The Streacresh Forest
A mountain-ringed wood spoken of only in warnings, bearing the name of the Creshers' old god.
Ringed by mountains and given a wide berth by every sensible traveller, the Streacresh Forest is a place ordinary people learn early to avoid. Stories cling to it the way mist clings to its trees — stories of those who walked in and never walked out, of something old and watchful at its heart. Now and then the stories walk out on their own: hunters swear to deer that seemed grown of wood, antlered in flesh; travellers tell of flowers, even whole bushes, ambling from the treeline as if to have a look around. None of it is ever quite confirmed. Even people who scoff at such tales find reasons not to test them.
The wood bears the name of the Creshers’ old god, and it is toward this forest that their pilgrim road runs, through Groveller’s Pass. Whether the god still listens, the forest does not say.