The Withering

The Withering was a mysterious plague which swept through the Immer Valley region over the course of about a year and a half destroying all life and livelihood in its path. Seemingly unstoppable, it was finally cut off by the druids of the Immer Valley Forest through a mysterious ritual.

Details

Not much is known about The Withering now. What little information has survived is kept in old dusty tomes in mostly forgotten libraries.

Beginning in the mountainous regions of the western Immer Valley sometime around the winter solstice, it slowly began to spread eastward through the valley. When it met the Immer Valley Forest, however, its expansion became rapid and uncontrollable. In a mere few months, it had destroyed nearly half of the entirety of the forest, leaving corrupted, blackened trees and shrubs in its wake.

The druids, fearing the total annihilation of their home, fled to the easternmost portion of the forest, where they desperately tried to find a way to stop The Withering from taking the rest of their home. With no way to stop it for good, and no better options, they sacrificed two of their sacred pools to containing the terrible, magical plague.

Those springs were Silver Pool and Crystal Spring. By forming two rivers from the springs, and performing a ritual to ensure they continue to run, and to ensure the springs' natural magic would contain the blight, the springs were corrupted, but roughly a third of Immer Valley Forest was saved, now called Immer Wood. The Withering ran against Silver River about mid-summer a year and a half after its spread had begun. The silver was turned a dark and putrid black, but the magic had managed to stop it from crossing to the other side. It was named Black Adder River sometime after that. Crystal River, whose spring was the most powerful of the druids' three sacred springs, wasn't turned black, but it was darkened. Its waters are unusable before Serpent's Tongue.

The Withering is not gone, however. While its spread was stopped, it still infects the lands it has already taken, and anyone venturing into those areas will quickly find themselves succumbing to that same magical sickness. The Druids of Immer Wood attempt to ensure no one ventures into the area unprepared.

The magic within the rivers is not perpetual. It requires a ritual be repeated each solstice and equinox. Several could likely be missed before The Withering ate through the latent magic within the waters, but the druids have never missed a single ritual. Known as the Ritual of Serpent's Tongue, it is always performed by the oldest and most powerful druids, though on occasion, it has been performed by less experienced druids out of necessity.