Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)

2026-05-06T07:59:41Z

(via JWB)

New page

{{Infobox Region
|Name = Osold Ominous Woods
|Other Names = Unknown
|Biome = Ominous Woods
|Size = Unknown
|Continent = Unknown
|Subcontinent = Unknown
}}

== History ==

Osold Ominous Woods is known for once housing hundreds or even thousands of kin'toni that vanished after the fall of the Zu'aan Empire. Nobody knows exactly why or how, common sense would dictate that there was some kind of detention facility for the infected here but if that's true than nothing is left of the place, not even vague ruins. Actual Zu'aan habitation began right after the fall as groups of survivors gathered here in search of a safe haven called Sceleg. The place was a settlement under the protection of imperial forces, but it too disappeared without a trace, leaving empty houses and tents. Those that gathered here were lead by one Syraph Hinath, a charismatic statesman whose surname would become the name of an entire tribe of Zu'aan.

On top of where Sceleg should have been Syraph Hinath founded the settlement of Thaphe which once housed some 2000 zu'aan. The settlement actually lasted for almost a century before it too fell to ruin. The kin'toni which once inhabited tbe region hid beneath the settlement, picking off people one by one and slowly growing their numbers. They were around 3000 when they descended upon the people of Thaphe and slaughtered them, only scattered groups of them menaged to survive by hiding deep into the Osold Woods in places they were heavily entrenched and behind the walls of fortified settlements like Noyesu, Lingst, Tweell and Inderi.

Noyesu would later be destroyed after a kin'toni raid menaged to breach the walls of the settlement, setting fire to the wooden palisades and trapping people inside their homes. There were very few survivors of that raid, and they fled to Lingst and Tweell. Chieftain Uradic of Lingst declared the survivors cowards and had them executed for not defending their homes and daring to try to infect his people with their weakness while the elders of Tweell accepted the almost 100 people under the condition that they become essentially slaves and cannon fodder against future kin'toni attacks with every single abled bodied individual being forced to join the Tweell guard.

No survivors arrived at the gates of Inderi as they were the furthest away from Noyesu, though its believed that some did try to reach Inderi only to be hunted down by ravenous packs of Mingels. Its believed that the kin'toni who descend from the people of Sceleg and those who descend from the inhabitants of Thaphe wrestled for control of their old homes and in the struggle became as fractured as the nascent Hinath. Osold Ominous Woods is a chaotic place plague by violence and death, with skirmishes constantly errupting between locals and animals, locals and kin'toni and different kin'toni factions, making this place a land of blood and death.

== Geography ==

The Osold Woods are a natural labyrinth. Trees grow too close together, huge boulders seem to form walls that bottleneck and guide people into groves and clearings where they can usually find the very unwelcoming locals be it fauna, flora, zu'aan or kin'toni. The more well known paths are actually avoided by tribals and normally used by large packs of predators and heavily armored gangs of kin'toni looking for their next victim. You can usually stumble upon mass graves and forgotten battlefields where skirmishes left mounds of bodies to rot. The dense canopy of the Osold trees makes sure little sunlight passes through, and that even during the day the woods are a shadowy place, and during the night they are pitch black, almost impossible to see unless you have eyes adapted to see in the dark.

Most infamously, extensive underground tunnels, some of which were excavated by the kin'toni over the years, cave systems and other passages hidden beneath the earth cover the entire length of the forest. Nobody, not even the kin'toni know the real extension of these tunnels and how deep they go, though even the infected avoid descending into the darker recesses of the earth as they say they can hear screams coming from "the pits". Besides being a natural labyrinth, having a complex network of tunnels, mass graves and dangerous inhabitants, Osold is also the location of many ruins such as Thaphe, which has been reduces to rubble after the kin'toni essentially fought a civil war there, Noyesu which was burned to the ground but still has some buildings somewhat intact.

The place is used as a meeting point for different kin'toni warbands to try and solve their differences before drawing weapons on eachother. There are also many smaller, silent ruins of unknown settlements that have presumably been constructed by smaller groups of survivors of Thaphe and over the years either fell to the plague or slowly declined; Oyesig and Ottica are such places, though at least six more completely nameless ruins have been found deeper inside the forest. Osold is surprisingly dry, with small bodies of water like Lake Orbiou, Lake Mysiti, Lake Komych and many other smaller streams of water thay feed these lakes.

Kin'toni often try to poison the water with their blood, the bodies of animals and people and sometimes with actual poison they attempt to craft. They have sucessfully polluted the largest body of water in the region known as Lake Hyrand. These indirect attacks upon the Hinath are meant to try and draw them out and lure them into ambushes which, due to the fact that they need the water to survive, is a very effective tactic. Life in the Osold Woods is struggle, conflict and the forest itself seems to fight its inhabitants and pitch them against eachother as it seems the trees move ever closer together, almost as if its going to devour everything living in it, casting shadows over their entire world.

== Plants ==

• Cythi are huge, purple fruit known for their life cycle of growing on Hesibl trees, falling off when they become ripe and their insides fermenting, which creates a strong drink which the Hinath people adore. Because they could never find out how to cultivate Cythi, their fermeneted juice is reserved to be drunk only at celebrations and important rituals, lighting up the lives of the Zu'aan who live in the gloomy Osold Woods.

