The monsters that hunt people in the Wold are collectively referred to as “Wulverin.” They vary dramatically in size and shape, from tiny demonic hornets to massive predatory elk with venomous antlers. There is no set list of them, either, as the Wold spawns new varieties seemingly at random, with different appearances and different means of killing each other and any hapless mortal to cross their path. Each new threat that appears is carefully catalogued in the archives of the Meisters; their notes and conclusions are swiftly spread throughout the Wold, so that other communities might benefit from the knowledge earned through the lives and courage of Dustervolk and Hexelgann.
Some Wulverin have a malevolent intelligence. Hags, Striga, and Vulkodlac are the most prominent of such, but there is a dreadful variety of such creatures, each of which has its own viciously dangerous combination of physical and magical power. Worse still, their cunning and ability to speak mean that they can bargain with and extort mortals to turn on their fellows, causing chaos and weakening Wealds without ever stepping a clawed foot inside the Felwards.
The greatest of the Wulverin, the Wolderzorn, are dreadful titans who sleep beneath the roots of the forest, awakening from their earthen slumber to wreak devastation and ruin whenever the Wold is disturbed too much. The Grimmfolk have learned well that they must carefully tend to the forest if they do not wish for the Wolderzorn to erupt and tear down all that they have built. No two Wolderzorn are alike; they are seemingly each crafted anew by whatever malevolence lurks between the roots of the Wold, and each has earned its own name in the history books for the kind and breadth of destruction that follows in its wake.
The miasma of Ferukhar’s presence still lingers within the forest, millennia after the Old God’s banishment beyond the Veil. The influence of the Greenshadow is a subtle song that all Grimmfolk must always resist, a call into the darkness and the void of death yawning within the shadows of the forest. Those who practice magic — whether divine or arcane — are most vulnerable to this siren song, which has led to the strict vows of the Hexelgann Covens and enforcement of good behavior on the part of magic-users by Stalkers and Witches across the nation.
Shadowsickness causes a variety of maladies — paranoia, a deep terror of the dark, and a growing fascination with the evil powers that lurk within the depths of the Wold are the most common and problematic. The end stages are truly disturbing, as the sufferer becomes almost religiously attracted towards the darkness of the forest, severing their ties (often quite violently) with the mortal communities they’re a part of and vanishing into the depths of Wold. Only a few are ever seen again after this occurs, usually as Warlocks in service of Ferukhar or some Wulverin master.
Fortunately, those who are self-aware enough can notice the symptoms of this corruption starting, and it’s possible to reverse the affliction by spending time outside of the Grimmwold and the Greenshadow’s area of influence. While the Felwards that the Grimmfolk have developed and surround their Wealds with can prevent the condition from worsening, the spiritual “pressure” (for lack of a better term) of the Greenshadow within a Felward is still enough to prevent someone who is suffering from it from making any progress towards recovery — a full return to health requires leaving the Grimmwold entirely for at least a month or two.
A secretive Coven of druids and witches, the Blightwardens are self-declared guardians of the forest who believe that the Pact of the Elder Tree is too feeble and weak-minded to properly tend to the Wold and keep it safe from mortal interference. They are magical eco-terrorists, using rituals to ruin mortal works and battle magic to slay those they deem to have committed crimes against the Wold. They are not squeamish about temporarily allying with Wulverin to accomplish their aims, either, and it’s known that at least one Hag, Granny Bristlebone, is a member of the Coven and has negotiated on their behalf with other intelligent Wulverin.
The Blightwardens are not an existential threat to the people of the Grimmwold; their strikes at critical industry and infrastructure are too infrequent to deal lasting damage to the nation’s economy or inflict large numbers of casualties. However, the sheer destructive power they display when they do strike out has made them into one of the few mortal bogeymen of the Grimmfolk, which is exactly their intent: once enough Grimmfolk truly fear them, they can start to demand for the changes they believe are necessary.
The Grimm Council and the security forces of the Grimmwold have tried repeatedly to either lure the Blightwardens into a trap or track them down to their hiding places, but the few victories that have been made so far in that effort have all been small and insignificant compared to the operational capacity that the Blightwardens have displayed. The Coven is compartmentalized into cells and most of its members are scattered amongst the civilian population of the Grimmwold, making it a very difficult nut for the authorities to crack.
There are significantly more riches to be found deep in the Wold than the nation makes regular use of, if you’re brave and ruthless enough to extract them, and poaching and the smuggling of forest products within and outside of the Wold has always been a part of the Grimmwold’s cultural and economic landscape. Normally it’s not too much of a problem, as the authorities and the cultural morays against disturbing the Wold too much keep poaching mostly in check.
