Beasts of the Old Wood

"*There is much glory to be had, hunting the beasts that take roam of these old roads. For in the absence of man they become more proliferant - and dangerously bold. By our right, are these woods not our own? Do they not belong to you, King? For if your right to these lands mean anything, they will meet silver and steel. In your name, with your coin, I will cast their blood to the soil, and drag their heads to this court. The demesne must be cleansed of this rot, this ever-present stench of inhumanity, of beast-hood and abominations. With fire, powder and steel I promise, nay.. vow, to cleanse these woods!*"
— Artous Fist-of-Steel, a world-renowned Beasthunter, speaking to Petty-King Canred of Ebberburh.

All across Aea, and once all across Paedelos, there are beasts known to the commonfolk as 'monsters' and to the noblefolk as 'pests'. They are monsters that are oft stronger and greater than the Kin of the world, yet reach nowhere near match the Kin in the ability to communicate, think rationally, or gather together in great numbers. These beasts range from the common troll or ghoul to the much more rare and elusive Vempir or Wukodlak, more commonly known in Kadoric as Vampires and Werewolves - the necrosavant and the lycanthrope.

No matter where on Aea you may dwell, the place that harbors the most of these beasts has always been the sheltered woods and forests of the darkest corners of the world, from Udran to Rzia to Kador. With the shrinking of forests due to the expansion of budding metropoles, the expansion of monster hunting guilds and orders, and the rapid extermination of certain beasts declared too harmful to be let alive, it has fallen more and more that the beasts remaining are only in great abundance in so many places across the world. Some notable examples of lands with a great amount of beasts within their borders being Naros, Carin, Hjalikan, and most especially the Farnorthern lands of Udran. In places where civilization is smaller, where there are far less kin, where the lands are rougher, where war has consumed the earth, or simply where men dare not to dwell, the beasts of the world lurk and make to devour the peasantry.

Across Aea, where there are great and plentiful forests, there will be beasts. In Naros, the great Ironwood Groves that supplied much of the strong timber and wood used by the Black Guard and the Banners came alongside them the many beasts that call the venerable tracts of the Old Wood home. This has seen that Naros tends to hold the greatest amount of these beasts left in the world, as compared to other lands, due to it's great expanse and number of woods left. In places in the North, from Carin to Nuinar to Naros, the Princelands and Hjalikan, it is a dangerous prospect for some farmers, on the outskirts of civilization and nearby woods and lands infested with Greenskins, to venture too far from home - or to allow their children to do the same. Many men, women and children have lost their lives going or playing too near the border of the old forests, and many lumberjacks and timberworkers often lose their lives the beasts that stalk those groves and ancient paths.

What is worse, however, are the many beasts that linger in the old fortresses and castles that dot this world, and the men that control them - whispers of undead monstrosities, of the Abominations of the Sorcerer-Kings that still live and fester in the darkest parts of the world; dwelling under Castles and Fortresses, in ancient mines. Even more frightful whispers emerge, that of news from the farnorthern provinces, that many beasts of Udran move southward; enticed by new lands sparsely populated. Even to the Greenskins the beasts of the old woods of Aea present a significant danger and issue, for many of these beasts are just as dangerous to them as they would be to the Kin. There are parts of the Aea where neither species, kin nor monster, would dare dwell - where ancient shrines are overflowing with ancient magics that make bodies walk, or where beasts the size of towers stride. Fear is ever-present there, in the old woods surrounding cities and villages, where the light of mankind has faded to such a degree that ancient evils have begun to unearth themselves.

Can the Kin hope to tame these beasts, or will they have just as much trouble as their Ancestors once did with the monsters of the world?