Green Men

In the depths of the Blackwold dwell greater dangers than Jacks-in-the-Green. That the Green Men bear kinship to the Jacks is undoubted: that tale is told in their mossy hides, tawny eyes and fear of iron. Yet they far outstrip the Jacks in stature and are more brutish both in body and in mind.

Some say that the Jacks-in-the-Green will, for mischief or malice, force the spirits of forest beasts - boars, bears, wild wolves - to inhabit the corpses of warriors lain for long ages in the ancient barrows of the Blackwold. Newborn and ancient, human and beast, these children of the fae rampage through the forest, howling in rage at the contradictions that compose them.

For others, the Green Men are the shades of the barrow-folk, grown bestial and wild over the centuries that they have raged against the Iron Folk who usurped them. In this telling, the Jacks are their children: ghosts only now, the extinction of ancient lines and the source of all the Green Men's grief and rage.

Yet others say simply that the Blackwold breeds monsters to guard its deepest secrets. The forest does not surrender its treasures willingly and births the Green Men being to protect them. 

Reason with them? They speak only the beast-tongues of the forest: one might sooner treat with a she-bear. Keep to the trail, shun the wildest parts of the woods and - when you must - trust in iron.

Rustling in hauberks of brazen leaves, bellowing like beasts, the Blackwold's wilderness made flesh: they come!