However, in the last decade the most ruthless and successful poachers of the Wold have come together to form the Dornlicht Pact, organizing and significantly expanding their activities throughout the Grimmwold in pursuit of profit. The Pact sells rare animals (dead or alive), alchemically powerful animal parts and herbs, and rare timber to the highest bidders, and have developed a frustratingly effective smuggling network to deliver their illicit goods to buyers across the Continent. Their actions — hunting things that shouldn’t be hunted, over-hunting and ignoring the normal sustainable limits of how many prey to take, and stripping parts of the forest bare of magical and alchemical resources — are putting significant stress upon the Wold and endangering a large number of Wealds in the process.
The Dornlichts have been declared outlaws by the Grimm Council, and the Pact of the Elder Tree has named them as enemies of Druathos. The Dustervolk have captured many of their members over the past decade, but so far the organization’s leadership and elites have proven elusive, fading away into the shadows just before their hideouts and stashes are raided. The stubborn persistence of the organization is especially concerning now that a Churning has started — the Grimmwold cannot afford to have a Wolderzorn awaken due to the Dornlichts’ reckless over-harvesting of the Wold when cultist forces are present to take advantage of such a disaster, and so the Grimm Council has ordered their forces and all patriotic Grimmfolk to do whatever they can to bring an end to the Dornlicht Pact.
Communities in the Grimmwold are referred to as Wealds. While their layouts vary between Provinces, they all cluster much more tightly than most outsiders would expect. Dwellings, markets, and places of business are all clumped together as closely as possible, given the constraints of the surrounding terrain. The reason for this is the necessity of keeping a Weald surrounded by the Felwards, great circles of carefully-enchanted stones that protect each Weald from the insidious influence of the Greenshadow, obscuring the lights and sounds that emanate from inside these communities.
The need for Felwards and the necessity of fitting most of daily life inside of them has been the driving force for much of the urban engineering of the Grimmfolk. The Felwards are designed to protect a roughly spherical volume defined by their placement around a Weald, which means that the air above the surface for many dozens of yards is just as safe as it is on the ground. As a result, rather than building ever-outwards as cities of other nations tend to do, the Grimmfolk have mastered the art of living vertically, fitting many buildings up into the trees that surround them in order to fit more and more homes and businesses into a tightly-defined geographic volume.
Though the Felwards do muffle much of the noise and light coming from inside them, they are not perfect and can be overwhelmed if they are not specially prepared to cover a particularly noisy or bright event, such as a Lärmferen. This has led to the Grimmfolk’s notorious obsession with silence and avoiding excess noise; though a single shout within the Felwards would not bring any Wulverin sniffing around to investigate, prolonged and excessive noise will eventually overwhelm the Felwards and erode their protections, letting the entire Wold know of the existence of a large concentration of tasty mortals. Parents of new infants are frequently given small, specially-crafted versions of Felwards to set around the baby’s room, which serve to muffle sounds coming from that chamber in particular.
In times past, those Grimmfolk who set out to do great things together would form Pacts to ensure that all of them work towards that common goal. The binding oaths made clear expectations of each, the distribution of any rewards, and how the Pact-members would handle disagreements. As time went on, these Pacts became less the stuff of legendary hunters and protectors of the Wealds and more of a common-place arrangement for those Grimmfolk who choose to work together for long periods of time. Now, Grimmfolk form a Pact for those of like minds and like goals, working together as sworn friends to accomplish whatever it is that the Pact was founded for.
Witches adapted this tradition early on, forming Covens that stretched across multiple nearby Wealds. Each member would respond when another’s Weald was threatened, offering advice, power, or resources to whichever of the others needed it, as well as sharing any knowledge they gained so that the entire Coven might benefit from it rather than just themselves. These Covens have become the default for every Hexelgann in the Grimmwold. It is extremely suspicious for a Witch to not belong to one, at least loosely, as the Covens are also how Hexelgann police themselves and cut down any would-be Warlocks before they have a chance to harm someone under the Coven’s protection.
Oaths are held sacred in many nations, and the Grimmfolk echo this sentiment. Where they differ from other cultures is their tendency to illustrate the oaths they make on their skin and clothing. These Brands take the form of abstract black or blood-red marks, often with some artistic representation of the oath being made and the context it was made in or the consequences of breaking it. Abstract representations of spells, weapons, or animals are common, as are renditions of plants such as trees, leaves, and flowers. Promises made that are seen as vitally important are tattooed onto the skin, while those that are less critical are embroidered onto the inner side of the person’s scarf. Members of a Pact or Coven who are serious in their commitment to it often proudly wear a common Brand representing the oaths made to each other, whether on their skin or on their scarves.
