The Bramblefen
Taking up the entire south-western corner of the lands of Dunwel Fen is the Bramblefen. A vast cursed land and scar of an ancient war between the Elves and Humans of crudilex in the distant past. This twisted ruin is an impossibly cyclopean growth of massive strangling thorny vines that fill the skies and cast in shadow the ruins of an ancient human city it strangles below. A curse from the ages past still to this day prevents humans from even being able to set foot into the shadow of the Bramblerose vines.
A massive rose rises into the sky and dominated the landscape. Its twisting vines and building tall thorns crowd the sky above in a reaching web for using and lowering throughout the strangled skeleton of a long forgotten city ruin. At the heart of which stands a cathedral out of which the Stem of the massive- titanic- perhaps even Devine creature grows. The Bramblefen Rose.
Battlemaps set in this location
The Children of The Forest
The Bramblefen is a deadly and hostile region full of magically mutated beasts and plants. Because of this, very few dare enter or even get within miles of it. This makes it the perfect place for beings like the Unblooded Riven to hide.
Called the Children of the Forest, these fey beings are hunted eternally by their magical counterparts who personify the concepts of predator and prey respectively and nature’s relationship with violence. Because of this link, each of the Unblooded Nanny protects has a Blooded counterpart whose only goal in life is to find them and kill them. However, Nanny’s powers have been protecting and shielding the Unblooded in their tree house village from their siblings, the Blooded. And as long as she remains alive, they will be safe, so they are boundlessly loyal to her and guard her zealously.
King At the Gates
A statue stands, tall and imposing, a silent sentinel guarding the entrance to the Bramblefen with a blade facing outward toward the humans’ ancient enemy, the elven kingdom of Felshire. It depicts a regal figure, once a powerful and revered king, now forgotten by the passage of time. The stone has weathered over the millennia, bearing the scars of countless raindrops that have etched lines and grooves into its once-smooth surface.
Nature has claimed the statue as its own as vines and moss now encase the king's form. The once-elaborate details of his regal robes have been softened and obscured by the lush vegetation, leaving an impression of a fusion between man and nature. The king's face, once a symbol of authority and wisdom, now appears weathered and obscured, a mere suggestion of the ruler he once was, and at his feet are the shattered remains of a broken crown.
Cathedral of the Rose
Built at the heart of the city to house the Moongate, the Cathedral of the Rose once held another name and venerated some being or deity that the first humans worshiped. However, that knowledge is long forgotten. The cathedral is the most difficult area in the city to reach, as it is against a sheer 1750-foot cliff from all sides but the front, and the most direct route through the ruins of the human settlement is beset by plant and fey creatures who enjoy a bastion of immense natural magic without the interference of humans.
The foot of Mount Hammerfell
The southern portion of the city is nested in a U-shaped cliff that hugs against the ruined Sky Road and the Cathedral of the Rose. This cliff face is called the Foot of Hammerfell, and is an extremely dangerous area of the Bramblefen. The shifting titanic vines of the Rose strangle the boulders and rocks and often dislodge them. The ruins below the cliffs are little more than slopes of shattered stone and debris from common rockslides that have occurred here.
The Sky Road
Standing in shattered obelisks of stone, the Sky Road crosses over the skyline of the ruins of the Bramblefen. It was once provided a kind of advanced travel or traversal built by the first humans, but now merely casts long shadows under the web of vines above. The western side of the city houses the largest portion of intact Sky Road, which has become a lofty home for a group of fallen elf bandits known as The Thorns. They live among huts and walkways reached by pulleys and wooden elevators.
Quintus Cassulem Amphitheater
Quintus was a successful merchant who always wanted to be an actor, but never had the time or talent. In the twilight years of his life before the fall of the city, he spent all his coin to build the theater. Quintus was murdered by his children for his riches, who got a nasty surprise when the merchant’s entire fortune was left to the theater.
Built in the east-most area of the Bramblefen is the Hall of Ancient Texts. The name was given by the elves as its true name, which was lost when the city fell. Now, the Hall is an enormous library with a missing roof. A forest has grown within, and a river runs down its central hall. The twisting roots and branches of trees intersperse the countless, worn leather-bound volumes.
The Hall sits too far into the city to safely venture into for a human, but with some searching it is possible to locate a way to end the curse of Hierophant within what lost human lore remains in the library. A mural containing the same story told by The Old Man of the Lake was created by the gloating elven King Hierophant and left here where no human could reach it as a final act of cruelty.
Zee’s Tree house
On the western side of the city is a massive, ancient oak, home to a group of shy, careful Unblooded. Living as the embodiment of prey, they have a decent-sized community built for themselves in the Bramblefen, hidden from their counterparts, the Blooded, who hunt them eternally. Their treehouse is an enormous platform of wood with ropes and planks between them. They are slow to trust and extremely reluctant to interact, but can make great company if that trust is earned, and their home is safe and welcoming.
