The Fog

A small stack of reports filed by the Holy See that are currently hosted in the Tribunal archive. These reports are from the last eight or so years regarding events near or around the mist surrounding Gaspard Territory in Coerthas.

• A report from one Girard Aubert, in regards to his attempts to settle on what he assumed was unclaimed land near the Gaspard Territory, goes on at length about his experiences involving unusual phenomena during his attempts.
  • Path markers placed by Aubert were apparently moved by another party to make the trek more difficult. As the man did not seem of sound mind when submitting his claims, there is speculation that he may have simply placed them poorly to begin with.
  • Repeated mention of an eerie light that would flicker in the corner of his vision.
  • Materials brought to the build site were ruined overnight by an unknown party. Mister Aubert claims that boards were suddenly rotted through and stones soundly cracked into unusable gravel.
  • Repeated mention of voices that would giggle in his head and around him as he trekked the area.
  • Mister Girard Aubert has also subsequently been admitted for further medical evaluation in regards to his erratic state of mind upon submission of his reports.

A report funded by House Spencer, filed and published by the scholars of House [REDACTED] on their experiences in the misty territory of House Gaspard, compiled after they returned from their month long expedition into the unknown. 

Lead author: Ulysses Vaimoix 
Authors: Delmar Warner, Conra Djt-Nong, [REDACTED], and [REDACTED].

The following is a summary of the discoveries during their expedition.

Using an aetherometer showed that the air is thick with magic and aether, almost palpable in its intensity.

One of the scholars had found themselves forehead to nose with a snow white, black speckled coeurl like being that is the size of the lowest branches. It bristled when spotted, hissing sounding like the sweetest song as it walked backwards into the increasing mists. Attempting to follow the creature caused the forest to hiss back at the travelers.

Shadows and light appeared in the corners of their eyes quite often, but upon looking-- there was nothing there. Some scholars claimed of hearing a giggle of a child in their right ear, asking to play.

Whenever the visitors looked into their magnifying glass the trees had a passing resemblance to their party members-- or to themselves. One scholar swore up and down that one of the doppelgangers spoke to him.

The expedition clothes the scholars wore into the mists were constantly soiled by dirt, grime, and wild animal slobber. No amount of washing fixed it, and the scholars quickly adapted to their new foul attire. Shortly after their clothes changed, they discovered that all of their left shoes were missing. The shoes were later found dangling from a particularly tall oak tree, and sent their most limber scholar to retrieve them.

The trees all appeared to be different colors to each member of the expedition, an occurrence that not only happened on a group level but also on an individual level, as no two scholars could agree upon a hue of a singular specimen. During the hours in which this was debated at length, some entity saw fit to unravel the party's bedrolls. 

Shrubs appeared lush and ripe with long forgotten berries and ready-to-pick nuts. Much to the dismay of two members of the expedition, these specimens were not only edible but also extremely hallucinogenic. These members were forced to be carefully tied to a guard to ensure they didn't stumble away from camp in their addled state. The effects seemed to last for about three days.

Every page of their tomes read like the first page. Endlessly. No matter how much they write. The effect ends when they walk out of the fog and into the open blue skies of Coerthas.

It was discovered after the first week that all objects that gleamed like coin or glass were taken, even one member's reading monocle. One scholar claims it was by a set of disembodied hands, another claims it was swallowed by a small mouth that appeared from nothing, and a third swears by the Fury he saw little icy legs sprout from the monocle and run off.

Like an alligator surging from the depths of a calm river and snapping up its prey, jaws of mist surge up from below in a giant, multi-mandibled maw to close around a scholar and bodily lift them off the ground. They are briefly but roughly shaken by the incorporeal head before it sinks back down just as suddenly as it snapped them up, taking the ignorant creature down with them. The ground is silent and serene once more the moment they are gone. Someone from House Orraux had walked into the fog and returned with a shaken scholar. They are covered in violet petals and their hair is now an odd shade of silver, but the scholar is more than happy to be home.

- The lights in the forest flicker, and they will come across a campsite that has been recently abandoned. Temple Knight armor rests around the fire, swords stabbed into the earth, as if they've all left in a hurry. Berries that are out of season are burnt on the cooking slab.

[WIP] A not so comprehensive collection of stories uttered in inns, taverns, and hearths around the Coerthas Highlands.
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cw: dental horror

Most do not think of what happens to the bones that they leave behind in the woods. Most would think that they remain, slowly rotting, flesh peeling, moss growing across the skull for eager alchemists to scrape off for medicines and tonics.

For these bones, the bones of an abuser most fowl, murdered by the hands of the blood that signed the covenant of the valley, they do not. These bones are plucked. They are passed femur to arm to femur. Ankle to wrist. They are fashioned into new things. Tools. Whistles. Jewelry. The hands of the blood that slew him do not find him again.

