Where the roots remember every grave, the dead remember every name.
BBonewood
Overview
Bonewood is a broad frontier forest on Nebri, where black trees rise from generations of forgotten graves. Its scattered communities survive by marking safe trails, bargaining with the dead, and guarding burial customs that outsiders often dismiss. High, ritualized magic is part of daily life: song, blood, jade, and offerings can shape what answers from beneath the roots. Outlaws, guides, grave wardens, and ambitious seekers all find room here, though none can assume the forest will let them leave unchanged.
Cultures
Graveward families mark kinship by shared burial songs and tend groves grown over ancestral graves.
Frontier campfolk prize practical skill, mutual defense, and offerings made before entering the woods.
Jade-road traders blend customs from Nebri's distant shores with local rites of safe passage.
Places
4 settlements
Small · WaystationThe Last Dry CampTrail supplies and newsA stubborn waystation built on a raised shelf where floodwater rarely reaches.
Small · Riverside villageMourners' FordTrade crossing and ferry stopA river crossing where ferrymen sing for the dead before taking passengers across.
Medium · Grove hamletThe Dry GraveLocal market and meeting placeIts founders chose the name as a boast, though the nearby burial grove is never truly quiet.
Small · Outlaw campThe Mislaid BellConcealed refuge and lookoutOutsiders say a bell was lost here, but the name recalls a warning bell buried to end a panic.
How they spread
PatternCommunities cluster on upland clearings, river crossings, and ground judged free of old graves. Small camps move seasonally, while protected hamlets maintain marked paths between them.
Common kinds
Warded grove hamlets
Hidden outlaw camps
Trailside waystations
Marsh-edge gathering villages
Trade routes
The Jade Road follows the western margin before branching into guarded forest tracks.
The Greywater Run links riverside camps to southern markets.
The Lantern Trail connects protected groves and waystations.
Dangers and hooks
3 threats
Most dangerous · SevereRootwake DeadRestless undeadThey rise near disturbed graves and gather beneath ancient trees.
The Hollow ChoirHighSupernatural lure
Its unseen singers haunt fogbound trails and imitate the voices of lost companions.
GravecuttersModerateCriminal raiders
Small crews hunt jade and relics, provoking spirits and ambushing witnesses.
Hazards of the land
Restless dead emerge from disturbed graves.
Blackwood roots buckle trails and conceal sudden pits.
Mists carry voices that lure travelers away from marked paths.
Plot hooks
1
The Missing MarkerMystery and undeadA grave marker has vanished, and the dead from its grove are waking in orderly ranks.Starts: The Rootward Kin ask the party to investigate a hamlet where every grave is open.Reward: A jade warding token and the gratitude of several local communities.
2
Shelter Beneath the RootsRescue and faction intrigueA fugitive claims that the Kindly Shelter has hidden a living heir inside an ancient barrow.Starts: A wounded courier offers the party a map in exchange for passage to an outlaw camp.Reward: A safe route through Bonewood and a share of recovered coin.
3
The Borrowed ChorusRitual investigationA ritual song has begun drawing spirits from graves far beyond the forest.Starts: A traveling singer seeks help after an unseen chorus follows them from camp to camp.Reward: A rare ritual melody that can calm or summon the dead.
4
Jade Without a GraveInvestigation and explorationSomeone is harvesting grave jade and leaving the graves empty but undisturbed.Starts: The Measure of Ashes hires the party to follow a trail of green dust and silent warding bells.Reward: A share of recovered jade and access to the society's occult library.
The land
Climate and ground
ClimateDamp and dim, with long mists, cold rains, and brief summers when pale flowers cover the graves.
TerrainA vast, tangled forest of black, ivory-ridged trees rooted through ancient burial grounds, broken by marshes and upland shelves.
Biomes
Black bone forest, Moss-dark burial groves, Sedge marshes, Rocky upland clearings
Waters and borders
Waterways
The Sighing Mere, The Greywater Run, The Reedwife's Channel
Borders
The settled farming marches to the south
The slate ridges to the east
The open heath to the north
The jade roadlands to the west
On the road
Marked paths shift after storms, and travelers should follow living guides rather than old maps.
Offerings of song or jade can soothe some spirits, but draw the attention of others.
