50 Sights to Stumble Upon in the Bolewood

I've been going feral waiting for my copy of Into the Wyrd and Wild. Anything woodsy is of instant interest to me. The woods have always been a special place in my life, a place that feels safe and welcoming and somehow like home. Weird horror is also very much my jam, though, and it's fun to tweak what feels like a comfortable and pleasant setting into something that's occasionally more sinister.

I've also been on an anti-pdf kick lately. It's so much more engaging and feels more special to read things in print than on a screen. So I've been holding off on actually reading Wyrd and Wild until I get the thing in my hands. To help stave off the hunger, I've been developing a setting in my new game inspired by some of my fever dreams about what might actually be in the book. I think it's a lot more fairytale and less spooky than what I know of the book, since I'm also hoping to fold in inspiration from Dolmenwood content. Still mostly pleasant and comfortable, beautiful and whimsical and occasionally silly, but with enough of a twist of the bizarre to keep my players on edge. I'm calling it the Bolewood.

Wood in the Evening, Ivan Shishkin

The Bolewood is the trunk of the world. It's the place that all other forests spring from. It has the seed of every woodland within it, every climate, every character, every magical quirk, every corruption. It's the home of the fae, and a thousand other strange creatures besides. For my own inspiration and yours, here are some things you might find within it in your wandering, especially if you're a group of nascent adventurers trying to make a name for themselves.

