Caverns of Woe || Untold Stories of Blackbriar Forbidden Woods

About the adventure

The village of Amberleaf sits at the edge of Blackbriar Forest, a place older than any map and spoken of only in warnings and whispers. The people here live simple lives, but they live them under a rule that no one dares break: when the sun sets, and the fog begins to roll in from the trees, every door is barred, every window is shuttered, and no one, no matter the reason, steps outside. Those who have broken curfew have vanished, and those who have gone into the forest at night have never returned. In recent months, the terror has grown worse. Deep claw marks have been found carved into the sides of homes, as if something massive walked the village streets in the night. Livestock are discovered slaughtered and arranged in strange ritual circles. Effigies made of bone, sticks, and twine are left hanging from doorways, dripping with a foul, black rot that withers crops and brings sickness to anyone who touches it. The fog that rolls in each night now carries with it whispers, distant knocking, and sometimes the sound of something large moving just beyond the walls. But the worst of it comes with the full moon. On the night of every full moon, a home is torn apart from the inside. Doors remain locked, windows unbroken, yet something gets in. By morning, the parents are found dead in horrifying fashion, their limbs broken, their bodies twisted, and their ribcages split open and splayed outward. Inside the hollow of the chest, villagers always find the same thing: a grotesque totem made from bone and thorn. And the children are always gone. Some say a demon lives in the woods. Others claim it is a witch, a druid, or something even older. A few believe it to be a lich that walks beneath the trees in the fog. The only man who claims to have seen it is the town drunk, and his story changes with every drink. Sometimes he speaks of antlers and glowing eyes, other times of a woman made of branches and bone, and sometimes he swears the forest itself stood up and walked. With another full moon only days away and the village preparing to abandon their homes for good, the people of Amberleaf have gathered what coin they can to hire outsiders willing to do what they cannot. You have been brought here for a grim task: enter Blackbriar Forest, uncover the truth behind the thing they call the "The Unseen One" of the Hollowed Boughs, rescue the missing children if they still live, and put an end to whatever evil has taken root in the forest, before the next full moon rises. The villagers will not enter the forest. They will not guide you. And when the sun sets, they will lock their doors, whether you are inside the walls or not. Some say the forest is cursed. Some say it is hungry. And some say it only takes the innocent because they are the only ones who still taste pure. Whatever the truth may be, the fog is already starting to roll in.