Tanglefork Woods

A map of the Grayvale showing the Tanglefork Woods.
Tanglefork Woods
Geography
Aliases	Tanglefork, Tangleforks
Type	Forest
Region	High Forest, Delimbiyr Vale

The Tanglefork Woods was a small forest in the Grayvale.

Geography

It lay at the southwestern fringe of the great High Forest, between it and the River Delimbiyr and the Delimbiyr Road and just east of the Heartblood River where it joined the Delimbiyr.

Description

The soil here was as dark as midnight, even half a century after the Battle of Tanglefork.

History

The Battle of Tanglefork was fought here in the Year of the Wandering Wyrm, 1317 DR, when the rebel leader Nanathlor Greysword, the Green Regent of Mielikki, led his ragtag band against the mercenaries of Pasuuk Rensha, the then ruler of Loudwater. To aid her champion, Mielikki awakened the trees and set them to attack Pasuuk's forces, and he in turn summoned a coven of devils. But they were defeated and the corpses of Pasuuk and his fiendish allies were scattered like filth, blackening the soil of Tanglefork Woods with their evil.

In the summer of the Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR, Hekkut the Molted and his goblin bandits, all working for the Hark, established a hidden lair somewhere near the Tangleforks. From there, they attacked travelers passing along a lightly wooded stretch of the Delimbiyr Road just near the Tanglefork campsite and a wooded knoll. Late one afternoon in Eleasias, Skar, Gvrag, and others caught and tortured Blaz Merrymar there, before adventurers intervened.

Notable Locations

A campsite in the woods was commonly used by travelers between Loudwater and Shining Falls.

From the blueleaf staff down to the river, with the tunnel exit—part of the goblin base near the Tangleforks.

A river cave on the banks of the Heartblood River where it passed through a winding chasm near the Tangleforks was used as a base by Hekkut the Molted and his goblin bandits. Its walls were hard-packed sand, clay, and stone, with some lashed logs to provide crude supports to this dank, dark place. Deathsbreath mushrooms grew in abundance in one cave and a family of lightning rats made their lair outside and served as guardians. A few holes in the cliff-face let goblin crossbowmen watch over and shoot at anyone approaching via the river, which the goblins used a raft to traverse. In their storeroom, they kept their loot before transporting it back to the Dungeon of the Hark. Hekkut's own lair held a shrine to his rodent deity and and a hole leading to an Underdark passage ominously called the Flayers' Corridors.

In a nearby stand of blueleaf trees, the goblins maintained a grisly carcass-filled pit—the product of both cooking large meals and conducting rites and sacrifices to Maglubiyet. As well as deer and other animals, it included a few humans, a pair of orcs, a lone ogre who had blundered into their base before being killed, the dozen goblins it slew, and several halflings, likely the sons and nephews of Blaz Merrymar. An older such hole was the trapped secret passage into a tunnel leading toward their base.

Appendix

Appearances

Organized Play & Licensed Adventures

Extermination