1. A tiny hamlet, just under the eaves of the forest. All of the villagers refuse to step beyond the shadow of the treetops. They believe a giant waits just out of sight, waiting to snatch those who stray too far, as he has been doing for generations.
2. An eviscerated stag corpse. The entire skeleton is missing, and there are bloody hoofprints leading deeper into the bracken.
3. Three huge mushrooms, one as tall and slender as an aspen, one as short and broad as a lilypad, and one of precisely equal width and height. Each contains the consciousness of a wizard who tried and failed to steal the secrets of fae magics from the Court of Autumn. Only one is animate and able to speak at a time, and they cycle every minute or so.
4. A rustic cabin covered in ivy growth. The interior is gaudily decked out with comfortable furniture and art-nouveau curios. A former court magician of the fae realm lives here, exiled for conduct unbecoming. They're slobbish and lazy, but keep the place and themselves sparkling clean and attractive with their cantrips. They're always eager to swap spells with any magic user "from the barbarous land beyond the trees."
5. A gnomish tinkerer's syndicate and their mired wagon. The experimental engine has failed, again. They're willing to part with some gadgets in exchange for a lift, but the prohibitively bulky engine has to come too. Non-negotiable.
6. A small creekside mill. It's in perfect working order, and the grindstone is engaged, but there's nothing in it and nobody around.
7. A ring of twelve birch saplings in a sunny clearing, spaced too regularly to have grown this way by chance. Anyone spending the night in the clearing hears whispers from under the earth, cruelly mocking in tone.
8. An incredibly complex blanket hung over a tree branch, made entirely out of intricately woven pine needles. It's surprisingly warm and comfortable, but definitely not fire resistant.
9. A halfling traveler, walking stick dangling with souvenirs, pack full of snacks, and a song on their lips. They're happy to share food, camp, or stories, but awfully cagey about where they're from and where they're headed.
10. The desiccating body of a man, emaciated and gaunt. Scavengers haven't deigned to disturb him, nor the perfect, ripe, mouthwatering golden pear held in his outstretched palm.
11. A menhir with a hole worn through the center, just barely too small for a grown human to fit through. On the other side of the hole it's always raining, steady and warm and pleasant.
12. A trio of mossy trolls, turned to stone by the cruel rays of the sun. The shelter of their hulking bodies makes this spot perfect for camping. Of course, they're actually patiently lying in wait to nab whoever's foolish enough to fall asleep under their outstretched arms - you don't actually believe that old myth about trolls turning to stone, do you?
13. A maroon rug lying across the leaf carpet of the wood. It holds a comfortable velvet chair and a rack full of attractive walking sticks. Using the walking sticks negates the fatigue of normal travel, but has no effect on strenuous effort. Anyone napping in the chair awakens to a real bastard of a leprechaun climbing onto their chest and demanding "ransom."
14. A small, perfectly square clearing sown with beautifully golden wheat. Whatever the time of year, it's perfectly primed for harvest. Any bread baked with flour from the wheat functions as a healing potion, as well as repairing scars and major injuries that have already healed.
15. A scrap of birch bark scribbled on in a spindly hand - it reads "IOU, Thou Slye Bastarde." Can be exchanged in a deal with a fae or demon in place of one's true name, shadow, or soul.
16. A heaped pile of pitched-over standing stones, with a hole one can just fit through if they slither in on their belly. A badger made of the same inscribed stone lives in the burrow beneath. It bristles in the presence of corruptions of nature, and dedicates itself wholeheartedly to the first person to feed it real food.
17. A deep furrow in the earth, obscured by trees on all sides. Heat and steam arises from the spring within. A rusted sword lies in the bottom of the deepest pool. A skeletal hand emerging from the calcified stone of the floor grips the hilt.
18. A natural cave in a root-strewn hollow is home to an enormous black bear and her two cubs. They are unmagical but intelligent, and are eager to provide shelter and food to anyone that doesn't flee immediately or intend them harm.
19. Three cypress trees on a hilltop have collapsed toward each other, and each tenuously props the others up. There is a beautiful golden necklace hung from the interwoven top branches with a triskele charm. Any interaction with the trees will cause them to collapse. This is a monument to a truce ending a bloody feud within the fae court between three rival families, and the parties have agreed the peace will only last as long as the three trees still stand.
20. A broad willow tree standing out amidst a copse of pines, every inch of its bark and leaves bleached white as if by a poisonous, dying sun. While looking up through its branches, the sky always appears as a clear night sky with extra-bright constellations, making navigation from this point trivial to any who can read them.
21. A thicket of hundreds of scrappy bushes, each sprouting from a still-breathing but immobile mourning dove, each laden with a single, blood-red berry. They are delicious.
22. A fine wrought-bronze gate set between two straight, tall elms in the midst of the wild tangle. They lead into a fae pleasure garden, and do not open from the inside.
23. A crooked tower built of rounded stones. The door is magically locked but the whole height of the tower is pierced through with dozens of trees that have grown up around it, making access easy for those willing to climb. It contains a library of minor magical trinkets, collected by a long-defunct wizardly order.
24. Soft, wet earth, a scent of rot, and clouds of glittering midges. The midges will gather to swarm anyone who uses magic here. If they use magic for a second time, the gathered midges will lift them and try to carry them away to the cabin of an exiled fae magician (see #4).
25. A tree-top nest, abandoned recently by some enormous avian. The trunk and branches of the tree are laden with hand/wing-crafted signs made of wood and guano. "Our Nest," "You are Loved," "Flap, Fish, Fly," "Don't Talk To Me Until I've Had My Trout," etc.
26. A birch lean-to, with clean bedrolls and blankets and a good supply of firewood stashed beneath. If the shelter is used, an exorbitant bill written in faespeech is found under someone's pillow upon waking. Until it's paid, travelers find themselves stumbling upon the lean-to again and again, no matter which direction they leave.
27. A dried-up riverbed. Legs sink into the piles of shell fragments up to the calf. Castings and discarded scales suggest that some enormous serpentine creature uses the erstwhile river run as a convenient path through the woods.
28. A redcap ambuscade. It appears as a squeeze of thicket and thorns. Color and light seems muted here, and the deeper one goes the tighter the path becomes. The trees and bushes begin to shrink as well, until one gets the sensation that they are growing, a giant among lilliputian flora. The redcaps attack from the rear when an attempt is made to turn around.
