Queen's Scar Woods

It's so strange knowing that every pain, every loss, every drop of hardship the last few centuries can be traced back to a single spot.

   

The Age of Greenery

The Queen's Scar is a new name, and a very ugly one at that. It wasn't always so. These woods were home to a sect of elves that had splintered from their brethren in Melanthris and the farm communities of the Lakeside Elves. These forest dwellers were content to worship Galidir and Atel in peace, far from the metropolitan elves of the south. They lived harmoniously with the nearby Talboti but often found themselves at odds with the Frostmerites who poached their forests and harassed their temples. The Frostmerites rejected Galidir and Atel's dominion over nature, believing they were just one facet of the Totem Spirits of Tairos rather than masters lording over it.   During this time, the region was part of Talbot's borders and known as La Foret Pommeraie in their language. The name means Apple Orchard Forest, chosen because of the prodigious amount of wild apple trees of all varieties that grew there. Many of the trees there yielded exquisite fruit, yet it wasn't just the apples that made this region so special. It seemed to sit upon a nexus of Leylines; such was the wonderous power that many of the trees bore magical fruit as well. Frostmere would have taken these lands by force from the forest elves long ago if not for the efforts of their neighbors, the Talboti. Talbot acted both as a diplomatic voice and a military buffer, maintaining a fragile peace and granting the Frostmerites limited access to parts of the forest. This balance was preserved for centuries until the coming of the fae and The Autumn Queen.   The high elves of Melanthris had welcomed the Queen to Tairos with open arms and helped her to bring her people through the gates within their city. The fae were numerous, and many more were waiting still to come through. So King Erondil Sorolwyn the Third, ruler of Melanthris so it is now and as it was then, decided to find a home for his new allies. The fae sought a place of isolation and greenery and to Erondil the La Foret Pommeraie was the perfect home. Control of the forest was a complicated matter, though. The breakaway faction of Wood Elves lived there; the Frostmerites wanted the magical trees, and the location itself was within Talboti territory. This problem could be solved the way all of Melanthris' problems are solved: through guile, manipulation, and poring over the vaults for a perfect solution. The vaults of House Celodin held the solution to this particular problem. Celodin, known for their magical secrets, held a bound totem. One captured ages ago and forgotten about, a spirit of shattered psyche and madness, the Viper Sisters. Once known as Sister Snake, this spirit was tortured, slain, and remade into Hydra's daughter, an oracle of corruption known as the Viper Sisters. Where once was one, now there were three debase and wicked entities that sought to bring about Hydra's ultimate goal, Endless Night.   For the nobles of Melanthris, totemic concerns were quaint and trifling notions. The stuff of tribal times when the world was simple, not something that should concern the greatest magicians Tairos had ever known. What was captured once could be dealt with again. So they let their plot unfold, using a series of intermediaries to make sure the orb containing the Viper Sisters would make its way to the wood elves unannounced. They orchestrated the measure precisely, letting it be lost near the woods, somewhere easily found by wood elf foresters rather than the shamanistic elite of Galidir and Atel. And, within a few short months, as calculated, a Viper cult festered within the forest. Civil war among the aboreal elves erupted as the followers of the nature gods fought desperately to stop the cult's efforts to actually open the Viper Sisters' prison. The cult's cruelty quickly spilled into Frostmerite territory, slaying hundreds in an effort to secure the sacrifices they needed for their profane ritual. The Frostmerites saw the cult as the consequence of the wood elves' blasphemous adherence to nature gods rather than Grandfather Bear and launched retaliatory strikes against all sides involved. Soon, La Foret Pommeraie was a war zone, one that the Talboti were powerless to quell and in constant danger of being drawn into. This is when the generous High Elves offered their support. Their solution was to purchase the woods from Talbot, appeasing the Talboti with gold and magic. They offered to raze the heinous temples of the wood elves, satiating the Frostmerites' grievances. And, for what remained of the actual wood elves, they were relocated to Tairan Island off the west coast of Carda's empire. The high elves found that the Viper Sisters had escaped their orb, thanks to the rivers of blood spilled by the cult, but this was a minor setback. It seemed more eager to slither back to whatever dark realm the other nature spirits dwelled in than to cause further trouble.   The woods were gifted to the Autumn Queen and her people. The war-ravaged forest was restored with fae magic, warped towards the aetheral and strange. The presence of totemic spirits dwindled and exhausted in the face of this unnatural power, and the nexus of the leylines would become the site of the Autumn Palace. The name La Foret Pommeraie would fade into obscurity, replaced by one of the Queen's choosing: The Amberholt.    

