* Restricted: sages and historians of the area only
In the initial Diaspora of the Peoples of Anarea in the first few hundred years of the World, people entered the North East Forest and some settled there. They were Men of the West, exploring NE from the Kingdom of the North and the Desolate Coast. For the Dwarves shunned forests, and the Elves preferred the warmer broadleaved forests of the South to the colder coniferous forests of the North.
But, unlike in other Forests of the Overworld, the Druids never established a network of Stone Circles. A Sacred Heart Circle was established at the Hidden Grove, but the small contingent of local Druids never established any subsidiary Circles in the far reaches of the Forest. They were too few, with too little power in the Mysteries of the Circles, and the threats out in the Forest were too great. The Druids therefore never established any real control over the Forest, leaving it exposed to the Dark Side of Nature, as manifested in the Dark Forest. For the Tree Kingdoms of the conifers of the North East Forest tend towards Darkness, and Evil things were soon also making their home in the Forest. Some wandered in from Nightmare and Madness, as the Trance of the Trees broke down the barriers between the Otherworlds and the Druids were not able to prevent them.
Before SOROK emerged as a God in c1200, the Undead were already active in the darker depths of the Forest. As a Demigod, SOROK established a tower at the Eyrie on the rocky outcropping of Eagle's Rock, and wightwarrens were delved beneath it. On His ascendancy to Godhead, SOROK left for Hell and Chul, one of the oldest vampires (created from one of the chiefs of the first tribes to enter the Forest) took up residency in the Eyrie. PHANTOM, the new Demigod of Ghosts, became Master of the Wightwarrens beneath and created the Legions of the Lost out of the Ghosts that had adapted to the bitter winters of the Forest. They came with the frosts, and as the temperature plummeted below freezing they emerged from the Wightwarrens to hunt.
The men of the NE Forest were being overrun by the Ghosts, and in particular by the Lost Wights during the Winters. In their desperation, many of the surviving tribes turned to Lycanthropy, becoming Wolf or Bear Cultists with all of them accepting the Weres. Thus began the bitter struggle that still ensues in the Forest between Ghosts and Weres. A side effect of this struggle has been that the Ghosts have acquired a taste for the souls of wolves and bears as well as people, and there are now Ghost Werewolves, Ghost Werebears, Ghost Wolves and Ghost Bears in the Forest. By the Year 2500 the only surviving human tribes in the Forest (apart from the Druidic colony around the Hidden Grove, which was hanging on to its foothold around the Hidden Grove with the benefit of some special Druidic Spell Cycles) were all Wolf or Bear Cultists, though pure humans still ventured in as trappers, hunters or adventurers - mostly during the summer months.
In the Year 2504 there were two further developments which pushed the Forest further towards the Dark Side. Glersh the Dread had been experimenting for some time with corrupting Nature to manifest the Dark Forest. After his exploits in the North West Forest in 2503 and his escape into the Jungle after his Goblin attack in 2504 he became involved with the Shamen of the Spider Cult, leading them further towards the Dark Side. Driven out of the Jungle by the Druids and Saurian Cultists, Glersh and the Spider Shamen fled North into the NE Forest, where they set about establishing a Dark Circle with links to the J'Ungol. Meanwhile, after the attack upon the Shining Caves of the Flerrig Keragund 8 VI 2504, the Black Spectre brought the Ghosted Elder Organisms to the Circle of Black Ice in the Wightwarrens. Some of the Ghosts now acquired a taste for Organisms too. As Autumn drew in, the Ghosts began attacking the Hidden Grove itself, and the local Druids belatedly appealed for assistance to the Temple of KOROS and the Aldalië Tree Cult of the High Elves, who had been instrumental in restoring the NW Forest after the Dark Forest manifestation of 2501-2. Protected by the KOROS Clerics, the Aldalië began trying to establish a network of Light Circles, but it was difficult to escape the attention of the Ghosts in doing so, or to gain the trust of the Wolf and Bear Cults. Meanwhile Glersh and the Spider Shamen worked on establishing their own Dark Spider Forest at their Black Spider Circle in the deep woods South of the Golden Lake, and began spreading their tendrils wider afield - though still taking care to avoid the Ghosts.
During the day of 25 Tekrim 2504 the Aldalië escaped the besieging waves of Cold Ghosts that were coming every night by using the Walking Wood Spell to move the circle of trees at the Hidden Grove through a Gateway of the Trees to a new site, believed to be somewhere in the Upper Gaprill Valley. This was effective to move the Sacred Heart Circle, and the Dark Heart Circle which is the shadow of those trees in the Tree Kingdom.
In the Spring of the Year 2505, as the Cold Ghosts retreated into the depths of the Forest, the Aldalië and their allies began work on a a new network of Sacred Sites, to help bring order to the Forest as a counter to the efforts of Those behind the Cold Ghosts and Dark Spiders, Who had sought to break down reality and turn large areas into Dark Forest. They also began to rediscover the lost Spell Cycles of the Guardians of the Hidden Grove.
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