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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lackhand" data-source="post: 4375013" data-attributes="member: 36160">The Fey.Twelve years ago, the first stragglers from the Wildwood, the expanse of thorns and dripping oaks that lays from the north-west of the Blackwall to the coast of Cliff Even, covering a journey that would be four weeks on foot, even if there were straight roads in that wild place, came to the border town.They were barely human.The woods had always been haunted, with strange happenings and monsters rambling around its borders. Blackwall, with its mad king, was built on this presupposition, with mercenaries and adventurers traveling there to seek names for themselves, and study the strange magics that arose there. That was a long time ago, though, and the danger levels in the woods varied through history; in the last few generations, nothing worse than wolves, bears, oversized insects, or the occasional witch was to be seen; the laughing of elves was (if not kind) at least mirthful.Of the first few men that came to Blackwall, only Tongueless Mors, a local beggar, was known; something had scared his wits from him. The others were furriers and loggers, trappers and charcoal burners; they showed signs of torture and raved like madmen, unable to understand simple Ternovan.In the next year, the woods turned downright inhospitable. The winter, too, was a harsh one, and horses and cattle went missing. Talk turned to finding witches in the community, for surely something was amiss, and tempers began to rise.The year after, the first hoblings were seen again, misshapen humanoids that growled and lowed and bayed, that looked like dogs or like horses or like cattle or cats or rats; sometimes, all at once. They crawled in from the woods in sixes and sevens, and dragged children from cradles, and hooted and cackled in their broken animal-tongues whenever the Black Guard came for them, laughing as they died in ones and twos, as the others faded back to the woods.The year after, the stout men of the guard felled trees all through the summer and autumn, clearing land to try to grow crops to last through a winter which showed every sign of being as severe as the one before it, and the rising danger to unarmed peasants made the sight of armed or armored men riding three abreast a welcome one. That winter, however, terrible things befell Blackwall: It fell under siege from the west, as the trees began to enclose it, choking off roads and penning the township in; it was during the second summer after this that the roads grew too tenuous to be traveled; in the last 8 years, no word has been heard from the beleaguered kingdom.The information above is mostly unknown to players -- most human kingdoms are somewhat insular and Blackwall has always been a home for madmen and risk-takers. This is exactly how the secret masters of the Elves would wish things, for their strange behaviors are utterly incomprehensible to any of the mortal races of men.The goals of their war are strange, and gradual; they travel under cover of weather patterns, or as they can (through strange songs) move the forest to cover. They muster incredible numbers in impossible lengths of time, which fade away again as quickly, and use magic and control over their environment to ensure suitable terrain -- which is usually darkened, mist-shrouded, brush-choked, stormy, or otherwise unpleasant for those humans found within it. They expend incredible resources on a few isolated individuals, and turn away from large towns to encircle them instead, fading from view.In short, they're confusing, frustrating, and dangerous.They're led in this mad butchery by a mysterious being known as the Storm King, a fey lord of incredible potency. He was the source of the Dverning mythological deity Udunn One Eye, a lord of storms and death and rage, who is said to be undying and eternal. He is known to the Ternovans of Blackwall as the Grey King, an ancient of the distant mountain. He is known also as the Winter King, and he bears a long-seated hatred against all the works of man, and in his patient fury, he is slowly grinding them to dust. He is the king of the Fomorians, and has Cyclopes do his bidding. He commands legions of the fallen, and spirits of the air.His consort is the Pale Lady, a being of nightmare and the queen of witches. Her handmaidens, the Hags, have the secret rituals that allow them to warp and change forms, and are served by the hoblings (goblinoids, gnolls, orcs), beings twisted from living men and dogs, cattle, horses, dogs, wolves, or nearly any other animal, and born in great litters. They are also the shapers of the Shifters, raised from children and feral. Their forces make the bulk of the strictly warrior-caste of the armies of the elves.Their mistress of songs is the Spider Queen Lolth, who commands the drow in the field, who serve as assassins and enforcers, and hunt those who turn or rebel.Not all fey are as devoted to the effort to destroy the works of men as the above, however. Whatever strange power has drawn the normally fractious elves together has bound them against referring to why they move against the younger race -- they will speak only of the Storm King's ancient hatred, and inviolate command.A few bands of forest spirits -- the female Nymphs (elves) and male Satyr (tieflings), for instance, are entirely uncommitted, while the brutish ogre, giant, and centaur clans wage war on all who approach. The pixies of the deep woods do not march to war, but bear no love of man, and the treants, too, stand on the brink of either allegiance.It is unknown what the Storm King's true plan is, but he is subtle and older even than kingdoms; it is certain to be a trap more than twelve years in the making.</blockquote>

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