Vordynran Forsaken Forest

Place

Place Name:

Vordynran Forsaken Forest

Biome:

Forsaken Forest

Size:

Unknown

Continent:

Unknown

Subcontinent

Unknown

Geography

Vordynran is a comparatively small forest surrounded by mountains. There are a few narrow passes within the mountains which lead to other lands, but the main entrance to Vordynran is to the south — this entrance is a slightly hidden valley. It’s easy enough to find if you know it exists, but difficult to stumble upon by accident; it’s wide enough to march a small army through, but not a large one. This valley, called the Guardians’ Gate, is guarded by the Unalas, day and night, since the recent actions of this clan have made them several enemies.

The other entrances into Vordynran, however, they have not deemed worth their while to guard, due to their secrecy or size.

Within Vordynran itself, there are four once-abandoned villages in addition to Heorot Hall (the name of the abandoned mansion). These villages are now the dwellings of the Unala clan. Each village also has a prison, for the captives of the Unala to be kept in — the Unala grudgingly let some of their zu’aan captives out every day to farm, since the Unala need zu’aan blood to survive and the zu'aan need farms to survive. But the Unala demand that these farmers be men who have wives or children, so that their loved ones can be used as fetters more effective than anything physical.

Except for the families of zu'aan who try to escape, the Unala treat their captives well. But zu’aan are not the only captives held in the prisons. The Unala clan also captures hundreds of kin’tonis, of different kinds, too, in order that their weaknesses might be discovered, in order that the Unala may grow more efficient at killing their enemies. kin'toni, after all, are a good deal harder to slay than zu'aan. These secrets and weaknesses are recorded in a great library in the main village, which anyone may access. This library is a part of the house of the leader of the Unala clan.

It seems as though the current leader is attempting to rival Heorot Hall in majesty, but this new mansion is still under construction. It remains to see whether it shall succeed in outshining its rival. For a long time, the land of Vordynran was only sparsely populated. In recent years, however, the new leaders of the Unala clan have begun to see the need to strike out the word “forsaken” in the Forsaken Forest of Vordynran. As a result, what was once an clan of some fifty kin’tonis with perhaps a hundred enslaved zu’aan has grown to a province of three hundred kin’tonis and a thousand enslaved zu’aan.

There has been talk of conquering more land that the Unala clan and its realm of power may have more room to grow. Still, though, there is plenty of land in the Forsaken Forest that remains foggy and eerie. And yet the zu’aan do not farm it or settle it. Perhaps this is partially due to the many legends that surround the forest — but there really are some eerie beasts not to be contended with lightly in these woods, and there really is fog coming from the many rivers of the land. Perhaps they’ll settle it, given enough time.

Plants

After long years of study, the Unala clan has devised a poison that is extremely deadly to kin’toni. (It’s also extremely deadly to zu’aan, but that’s not the point, you can kill zu'aan with practically any poison you like.) This poison is brewed from the leaves of the sahvar flower. The sahvar flower… grows in an odd place, to say the least. It grows not on the ground, but on the tops of trees. When the seed of a sahvar flower sails across the wind, it begins growing only if it lands on wood. Using the enormous amount of energy stored inside the seed.

A thin vine begins growing from the seed, both upwards and downwards simultaneously. When it can climb no higher, then it sprouts its leaves and its blossoms; when it can climb no lower, then it sprouts its roots and digs deeper. From its position at the top of a tree, sahvar flowers can absorb far more light than they ever could on the forest floor. This allows them to create immense amounts of excess food, which they store in their leaves, in a compact chemical — and it is this chemical that is so poisonous and deadly to zu’aan and kin’toni alike.

These deadly properties of the leaves were discovered when an imprisoned and starving kin’toni tried to eat a sahvar, blossom, leaves, and all. Further experimentation led to the realization that the poison was only in the leaves, and that it could be distilled into an extremely effective poison which corroded the bloodstream and damaged nerve cells beyond repair or replacement. There’s a little yellow flower, called a sahkor, that looks very similar to a sahvar flower. But it’s not a sahvar flower: it grows low to the ground and its leaves are perfectly fine to eat.