29. Intermittent cairns marking an easy path through the dense wood. A few miles along, a gruff elder molekin fellow is scattering the cairns one by one, grumbling about philistines. He offers a bounty on the head of anyone disturbing the "harmony of the wilds."
30. A child carefully picking fuzzy leaves from a small bush tucked away in a hollow. He's not surprised to see you. He says the leaves make excellent tea that stimulates the mind. Drinking this tea or chewing the leaves set one's thoughts racing, leading to great leaps in inspiration and reasoning. They also cause screaming nightmares about the child, emerging slowly from the wood, jaw unhinging. Teeth. Too many teeth.
31. A pile of discarded flesh and belongings laid out on a flat rock. There's no skin remaining - the unfortunate soul has been killed and their identity assumed by a skinthief. There's a personal effect left here, identifying the deceased as the last NPC the group has had contact with, or as one of the group's hirelings if any are present.
32. Long weedy plants in a sunny clearing, laden with heavy seedpods. The seeds sprout downy silk to catch the wind, and the pods ooze a thin white sap which is extremely poisonous if ingested. Fae of the Spring Court will happily accept the seeds as a form of currency, though not a valuable one, and only if the silk is in perfect condition.
33. A unicorn (huge, shaggy, rageful) and a wyvern (sinuous, wily, refined) locked in battle over a territorial dispute. Anyone local has a vague idea that this might an allegory for the republican and monarchist factions in the nation bordering the woods, but it's hard to say how exactly?
34. In an area of irregular stumps, a humanoid shape. It's made up of thousands of tiny black frogs that move collectively. The frog-thing has hold of a worn lumber axe, and wanders the clearing, tirelessly felling trees of all sizes with jerky, awkward movements. It doesn't clean or break up the trunks in any way, just leaves them to lie on the ground. It stumbles over them regularly. 
35. A seam of black glass cuts over the forest floor, straddled in places by ambitious roots. If illuminated with magical light, it glows pale orange, revealing the peaceful form of a fae prince pierced by a spear sealed within.
36. A very old, very frayed sheet of canvas that was once part of a grand pavilion tent. It's embroidered with silver thread, depicting traveling owl-folk. If used as a blanket or tent, it's completely resistant to inclement weather of any kind.
37. An overgrown jousting run, the center rail almost imperceptible amidst blooming roses, the stands twined with thorny vines. Anyone who passes by mounted is challenged by an echoing voice, revealed to belong to the ghostly form of an armored goblin on spider-back. She's staging a pas d'armes, and curses anyone who ignores her challenge.
38. Many eyes glinting from the undergrowth out at passers-by - something watching? In fact they're growing on a small scrubby shrub like berries. Anyone who eats one can see in the dark, and look through any of the eyes from the bush at will whether or not they've been picked.
39. The ruined, overgrown foundation of what was once a glorious palace, built by a mortal king ages ago in defiance of the seelie court's claim to the wood. Strange luminescent lichen grows across everything, a warning from the fae not to disturb this monument to hubris. Anyone with royal blood can interact with the palace as if it still stands, as long as their eyes stay closed. Doing so alerts the Summer Court, and draws their ire.
40. A chittering, clattering grove. Iridescent-shelled beetles are mating frantically in the leaves above for a good mile in any direction. Nearby, a druid covered with beetle-shell jewelry is accompanying the frenzy with a small frame drum, pulling out a pulsing rhythm to the racket that's not apparent otherwise. They invite any passers-by to join them in unlocking the wisdom hidden in the beat.
41. A mastiff-sized caterpillar, brown and hairy, with an overly friendly demeanor easily mistaken for aggression. Has a collar behind its head, a tag in elvish naming him "Bucephalas." His owner, a fae knight errant, is lost somewhere deeper in the wood.
42. A pitcher plant in a glass box. If the box is opened a faint, nondescript voice can be heard from within the pitcher. It claims it's a wayward pixie captured many years ago, and begs to be pulled out. In reality the voice is simply the natural lure of the plant - the mouth of the pitcher latches on to anyone that reaches in to help.
43. Gossamer spider webs have entangled a pixie named Malfeasance, wrapped in silk and struggling. This is a place of power for the Spider Queen of the Fae, and Mal was imprisoned here for being a boor and a general nuisance. Rescuing the little shit earns the ire of every creeping, skittering, wriggling thing in the forest until they're returned to have their vital juices consumed.
44. A retaining wall of stacked logs beneath a bare hilltop with a good view of the surrounding forest. Chubby little soil spirits, like wrinkled hairless teddy bears, have their homes behind the wall and emerge during the night. They're very gentle and friendly, and eagerly hospitable to anyone who treats the hill respectfully. If any digging or other disturbance of the earth occurs they'll rush out no matter the time of day and anxiously ask that the offending parties stop - Father Hill mustn't be awoken.
45. A fawn, hurt and vulnerable, its bony legs in a tangle. So many, many legs. It blinks up at interlopers with its red-tinted eyes. All of them. Its abdomen gapes open as you approach, the light glinting off of the razor edges of hundreds and hundreds of moist teeth.
46. Countless windchimes hang along a stand of trees planted in perfectly straight lines. They're made of bone, and wood, and glass and stone. They clink and tinkle in the light breeze, but when a strong wind blows through they peal out in a great combined voice that fills your chest with blessed quiet. Violence is impossible here while they sing.
47. A well, overgrown with moss. Several signs of warning in an archaic fae dialect hang from the well and the surrounding trees. The water deep below smells fresh. There is no bucket around, but rather an Archimedes Screw to pull water. It's operated by a wheel set into the ground with two handles . Any pair that work the wheel switch bodies when the first splash of water hits the basin.
48. A chunk of a severe stone building from a faraway city, about 10 feet in diameter. It has cleaved off in a perfect sphere, and seems to have spontaneously appeared here given that the destruction of the surrounding fauna is limited to the immediate area around it, and the canopy above is undisturbed. On the inside there is a clockwork contraption of bronze cogs and electrical coils. A well-charred gnomish corpse still grasps the activation lever.
49. A broad log bridge over a brisk creek. A rounded spur of wood protrudes on the upstream side, and a diminutive railing has been constructed at its edge, forming a tiny observation platform. Anything that's dropped on the upstream side and allowed to float underneath the bridge emerges on the other side doubled in size.
50. A lake, calm and mirror-like, surrounded by rocky crags. From a vantage point very near the water's surface, a small, ancient city can be seen submerged in the cold, clear water. Someone has laid out stones on the lake floor in the center of the town square. They read: "Still Here."