Kryptgarden Forest

It was located east of the Sword Mountains. It lay just west of the Long Road and the village of Westbridge and north of Waterdeep.   A portion of Kryptgarden south of Phandalin was known as the Crooked Forest because some of the trees there had been bent by ancient creatures that dwelled there to indicate paths through the forest. Following the passage of Volothamp Geddarm through the area, the forest received more visitors than it had in decades, disturbing a number of treants and blights.   A deep hole in the ground—known to some as "the orifice"—in the red forest east of the Sword Mountains led to the Underdark and a passage to the Hanging City of Dolblunde.

Small game animals lived in the forest, but few larger creatures dwelled within, as they were readily eaten by Kryptgarden's most fearsome predator, the dragon Claugiyliamatar.

During the era of the First Flowering, the forest that later came to be known as Kryptgarden was a part of the ancient elven realm of Illefarn, which was founded circa −22,900 DR. The surface-dwelling dwarves of the briefling flourishing realm of Besilmer, from −4420 DR to −4160 DR, also had borders reaching Kryptgarden Forest. When Illefarn fell circa −1100 DR, the Elf realm broke up into several smaller states; of these, Rilithar encompassed Kryptgarden Forest.   The Green Dragon Claugiyliamatar established her lair within the Kryptgarden Forest in the Year of the Evening Sun, 1303 DR.   In the Year of the Warrior Princess, 1489 DR, the Five Factions all gathered in the forest to deal with the rising threat of the renewed Cult of the Dragon. The cult's Green Dragon mask was recovered from the lair of Claugiyliamatar in Kryptgarden Forest. Old Gnawbone herself was injured while blows were struck against the Red Wizards of Thay, the Cult of the Dragon, and the Zartruss Hobgoblin clan.   Around the Year of the Scarlet Witch, 1491 DR, The Undead servants of Ularun Mortus passed through Kryptgarden in an ongoing assault against the lair of Claugiyliamatar.   In the late 1490s DR, Xenk Yendar led a party comprising Edgin Darvis, Holga Kilgore, Simon Aumar, and Doric into the Kryptgarden Forest to find the orifice into the Underdark.  

Name

The name 'Kryptgarden' arose from the dwarfhold known as Southkrypt Garden, which stood in the north. The forest was itself sometimes called Southkrypt Garden. The name also seemed to originate in the Orc realm called Uruth Ukrypt, meaning "Home of Uruth" in Orcish, that rose in the Sword Mountains in the 10th century DR.

Folk from Westbridge hunted animals along the eastern edges of the forest during the 1300s DR, but did not dare go deeper than a few hours on foot. They'd stopped by the late 1400s DR after some of their fellows went missing.   Some logging also went on around the edges in the mid-1300s DR.