W<\/span>e’ve been in the Forest of Spirits for a couple of days now and it’s already been astonishing. I can only imagine what the next two months are going to be like if this is how it starts.<\/p>\n There really are spirits in here so it’s more than just a name. They aren’t ghosts, exactly\u2014or at least, the one we encountered yesterday wasn’t\u2014though they seem to be something similar. The one last night sort of … melded with Sandru. It wasn’t possession. Not like with Katiyana’s ghost. It was … different.<\/p>\n She was the spirit of a poet who had, apparently, died over a century ago (amazingly, Dasi had heard of her, or knew one of the poems or songs she had written) and didn’t know she was dead. Sandru was still Sandru, but he also had her memories. He could speak Tien, and was telling us her stories as though they were his own.<\/p>\n So what are they? They seem to straddle that line between true ghosts and manifestations\u2014the sort that lead people to say a place is haunted. This gave us ideas on what we could do to keep them away, as well as forcibly expel them. The latter actually worked. I … was not expecting Ivan to try it out on the spot like that, but I didn’t exactly make that clear, either. It was the right thing to do, though. We don’t know anything about these spirits, including what might happen if they are allowed to stay in their host.<\/p>\n We also saw? met? our first kami yesterday. Miyaro explained that virtually everything in the Forest has a guardian kami of some sort: trees, animals, special structures, even geographical features. This one belonged to? was responsible for? a waymarker. The stone pillar had toppled over so we righted it. Miyaro suggested we leave a gift, and when we did the kami showed himself. Miyaro spoke with him (it?) for a moment, and then we went on our way.<\/p>\n The forest itself is kind of supernatural on its own, even without the kami and the spirits. The trees are enormous firs and pines that tower overhead, filtering the sunlight through their canopy. Unlike the forests around Sandpoint and Magnimar, we are hundreds of miles from anything even remotely resembling civilization. It’s still and quiet with just the occasional rustling in the underbrush from an animal foraging for food. There’s not a lot of snow on the ground, but there’s enough to dampen even the sounds of the wagons and our horses.<\/p>\n It’s beautiful.<\/p>\n But it’s also isolating.<\/p>\n T<\/span><\/p>\n oday, we were very rudely apprised that more than just animals make their home in the Forest.<\/span><\/p>\n I am kind of pissed off. All the warnings and stories about the Forest \u201cnot being a place for people\u201d, and that we have to respect the land and the spirits within, and on and on, and yet a group of stone giants is allowed to make a home\u2014a literal, gods-be-damned <\/span>home<\/span><\/i>\u2014<\/span>here<\/span><\/i> in order to waylay travelers. Really? We\u2019re not allowed to just pass through, but they can move in and just kill and eat whoever and whatever wanders by? Makes perfect sense to me.<\/span><\/p>\n I guess I shouldn\u2019t be surprised.<\/span><\/p>\n P<\/span><\/p>\n ersonally, I would not follow a tiger back to its den. But I guess that\u2019s a thing we\u2019re doing now because I don\u2019t know why. Radella, Qatana and Ivan took off after it about an hour ago and I\u2019m just hoping they come back.<\/span><\/p>\n Dasi used a spell; he said the tiger was grieving. I don\u2019t profess to know anything about tigers, but I can recognize \u201cnot typical behavior\u201d when I see it. I thought for sure it was going to tear into us. And that we\u2019d have to kill it. And that we\u2019d be blamed for it. But it stopped short and just sort of sniffed the air around us.<\/span><\/p>\n Why chase off after it? To find out what\u2019s wrong, I guess.<\/span><\/p>\n I mean, I get it. I understand what Radella is doing. It\u2019s just\u2026it\u2019s a <\/span>tiger<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>I<\/span><\/i> may understand her intentions, but the <\/span>tiger<\/span><\/i> doesn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n I need to stop worrying. They can take care of themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pharast 8 (evening, Forest of Spirits) We’ve been in the Forest of Spirits for a couple of days now and it’s already been astonishing. I can only imagine what the next two months are going to be like if this is how it starts. There really are spirits in here so it’s more than just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-3431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-kali"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3431"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5704,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431\/revisions\/5704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Pharast 10 (Forest of Spirits, Evening)<\/h3>\n
Pharast 11 (Forest of Spirits, Late Morning)<\/h3>\n