The Age of Amber

  Amberholt, a name that blends the Autumn Queen's favorite stone and color with a word from their native tongue meaning small grove, would come to be the capital of the fae world during its time in Tairos. On the face of it, this is where the Queen held her court, met with visitors and merchants, and administered to the advancement of her people. In truth, this is where the Autumn Queen and her Shadow Court devised their scheme to siphon all of Tairos' leyline energy away before leaving for greener pastures on another world.   It would be seen as a mysterious and wondrous place to the rest of Tairos, and those that the fae allowed to visit would be treated to some of the most magnificent sights. The bright, golden apples that had become the symbol for the Autumn Queen grew prodigiously here (having assimilated the existing apple trees and converting them into the kind familiar to the fae) and yielded vast amounts of fruit. The Queen's Gardens were thick with exotic plants and beautiful flowers, many of which seemed too whimsical and bizarre to be real, such as the Seoclaid, a flower whose center was filled with a chocolate custard-like substance. The Seoclaid and its many varieties were most often the basis for fae teas. Menageries of otherworldly animals delighted visitors too, such as the breathtakingly brilliant Aurumvorax, the flickering packs of Blink Dogs, serene and peaceful giant swans, groves full of playful Leshy of all variety, and of course, the regal hippogriffs. It's clear now, through the lens of hindsight, that these were the most palatable of the fae wonders. The depths of the Amberholt hid many horrors as well. Those stricken by the curse of the minotaur or swan maiden. The ruthless pest-like Meenlocks that dig their endless little tunnels, the Rusulkas and Kelpie that delighted in drowning wayward visitors, the bone gardens of the bloodthirsty Redcaps, and flesh-hungry carnivores like Chimera or Manticores. The Autumn Queen put on a well-choreographed amusement park veneer for those she had to win over while keeping the most debased natures of the fae hidden from view.   The final years of the Amberholt are well-documented by Tairos' resistance and the soldiers who besieged it at the end of the Queen's War. The palace fell, and The Queen's Rebuke was unleashed. This is the war that's known. There is another, more secret war, one involving rebellion, betrayals, and heart-stopping dread. Many among the Primary Fae Races that made up the Queen's people believed Tairos was to be their forever home. They had settled, made lives for themselves, and even come to love the people of Tairos. Most of the common fae were ignorant of the Queen's true plan. Some among the Shadow Court wished to claim Tairos rather than plunder it, hoping to put an end to their ceaseless wandering across the cosmos.   Internal conflict was common, eventually brewing into an unrest that was hidden from the world at large. Much of this unrest was led by one of the five ruling titles of the Shadow Court, War's Tallyman as the position is known. Deaglán Ó Cathal believed that all of Tairos' kingdoms were already flush with fae influence and that conquest would be a simple matter. The Autumn Queen and the Tallyman of War clashed verbally in the halls of the palace, and their respective agents moved against each other with increasing frequency. While these two squabbled, the followers of both sides sought a solution, one that would allow them to continue living the lives they had made for themselves here. The answer seemed very clear: the Court and the Queen would have to go. The most trusted and ancient of the rulers' advisers were aware of why the Queen wished never to settle on one world for long. In walking the trods between worlds, she crossed many of the old gods, and they were searching for her to claim their revenge. These humble fae, wishing only to stay in Tairos and free themselves from the cycle forced upon them by the Queen, sought to find the old gods and let them know where the Queen and her Court could be found. This was a terrible mistake that would lead to an event known as the Staircase War.   The Autumn Queen made various pacts with old gods of The Black Road, ensuring her people would find the safety of new worlds to pillage. The cost she would have to pay were steep, cruel, and never-ending. These wretched gods would lay claim to members of her court, her people, precious memories, even children, or eternal servitude. The Queen grew tired of having to pay these dark debts and did something often considered anathema to fae, breaking a promise. Rather than pay the toll the Road demands, the Queen hid the doorway that led her and her people to Tairos once the last of them had arrived safely. Her power was such that she could conceal the passage to this world from the old gods, and she herself would take over finding new worlds to drain rather than depending on the gods of the road.   The fae who wished to break this cycle were of a younger generation, those born in Tairos or who were too young to understand the time on the road. They knew enough to be dangerous and not enough to stop themselves from enacting this naive plot. They used potent magic and copious amounts of Manacite whisper the way to Tairos across the Black Road, and the Queen's scorned creditors heard this call. Stairways began appearing in the Amberholt, ushering in true nightmares. Hordes of the Peeled and Burning Petitioners began spilling forth and swarming anyone who crossed their path. Briganock unions went to work undermining fae structures, creating vast sinkholes where once beautiful structures stood. Members of the Heart family whimsically walked the Amberholt, looking to enact their culinary rituals and consume fae flesh. Soon, the actual gods themselves followed the whisper and found their debtors hiding here on Tairos. The Invisible Stalkers of the Queen of Air and Darkness moved unseen, claiming their bounty. Jack Grey's darklings and dopplegangers would come by night to steal away the children he was owed. And, before long, Lanternmen rode through the woods on their nightmare steeds, cutting down any that dared walk the night. To the rest of Tairos, who were already starting to realize the true nature of the Autumn Queen, these new beasts were just evidence of what they suspected. The armies of the Shadow Court were entrenched within the deep Amberholt, closing every staircase that opened and putting down every invader that crept through. The mission was clear: should a critical number of staircase doors be open, it would be enough to allow the complete metaphysical form of the old gods to seep through and claim the fae entirely, and then Tairos too. This was manageable at first, but over the years, the Shadow Court was unable to keep up with the pace of new Staircases opening. The signs of the coming of the old gods were becoming increasingly prevalent. Flayed bodies pinned to posts, birthing bough trees ripe with dopplegangers, whipping winds filled with shards of mirrored glass, and most innocuous of all to outsiders and most troublesome to the Queen and her court... the pumpkin patches.    