Sometimes, though, the survival of your kin or people means that an oath must be broken. The Grimmfolk do not begrudge someone for making a hard choice, so long as they are up-front about their reasons for doing so. However, that does not meant that breaking an oath does not have consequences. If an oathbreaker is judged to have made a hard but necessary choice, they are not given the usual punishment for such a crime; rather, they are Branded in bright green ink or with an actual burning brand, in the shape of a thorned circle around a representation of whatever oath they betrayed. These Oathbreaker Brands are frequently placed on the face or hands, or on top of the Brand that represented the broken oath.
Grimmfolk are known for their quiet and restraint in making noise, but even they feel the need to cut loose every so often. When a Weald’s population reaches that point, they vote to hold a truly epic festival, known as a Lärmferen. Invitations are sent out to all the neighboring Wealds, and the Hexelgann and Dustervolk do a series of heavy patrols in the surrounding forest, rooting out and slaying any Wulverin who might be lurking nearby. Finally, the Felwards protecting the community are overcharged for a day and a night in preparation. When the charging process is complete, the Weald becomes practically undetectable to Wulverin, no matter how loud and boisterous the community might be inside, for a period of about six hours.
During that time, the Grimmfolk within let everything loose. Songs are sung at the tops of their voices, musical instruments are brought out of long storage and played as loudly as possible, and the people dance in the streets and plazas for as long as they physically can. A great feast is prepared, sweet tree syrups (some fermented, others not) are mixed into a wide variety of cocktails, and mushrooms and herbs of assorted psychoactive effects are consumed under the watchful eyes of the local healers. After the Felwards have returned to their normal charge level, the party abruptly ends, and folk return to their business as they’re able after the night’s festivities.
The Felwards can’t be pushed to this extent more than once every few months before they start to fail, and holding a Lärmferen more than twice a year is generally considered unwise by most Wahrsagers and Weyrmenders. As such, most Grimmfolk treat them as once- or twice-a-year occasions, and look forward to them with great anticipation.
One of the primary tasks of the Meisters of Grimmwold is to maintain records of all the magics, monsters, and events that occur within the forest. Each Weald has at least one structure called a Verstacken, a Woldtongue word for “stacks of skins,” where the local Meisters keep those records. Verstacken and the documents and objects they hold are regarded as being some of the most valuable things in a Weald, and most evacuation plans include detailed protocols for what documents must be kept safe and taken from the Verstacken and which can be left to burn when disaster strikes. The wards and other security measures in place to guard Verstacken often takes foreigners by surprise — even a small Weald’s Verstacken in the Grimmwold can have a system of locks, wards, and alarms that rival those of a large Vauldan Collegium’s library, and Grimmfolk use “raiding the stacks” as a phrase to describe doing something illegal, foolhardy, and likely to get you caught and possibly killed.
The means by which Grimmfolk preserve knowledge within their Verstacken are also somewhat unusual to foreigners’ eyes. Many “tomes” within the libraries are composed of large Wulverin hides, carefully inscribed with useful lore about the creature upon whose skin they're written. Others are large chunks of amber, extracted from the oldest pines and conifers of Kieftlund and enchanted to contain the accounts of scholars, hunters, and historians, ready to be relived by any mage who knows the cantrip to activate them. Birchbark scrolls are also common sights within the Verstacken, especially in the libraries of Espervall where the bark is most commonly available; these scrolls are half lore repository and half prayer to Druathos, frequently inscribed with small prayers for aid in dealing with whatever problem or beast is described within them. More traditional tomes and parchment scrolls are also found, but the damp, dark environment makes these methods less enduring than those that utilize the parts of the Grimm itself. The sheer variety of ways in which the Grimmfolk preserve knowledge is itself a point of pride for many Meisters and the communities they serve.
Meisters are also charged with maintaining copies of the most critical records in caches located where they won’t be destroyed should the nearby Wealds perish or be forced to evacuate. These locations are technically secret, but so many of the locals have a need to know where they’re located in case of disaster that there’s always at least one person who survives a Wulverin attack who knows how to find them in order to form the seed of their reborn Weald’s library.
The Wold is a dangerous place to travel, and the Grimmfolk long ago developed ways to make journeys between Wealds safer, though never entirely safe. One of those methods was the creation of the Trods, magical highways protected by waystones similar to the Felwards that surround a Weald. The Trods crisscross the Wold, maintained by traveling Weyrmenders as they make their way from one community to the next.
