Shademurk Forest

The Shademurk Bog was a corrupt, thickly-wooded swamp in the Feywild that later became the Shademurk Forest after the source of the corruption was destroyed.

Description
The trees of the Shademurk Bog had thick trunks with sagging canopies like weeping willows. Black, sticky, tar-like ichor coated the vegetation and seeped into the ground. This viscid substance could impede foot travel; Scanlan, for example, tired from repeatedly extracting his feet from the tar.

History
The Shademurk was once a very beautiful landscape, the fountain heart of the Gilded Run that provided the flowing rivers that spun throughout the entire region. There was an Archfey many years before who was spurned by his beloved and grew spiteful, so full of angst and anger and vengeful thoughts that it turned his heart dark and black and he began to spill black ichor into the fen around him, corrupting the land. It was then that the lands became the Shademurk. Dryads turned foul and shadowed. Other creatures began to crawl up from the bog itself, and to feed off the life of those they could reach. The only thing that held its spread at bay was the Gilded Run, the rapids. The area had found balance, did not pose an immediate threat, and served a purpose. But it was dangerous, akin to wading through an oil slick. To enter was to walk into a hungry swamp that never gave up its need to feed.

After Vox Machina slew Saundor, the black ichor that seeped out of the plants of the Shademurk Bog ceased flowing and started hardening like amber. Using Commune with Nature, Keyleth confirmed that the surrounding plants of the bog began to relax upon Saundor's demise.

When Vox Machina returned to the Feywild about a year later, they found that the corruption had entirely receded. The area looked like a normal forest by Feywild standards. The Shademurk Forest seemed to have some level of intelligence and recognized the people who freed it from Saundor's influence. As Vox Machina were making camp for the night, one of the trees bent its branches in a certain way to make sleeping more comfortable.