Coillte ag Screadaíl

Geography

The forest is dense and possibly even more so than any other place in the southern Inis; it is dark. Its lack of marked roads and menhirs means that any travelers not well versed in Coillte ag Screadaíl's serpentine trails are highly likely to get lost. While those even moderately trained in woodcraft could forage food in plenty or drink from the myriad creaks that spread from the Great Rime river being lost in Coillte ag Screadaíl is often a death sentence. There is no safe harborage, there are no towns or inns to welcome the road-weary, there is only the hungering fangs of wolves and slavering maws of witches.

History

During the Age of Summer, it is said Coillte ag Screadaíl was a verdant green forest rolling over the hills of the north-east region. Hunting and gathering was easy and so beautiful was it that those elfin creatures of the Seelie court placed many grand palaces and estates therein. Chief among these were the Spring courts lead by an archfey named Oberon. Here it was said was an immense hunting grounds that he would often take people he favored on grand safaris to hunt strange creatures and participate in debauched parties.

After the Age of Summer ended, and whatever caused the forests to twist a darker turn, those beautiful estates and places of power turned to moss eaten stones. Left to rot as their earlier tenants abandoned them to the creeping Age of Autumn.

It has seen a host of military actions near its shoreline as Fwoarians and Huldufolk constantly war along the trails stretching from Coillte ag Screadaíl to the Low Muck. Aside from that, the forest is largely uninhabited by the mortal tribes and only a handful of Skilti brave the region out of Skiltona-Rath, few having the courage to travel more than a few miles from the Caern-Raths's protection.

Ecosystem

The general population of endemic life is typical of any temperate forest with elk, small woodland mammals and birds filling many of the niches present. However, these creatures serve as little more than food for the night-horde of fiends that roam these hills. No one is sure where they come from, though it is speculated that sometime during the end of the Age of Spring many horrifying creatures and unseelie escaped from the mythical Áit an Bhróin and fled south to the then verdant forests of Coillte ag Screadaíl.

Flora & Fauna

The mundane alone is enough to make the lost wanderer wary with wolves, elks, lynxes, boar, stags, salamanders, and some mega-fauna competing with hags, lycanthropes, wendigo, phooka, barghests, cwn annwn, glintwings, ravenmockers, and worse. The forest is teeming various forms of flora including oaks, elms, thorns, mosses, ferns, ash trees, birches, woad plants and other clinging vines intent on impeding travel.

Localized Phenomena

The Night Cries - Sleep is the first thing these woods rob of lost travelers. The night is a constant din of howling, screaming unseen threats. They often sound as if they are coming from every direction and the deeper one travels into the forests the louder and more blood-curdling those sounds grow. Tales are told of hunters, trappers and merchants driven to a literal point of insanity by the unending sounds of death and ravenous consumption that harried their every waking moment.