The Twilight Plaza
In the center of the city, along the road to the Cathedral of the Rose, a large open space opens up where light of Crudilex’s twin suns manages to filter through the dense vines above, creating a mesmerizing twilit ambiance that gives this place its name. Many strange flora and fauna thrive in this area, and the central plaza that perhaps was once a concourse through the ruined city is now a naturally-occurring greenhouse.
Verdant Chasm
The chasm was formed by the magical blast that destroyed the city in ancient times. Magical energies still linger all across the Bramblefen, but here in the chasm, they are intensified. Plants grow faster and climb the walls from bottom to top. Cubs and pups of the wildlife are born Royal—larger than normal size and boasting bone-like spikes that protrude from their bodies. The region is a striking scar on an exceptionally scarred city and is a dangerous, unpredictable place.
The Whispering Road
A network of roads and ruined chambers within the ruins when the wing blows echos with strange sounds, the wind carrying the ruin’s long forgotten voices. Those brave enough to have come this deep into the Bramblefen Walking and down the Whispering Road swear they can actually hear the city's ancient past—the faintest sound of wagons and horses. Voices of the humans that perished here long ago.
Loranlith Rattlesnake Den
The Loranlith Rattlesnake’s lair is a cavernous den hidden amidst the dense thorny brambles, filled with coiled nests and the faint sound of hissing. The Loranlith themselves are giant magically imbued rattlesnakes with shimmering emerald scales, which are adorned with vibrant patterns that seem to glow with an otherworldly blue-green glimmer, camouflaging them in the dappled pools of light shining through the Bramblevines above.
Nanny’s Hut
A Hag’s hut that would seem right at home alongside the huts in Arcwall stands perched impossibly high atop a stack of boulders fallen from the cliffs south of the city on Mount Hammerfell. These boulders are impossibly stacked in a gravity-defying cairn. If observed closely, a feminine figure can be seen floating in and out on the blade of a scythe and steering the handle like the rudder of a boat.
The Bramblefen Hag
While exploring the Bramblefen, the party comes upon a Hag who lives in the rubble-strewn rocks that hang on the southern mountain cliff overlooking the majority of the Bramblefen, who the children of the forest call, “Nanny.” Nanny is a dangerous Hag who flies about the lands of the Bramblefen on her broom and scoops up unwelcome intruders who threaten the Riven children of the forest. She takes them back to her hut thousands of feet in the air, never to be seen again. If the party crosses paths with Nanny, she becomes immediately hostile, sparing no time to chat and attacking without mercy.
In the unlikely event that the party does manage to calm Nanny, they may be surprised to learn she is an exiled member of the Luvo Coven and one of very few people who know the lengths to which the Mother Matron of the Coven will go to amass power for herself. Nanny was exiled after teaching the Coven the ritual that transforms witches into Ivolant, the irreversible curse they place upon themselves to become powerful, mindless monsters who serve the Matron. After doing so, she implored the Mother Matron to forbid the ritual, but the Coven's sacred law that, “no magic is evil, no arcana is forbidden” was binding. Nanny’s plea was seen as heresy, and she was cast out.
She found the Riven here in the Bramblefen, who are fey beings cursed to forever be hunted by their twins, who forever must hunt them, and chose to spend the rest of her eternity taking care of them.
The Strangled Castle
The Strangled Castle was once a grand fortress of the ancient humans that now lies ensnared and entangled by the colossal thorny vines of the Bramblefen Rose. Its majestic towers and walls are partially obscured and squeezed tight by the relentless grip of the enchanted thorns. A great tree grows through its insides, whose branches reach for the suns through every broken window.
Within the Strangled Castle, behind a concealed passage, lies an ancient wizard’s library that has miraculously withstood the test of time. The library is like a magic vacuum chamber. Inside. clutching his spellbook, is the perfectly-preserved body of the court wizard of this ancient city. The spells within his book are unlike any magics used in present-day Crudilex and are written in a dead language.
Fordum’s Axe
A massive axe said to have been hefted by the humans’ champion in the War of Fang and Sword, Fordum, little is known about this mythical figure beyond the legends of his impossible deeds—miracles said to have been performed by him in the war with the fey, consisting mostly of feats of strength beyond what should be possible by a non-divine being. This giant axe is said to be so heavy that only Fordum himself could wield it. It rests eternally in the boulder that stood behind the neck of the Wolf King, where Fordum decapitated him so thoroughly he split the rocks in two.