The wards set upon a Trod are much weaker than the Felwards that surround a Weald; rather than preventing Wulverin from finding the path, they instead shroud the presence of and slightly speed up the rate of travel for those walking along it. Those walking the Trods are mostly safe from passing Wulverin noticing them, provided they don’t make a lot of noise as they travel. However, particularly canny Wulverin are fully capable of laying ambushes along a Trod once they locate one, which makes any journey along them a risky proposition unless one has skill at detecting, avoiding, or beating back such lurking dangers.
Those Wulverin that are capable of speech and logic are some of the most dangerous in the Wold, and one of the nastiest tricks such monsters have in their arsenal is the fact that they can all somehow read. This appears to be a built-in effect of their growth within the Wold, granted by Ferukhar in times long past, allowing them to read any mortal script. One of the consequences of this trait is that leaving trail signs or markers for travelers through the Wold to find their way is an excellent way to give such monsters directions to the nearest Weald, ritual site, or hunting ground, which usually ends very badly for the mortals nearby.
However, one thing Ferukhar neglected to grant its creations was a natural understanding of iconography or glyphs, and so the Grimmfolk have adapted by building a lexicon of pictographic trail markers known as Dustersign. These diagrams are used by Dustervolk, Wodegann, and other travelers through the Wold to mark down warnings of nearby danger, useful hiding spots, locations where resources can be found, the distance and direction to nearby Wealds, and more. Dustersign consists of an arrangement of triangles, circles, lines, and stars, all of which is memorized by those who travel the Wold. The meanings of Dustersign are never written down, for fear of a Wulverin finding the translation and using them against the Grimmfolk.
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Note that while canonically no Grimmfolk will ever take a written dictionary of Dustersign out into the Wold where a Wulverin might be able to find and translate it, you the player are absolutely allowed to carry one so that you don’t have to perfectly memorize an entire list of symbols and their meanings.
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Sometimes the darkness begins to win. The Wulverin bay for blood outside the Felwards, or a terrible evil festers in the Wold and threatens to poison all of your kin and Weald, while help is too far or too few to stop it. These dark times call for dark bargains, and the Grimmfolk are coldly willing to make whatever deals they must if such is the only path towards survival. The Verstacken of the Wold have a troublingly large number of rituals and rites that can be used to conjure up or communicate with beings capable of turning the tide in such dark times, and many more records of the successful, and often tragic, uses of them to avert death and ruin.
Fortunately, trapping or consuming souls is not something that Wulverin or the other servants of Ferukhar tend to do, and so bargains made with them frequently have the option (explicit or not) of suicide as a last-ditch method of getting out of them. Those who make a bargain on behalf of their community and make that sacrifice in order to avoid having to follow through on the worst parts of their side of the deal are viewed as heroes, provided that the gambit actually works. This aversion to meddling with souls is not true of creatures from Apex, the Void, or the Primal Wilds, however, and so those who make deals with such entities must be very careful to ensure that their souls aren’t at stake when striking their bargain.
The ideal of sacrifice for the greater good, of making a hard choice and paying a price for salvation, runs through much of Grimmwold society. The core principle that Grimmfolk cling to when dealing with such dilemmas is this: sacrifice must be offered, and never asked for. Whatever price must be paid to save the community, it must be paid willingly and never forced upon someone, else the Grimmfolk would become no better than the monsters they fight against. Many Grimmfolk stories center around brave and clever protagonists who end up making a great sacrifice to save their homes and loved ones, because they would never ask anyone else to do so. Others focus on such heroes using wit and skill to leverage the power of a willing sacrifice made by another, doing all in their power to make that sacrifice worth it. Many foreigners find such tales macabre and depressing, but the Grimmfolk find them oddly reassuring.
An odd quirk of the Wulverin that the Grimmfolk were quick to take advantage of is the fact that the monsters have trouble seeing red light. Red glowstones, primarily sourced from the mines of the Vein in the Vauldan Empire (and temporarily extracted from the Rottersten Load in Dampfhelt, before the disaster that flooded that Province) are the preferred form of lighting along the borders of a Weald and for travelers through the Wold; their light doesn’t attract the notice of Wulverin, and even if it isn’t perfect illumination the red light allows mortals to see something of the monsters in the darkness if they are attacked. Many foreigners visiting the Grimmwold for the first time are taken aback by the bloody red glow that shines in the Wealds and on the packs of the caravans passing through the Wold, but the Grimmfolk find the red light to be a source of safety, comfort, and empowerment against the things that lurk within the dark forest.
