Gentry/The Wicked Wood

The Wicked Wood

Description

The woods here are thick and primordial. Trees tower like grand monoliths towards the night sky, broken here and there at a glade, meadow or small lake. Mystical, thick with pollen in the day and frolicking beasts with no knowledge of the terror that lurks in the wood with them. Lush foliage and underbrush make homes for shrews and rabbits, desired for their soft fur or feet. Moths, glow bugs and even plants dance in the moonlight over lakes to be snatched up by hunters for their petals, wings or glow. If a creature has been considered at some time or another to have been a mythical ingredient for magic, they are here. Waiting naively to be harvested.

The woods itself thrives on the terror and bloodshed within its land. Fed on the magic and spells of its lieutenants or those innocent souls who find that they have a knack for it. A living thing, no one creature, though it can at all times possess it allies, sometimes more than one of them.

Realm

The Wicked Wood The Keeper and the Realm are one in the same.

Methodology

Once you're lost and have strayed into the magical wood it's almost always the same.

There is no method here. There is only what one perceives as a life. Eating, drinking, frolicking, fucking, living... and even eventually dying lays in wait for those Lost to the Wood. That is until you become necessary or useful. Usually at a whim or selfish need of one of the Witches. Most here forget quickly there was a time they were human, wanted or hungered. If they are a herd beast, they are provided with a herd, if they are solitary they are provided with food, a den, and territory. In exchange.. they become the purest form of their unnatural rebirth. Which makes those parts that come off of the hunted all the more pure and powerful.

Suggested Themes for Escapees

Often escapees have a missing body part. Eye, hand, fingers, wings, tongue, skin, teeth.

Escapees are unusual but not 'rare': usually they are one's that have been harvested and discarded. Those who survive the escape, however, are rarer still because they always feel the missing piece in a sympathetic link. It drives some mad. Only the magical parts are of any use and once they're gone? The witches and the wood have no more need for you.

You really didn't pick what you became. You were born into it and had to, like a newborn creature, learn to be that creature by wits and instinct or by the help of the herd beasts you were with.

Sometimes it's hard to remember that you were human -first-. Sure, you are now but before you were reborn? It's hard to remember and total amnesia is not uncommon.

• Authors note: If you're an amnesiac, I would suggest having been out of the hedge for a while. Otherwise your PC may be considered to feral for polite company.

There are some Familiars who escape. Consider deeply the guilt (or perverse pleasure) weighing on your soul for the kidnap and tortture of truly innocent people.

'Knowledge' is uncommon unless it's Mystical or Survival based. The Witches don't take acolytes and the Familiars tend not to get too close to potential victims.

Naivety is not unusual. Neither are skittish instincts. What you remember is a good life.. prior to the Familiars coming for you.

BIG NOTE: Most Escapees if they have any combat abilities they are going to be natural. Claw, Bite, Run. The only ones who tend to be outside that are Familiars.

By Seeming

• Beast - If it has /ever/ had a use in any society for any type of spell, remedy or mystical relation and has come from an animal, you can be that animal. Examples; rabbit's feet, eyes of newt, tongue of toad, a scale of dragon, a horn of a unicorn, teeth of chicken..
• Darkling - Within the realm of mythical beasts/plants that the forest cultivates.
• Elemental - Sentient plants are a definite. Water beasts, nymphs, etc. A rock creature perhaps. Though the rest of the elements tend to be unrepresented or are not sentient beings.
• Fairest - Not as a main Seeming.
• Ogre - . Not often as the main seeming. Though there are sasquatch, Ogres, and Trolls that are hunted for their various bits.
• Wizened - . Not often as the main seeming. Though there are sasquatch, Ogres, and Trolls that are hunted for their various bits.