• Iddian are dangerous flora. Composed of a thick stalk with many thin, razor sharp leaves, their leaves can cut flesh with ease, which fascinates and terrifies with equal measure; the local fauna actively avoid running at full spead on fear of getting eviscerated by one of these on accident. Zu'aan and kin'toni end up completely cut up from taking a wrong turn in the woods and unknowingly entering a grove full of Iddians. Few would dares to collect the leaves or the stalk of one of these plants.

• Sulask trees stand out in a few ways: they are almost twice as tall as Osold trees, completely straight and perfectly symmetrical. For the locals they are considered strange because otherwise they would be considered normal anywhere else in the world. Their blindness actually draws attention to them. They don't produce fruit and their wood is good enough to be used for tools and as building materials. There's actually little to be said about them.

• Anferps are massive, carnivorous plants that take over entire groves as they consume massive amounts of nutrients and grow to be as tall as an osold tree. They attract animals and zu'aan alike with the sweet fragrance of its pollen, and the closer they get the stronger the effect is, as the pollen is mildly hallucinogenic and lulls creatures into a false sense of tranquility as they walk ever closer to the hidden jaws of the anferp, where they are crushed and digested. Traces of their pollen carried by the wind can cause minor hallucinations even on people who are far away from them.

• Osold trees, alongside with Sulask and Dexage trees are the main species that compose the Osold Woods. There also a smaller number of Xynep, Juteri, Hesibl and Bemati growing in more secluded areas, though their population is tiny. Osold trees the more numerous of the tree and are know for their strange, crooked shape, dark leaves and dense wood. They creak and their branches and leaves howl with the wind, also casting strange shapes during the day and night that are often confused with the outlines of local predators like mingels and wachors.

• Plesse are strange, pebble sized, yellow berries that grow almost everywhere. Usually they are considered to be inedible, foul-tasting, but a few of them are actually extremely psychoactive and can cause ego death if consumed at all, rendering animals and zu'aan users completely catatonic over the short period of a month. How the Hinath discovered that is unknown as their nature has become common knowledge among the people, but it doesn't impede some of them of trying to eat plesse, usually resulting in the person spitting it out in disgust.

== Animals ==

• Okelog are everpresent in the Osold Woods but rarely seen. These small, six legged, scaly beings are renowed for their great stealth capabilities. Besides being small and flexible, easily hiding beneath rocks, inside trees and in piles of leaves, their scales can change color to match their surroundings. This ability fascinated Imperial scientists before the plague and continues to fascinante the zu'aan of the Hinath as Okelogs are sought after as pets by both children and adults. Their skittish behaviour hides what is otherwise a friendly creature.

• Oburag are the reason why Okelogs are so skittish. They look exactly like okelogs but lack their camouflage ability and are horribly agressive. They have sharp teeth made for piercing scales and a taste for Okelog flesh. What exactly is going on between these two species is unclear and locals believe that when a okelog and oburag fight its just males fighting for territory or over mates.

• Wachor are flying creatures which are believed to be related to warnoms. They are very similar in appearance and behaviour being agressive, feathery predators that scour the skies of their respective habitats. Wachors are usually considered less dangerous to deal with as they become less violent shortly after eating due to how their digestive system requires them to sleep for one to two hours to digest a meal.

• Mingels are four legged, furry predators that range in size from medium to gigantic with little apparent reason. They hunt in packs and tear apart anything that isn't another mingel as they are extremely territorial but highly cooperative with each other. Their have sharp claws and teeth that they use to climb trees and position themselves to pounce at intruders or prey. They are also expert trappers, making an encounter with them almost always a deadly one.

• Gronol are utterly terrifying, house-sized beasts that sleep for most of the year, waking up only to eat and breed before, and before going back to their deep slumber, they rampage throughout their entire region. The level of destruction they cause is legendary among the locals as even a single one can kill a fully grown zu'aan hunter, requiring over a dozen arrows and spears just to be slowed down as thick fur and layers of hardened fat makes the creatures almost impossible to effectively wound. Gronol is also the word for "death" in the local tongue.

• Daheri are known for their strange howls. Their vocalizations resemble the screams of dying zu'aan and echo all throughout the Osold Woods. The region is called Osold Ominous Woods for a reason, and some believe the screams of the Daheri are why these woods are called "ominous". Otherwise Daheri are your average medium-sized, solitary predators with thick fur and sharp claws. The Osold region has hundreds of similar creatures.

• Ordeom are at the very bottom of the food chain of the Osold Woods. They are fat, lazy quadrupeds that are hunted down by almost every other inhabitant of the region besides the Okelogs. They are docile and social to the point of being considered harmless. Some zu'aan consider it wrong and dishonorable to hunt them.

{{Template:Controllers
|Stone Age = Unknown
|Copper Age = Unknown
|Bronze Age = Unknown
|Iron Age = Unknown
|Ancient Age = Unknown
|Middle Age = Unknown
|Early Modern Age = Unknown
|Industrial Age = Unknown
|Machine Age = Unknown
|Atomic Age = Unknown
|Space Age = Unknown
|Information Age = Unknown
|Genetic Age = Unknown
|Awakening Age = Unknown
|Twilight Age = [[Doustpol Tribal Zu'aan]]
}}

{{CrossSiteAttribution
| User = menacetosociety2000
| Holder = menacetosociety2000
}}

[[Category:Places]]
[[Category:menacetosociety2000's contributions]]

Osold Ominous Woods - Revision history

Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)