Gloamveil Forest

Gloamveil Forest

Gloamveil Forest spans the north-central to the northeast of Oblivion Vale. It is a vast forest realm that still decides borders, timber rights, and survival. It is held as an elven sovereignty with slow law and long memory. Since the Drying, no rivers or lakes remain. All stable water comes from deep wells, sealed cistern hollows, and hidden seep pockets fed by underground flow.

Terrain and Conditions

The canopy is thick and low across most of the realm. Daylight turns dim and grey under the leaves. Trunks stand close, and travel lines are narrow. The ground is wet leaf rot in shade, but cracked clay shows in old stream beds. Fog gathers in basins and along these dry channels, especially at dawn and after storms. Cold wind pushes in from the northeast and carries salt air into the upper boughs. It leaves a thin crust on exposed bark and on old cord markers.

Water as Sacred Law

Water points are treated as sacred sites, not only as property. Each is worked like a small fortress. Wells are capped and locked, often under root mats or in stone collars set flush with the ground. Seep pockets are covered with woven screens and fitted lids to limit evaporation and keep insects out. Cistern hollows are dug into higher ground and lined with fitted stone, then sealed with heavy lids. Each site has a draw ledger and an oath record. Theft is judged as desecration because it risks contamination, invites predators, and breaks trust in the draw ledger.

Border Groves and Travel Corridors

The forest is divided into guarded border groves and controlled travel corridors. Border groves are layered zones, not a single line, and they shift with treaty terms and season. Corridors are marked by carved oath-stones at starts and major forks. Corded branches and tagged limbs show where travel is open, restricted, or closed. Watch platforms are built high and kept hidden by careful pruning and shade cloth. Outsiders may enter only by rule, under escort, and with strict limits on fire, cutting, noise, and night travel. A convoy that breaks these limits can lose corridor rights for a season.

Government of the Gloamveil Sovereignty

The Sovereignty is led by a grove council of senior wardens. Cistern keepers control water ledgers and seals. Corridor escorts enforce travel terms and can turn crews back. Records and dated oaths matter more than pleas.

Law and Enforcement

Gloamveil law is slow, but it is harsh. The Sovereignty prefers long restitution over quick execution, yet the restitution is meant to break repeat offenders. Cutters can be bound to years of labor repairing lids, hauling casks, and replanting lots under guard. Water thieves can be barred from all corridors, which is a practical death sentence near the border. Repeat violators may be oath-branded and exiled into the deep interior, where the rules do not protect them. Wardens also enforce waste law. Camps must pack out waste and dead meat in sealed sacks, or pay fines and be expelled. Any corpse found near a well lid triggers a purge of ropes, buckets, and hands.

Resources and Timber Rights

Timber is a political resource. Cutting is allowed only in assigned lots under permits that specify tree type, count, and tool marks. Resin collection is regulated because it supports seal wax, barrel pitch, and wound dressings. Game hunting is controlled by quota, and traps near corridors are banned unless registered. The Sovereignty trades dried herbs, bark tannins, hard resins, and fitted cistern hardware. In return it seeks metal, salt, cloth, and medicines that do not grow well in shaded soil.

Trade and Inspection

Trade is limited to necessities and runs through corridor stations. Every exchanged cask is inspected, weighed, and stamped. Inspectors check for false bottoms, hidden powders, tainted cloth, and concealed water skins. They also check bodies for fever rash and recent rot exposure. A failed inspection can mean seizure, quarantine holding, or expulsion. Human courts often call this extortion. The Sovereignty calls it survival discipline. Smuggling attempts are common because one clean cask can buy months of labor in nearby towns, and because hunger makes people gamble.

Relations with Human Realms

Gloamveil sits near multiple human borders and acts as a stabilizing wall between states and wild zones. Human patrols accuse the elves of concealment tricks when convoys vanish. Elven wardens answer with ledgers, oath terms, and the same claim: the forest kills those who step outside corridor law, and the forest holds predators that do not follow courts. Treaties exist because humans need timber and access routes, and the Sovereignty needs goods that its forest cannot supply. In famine years, corridor closures increase and tempers rise. Both sides accuse the other of sabotage when a well fails or a patrol goes missing.

Faith and Custom

The Sovereignty recognizes the continent’s three major gods, but its daily culture is built around oaths and record. Fate language appears in corridor rules and restitution terms. Life rites focus on clean wounds, childbirth discipline, and endurance at water sites. Death rites are strict near any draw point, because burial failure is treated as contamination. Some trees and wells serve as oath anchors where treaty words are spoken, witnessed, and recorded. A broken oath can follow a family for generations, recorded in stone and ledger.

Monsters and Threat Ecology

Monsters are part of Gloamveil’s map. The lack of open rivers does not remove wet predators. It concentrates them at the few remaining wet places, which increases conflict around access.

Wolves and Dire Wolves

Wolves are common along border corridors. Hunger pushes them toward travel lines, ration yards, and weak animals that trail camps. They learn the sound of guard calls and follow at distance. Dire wolves are fewer but far more dangerous. They tend to form around old kill sites, hidden burial pits, and places where bodies were left after skirmishes. The Sovereignty treats wolves as a hunger pressure. It culls packs that learn corridor schedules and forbids waste that trains them to follow.

Giant Toads

Giant toads thrive in basin floors where leaf rot stays wet and insects swarm. They sit near seep paths and under root mats, then strike at movement. Their slime can foul wounds and gear, so they are treated as a contamination risk near lids, ropes, and draw buckets. Some wardens allow controlled hunts because the meat can feed patrol rings, but capture often costs lives and leaves infected bites.

Shambling Mounds

Shambling mounds form where wet plant rot builds up and does not dry. In Gloamveil this happens in deep shade basins, clay channels that still hold dampness, and reed mats over seep leaks. They are drawn to heat, blood, and water use. A mound that settles near a seep pocket can make the site unusable for a season, because escorts cannot keep draw lines safe for long.

Hydras

Hydras are rare, but they are a defining terror when they appear. A hydra needs a stable wet pocket. Such pockets exist only where underground flow rises close to the surface, or where a sealed cistern cracked and became a hidden basin. A hydra that claims one becomes an accidental border wall. It kills anything that approaches its water, and it can keep doing this for years unless driven off at extreme cost.

Manticores

Manticores hunt the edges where corridors open into clearer ground and where watch platforms break cover. They target lone scouts, small hunting teams, and sentries posted on exposed limbs. They learn road patterns and strike when a convoy is thin or when inspection delays split an escort. They retreat if hurt, then return later when fear has loosened discipline and escorts cut corners.

Medusas

Medusas in Gloamveil are tied to old ruins, abandoned shrines, and stone work that predates the Drying. They choose places where sight lines are controlled. Their stone victims become barriers, warning posts, and false gate markers. Outsiders sometimes blame the Sovereignty for “stone punishments.” In many cases, these are medusa kills left in place because moving them risks more death. Elven wardens reroute corridors rather than advertise the site and invite outside demands.

Outsider Belief and Quiet Truth

Humans often claim the Sovereignty controls the forest through constant illusion and uses “vanishing corridors” to hide crimes. Magic does exist, but it is rare and used mostly for boundary defense and concealment. Most disappearances are caused by wrong turns off corridor lines, fog in old channels, and predators that hunt quietly. The Sovereignty hoards water because it fears collapse. Its deepest fear is a chain of small thefts and small contaminations that turns a sacred well into a dead pit, then forces the realm to seal it forever.