The Opal Vault
Among the ruins of The Bramblefen is a stone building with no clear entrance, said to house the treasure of the ancient people of the ruined city. Named the Opal Vault, it is believed to be an entrance into the Sunless Sea, the dark ocean miles below the surface of Crudilex. Treasure hunters have told tales of the Opal Vault and its celestial key for centuries. They are believed to be somewhere among the skeletons, waiting for a adventurer who can brave the dangers of the beasts, Riven, curses, and other perils of The Bramblefen and find it, opening the vault and venturing into the darkness below to claim the treasures of the city lost to history.
Chapel of Forgotten Gods
A large chapel near the gates of the city that stands at the end of a grand plaza surrounded by houses, this now empty building once housed worshipers of gods brought from the realm of humans beyond the Moongate, gods whose history died in the Bramblefen disaster that destroyed the city.
Now, after millennia of basking in the immense fey power of the Rose, the divine ideals once held true in the halls of the chapel sometimes flicker into being, becoming shadowy entities representing a forgotten ideal of a dead civilization—ardential spirits called Ninoten, searching for someone to believe in them.
Rootmaw Sinkhole
The Rootmaw Sinkhole is a colossal pit that plunges deep into the depths of Crudilex, a result of the immense and titanic roots of the Bramblefen Rose tearing apart the ground. The sides of the sinkhole are jagged and rough—proof of the raw power of the ancient plant's roots. The Rootmaw is shrouded in darkness, and eerie sounds echo from its depths. Some believe that the sinkhole is a gateway to the Sunless Sea, where malevolent forces and unimaginable horrors dwell. Others still say it is a gateway directly to hell, torn open by the untold death wrought by the Rose in ancient times.
Migration Path
The Path is a winding and overgrown grassy trail, where the once-smooth cobblestones of the city have been crushed and smashed away over generations by an army of migrating beasts passing through the Bramblefen during their seasonal journeys. The Path stretches through the heart of the ancient ruins, serving as a corridor for various creatures seeking safety and sustenance.
During the spring mating season, the Path becomes especially active, filled with a cacophony of wildlife. At the end of the Migration Path lies a picturesque grassland valley where the fields and tranquil environment offer a sanctuary for countless creatures to nurture their young without the threat of human hunters disrupting their peace. The valley becomes like a nursery, teeming with life and harmonious animals and monsters, a unique sight to behold in the otherwise mysterious and violent Bramblefen.
CULTURE
Rulership
The landscape of the Bramblefen is a ruined, overgrown city with a skyline choked by enormous vines that tangle and weave in a tight net, blocking out most light. The Rose itself is akin to a magical nuclear bomb and the ruins, a wasteland. Many strange and unique creatures were warped and changed. The magical energies of the Rose exist only here. Much like in the post-apocalyptic fantasy genres, creatures change and mutate by the radiation of the bomb in Crudilex.
Any plant or fey creature can find a place in the Bramblefen and would perfectly suit the region. The ambient essence of the Rose makes it a very potent location for both. The Mangrove treant known as Shallowroot has been known to lurk along the rivers and within the Hall of Ancient Texts. If the party has yet to encounter it on their journey, they may well do so as they make their way to the Cathedral of the Rose at the end of the adventure.
Prey in the Den
The Bramblefen is a place wherein countless monstrosities have made their lairs. Overgrown buildings have become abundant caves, perfect for said monstrosities to make their homes. In many ways, it is a city of monsters. Because of this, the party is likely to run into one feeding, or perhaps stumble into a lair belonging to a particularly hungry monstrosity.
While in the Bramblefen, each player must make a DC 16 survival check for each hour they are not sneaking or in cover. If they fail the check, another monster becomes aware of them. If, as a group, more than 5 checks are failed, monstrosities begin actively hunting the party. If, as a group, more than 8 checks are failed, they wander into an ambush.
Unwelcome
As the party journeys deeper and deeper into the Bramblefen, they find the landscape becoming more and more like the land of the fey. Creatures who have not seen outsiders in centuries watch from the trees and within crumbling towers. If the party acts unkindly to the natural life of the Bramblefen, they begin to evoke its ire. More convenient paths will be blocked by the massive vines—the Bramblefen Rose itself makes passage around the ruins more challenging. While this is occurring, all survival and navigation tool checks have disadvantage. Additionally, spells not cast by a druid have unexpected effects. For example, a Healing Word may cover the target in flowers, or a spell's fire damage may be changed to force instead.
Turmoil
Navigating the Streets
The Bramblefen is a hike, and though there are all the signs of a once-active civilization, that time is long past and the rubble is completely overgrown. Many of the buildings have become little more than knots in the overgrowth. Throughout the ruins are zigzagging game trails no more than a foot wide, which are constantly encroached upon by reaching ferns and roots.