The Shudderwood dominates the wildest of Ustalav’s counties, where secret valleys, sluggish rivers, and monuments to civilization’s failures lay hidden beneath a canopy of merciless green. This is Lozeri, the land of the hunter, where man and beast struggle endlessly in the depths of both the eldritch forest and the mortal heart. Many consider Lozeri and the Shudderwood synonymous, seeing little difference between the deadly wilderness and the scattered villages that warily eye its edges, for here the hunter’s maxim holds great (and often all too literal) truth: “By moonlight, all men cast the shadows of beasts.”
Without fear and a singular enemy, Soividia Ustav might never have succeeded in uniting the Varisians wandering near the Hungry Mountains into a single nation. It was the Kellids who ultimately enthroned Ustav, his armies rising to drive the barbarians from the lands. Yet nowhere did the first king face greater challenges and defeats than among the tribes of the Shudderwood, whose knowledge of the forest and seeming alliance with the vicious beasts of that land transformed the green places into a deathtrap for invaders. Only by tenacity, numbers, and hatchet blade were the Kellid tribes finally purged from the wood. Yet tales swiftly spread that no army could truly drive the barbarian tribes from their homeland, and that they had merely joined with the beasts they already half seemed to be. Thus began tales of the Shudderwood wolves, beasts with the hearts of men and a hatred for the heirs of King Ustav.
In the twilight beneath the Shudderwood’s boughs, craggy hills, steep-edged chasms, and rushing streams form a deadly, darkened realm of predators. Werewolves and their ilk account for only a portion of the Shudderwood’s dangers—and a small one at that. Although lycanthropes undeniably stalk the woodlands, their territories stretch primarily throughout the forest’s heart and eastern edges, leaving the north—and its storied bottomless pits—to chittering tribes of ettercaps and other arachnid monstrosities. Yet supernatural dangers pale in comparison to the wolf packs, giant hunting spiders, and black bears that prey upon the Shudderwood’s robust populations of scrub boar, river trout, crow pheasant, beaver, and black deer.
Rightfully, many of Avistan’s most infamous tales of lycanthropic massacres and skulking werebeasts stem from the hamlets surrounding the Shudderwood. Although most retellings exaggerate actual accounts to fictitious extremes, such tales ring all too true among Lozeri’s residents, whose communities and neighbors bear innumerable scars from the forest’s fangs.
Noteworthy Locations
While most of Lozeri’s mapped settlements fall outside the Shudderwood, the forest of claws and webs remains inhabited—and by more than just humans.
Ascanor Lodge: Attracting wealthy hunters from across the country and beyond, the Ascanor Lodge advertises itself as an island of luxury in Ustalav’s final wilderness, where elite sportsmen can hunt the land’s deadliest and most abundant beasts without sacrificing the comforts of a country retreat. A palatial compound, the lodge’s rustic log construction and countless hunting trophies dress the myriad decadences—lavish apartments, fine restaurants, ballrooms, theaters, menageries, gardens, spas, and a “secret” brothel—in the ruggedness of a frontier outpost. While the wealthy clientele come and go as they please, for the retreat’s live-in servants the lodge is a prison, as none can afford passage upon the guests’ luxurious riverboats, and true dangers beyond the game warden’s stocked deer herds and drugged wolves stalk the surrounding Shudderwood.
Courtaud: The cork-like towers of Lozeri’s former noble families sporadically break the hilly tree lines surrounding the dairies and pastures of Courtaud. While rural farms checker the rocky country, the township proper slumbers within a winding river valley, with the gray Pharasmin cathedral, Velonstair, presiding over all. Here the common folks’ simple homes rise upon the nearby slopes, while lavish establishments catering to the local elite vie for space along the river. At the eastern edge of town stand two ancient wells separated by less than an arm’s reach, the Living Water and the Darkling Draught. While the former sees frequent use even to date, the latter bears a corroded iron seal and a web of heavy, rusted chains. Only a single thumb-sized hole punctures the fastenings over the Darkling Draught, looking into the absolute darkness where legend says a piece of the night sky fell and was contained in ages past.
