The Black Woods

"SPEAK NOT THE NAME OF THE WOODS WHERE time forgets its path, for within those twisted boughs the past hunts the present and the future weeps. There, the roots drink from broken timelines, and the trees remember things that never were." Whispers from the Rift, Fragment III
Overview
The Black Woods are a warped and chaotic realm within Chronovorus's domain-a forest where time fractures, reality loops, and causality is a fading suggestion. The trees are impossibly tall and twisted, their bark blackened like scorched bone, with leaves that shimmer and flicker between seasons in the same breath. No two visits to the Black Woods are ever alike; paths vanish mid-step, voices echo from futures that never happened, and some travellers glimpse their own deaths- or births- waiting just beyond the tree line.
It is said the forest was born from the moments Chronovorus stole from the timelines he unraveled: forgotten memories, aborted futures, and fragmented dreams woven into roots and soil. The very air hums with unstable magic, and even gods tread carefully here.
Time rifts open like wounds among the trees, pulling wanderers into loops, ages, or versions of themselves that never should have been.
The Black Cult considers the woods sacred, believing it to be a place where Chronovorus's will manifests most clearly.They perform rituals beneath its shattered canopy, seeking glimpses of forbidden futures or attempting to bargain for more time. Few return unchanged-if they return at all.
Some say the Ethertwist Haunter, Chronovorus's terrifying herald, roams these woods endlessly, herding timelines like prey. Others whisper that deep within lies the Hourless Grove, where the hands of time are forever still, and where Chronovorus once took form during the first Sundering of fate.
The Black Woods are not merely dangerous-they are unanchored. To walk beneath their branches is to risk losing not only your way, but your self, your history, and your place in the world's story.
General Information
Seems to be another dimension linked to Chronovorus. The Party went into this dimension to gain more of The Pages to use in The Black Ritual. Inside this dimension, The Party found the same house in various states of decay, belonging to a family that long since died.
The Party soon learn this family's story as they visit them tat different points in their lives. Here are the stages they see and in order of when they were witnessed:
- The house is completely derelict. The Ethertwist Haunter is waiting for them
- The House is mostly fallen, and The Party accounts the family as either half dead of ghosts. The father has one of the pages
- The house is ver nicely put together. Mordecai Reverence manages to sneak his way in to find a huge feast awaiting him. Soon, the land is ravaged by war, and Mordecai manages to convince the family that he is the safest place to keep one of the pages.
- The House is still being built. The Party approach the family to find out that they escaped from Snowport using The Golden Fleet. It was such a hellish journey that they made a pact with Chronovorus for safe passage in return, they will give their second born's life to him. This child would end up being the Ethertwist Haunter.