Unchartable Woods

There is a saying in Vanth, that lost things travel west, until they eventually all reach the so called Unchartable Woods. This wide swathe of forest stretches along the western edge of Vanth, even reaching as far as the great west road and towards the shunned towns. Many things fey and foul reside within the vast woods, and they are truly uncharted and uchartable. Not only are they wild and filled with monsters, but the landscape itself seems to shift sometimes, landmarks tend to disappear, distances are variable, rivers flow in circles, some areas are bigger on the inside or suddenly don't exist, and space and time seem to be more malleable than set.

The forest is dangerous and has already claimed all too many lives, but it blocks off rich trade routes and hides much that just waits to be discovered (or maybe rediscovered), from treasures and people to places and civilisations. Every year, more and more fools come hoping to find a fortune beneath the branches, but for every adventurer that profits, ten will loose friends, limbs or sanity.

And the woods are expanding, ever so slowly.

The edge of the Unchartable Woods is known as the green zone, a relatively safe area with low amount of weirdness and wealth. The parts of the forest that reach into Vanth are exclusively in the green zone, though that doesn't stop them from being as dangerous as any deep, wild woods might. Still, even the green zone provides timber and game of exceptional quality and size, and it is by no means monster free.

Yellow zone is the most common destination of adventurous ventures and the largest part of the Unchartable Woods. This is the area where the trees get larger and sunlight might have problems penetrating the canopy, where maps and compasses become unreliable, pathways treacherous and monstrous life ubiquitous. This is also where many a lost treasure, strange relic of the past, unknown magic or plainly weird stuff may be found. A more insidious danger of the yellow zone is that there is no obvious sign of coming close or crossing into the red zone, as the changes in the surroundings may be subtle at first, until the hapless pioneer gets confused and lost, or wanders into some unforeseen danger.
 

 
Red zone is deeper into the woods, where the trees grow taller than imaginable, supporting whole villages of beastmen or vegepygmies, where cities of ancient civilisations may be found overgrown by trees and vines and shrubbery, where the forest may give way to gigantic mushrooms, natural briar mazes or areas of petrified trees, and where animal, plant and monster life alike will make attempts at the explorer's life. Some even claim that the very air of the red zone is inimical to normal life, and anyone who stays too long may find themselves warped into a more monstrous self.

 

Horrors of the Silent Woods by ThemeFinland

Black zones are hearsay locations far, far beyond the places from where any expedition has managed to successfully return. Only rambling madmen rescued by other adventurers have been heard talking about black zones, claiming to have lost all their companions or decades of their life there. It is said that as you approach a black zone, the trees will become mutated and unnatural, even animated and aggressive, but in the zone itself they are replaced altogether with tall black monoliths pointing at a dark purple sky with alien stars. There is no Sun in a black zone, and the air is thin and barely breathable. Even many natural forces and laws, such as gravity or linear time, will start to loose hold.

Black zones are also allegedly filled with unimaginable treasures, from wellsprings of pure magic to fully operational spaceships left behind by parties unknown, so some reckless, insane or suicidally brave venturing parties have delved into the woods specifically to find a black zone. Some have returned without ever reaching their goal, others have not returned at all.
 

Smalltown Grove by SebastianBockisch

There are very few safe(ish) routes through the woods.

A so called "caravan trail" leads westward from the icy lake of Hori, skirting the North Mountains before plunging into the deep woods. Once built with massive expenditure of gold and lives, it is the safest way of crossing the forest. As the name suggests, it is frequently used by trade caravans travelling to the western lands, and the prodigious tolls they pay for the passage are in turn spent on maintaining the road and all associated facilities. The road itself is embanked and paved with stone, or raised on wooden platforms over the marshy parts of the forest, and followed by a line of lamp posts. A company of lamplighters, well-trained and well-armed professionals of some combat prowess, light these lamps every night to keep the monsters at bay and provide guidance to late travellers.

However, few people will travel the caravan trail at night, when the lurking danger is most oppressing and imminent. There is a series of safe houses built roughly a day's journey apart along the road, once again maintained from the travelling tolls. They offer shelter, lodging and stabling, and oftentimes are full-fledged inns, except enclosed in high walls. Most explorers wishing to venture deeper into the forest will first take the caravan trail to one of these houses, and the most popular adventuring sites will have a safe house with a blacksmith, salesmen or middlemen for nearly anything an adventurer might need, and probably even a brothel.

Deep in the red zone.

 
There are other roads in the Unchartable Woods, but rarely can you be sure that they won't disappear halfway through, that no monster made a lair right by the path, or that they still lead to their original destination. The woods and erratic and perilous, and many a pioneer was lost trying to find their own way and map the Unchartable Woods.

Apart from the roads, a railroad cuts a more or less straight line southwest from the shunned town of Prosperity all the way through the forest to the city of Algherra far west, every meter of its rails etched with runes of warding and pathfinding. Its construction was a great success for the mechanists of the shunned towns, and the newly opened business opportunities made Prosperity truly live up to its name.

The railroad constitutes the fastest route through the Unchartable Woods, but as of late the number of bandit and monster attacks have been increasing rapidly. Thus there is always work for adventurers willing to hire themselves out as train guards or protection for railway work crews.

Finally, a rare sight indeed is one of the western blimps soaring high above the trees.
 

d6 Quests in the Woods

1. A train loaded with black hole metal ingots is soon to depart from Prosperity, and the proprietor is looking for some top-class guards to protect the incredibly valuable cargo. Or maybe the PCs would rather like to lay a trap to the train once it's far enough from civilisation?
2. An entrepreneur has gained a licence to open a branch of the Hobling Postal Service in the far West. Now all she needs is a group of people willing to repeatedly make the highly hazardous journey through the Unchartable Woods, and loose not a single letter.
3. A caravan owner is looking for mercenaries, but she has a secret. The caravan will be transporting a highly unusual cargo - twenty cages of various monsters for the gardens of the satrapa of Y'Thalla. Surely nothing will go wrong and the caravan will attract no unwelcome attention from either the customs officers or the monsters of the woods.
4. A well-known adventurer was murdered in one of the safe houses after returning from two unusually successful ventures within a single month, and claiming to possess an enchanted map of the woods that actually works. Is it true or was he just a lucky braggart? Who has the map now? And most importantly, how can you profit?
5. Bartholomew Benjamin Harper, a lizard noblemen and explorer, has gone missing on his trip over the forest in a balloon. His sister Priscilla Elinor Harper is offering a rich reward for a successful rescue mission, or at least for confirming his death and returning the family signet ring that would allow her to take over the whole family wealth.
6. A hobling general is offering a generous pay to anyone who enlists for an expedition into the woods, to assess the danger of the deepest reaches. The party discovers the truth far too late: The general fell into disgrace with the hobling emperor and was given a choice. Either be exiled and forever tarnish the honour of his extended family, or die as a hero on a bogus expedition. No one is supposed to return alive.