[FREE] Just Passing Through Extended Edition - Mistwood

A thriving crusader outpost where tensions run high between the human and fey-touched populations.

A low mist clings to the trees as you approach the village, the sound of a winding river filling the air. Wooden homes rise from both banks, their rooftops slick with rain, half of them built with an elegant, almost elven touch while the others stand sturdy and plain. A bridge connects the two halves, arching over the silver water below. On a hill beyond the mist, a palisade encloses a great wooden fortress, its banner—bright yellow with a three-headed eagle—fluttering in the damp wind. Lanterns glow through the fog as evening settles in, and the smell of wet pine, smoke, and river silt fills the air.

Mistwood lies within what was once Tir’Nael, the Silverwood—an ancient elven forest now renamed the Mistwood Vale by Aurenvale’s cartographers. Though most of its elven inhabitants vanished generations ago, their legacy lingers in the northern half of the village, where half-elves and those of fey descent still live among trees grown into homes and carved with ancient runes. Across the river, the southern settlement thrives under human order: sawmills hum, banners snap in the wind, and soldiers drill beneath the watchful eye of the fortress on the hill.

The Silvyrn River divides Mistwood both in land and spirit. The northern half clings to old traditions and whispered forest gods, while the southern half beats with the drums and horns of war. Mistwood has become a key muster point for Aurenvale’s crusaders, who gather here before marching north to face the magocracy of Thallasel. The influx of soldiers and supply caravans has brought wealth to the human merchants—but also fear and resentment among the fey-touched, whose ancestral woods are cut to fuel the war effort.

Presiding over all is Lord Harrow of Eastmere, a cold, zealous nobleman who despises the forest’s “tainted” bloodlines and seeks to purge them from his domain. His fortress, Caer Dathryn, dominates the hill above the village, a grim reminder that Mistwood is not only a border settlement—it is a battlefield waiting to happen.