The Adri Forest

Region: Temperate to Subtropical

Population: 24,900

Demi-humans: 1,245 forest gnomes

Humanoids: 1,245 of various kinds

Boundaries

The Adri Forest is an immense and ancient woodland, spanning more than fifty-five thousand square miles of primeval trees, winding rivers, and shadowed glades. Most of its vast expanse lies within the Flanaess's subtropical region, but the northern tip of the forest reaches into the temperate climate zone. This wilderness is claimed primarily by the Great Kingdom, though its northwestern edge—the lands west of the Harp River—fall under the dominion of the Prelacy of Almor. The part of the forest claimed by Almor is relatively peaceful, but the remaining lands are ruled by the ruthless iron fist of Overking Ivid V. Ivid has granted the northeastern portion of the forest to his cousin, Herzog Grenell of the North Province, whose rapacity far exceeds even that of his royal cousin.

The Adri Forest contains many valuable trees: highly prized bronzewood trees, mighty red and white oaks in the north, living oaks in the south, plus yew, ash, beech, and poplar trees scattered throughout the woods.

Deeper into the forest, yarpick trees become more prevalent, with thorns growing thicker and longer the further one ventures. Hidden groves of kara trees dot the landscape alongside other varieties of wild fruits and nuts, and abundant underbrush provides cover for plentiful game such as white-tailed, mule, red, and tufted deer, as well as wild boars. Occasionally a white stag has been seen within the forest, but the druids have been known to swiftly and mercilessly hunt down anyone who dares poach this sacred animal. Predators also roam the Adri Forest, mountain lions being the most common, with black bears and wolves also roaming the woods.

A full account of all the flora and fauna found in the Adri Forest is beyond the scope of this article, but it is likely that any forest animal can be found in the Adri.

Thistlewhistle Dell

Within this great forest dwell many folk, though few outsiders would call the Adri hospitable. Along the twisting banks of the Harp River, the forest gnomes have carved out a hidden sanctuary known as Thistlewhistle Dell. The river bisects their domain: on the western side, within Almor’s borders, lies Dellhollow, where the eldest gnomes, gifted in illusion and subtle magics, keep their homes cloaked from prying eyes. Directly across the river on the eastern bank, the gnomes of Gladewatch labor as artisans and woodland defenders, ever vigilant against the dangers that lurk beyond the trees.

Thistlewhistle Dell is not home to just gnomes; many varieties of fey roam the great dell of the Harp River valley and call it home:

• Satyrs
• Pixies
• Centaurs
• Reclusive dryads
• Brownies
• Leprechauns
• Sprites
• Unicorns and the occasional treant wandering through the valley

The fey spend much of their time gathering elderberries, wild apples, wild cherries, blackberries, wild hops, and other resources to make wine and brew beer for their nightly revelries.

The Dell is rich with wild fruit and nut trees—apple, cherry, filbert, chestnut, and pecan—along with brambles heavy with berries. These trees are meticulously maintained by the fey. Tulip trees also grow throughout this area of the forest, a favorite of the forest gnomes for their beauty.

The Borough

The Borough is a region in the northwestern Adri Forest where the Flinty Hills merge with the trees. Stretching along the Harp River and north into the Flinty Hills, it sits astride the major Nyrondese supply routes that cross the hills. With so much traffic passing through, the industrious and crafty halflings have opened inns along the route to offer travelers a warm bed and hearty, home‑cooked food. Nowhere is this industry more evident than in the bustling town of Innspa.

For more information, see the entry on The Flinty Hills.

Human Settlements

The human settlers who have made their homes along the forest’s edges are a hardy and wary people. Woodsmen, rangers, druids, and even those branded as criminals by the Overking dwell here, eking out their lives in a delicate balance with the wild. Roughly 7,700 live on the Almorian side of the Harp, while about 17,200 live within the borders of the Great Kingdom and North Province.

While exact numbers for military service are hard to come by, in times of strife, these settlers can muster nearly five thousand warriors, a mix of seasoned fighters and local conscripts. Armed with spears, battleaxes, and bows, and protected by leather and padded armor, they form a formidable defense against threats both natural and unnatural. It must be noted, however, that these forces rarely gather into a single fighting force as they are spread out over hundreds of miles. Any given area can muster 100 - 200 militia for defense.

Humanoid Tribes

The northeastern Adri falls under the governance of Herzog Grennel of House Naelax, a ruthless, cunning, cruel, and depraved man who rules the North Province under the watchful eye of the Overking. Grenell’s ambition and cruelty mirror that of his overlord, and under his rule, the borderlands are a place where law is measured in blood and fear.