Night travel is perilous because grave lights imitate familiar voices.
Landmarks
The Singing Barrow echoes any song sung within its bounds.
A ring of bone-white trees marks a graveyard where no shadows fall.
The Sighing Mere glows faintly whenever a burial is disturbed.
Old cairns line a trail whose stones move between dusk and dawn.
Landforms
Root-knotted ridges
Burial mounds under dense canopy
Marshy hollows
Ravines choked with pale roots
Resources
Dense blackwood timber
Medicinal fungi and bitter herbs
Burial jade and worked grave goods
Resin used in protective charms
Power
Rule
GovernmentA loose pact of grove councils, camp elders, and trail wardens, with no single ruler.
SeatAuthority gathers at a rotating moot held in whichever protected grove can host it safely.
StabilityFragile but durable, sustained by custom and shared fear of what lies beneath the roots.
Laws
No grave may be opened without the consent of its wardens or kin.
A traveler who accepts shelter must contribute labor, food, or a useful warning.
Blood offerings require witnesses and must never be taken by force.
Those who raise the dead without restraint are driven out or bound for judgment.
Factions
The Rootward KinAncestral wardens
Influence: Strong in settled groves and respected along most local trails.They maintain grave markers, quiet restless dead, and forbid careless felling near burial roots.
The Kindly ShelterOutlaw compact
Influence: Uneven but substantial in remote clearings.They protect fugitives who obey camp law and seek to control the safest crossings.
The Measure of AshesRitual society
Influence: Small, but their rites are sought during dangerous hauntings.They study how song, blood, jade, and divine attention bind the dead to the forest.
Faiths
The Rooted Ancestors
Influence: Widespread among settled families and respected by most travelers.Ancestral rest, grave tending, and the duties owed to the dead.
The Open Hand
Influence: Strong among ritualists, guides, and those facing dangerous magic.Offerings, sung vows, and measured bargains with gods and their servants.
The Green Return
Influence: Common in remote camps, though its rites vary from grove to grove.The turning of life through decay, fungi, and forest growth.
People and trade
Who lives here
How manySparse, with scattered hamlets, hidden camps, and seasonal settlements along safer trails.
Main peoples
Graveward human clans, Mixed frontier settlers, Jade-road traders
Other peoples
Outlaw bands, Itinerant ritualists
Languages
Common Nebrian, Gravesong, Forest Cant
Trade
WealthPoor overall, though skilled guides and ritual specialists can command high prices.
Work
Logging of fallen blackwood, Herbalism and bonecraft, Guiding and salvage
Exports
Blackwood resin, Grave-grown medicinal fungi, Carved bone charms
Imports
Iron tools, Salt and grain, Jade for ritual offerings
Markets
The Last Dry Camp, Mourners' Ford
History and secrets
Bonewood was once a frontier of timber camps and burial grounds, but the dead began rising wherever axes disturbed the oldest roots. Settlers learned to bargain with spirits through ritual, song, and offerings, while fugitives found shelter beyond the reach of distant law. The Lantern Compact brought wary cooperation between grave wardens and outlaw camps, though its customs are tested whenever new graves appear or old paths shift.
Key events
Early settlement
The First RootwakeSettlers found that trees had grown through old graves and that some buried dead answered their names.
The clearing years
The Quiet FellingA disastrous attempt to clear the forest scattered revenants across the eastern trails.
Recent generations
The Lantern CompactGrove wardens and outlaw camps agreed to protect marked paths in exchange for shared warning signals.
Secret 1 · GM only
The forest's oldest graves form a ritual boundary around something that is neither wholly dead nor wholly divine.Found by: The oldest burial markers form a pattern visible only from the ridge during a moonless night.If found: Bonewood's graves are arranged around a sealed presence that the forest has been feeding for centuries.
Secret 2 · GM only
A fragment of the original grave song was removed from every local tradition to keep a powerful spirit asleep.Found by: Compare the songs used at distant wake ceremonies and listen for the same missing verse.If found: Restoring the verse could quiet many restless dead, but might also release a bound spirit with a claim on the living.
Media
0 images
No images yet.
Visual sheet
Turn Bonewood into a sheet
A high-res, share-ready sheet you can post or print.
