Mapping the Unknown: Worldbuilding Forests

Welcome to our Worldbuilding Wednesday! This series, Mapping the Unknown, focuses on creating your own world, and how best to make it believable while still filling it with wonder. It's a limited series meant to give advice to budding writers and worldbuilders about the best practices in developing your setting!

After mountains frame your map and rivers breathe life into it, forests bring mystery, danger, and beauty to your world. Forests are more than collections of trees; in a fantasy setting, they are realms of ancient secrets, natural power, and stories waiting to unfold. Whether they’re forbidding and eerie, magical and untamed, or home to civilizations both wondrous and dangerous, forests add texture and depth to your world. And now that you have mountain ranges to nestle them in, and rivers to nurture them, it's time to start placing them, deciding what part - if any - they play in your story.

Forests have a way of pulling us in—both in the real world and in our imaginations. They are places of contrast: shelter and danger, beauty and darkness, sanctuary and isolation. In fantasy and roleplaying games, forests are often realms of transformation where characters encounter the unknown, be it through whispered myths, hidden creatures, faerie beings, or powerful entities that dwell among the roots and branches, perhaps slumbering until they are awakened.

On your map, forests can be wild expanses covering vast regions or small pockets of trees tucked into forgotten corners. They can be primordial remnants of a world uninhabited by mortals, or artificial woods planted to harvest their trunks for utilitarian purposes. Like rivers, they shape how people live: where they settle, hunt, or avoid entirely.

Forests can serve many roles in worldbuilding:

1. Barriers and Borders: Dense forests can act as natural boundaries, discouraging travel and isolating regions. Unlike mountains, some forests don’t simply block the way—they may consume travelers who wander unprepared. Tolkien's Fangorn is a good example (at least for the orcs).

   
   

2. Homes of the Unknown: Enchanted groves, ruins hidden beneath the canopy, or ancient spirits guarding their realm—forests are the perfect setting for mystery and danger. Few places are as naturally suited for legends - and for adventure.

   
   

3. Resources and Conflict: Forests provide wood, game, herbs, and shelter, but these resources may come at a price. Uncontrolled logging may anger nature spirits, stir ancient curses, or provoke conflict with forest-dwelling peoples. Individual forests may be the only source of some particular herb, thus becoming the center of attempts at exploiting them - and they may not appreciate such attempts.

   
   

4. Civilizations and Cultures: Forests are not always uninhabited. They might shelter hidden kingdoms, reclusive creatures, wandering druids, or nomadic tribes who live in harmony with the land. Their ways of life are shaped by the forest’s bounty—and its dangers.

Forests can serve many roles in worldbuilding. Let's look at two examples from Teidar. On the western edge of Ailund, the forest simply known as Sigilis looms as a mist-choked expanse of ancient trees and shadowed glades. The air itself feels heavy, as though the forest holds its breath. Locals say Sigilis is haunted—spirits of the dead are drawn to its depths, their whispers carried on the cold breeze that rustles through its canopy. The edges of Sigilis are logged by the boldest woodsmen, but few dare to go far. Those who do so and return, often return pale and shaken, muttering about eyes watching from the dark or paths that twist and turn on their own accord. Most, however, do not return. There are rumors that a powerful, withered witch, known only as The Gray Mother, dwells within, weaving spells from the roots and mists. She is a figure of both fear and reverence, since she is believed by some to be a guardian of the forest's ancient secrets.

Compare Sigilis with the vast Ellemere, spanning nearly the entire southern side of the Craveth Wyvern like an emerald ocean, marking the northern border of Mathklyr and the northwestern edge of Tonalay. Ellemere is a realm of primordial power—a forest much older than the kingdoms around it, untouched and sacred. Legends claim that Ellemere is alive, not just with creatures and flora but with the spirits of nature themselves. Massive trees tower skyward, their trunks so wide it takes a dozen men to encircle them. Ellemere is Old Growth, and any who steps inside instinctively feels how insignificant their years may be, compared to the trees of the ancient forest. Light filters through the canopy in shifting greens and golds, and the air hums with the presence of something otherworldly.

Travelers who venture into Ellemere speak of shimmering glades, where time seems to slow, and rivers that run clear but carry faint melodies on their currents. Mystics claim that the spirits of the forest—sometimes seen as figures of mist or shadow, but never clearly—protect it from harm. Mathklyr’s people offer tributes to Ellemere’s edge, honoring a pact as old as their kingdom itself, while Tonalay’s mystics journey the outskirts of the forest to commune with its mysteries. Ellemere is not hostile like Sigilis, but it is no less dangerous. The forest does not suffer those who harm it. Loggers have been swallowed by the earth, and fires vanish as though smothered by unseen hands. Yet, it is also a source of inspiration, magic, and deep reverence—a forest bound to the land, a reminder of the world’s untamed roots.

Forests are places of transformation and mystery. They are where adventurers face the unknown, where secrets lurk in hidden clearings, and where ancient forces—natural or magical—hold sway. Whether forbidding or nurturing, enchanted or untamed, forests bring life to your world’s maps and stories. For this reason, my advice is to create your forests and think of legends that may arise around them. Much like rivers, each forest should be its own character, and a reader - or a player - should be able to recognize the forest by the description, if they pay attention.

Next time on Worldbuilding Wednesday, we’ll explore deserts and wastelands: the harsh, unforgiving expanses that challenge even the boldest travelers.

Until then, thanks for reading!