The Herzog frequently clashes with the forest’s inhabitants over the cutting of the immense and highly valuable bronzewood trees, prompting rangers, woodsmen, and druids alike to raid his lumber camps in efforts to prevent the clearcutting of these precious trees. Grenell values the bronzewood trees because, when properly crafted, their wood is ideal for building ships with hulls as hard as steel.

Bands of humanoids and scattered tribes skulk in the shadowy undergrowth, their warbands frequently raiding settlements and ambushing travelers—often with the tacit approval, and sometimes the direct orders, of Overking Ivid V and Herzog Grenell. Grenell, in particular, is rumored to use these savage tribes as deniable pawns, sending them to harass Almorian settlements and keep the forest settlers in constant fear. These bands are a brutal mix of gnolls led by fearsome flinds, vicious norkers, and small tribes of hobgoblins, with half-orcs often rising to command the most organized warbands.

Their lairs are hidden deep in the forest: in thorn-choked ravines, the burned-out shells of abandoned villages, or the crumbling ruins of old Flan barrows. They favor ambushes, night raids, and hit-and-run attacks, sometimes leaving survivors only to spread terror. Captives may be dragged into the woods to serve as slaves, ransomed to desperate families, or simply offered up as grisly trophies to their dark patrons. Entire hamlets have been put to the torch, leaving only charred beams jutting from the earth like blackened teeth—a stark reminder that in the Adri, the law of the humanoids is written in blood and ash.

The Elves

Unlike most great woodlands, the Adri seems bereft of any lasting Elven towns or cities. Yet the forest is not entirely without their presence. Hidden within its shadowed glades, two distinct groups of elves still wander — the Thaladir and the Velthir. No one knows how many elves roam the Adri; even the forest’s druids can only guess, for the elves appear and vanish like mist among the trees.

The Thaladir

The Thaladir, or Forest Watchers, are the secretive Sylvan Elves of the Adri. They are native to the forest, yet even they leave little sign of their passing. Typically moving in small patrols of three to seven, they prefer to remain unseen, watching over the wild places as if guarding an unspoken secret. Their camps are fleeting — a circle of pressed grass, a low fire of smokeless wood, and soft sigils carved in hidden places to warn away intruders.

Thaladir are elusive but not unkind, and they will sometimes aid rangers, druids, or settlers in times of dire need. More often, they remain distant, communicating only in soft gestures or a few quiet words before vanishing into the underbrush. Among the forest folk, it is said that the Thaladir know every living tree in the Adri and that the forest itself whispers to them of danger long before it comes.

The Velthir

Even rarer than the Thaladir are the Velthir, a wandering remnant of High Elves whose presence in the Adri is steeped in mystery. Their name means People of the Veiled Root in an archaic Elvish dialect, though its true meaning is lost to time. They arrive like ghosts, in small groups of five to fifteen, appearing without warning and vanishing just as suddenly. Their cloaks blend seamlessly with rain-soaked bark and moss, and their bows catch moonlight without a sound. Those few who claim to have met them describe a quiet dread — as though the Velthir were not simply traveling but searching.

Rumors persist that the Velthir are hunting for something lost. The druids of the Order of the Thorny Cruciform whisper that the Velthir bear some unending burden, though the nature of this burden is unknown to them, as the Velthir will not discuss the matter. They do not explain themselves, and those who press too far into their secrets often vanish into the shadows, never to return.

To glimpse the Thaladir is to feel the forest watching. To meet the Velthir is to brush against the memory of an older world, one that does not forgive trespass. In either case, travelers leave with the same impression: the Adri does not belong to men, and those who forget this lesson rarely survive it.

Creatures of the Adri

The Adri Forest is vast, untamed, and perilous. Its shadowed depths, crumbling ruins, and mist-shrouded glades are home to countless creatures — some natural, some utterly alien to the mortal world. From the smallest predator to ancient horrors, danger lurks in every corner of the forest. While the list below is far from exhaustive, it details many of the threats travelers might encounter within the Adri.

Natural Predators

The forest teems with wildlife, including many dangerous predators that stalk the unwary.

• Bears — black and brown varieties are common, though cave bears sometimes wander down from the Rakers.
• Wolves — including the larger and more dangerous dire wolves.
• Mountain lions, tigers, and the occasional smilodon in the deepest glades.
• Wild boars and giant boars (elotheres) that can gore even armed hunters.
• Giant spiders, centipedes, and scorpions that haunt the forest floor and abandoned ruins.