It is in the dead of the night, slid under her pillow, the matriarch will find a set of polished teeth shining up at her. Laced into a bracelet, the sharpest points stick out. A warning, but not for her. Never for her. Perhaps when her kin go hunting, they may find the bits of who that man may have been buried as trail markers. Settled into lost arrow heads of arrows gone astray. It is a promise.

They shall be used, these offerings of yours.


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A good many moons ago, when Coerthas was yet green and before you were born, it was good luck to drink from a pawprint pressed into the fresh mud that bubbled up in the beginning of spring. Drinking the snow melt, or so your family tales say, would offer strange feats of power. The skill to tame any bird, or being able to run in the forests without making a sound. These water laden tracks were gifts, they may have whispered, from the last of the songteller's brood. The water being their tears that filled each groove.

Perhaps that is why in stories where a child of the forest is taken and pushed to preform miracles, naught but destruction and rotting despair seems to follow. A blessing taken is no longer a blessing  Tainted by malice and greed, it morphs into a bane that bites deeper than any tick or leech.


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Those shunned by the church whisper of a silver maiden who once roamed the fields with a sack full of wonders, offering them in exchange for tales and songs both. It is said she appears at random, be it on the brightest day or the longest night, traveling the earth on a schedule those who walk the cobblestones of Ishgard cannot fathom. It is said that while her wares seem to be naught more than bobbles, they have seen so many adventures and lives that they have obtained an odd power of their own. She asks for little in exchange, or so the tales go, though those that cheat her in their bargains find something else missing come morn. Their balance. Their hearing. Their ability to taste.

It is said that somewhere there is a ring that allows its barer to taste the composition of souls. A necklace who states its wearer shall never topple. An anklet that whispers secrets found behind closed doors to those who don it. But those are whispers of those less fortunate, the forsaken and heresy ridden.


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'The ground is made of wyrms, you know.' You hear from a group of children who watch you saddle your chocobo before you head off into the unknown. 'They sleep underneath our feet.'

When you ask the children what they mean by 'made of wyrms', they point to a hill that has a noble's castle settled atop it. 'That is its spine! The house keeps it still. My friends said so.' You roll your eyes, saying that they should stop spouting tall tales.

Before the calamity, you hear tell of a dragon that burst from the earth when a gardener dug too deep into the soft, fertile earth of a noble family's garden. It shot up into the sky, leaving a crater where it used to rest, and the remains of a house that once overlooked everything around it.


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There is a woman who has a small hutch of chickens along the path you're taking to Riversmeet. Her smile is kind and toothless while she offers you the biggest bowl of fowl soup that she has. Despite not being hungry, you take a bite. Then another. And another. She ladles you another bowl when you are finished. You eat that too.

Each swallow brings to mind kinder days, and your bones feel warm. Your mind is soft as she finally pulls the bowl away from you, despite your fingers curling towards it in a soft, pleading whine.

She carries you to a bed with strength that belies a grandmother, and she leans forward to kiss your forehead. You feel safe. You are safe. You are loved.

Waking up outside of Camp Dragonhead, swaddled to the nines to keep yourself from freezing, your stomach feels full.

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Biting into the venison you brought with you on your hike feels.. wrong.

It is a slow, creeping wrong, like you've eaten something that doesn't belong to you. Your hooves do not stray from your path, and your ears flick back at the sound of a branch breaking. The world is bright, dusted in snow as each step is a gallop that feels right. As things should be.

Your boots touch the trail you were separated from, and you spit winter greens from your mouth. You take a bite of your venison as you flag down a cart that is traveling north out of the mist.


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cw: kind of descriptive torture? kind of think like a venus flytrap but person sized.

There is a man without legs and an arm in a tavern on the road between Lohengrinne and Heroux territory. On days that are good, he will entertain those who ask with a tale of how he lost his knees to a dragon who tried to burn down a village.

On days that are bad, when he is too deep onto his cups and close to tears, he will speak of how while hunting a dragonette something bit him. But it wasn't one bite. It came up from the snow, starting with his sabatons, each gulp making it feel like knives were making methodical, circular cuts into skin and bone. It ate his left leg first. Then the second. He does not know how long he laid there as it dissolved each part of him, but he knows by the dawn of the third day that he should have been dead. It is then that a group of adventurers came upon him, cutting him from the maw and saving him through mending and burning his wounds closed.

After the story ends, he will stare at the table. The tavernkeep brings him another tankard of ale that he promptly swallows without gasping for air.

It is said that something walks in what used to be the forests of the Highlands, dancing along with the scalekin and their wordless chorus. It is said that they will take children, those that are lost. Perhaps they will let them go, after years by their side.

Perhaps not.

It is said that they walk in what used to be the forests of the Highlands, on feet covered in fur and eyes that gleam in the dark. It is said that if you are still, if you listen, you can hear their chatting through the wastes, voices carried on the wind.

Those that live in the Highlands have always said that they are not sure whether or not it is a mercy they do not care for the affairs of man. No one seems too keen to find out if that is true.