Those who are suffering from Shadowsickness, or who have simply grown tired of not seeing the sky except through the grasping branches of the trees, are expected to put their affairs in order for a time and then make their way outside of the Wold. “Going on a Wanderjahr” for a month or even a year (if that is what one feels is necessary to be able to return to the Wold in good mental and physical health) is an accepted form of self-care for the Grimmfolk. Those in dangerous professions or whose lives frequently take them outside the magical shelter of the Felwards are specifically expected to avail themselves of the tradition at least once every two or three years, just to ensure they aren’t suffering through Shadowsickness in silence out of some foolish pride.
What someone does while on Wanderjahr is really up to them and their personality and financial resources — some treat it as a true vacation, while others treat it as a way to expand their professional horizons, pursuing their normal work outside the bounds of the Grimmwold. Many make friends and find love while on Wanderjahr, and the tradition is the cause of a steady trickle of people emigrating from and immigrating into the nation, as folk follow their hearts and friendships.
The destinations for Wanderjahr are many, as the Grimmwold sits surrounded by a variety of interesting and welcoming locations. Some Grimmfolk prefer to spend their vacation offshore on the islands of the Serpent’s Reach; others choose to travel to Faen’miir to let the bright and clever Miirfolk banish the Greenshadow’s gloom from their minds. Still others prefer to journey to Aurenvale or Rivermark, enjoying the hearty food and loud but straightforward personalities of the folk of those lands. The people of Kieftlund often journey northwards into Iskaldur, where they can continue to work and hunt to earn a warm welcome amongst the mead halls of the frozen Holds.
Bright green is the color of death in the Grimmwold, the color of poisonwart toads, titansfall yew berries, and the glowing emerald venom of the Wulverin.
The Grimmfolk practice what they call “Feeding The Wold” as their standard funeral practice, packing the deceased into a cocoon of branches fashioned from the incredibly toxic titansfall yew, and then placing the cocoon amongst the roots of a tree harboring a nest of bonechewer ants. The ants are resistant to the toxins within the branches and small enough to pass between the gaps in the cocoon without causing the wood to release more than a survivable dose of toxin, and the nest usually consumes the fallen entirely within a month of the burial. Larger scavengers interested in the corpse are deterred by the yew branches surrounding it and the toxins that have bled out in resin onto the corpse, and the complete consumption of the body prevents any corporeal undead from arising and plaguing the living.
Most villages have at least one nest of bonechewers within walking distance, which over decades and centuries often grows to encompass a not-very-small grove of trees that the ants tend to and protect from intruders that don’t bear the right scent signals. The ants don’t create new colonies very often, and the Grimmfolk know some small magics and alchemical mixtures that let them locate and temporarily pacify newly-fledged colonies, which lets them either exterminate the nest to keep the ants from causing problems, or transport it to a new, more-convenient location.
Most Grimmfolk whose bodies are recovered (as opposed to those who disappear into the Wold without a trace) are laid out in state for a night and a day, to allow mourners to whisper last words or grieve over them. After that period is over, the antkeeper (the Grimmwold version of undertaker) carefully weaves the cocoon of yew branches around the body and transports it to the ant nest for disposal, often with Dustervolk acting as both ceremonial and actual guards. Each body is laid in a precise location and marked, and the cocoons of bodies that have been fully consumed are disassembled and brought back to the village or town. The branches, the toxins in them having mostly evaporated by then, are given to friends and family of the deceased to keep as memento mori of their lost loved one.
Once the body is taken away, most of the community goes its own way, with little further ceremony. However, it’s customary for everyone in a community to write what they remember most fondly of the deceased onto a piece of scrap wood or parchment and hang it on a bright green chord from the eaves or fence of the departed’s home, so that others might read it and take joy or comfort in what they have written. In the case of someone well-loved by their peers, their house is often festooned by such memorial-notes a week after they pass.
Bright colors are dangerous in the Grimmwold if you don’t know how to make them into something that will ward off predators, so mourning doesn’t tend to involve wearing garments of a specific color as it does in other cultures. Instead, mourners carry bottles or pouches filled with berries of the titansfall yew — bright green and intensely tart and flavorful, but completely free of the toxins that course through the rest of the tree. When they notice that they are missing the departed, they pop a berry in their mouth or steep one into a tea, thinking of the person while they consume it. The ritual of doing so is thought to let the grief pass through someone and make them stronger, as well as to refocus them on the present instead of the past. “Formal” mourning lasts as long as it needs to, but it’s generally accepted that it’s over once someone stops purchasing or carrying around their yew berries.