The Waswood

"The Waswood is full of things that used to be: lost correspondence, childhood treasures, the scent of night-blooming jasmine in the forecourt of a friend's villa. Liturgical vestments from the worship of dead gods.

"Nothing that has come here will ever return. Don't step on the shore."

The Waswood was a region of Parabola that housed things long-past and long-forgotten. It also seemed to house what could have been, like alternate versions of major historical events.

The Woods That Were

As one might expect of a Parabolan landmark, descriptions of this place varied. It was remembered as a thriving forest of willows along a river, twined with honeysuckle vines; but at some other time, long ago, it was a barren waste of dead trees and bone.

A river - one of the five rivers that circled the land of the dead - flowed through the Waswood. Following that river, it was possible to reach the Waswood from the land of the dead, though entry through Parabola must surely have been simpler for the living.

Indeed, most dream-travelers preferred to explore the Waswood by boat, drifting down the river and witnessing What Was on the shores, either as separate items or vivid visions of times past. It was said that those who set foot in the Waswood would never return - though this did not always prove to be the case.

The things that did or did not end up in the Waswood were sometimes said to depend on the memories of the living, though the exact relation is uncertain - at times, the woods held only the things that were still remembered, and, other times, only the things wholly forgotten.

There are few stories of things native to the Waswood, but the Glory - the creature that now forms the backbone of the Chelonate - was first born there and only later roamed to the Unterzee. It now resides in the Waswood as part of the past.

The Other End of the River

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The river possessed many rivulets branching away from the main concordance, and many tributaries flowing into it. One such rivulet was redirected into a large mirror leading out into Moulin in the Hinterlands, which left the surrounding area strewn with truthful, albeit misplaced, historical relics, displaced from the Waswood by the water's flow.