[Parsulan] The Weird Wood

The Weird Wood of southern Parsulan is an ancient forest infused with potent arcane energies. In halls of Magical Academy at Abraxad, surrounded and protected by the wood, it is labelled as Forbidden and students have been disciplined or even expelled for entering it other than by the proscribed paths. Treasure seekers and adventures from other places sometimes travel the forest, however, but many don't return.

What is known from the reports of those that enter it is that the forest is a place of unusual magical power. At the very least, it alters a visitor's perception of time and distance. The wood is also said to be the abode of strange spirits, beings inhabiting both biological and mechanical forms.

Faerie woodlands are hardly a rarity in Parsulan, but somehow, the Weird Wood has become infected or entwinned with technomagical devices in addition to its natural, elemental powers. Some point to its relative proximity to the Field of Fallen Colossi and suggest some stray, animate portion of the giant combatants may have made its way to the forest. Others argue that given the sheer number of constructs and amount armament debris found there, moss covered or half-buried, it must be the remnant of an assault by a substantial force. Perhaps in times past someone marched against Abraxad, and this is the result? If that is true, then Abraxad would surely have record of it in its extensive libraries, but those remain closed to outsiders.

Whatever their origins, it is these artifacts that draw the scavengers.

The commonly encountered fae of the forest are mostly harmless and appear as small, crude figures or vaguely animal or insect shapes of metal. They seem to mimic biological life in a rough but analogous way to the manner Meks resemble humans. 

The larger, more dangerous entities are harder to describe with certainty. Some appear as beasts with mechanical and biological parts. Others are shifting shapes of churning metal, churning storms of fury and blades.