Stilvald

The Stilvald 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 Stilvald has changed little. Tim seems to flow around it, lapping at its edges like the sea
around an island. As kingdoms rise and fall beyond its borders, the Stilvald 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 Stilvald’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 Stilvald's deep trails return with strange scars, stranger stories, and too few prizes to warrant either.

From the outside, the Stilvald 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.