Chastel: Prominently positioned at the crossroads of the Vistear and Vhatsuntide rivers, Chastel exaggerates by calling itself Lozeri’s largest city. While undoubtedly the county’s most populous community, the aggrandized township lacks the size or stature of a true city, being more akin to an overgrown farming hamlet with a market that fills its central plaza, spreads down the main avenue, and spills forth to partially encircle the town. No walls guard Chastel, and the lumber yards and livestock markets appeal to desperate predators, the most historically notoriously being the Rats of Karneik—a swarm of dire rats and their grotesque rat king—and, more recently, the Devil in Gray.
Morcei: The people of Morcei have always known bats, the Shudderwood’s northeastern expanse being home to numerous varieties. Recently, logging destroyed an ancient tree the local children called “Daemon Hand,” unleashing swarms of giant bats from inside. With the tree’s destruction, the swarm of “f lying wolves” overran the bell tower of the Morcei church house, tormenting the villagers and even invading homes by night. Yet near dawn every morning, the church bell tolls and the bats retreat, as if summoned home by some unseen lord.
The Palatine Council of Lozeri
Although the philosophies of the Palatinates stem from Vieland scholars, the spark of revolution first f lared in Chastel. For generations, the people of Chastel had suffered the harsh decrees and high taxes of the Beauturne family, yet public outcry finally turned to revolt after the count tried to have Ghilin Locnave, an outspoken local brewer and clergyman of Cayden Cailean, executed for his insults by being consumed by wolves. The merchant’s popularity and the viciousness of the execution led to a public uprising, ending with Beauturne falling into the pen of starved wolves and suffering a vicious mauling before he and his sons fled—first from their home, then from the county entirely. The uprising spread throughout the county and provoked similar action in Tamrivena and Vieland. Within a year, most of the land’s few nobles had either f led or made more businesslike arrangements with their serfs.
The creation of Lozeri’s ruling council began much as it did in neighboring Palatinates, with outspoken and noble-minded citizens revising the county’s policies and governing—initially under the leadership of the revolt’s central figure, Ghilin Locnave. But gradually, the people’s control over their governing has slipped away. Although Lozeri no longer acknowledges regional peerage, wealth and inf luence lives on beyond titles, allowing many formerly noble families to continue to enjoy political control and opulent lifestyles. Of the current 17-member council, only Rogeil Yarloc and Sheyden Locnave—nephew of Ghilian—don’t trace their birth to former noble families. The brothers Daboin and Giron Maured, playboy Cald-Harpe Rikarc, and the reactionary Vivian Shansa tend to monopolize the council’s meetings with their own agendas, with the county’s needs being of secondary concern.
Noteworthy Personages
The line between man and beast tends to blur in Lozeri, even among its leaders.
The Devil in Gray: It’s the size of a charger with an ashgray pelt. Its howl summons up devils and drives those who hear it mad. Its jaws can crush a horse’s skull, and it can vanish in a cloud of mist and dust. Countless tales surround the Devil in Gray, the most feared murderer in Lozeri. Beginning its unpredictable rampage 10 years ago with the savaging of a lone washerwoman, its bloody legend includes attacks on whole parties of pursuers and, in 4701, invading Chastel, where it slaughtered nearly 20 victims. Dozens of deaths across the county are attributed to the Devil’s fangs, and though many claim to have slain the beast, its depredations continue even after a decade of horror. While some claim the creature is a werewolf, supposedly even the Shudderwood’s lycanthropes fear and avoid the beast. Though human hunters have never been able to track the creature, the werewolves supposedly know of its lair, a place of grisly trophies and ravenous pups.
Rogeif Yharloc: The people’s hero, Yharloc reigns as the most famous hunter of lycanthropes in Lozeri. Adopted by the Palatine Council as a puppet representative of the common folk, he has little care for his position beyond the celebrity it brings. He much prefers to spend his time stalking the Shudderwood for sentient prey. Yharloc frequently visits the Ascanor Lodge, though he claims to keep his own lodge near his “secret hunting grounds.” He has little patience for hunting mere beasts, claiming there’s no sport in hunting an unequal opponent.