The Age of Ash

  In the final months of the Queen's War, her forces were scattered across the land, fighting their own personal wars for survival and no longer responding to the commands of the Shadow Court. Only their most loyal soldiers remained in the Amberholt, pushing back against the besieging Tairosians and simply trying to funnel the horrors from the staircases toward their enemies. The Queen and the Shadow Court were actively working toward a solution to stop the Staircase War prior to Tairos turning against them. They'd planned to use a massive stockpile of manacite to destroy the leylines that were feeding the staircases, destroying them all at once and cutting off the Black Road from Tairos completely. It would have resulted in grave damage to Tairos' leylines, but it would have been recoverable. And, it would have been far more merciful than letting the Autumn King claim Tairos. This solution would conceal the fae to the old gods again, and the Queen would move on to another world, leaving Tairos to recover or wither on its own.   This would not come to pass. Tairos' defenders gained ground, finally laying siege to the Autumn Palace itself. With no options and nothing left but hate in her heart, the Autumn Queen detonated the manacite stockpile into the leyline nexus beneath her palace. With this final act, Tairos' gods were silenced, magic was severed, and the staircases were burnt to embers. The Autumn Queen's last moment was dedicated to a spiteful blow to all who spurned her.   The Amberholt was gone, most of it burnt by the energies of the Rebuke, the rest warped or unnaturally changed. It would later become known as the Queen's Scar, a place deeply shunned and feared. Yet, not everything was destroyed by the Queen's Rebuke. Some fae managed to escape and flee elsewhere to some far-off corner. Based on the sightings of modern Talboti and their Dread Hunters some of the creatures from the Black Road still survive here. Or, worse still, some of the staircases survive and it's not survivors of the Rebuke these Talboti are seeing but new terrors that are slowly trickling in.