There are places in the Backwaters that even the most hardened Lurkers and desperate Lost know to avoid. They will face down a deputy or brave the dealings on the docks, but they will not step foot in the woods of Conjure. This is not without reason.
Looming on the hills just above Port Laveau, casting a permanent shadow over the town below, lies the domain of the Asylum. The dark woods that surround it are not a simple forest; they are a hunting ground, a dumping ground, and a place where sanity comes to die. If you are looking for a shortcut between the Backwaters and the distant cities of Hathian or the Campus, this is not it. This is a trap.
You do not want to take a stroll here. The air is unnaturally cold, even in the suffocating Louisiana heat. The trees grow in twisted, arthritic shapes, their branches clawing at the sky, and the canopy is so thick that it chokes the daylight, casting the forest floor in a perpetual twilight. The ground is a soft, damp carpet of moss and rot that muffles your footsteps, but the silence it creates is the most terrifying part. There are no birds singing. There is no normal rustle of wildlife. There is only the sound of your own frantic heartbeat and the feeling of a thousand unseen eyes watching you from the gloom.
The forest’s sadistic nature flows downhill from the Asylum on the hill. The wind carries faint, distorted sounds that might be screams, or might be something worse. The woods are littered with the institution’s refuse: shallow, unmarked graves marked with nothing but a pile of stones; rusted, archaic medical tools half-buried in the mud; the tattered personal effects of patients long forgotten.
But the woods are not empty. Feral, half-mad escapees from the Asylum are rumored to hunt here, their minds shattered by whatever horrors they endured. They are no longer people; they are territorial, predatory things that move through the shadows. To encounter one is to face a savagery that makes the calculated cruelty of a Port Laveau gangster seem merciful.
And yet, some choose to live here. Hidden deep within the oppressive woods are secluded residential parcels. These are not quaint cabins; they are the hideouts of those who require absolute secrecy and are willing to pay the psychological price for it. High-ranking Syndicate members, paranoid recluses with unspeakable pasts, and those who practice the darkest forms of voodoo call this place home. The residents of these parcels are as dangerous as the woods themselves, and they do not welcome visitors.
Do not come here. Do not seek shelter here. The trees have seen things no soul was meant to witness, and they are always hungry for new secrets. Walk these woods, and you may just become one of them.