Not that anyone ever goes around eating its leaves. sahkors also produce tiny little berries, hiding these berries beneath its petals. These berries are less perfectly fine to eat, being slightly poisonous. They’ll give you a stomach ache if you eat them. If you like the way sahvar flowers look and want to put some in a vase on your table, but you’re not agile enough to climb the trees to get them, just pick some sahkors; they look similar enough. It’s been mentioned that the trees in Vordynran do not rot easily. This is not because there is a special kind of tree that grows here.

But because there is a special kind of chemical in the soil. It’s unknown how this chemical got in the soil, but speculation suggests that it might have something to do with why Vordynran was forsaken to begin with. Any tree grown here receives this special preservative chemical. It’s notable that the soil doesn’t seem to affect plants that aren’t trees, like the many different crops that the zu’aan in Vordynran grow. It’s also notable that the zu’aan in Vordynran (as well as the Unala clan's other livestock) have an aversion to fruits grown on trees, and that they have no such aversion to fruits grown on bushes or vines.

Perhaps this chemical isn’t healthy for living beings — perhaps it’s not healthy even for the trees.

Animals

Mistrisks are elusive creatures, being as difficult and dangerous to hunt as they are tasty to eat. These swift, sharp-horned spectres can appear and disappear like the fog they live in. Their horns come in all manner of shapes — and even the females have small horns that are no less dangerous than the horns of male mistrisks. Sometimes the horns curl around their ears, sometimes the horns curl around their ears several times, sometimes the horns are straight as spears and point straight up, sometimes the horns are straight as spears and point straight down.

No matter what shape the horns are, you can be sure that the mistrisk has mastered the art of fighting with whatever kind of horns it may have, as well as the art of kicking you and the art of running away. mistrisks have to be slain with one arrow, because there’s no way you’re getting a second shot even if you do kill the beast with one arrow. Even when dead, the tension in a mistrisk’s legs will have it automatically run in a random direction. Sometimes, it’ll crash into a tree and stop, but other times, it’ll crash into a tree, get up, and keep going.

And a hunter will have to walk for miles to find the place where the dead mistrisk finally crashed to the ground. The legs will still be kicking a little bit. But, if you’re a gourmet — dang, was that hunt worth it. It’s a good thing, though, that mistrisks are so hard to catch, because there’s so few of them. It’s also a good thing that they have no predators other than zu’aan. They used to have a canine predator called a mistfang, but the zu’aan killed all the mistfangs off, a long time ago, because of how dangerous and annoying they were, and also because the mistfangs were eating their livestock.

So there are more mistrisks now than there used to be. Supposedly mistrisks can be found in lands other than Vordynran, but I’ve certainly never seen one outside of the mountain-encircled Forsaken Forest that they’re so common in. There are no songbirds in Vordynran — their silence perhaps contributing to the adjective ‘Forsaken’ — but there are certainly birds. They’re mostly viryans. Viryans are large, black birds, with fierce, hooked beaks and impeccable eyesight. They venture often outside of Vordynran, but they always mate and hatch their young in this place.

Perhaps they find there to be something cozy in the foggy mountain forest. Even the baby viryans are always completely silent. They’re an otherwise energetic bunch, though, often jumping out of the nest and gliding on their then-stubby wings to the earth beneath them. Their mothers get plenty of exercise jumping down after them to bring them back to the nest, because while their mother’s away, all the other chicks tend to jump up and out of the nest too. The chicks stop jumping out when it gets towards mealtime, however. They know food is coming and they don’t want to miss it.

Place

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Vordynran Forsaken Forest

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This article is written by Xerxes Worldweaver. Copyright 2026 Xerxes Worldweaver. All rights reserved.