Superstitions, Monsters and Folk Stories in Cornay & Hilinor

Eight flayed men were strung up in the forest, their bodies equidistant in a circle clearing. At their centre, a great pile of bloody flesh and was carefully laid out in spiral. The sight was hideous but what truly stuck out was the smell, the smell of death so cruel lingered in Ser Don's nose as a unsettlingly familiar guest. The sooner they moved on from Stormberg's vicious forests the better, even war in the south was favourable to whatever horror this was.

The Cornayan Faith would say that monsters and folk stories were unholy things, vile desecrations of the truth that seek only to corrupt and darken. The practical folk of the nation would say that things that go bump in the dark forests are simply stories to keep children away from wolves, bears and other real monsters. Despite the logical arguments against superstitions and ghost stories, folk tales of dark horrors and vile creatures persist as strong as any castle, as ancient as any noble line. Whilst all stories of monsters and spirits are to be approached with great scepticism, there are a number of supernatural incidents that live well in the minds of the Cornayan people - many of which still shape the way the less educated and more superstitiously-inclined live their lives.

Common amongst the commonfolk are stories of beings of supernatural power, entities reminiscent of the creatures of stories of the Age of Magic that preceded reliably recorded history. Whilst these entities can take many forms, some archetypal figures occur multiple times in various stories - both contemporary and historical. The idea of ancient races of people that possessed inhuman physiology is not unfounded, for Giants roamed the continent for centuries before the Cornays arrived at the Bay of Stars, and some ruins like Lostwatch and Traven Bridge predate any "human" civilisation as we know it, but the idea of these beings surviving and passing unnoticed in a world so heavily mapped and understood is deeply unlikely. Regardless, for the sake of historical curiosity, the types of creatures that regularly appear in stories can be defined into three major categories: Greenfolk, Seafolk, and Nightfolk.

Greenfolk, with skin of bark and leaves and hair of moss and ivy, are written about extensively in folk tales and local legend around what would become the Vale of Oldreach. These creatures, often depicted in ancient armour and wielding great bronze axes or clubs hewn of strong wood, are commonly described as being custodians or protectors of local forest areas, woodland animals or sites of proto-religious importance. It is said they speak in riddles and song, with voices that sound both like the singing of nightingales and the cracking of falling trees. Greenfolk are largely depicted as peaceful but deeply territorial, defending their homes with furious and nearly limitless stamina in warfare. Today, it is theorised by Monks of the Bridkeep Monastery that these stories are the subject of early humans' interactions with wandering war parties of the Elves of Wedrobia - though their visual descriptions would differ largely from elven biology, and their personalities differ from the usual diplomatic approaches that the elves of the Spring Court take in their dealings with Cornayan people. Other subsets of Greenfolk can be seen elsewhere in the world, with slight variation. In Crosser's County, a particularly famous story sees the legendary first knight of Cornay, Ser Holden Barryl, face off with a moving, humanoid tree by the name of Tor'und, who spoke in song and towered at a supposed twenty-five feet tall. In Hilinor, ancient Greenfolk covered in frost supposedly descended from the Northern Mountains and exchanged iron for warmth by hearthfire with the first men. Greenfolk are by far the most peaceful and amicable of these mythological peoples.

"I've seen one you know, tall as a bear he were and just as wide, skin all green an' shaggy like a bush in heart of springtime. Killed an' strung up a poacher just passed Lord Pyne's land" The old man coughed between sentences and Ser Carrie scoffed at the nonsense he spewed "You expect me to believe there are tree men wandering around the Vale, hanging poachers?" she laughed to the other Thronesguard "looks like we're out of a job whilst we're here, take the next couple days off"

Seafolk are unique to the folk tales from the Stone Coast and eastern Oakenshire; stories of humanoid beings with bloated flesh, fish-like scales or translucent skin covered in living barnacles litter the port towns and fish markets. Whilst common stories were often dismissed as uneducated meetings with displaced merfolk from the Sand Coast moved by stormy weather or migrations gone awry, the physical descriptions of the common seafolk monsters were far different from the merfolk that still, to this day, litter the deeper waters of the Sand Coast and the Jade Bay between Agaar and Wedrobia. Merfolk possess scaled, conjoined hindquarters with a defined fluke where the feet of any normal man would be, whereas Seafolk are often described more as the living drowned, corpses bloated with seawater or corrupted with fish-scale flesh or seaweed hair. The depictions of Seafolk are rarer in carving or architecture than Greenfolk, though effigies of Seafolk can be found carved into the Third White Tower at Whitecliff - the oldest of the three and the furthest out on the cliff edge. Seafolk are commonly accompanied by stories of drownings, sunken ships or raiding parties coming to the coastal villages and stealing away children or animals to eat or enslave. Today it is somewhat universally believed that these early stories of Seafolk refer instead to the lost civilisation of Marewath, a small island south of Freystorm Bay home to little fertile land but great tall trees and deposits of copper, tin and iron. These explain the early stories, but do not account for the contemporaries that depict men and women with the faces of sea creatures dragging innocents into the depths.

