12.14.5 The Cinua Glade
When the first refugees of Khandava came to the Ithaquan forest, the
nymphs thought them a minor nuisance as they passed through their lands
to find residence in the warmer areas of the Bardosi. When it became
apparent that the people of the south were settling in the forest for a
long stay, the frost nymphs held council with the mother of the forest
to seek council of what to do.
The mother of the forest was a huge tree of unrecognizable origin or
species that protruded from the canopy of the frozen forest. In a ritual
held in the heart of winter, the mother of the forest instructed the
nymphs to ignore the foreigners until they caused harm to the forest or
to its denizens, but if at any stage the inhabitants should allow the
taint of the magick of man to enter or if they begin to harm the
woodlands themselves, then to seek her counsel once again.
For many years the nymphs watched the people as they began to construct
the village in the trees and when they hollowed out an old pine to
create a pathway into their canopy settlement and cut deep within the
pines of the surrounding trees they sought out the mother of the forest
again for counsel of what to do. The mother of the forest instructed the
nymphs to make a salve from the local fauna and place it in the Redcap
Lake which will heal the wounds to the trees.
The nymphs followed the instruction and took the salve to the people in
the settlement. Lira the seductress talked with the new Ithaquans and
convinced them to rub the salve on the bough of the trees they had cut
deep within to heal the wound inflicted. Not wanting to give alarm to
their visitors, the settlers acquiesce with their wishes and the nymphs
disappear into the forest again.
As the years passed, the nymphs watched their new neighbors carefully
and as well as the the forest animals. The subtle shifts in persona of
the local wolves began to worry Lira and her followers as they saw the
usually fierce by natural beasts begin to act strange, as if a demon had
possessed them. Finally one day one of the direwolves attacked and
killed a nymph, and they decide it was time to act for their own safety.
For a third time, they consulted with the mother of the forest as to the
cause to the changes within the animals and very soil of their sacred
home.
The mother told them that along with axes and people, the settlers of
the forest have bought a new presence within the wood which caused the
animals to go mad. She instructed them to seek out the temples to the
mad and vengeful ones within the village and to destroy them, or the
animals will never be the same again. The nymphs tried raid after raid,
led by Lira, into the new settlement to destroy the structures the
mother had told them and to free the animals of the forest.
So it was in one such raid that Lira was slain by a cultist defending
the temple and her daughter, Salira took control of the group. An uneasy
truce was bargained with the Ithaqua Village, as it was called, by the
frost nymphs and the bloodshed ceased as the nymph population had been
mauled in the conflict.
And so an uneasy peace emerged, for how long it would last? No one was
sure. As long as the followers of Nemesis and Malkav survive in the
village and influence the inhabitants of the forest the peace cannot
last. In more recent years Salira's
daughter Lahira has been causing dissent amongst the nymphs, stirring
old feelings and Salira's hold on her people is tenuous. It is rumored
that Lahira is being whispered to by an unknown force, instructed to
rise the nymphs up against the village once again and purge the taint
that has inflicted its animals.
Now the nymphs of the Ithaquan Forest are preparing to march on the
village and remove them from their forest, freeing the animals from
their madness. Salira has closeted herself inside the great tree to
avoid making a decision which could see her people go to war yet again.