Haunted Wood

The land

• Ground: grey-green, gloomy grass littered with dead leaves.
• Height: low, gentle hills.
• Water: lakes and rivers, as in the Woods.
• Trees and plants: hollow oaks, black pines and bramble bushes, Ghostcaps, and wild pumpkins. Its sister tree is the Ghost Birch, which gives Ghostwood. See Trees and Wild Plants.

The gloom

• The light here is drained of colour, colder, and darker at the edges of your view.
• A thin mist hangs over the wood all year, whatever the weather.
• Pale wisps drift low between the trees: a few by day, more after dark.
• Night things by day: deep in the wood the gloom counts as night for them. They come even in daylight (at most 2 at a time, and half as often as at night), and they don't leave at dawn. You still count as in the light by day, so the IN THE DARK badge doesn't fill until dusk. See The Dark.

Animals

Ravens, a few birds and frogs (Raven, Bird, Frog). Black wolves and black bears roam here.

Night things

The Haunted Wood has the widest mix of night things of any land. As well as the common four (Gnawlings, Longlegs, Crawlers, Scuzz), it sends out:

• Rakers (about 1 in 3 of what comes);
• Ghosts, Demon Imps and Turned-Coats;
• swarms of Flitterbats;
• rarely, a Grave Knight (one at a time);
• on 1 night in 4, if you are in the wood, The Hollow Stag itself, 40 to 90 seconds after night falls.

Villages: the Lanternwrights

The Haunted Wood's villages stand in a ring: the houses in a circle round a wide square, all facing in. Their folk are lamplighters and glasswrights. Every window is lit by dusk, and on the longest night they walk the old road with lanterns so no wisp is left out in the dark. Village names run like Lanternhollow or Hushend. See Villages, Village Quests and Keepsakes.

What it gives

The Haunted Wood's trade is spirit-craft: Ghostwood, Ghostcap and Wisp Essence are found here, and worked into Spirit Silk. These go into the Wisp Lantern, the Spirit-sewn Pack, and Epic Fibers of your own. On a Spirit Wager, the Haunted Wood's water favours Wind.

Dungeons

• The Haunted Wood's dungeon mouths are crypt doors in a hillside, little ruined courts, or stairwells down into the ground.
• Inside they are crypts: chambers lined with coffins, and chapels with cut corners.
• Ghosts, Demon Imps, Turned-Coats and Rakers haunt them, Flitterbats turn up, and Dire and Fatal crypts may hold a Grave Knight.

See Dungeons and Chests.

The lair: the Hollow Stag

Each Haunted Wood region has one lair near its middle, its great gate in a sheer outcrop. Its boss is The Hollow Stag. Clearing your first Haunted Wood lair wins The Mourning Thorn, the Haunted Wood's Jewel.

Creatures

What its traders sell

A village trader here carries some of these, more as you hold more Jewels:

Fish found here more often