Monstrous Inhabitants

Beyond natural predators, the Adri harbors many creatures of legend and nightmare.

• Owlbears and displacer beasts, prowling hunters of the shadowed groves.
• Trolls and the occasional two-headed troll lurking near streams and bogs.
• Chimeras and pyrolisks that stalk open clearings and hilltops.
• Ogres, ettins, and verbeeg giants wandering the forest outskirts and Velkhara’s ruins.
• Jackalweres and werewolves, blending with mundane predators to hunt by night.
• Will-o’-wisps and shadows that haunt abandoned camps and battlefields.

Dragons and Greater Threats

The Adri Forest is whispered to be the domain of at least one family of green dragons, lairing among the forgotten ruins. Other dragons are rare, but copper dragons have occasionally been sighted along the forest’s western hills. Travelers are warned that the forest’s ancient, corrupted heart may hold far greater terrors than any known beast.

Velkhara

Deep within the ancient, brooding wilderness of the Adri Forest, beneath a canopy so dense it seems to drink the light from the sky, lie the forsaken ruins of Velkhara — a name spoken only in hushed tones by mad wanderers and the most obscure of lorekeepers. Few know of it, and fewer still dare seek it. Older than even the Great Kingdom, Velkhara's origins are lost to myth and contradiction. Some claim it was raised by the Ur-Flan, while others believe an even older, now-extinct civilization once called it home. What is certain is that it was no mere settlement of sages or spellwrights. Velkhara was a city of heresy — a sanctum of divine defiance.

Its priest-kings, obsessed not with power or conquest but with eternal life, ruled from a place of terrible sanctity. At the city's heart stood the Temple of Eternal Night, a towering monument to a god whose name has been erased or forbidden — an ancient, malevolent force steeped in primordial darkness. Within its halls, the priest-kings performed grotesque rites, binding lesser spirits and planar entities to fuel their unholy pursuit of immortality. Their faith was not in reverence but in defiance; they sought to outlive the gods themselves.

But the divine do not forgive such arrogance. One night, without warning, the stars above the Adri vanished — not behind cloud or eclipse, but gone, as if never there. No fire fell, no deluge rose, no screams rang out. Only silence descended — a silence so profound and unnatural that it broke the minds of those who heard it. Velkhara vanished beneath that stillness, and since that night, the city has remained untouched by time yet utterly estranged from the world.

In the centuries that followed, those brave or foolish enough to approach the ruins tell of strange phenomena: a soul-crushing weight of oppression, whispers threading through the windless trees, and shadows that exhale. Living things do not linger. Even treants — ancient guardians of the forest — avoid the place, and the elves who once walked these woods in harmony disappeared not long after Velkhara’s fall. Whether they fled, perished, or became something unrecognizable is a mystery none have solved.

And the forest itself is no longer whole. Some treants have not fled but transformed — now known as “blightwoods,” [known as Lyrannikin to scholars] these twisted abominations bear blackened bark, weep venomous sap, and seethe with a hatred for all that lives. The Druids of the Order of the Thorny Cruciform , a secretive and severe order, maintain a watchful vigil along Velkhara’s borders. They lay ancient wards, carve sigils of warning into bark and stone, and spread half-true tales of doom to dissuade the curious. Even they, with all their knowledge and power, refuse to enter the city's heart.

Now, Velkhara festers like a wound deep within the Adri. Its jagged towers, broken and half-buried, claw upward through the roots of gnarled trees. Ogres, ettins, and monstrous Verbeeg giants prowl the outskirts, picking over bones and relics like carrion birds drawn to a battlefield. Deep within the ruins of the city and abandoned outposts, but far from the corrupted heart, green dragons coil in silence — drawn not merely by territory, but by the enduring pulses of corrupted magic still seeping from moss-covered stone.

But even these threats pale beside the true horrors. There are things in Velkhara for which no names exist — shadows that writhe in the absence of light, fragments of memory that bleed into dreams, and presences that watch with the remembrance of mortality. The city is not simply ruined; it is malformed, wrong in a way that resists comprehension.

Velkhara is not simply a place — it is a memory sharpened into a blade. It is corruption grown deep roots. Here, every vine may coil like a noose, every root may reach like fingers, and every whisper may come from something that once had a face... and has not forgotten yours.

The Adri Forest remains a land of mystery and danger, caught between powerful rulers, ancient curses, and the ever-present threat of the wild. Its fate hangs in a fragile balance, waiting for the brave, the curious, or the foolhardy to step into the shadows and shape what comes next.