Forest of the Cumbers
the Shadow's Forest
Forest of the Cumbers, sometimes called 'the Cumbers', the Shadow's Forest, or the Dark Woods, is a forest in Southern Jerain on the major continent of Ethae. The forest stands in the hills on the south side of the western White Mountains. The region is often covered in mists and low clouds leaving the forest eternally shrouded in a hazy dim darkness. Navigation is nearly impossible through the thick forest and its many valleys and hills. This coupled with its dark reputation among the native Somon has left the forest a remote and uninhabited land.
The Cumbers has centuries of folklore surrounding it. Dark tales of murderous creatures of pure evil, called 'Cumbers,' keep most from the forest. This is not surprising to the educated that know the forest is a Shadowfell. The despair of the Etu Enur eternally seeping through, corrupting all within. Predators born within the forest are more aggressive and monstrous, plants seem to tangle the feet or scratch the exposed skin of travelers, anything to augment the depression of the land. The forest itself seems alive and wicked. It wants travelers to give up, lay down, and die, becoming fertilize it can eventually feed on. The moist air can strain breathing in the lowest valleys where the mist is thickest. The misty fog gathers around cliffs, as if trying to prevent travelers for seeing the approach and tumbling over. Everything in the forest, including the forest itself, is trying to kill those who enter it.
Only a single path winds through the forest mountains, the Cumber Road. Named after the creatures of the forest it protects against, the road has existed long before the Kingdom of Marras grew around it. The native Somon of Southern Jerain claim the road existed before the first Normon arrived in their land. As did the Nura orbs that lights the path. These orbs keep the shadowy forest and its monster off the road. The road and the Dark Tower it travels to are used in the modern day by the government of Marras as a prison for criminals whose crimes do not warrant death but are to never be released back into the public again. Some prisoners have returned from the Tower to be free, but the reputation of it being a death sentence remains strong.
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