Nightfolk are by far the most hostile and most widely spread, though their descriptions vary the most. Some describe them as trolls, creatures of warty skin and long, razor-sharp claws that burn or turn to stone in the daylight. Others describe them as pale-skinned, unnaturally tall and inhuman - often with jagged teeth or strange proportions that seem, at first, human. Others even go as far as to describe them as living shadows, the dark itself personified and demonised by ancient magics or cruel actions that darken the very soul of a place. The only true defining link between all of these folk stories is that the creatures commonly referred to as Nightfolk have a powerful, sometimes fatal, aversion to daylight. Again, the most common explanation for these terrifying, supernatural beings is that they are simply stories to teach a fear of night into children - lest they wander into the black and cross paths with woodland predators or truly monstrous humans. Commonly, Nightfolk accompany locations of great tragedy, whether that be the supposedly haunted woods around Stormberg, which has long been the hunting grounds of bandits that reap the rewards of having the often disinterested House Warren as their custodian, or the more recent charred ruins of the Ghostkeep in Crosser's County where Ser Glyn Holton met his end at the closing of the Rider's Revolt. What makes Nightfolk so interesting is that their stories have spread to every corner of the nation, from the narrow alleys of The Skyhold to the furthest hilltops of Hilinor - every culture or local history has its own variation of a Nightfolk.

Around the campfire they laughed and passed the last dredges of Oldreach Wine, where tragedy and scheming had befallen the nobility only opportunity and success had graced the paths of the knight errants. Whilst Ser Loras drunk down the final swill they had watered down in the stream, his laugh drifted off as his eyes watched the edges of light their campfire gave off. Just passed Ser Killian's shoulder he had sworn he had seen something move, something tall and slender and pale just an inch revealed from behind the tall pine. "Must be the wine" he thought to himself, and shuck his head clear of the thought as he shuffled closer to the flames.

Not all superstitions are defined by supernatural creatures; sometimes it is the mundane in unusual places that provides great supernatural meaning for the people of Cornay and Hilinor. Famous stories, likely falsified for the glory or notoriety of their characters, often depict the natural world lending a magical hand to the common man - whether in the form of prophetic symbolism or more directly, like the story of Crowtown's blackened heath being the result of the first Lord Crowe calling lightning down upon the hill when defending his town from Wasnordian raiders or the Lady of House Forelight calling down a star to light her beacon tower to guide home her lost, seafaring son. There are many signs and portents that hold universally accepted meanings amongst the superstitious of Cornay and Hilinor, from the rarely seen White Stag symbolising change, usually of royalty or of noble blood, to the bad omens seen in stormy weather on one's wedding day or the eve of a tourney or battle. The most common place the superstitious will look for omens is in the stars, where the visibility of constellations grants supposed insights into the affairs of the world. This practice is much more commonly found in Agaar, where navigating stars and constellations are revered for their truth-revealing abilities and their vital role in desert travel. Dozens of constellations exist, each with meanings that vary by season or by how they combine with other visible constellations. The practice of astrology is considered witchcraft by the Cornayan Church, though it is still popular amongst the commonfolk - who look on shooting stars as symbols of great fortune, and starless nights as dark omens that invite only trouble.

She watched from the tower window as the night painted its black canvas with light, tracing The Archer's bow and the tail of The Dragon with her finger. Marks connected by lines, each line contributing to a greater picture. Mal let her hand trace the birthmark across her cheek, a dozen marks connected by lines, each line contributing to a greater picture.

Truly, though, the real horrors of Cornay lie in the hands of mortal men - from the dark arts of torturers to the brutality of bandits and robber knights. It is easy to blame the dark deeds of the world on creatures in the night or drowned men risen again from dark tides of the Stone Coast, when in reality most of the darkest acts of Cornay's bloody history happened in the broadest of daylight by those of noblest blood. Most of our understanding of these tales comes from our understanding of fear, the fear of being hunted in the dark by the predators of nature but also by the fellow early peoples of Cornay - or our desire to be protected by strange and powerful beings that do only good. These stories must be viewed as simply that: stories, little more. Any self-respecting person would see them as fictions conjured to frighten, but that does not mean they have not had their impact on society today - nor does it mean the educated of the world truly understand everything that also calls Cornay its home.