ranges to the south—a belt of dark evergreens that provides shelter, resources, and danger in roughly equal measure.
Character
The trees of the Winterwood are old. Some of the oldest are thousands of years old, their trunks wide enough that a dozen people linking arms couldn't encircle them. The forest floor is a maze of fallen giants, their rotting bodies hosting entire ecosystems of fungi, insects, and small mammals. Snow filters through the canopy, but the interior is sheltered from the worst of the plains' winds.
The forest is dark. The dense canopy blocks most light even in summer, and in winter the perpetual twilight can be disorienting. Sound carries strangely through the trees—what seems nearby may be miles away, and things that should be loud arrive as whispers.
Inhabitants
The Winterwood is not empty. Wolves, bears, elk, and countless smaller creatures make their homes here. But the forest also shelters things that prefer darkness—creatures that have lived in these woods since before the first humans crossed the frozen plains.
The Neth do not enter the deep Winterwood. Their ancestors learned that lesson long ago. The Zwaeron skirt its edges, hunting the game that ventures out onto the tree line, but they too avoid the interior. Whatever bargains humans have struck with the lords of the forest, they predate written history and are not discussed.
The Jotunhills Border
The northern edge of the Winterwood brushes against the Jotunhills, and here the forest takes on a different character. The trees grow stunted and twisted, bent by winds that carry the cold breath of the Jotun highlands. The giants do not enter the deep forest—something there even they fear—but they hunt along the tree line, and woe to any traveler caught between the Jotun hunting parties and whatever lurks beneath the ancient canopy.
Relation to Argysis
The southern edge of the Winterwood overlooks Argysis, one of the Kharvorn sub-ranges where the lake dwarves of Sennos once lived before their exile. The dwarves have no love for the forest—they remember, even after thousands of years, that the Winterwood offered no shelter during their flight northward. Some say the forest itself turned them away, its ancient intelligence recognizing that the dwarves had brought doom upon themselves and refusing to share in it.