The Wars of Shadewood Hollow

Shadewood Hollow has not been spared from the great conflicts that have shaped the nation. From wars fought between men to battles waged against the land itself, the people of this valley have endured hardship, loss, and the weight of forces far beyond their control. The scars of war—both physical and spiritual—still linger in the soil, in the forests, and in the hollowed-out souls of those who survived.

The War of the Great Accord

The Relentless Push West

At the dawn of the 19th century, American settlers surged westward, driven by a belief in their right to claim and tame the land. They felled forests that had stood for centuries, diverted rivers that had carved the valleys, and plowed through sacred ground. They called it progress. They called it destiny. But they did not listen to the land, nor to those who had lived in harmony with it for generations.

The frontier was brutal. Disease and starvation thinned the ranks of settlers before crops could take root. Winters froze entire families in their cabins. Livestock vanished, found days later, untouched by scavengers but drained of life. Some settlers awoke to find their homesteads buried beneath ivy and vines, swallowed as if the forest itself had grown overnight to reclaim them.

At first, these were seen as misfortunes—coincidences, bad luck. Then the disappearances became more frequent. Then the storms came. Then the forests moved.

A War Not Against Men, But the Earth Itself

The U.S. government, unwilling to believe the land itself could resist, blamed the Indigenous nations. Soldiers were dispatched to secure the frontier, expecting a war against warriors. What they found was something far worse.

Battalions marched west, only to find their trails gone by morning, swallowed by dense thickets. Rivers reversed their course, washing away bridges before they could be completed. Stone figures, looming and ancient, appeared overnight in the deserts, watching as caravans passed—until those caravans never returned. Military forts found themselves under siege by ceaseless storms, lightning striking the walls night after night until the men inside abandoned them.

A final, desperate campaign was waged to break the land’s resistance. Thousands of troops, cannons, and rifles advanced into the open plains, determined to claim the land once and for all. But as they marched, the earth itself rebelled. The ground trembled, cracked, and split wide, swallowing men, horses, and artillery. Survivors spoke of voices in the dirt, whispering in languages older than time. They spoke of unseen eyes watching from the trees. None dared return.

By 1830, the United States surrendered—not to warriors, but to the land itself. The Great Accord was signed, granting sovereignty to the Indigenous nations and placing vast territories beyond the reach of settlers. Roads and towns would only be built where the land allowed, and the forests, rivers, and mountains would remain untouched.

For a time, the land was at peace. But now, generations later, it has grown quiet. Industry creeps beyond the designated borders. The forests no longer reclaim what is taken. The rivers no longer rage. Some say the land has accepted its fate. Others fear it has only fallen asleep.

The Great Accord was not merely a truce—it was a warning. And if the land wakes again, it may not be so merciful a second time.

The American Civil War

Tensions Boil Over: North vs. South

By 1861, the United States stood on the edge of collapse. The industrial North, fueled by factories, railroads, and commerce, sought to centralize economic control. The agrarian South, reliant on farming, resource extraction, and foreign trade, fought to preserve its economic independence. When the federal government imposed tariffs that favored Northern industry, cutting off Southern exports, the South saw itself being strangled.

With tensions boiling over in the western territories—where the North pushed for federal control of newly discovered mineral-rich lands—the South declared secession. The Union, seeing this as an existential threat, moved to crush the rebellion.

The war that followed was not just a battle between armies but between two ways of life—one built on industry, the other on the land itself.

The Cost of War: Soldiers and Civilians Caught in the Struggle

The Civil War was a war of hunger, exhaustion, and death. Soldiers left towns like Shadewood Hollow believing in their cause, only to find themselves swallowed by a world of starvation and disease.

Food shortages were rampant. Union and Confederate soldiers alike lived on hardtack, salted pork, and whatever they could steal or scavenge. Some boiled shoe leather to stave off hunger, others raided homesteads, taking livestock and stores meant to last a family through the winter.
Tents were thin, boots wore through, and lice thrived. Rain turned camps into mud pits, while the summer heat rotted food and flesh alike. Dysentery, typhoid, and malaria claimed more lives than bullets ever could.
Battlefields were slaughterhouses. Soldiers fought knee-deep in blood-soaked mud, stepping over the bodies of friends and foes alike. Field hospitals reeked of rot, and sawbones hacked off limbs without anesthetic, their blades dull from overuse.

The land itself seemed to bear the weight of the dead. Some soldiers swore graves dug at dawn would be open by dusk, the corpses lying atop the soil as if the ground refused to hold them.

The Homefront:

For those who remained in places like Shadewood Hollow, war brought ruin. Farmers, already struggling under economic hardship, found their land pillaged by soldiers on both sides. Livestock were seized, crops burned, barns turned into barracks. Those who resisted were labeled traitors, strung up from trees or shot in their own fields.

Families went hungry as the price of flour tripled. Women, left to fend for themselves, bartered, begged, or stole to keep their children fed. The land, once fertile, lay scarred—trenches carved through farmland, orchards reduced to kindling.

And then, as the war dragged on, something older stirred beneath the blood-soaked soil.

Some claimed the land, still bound by the Great Accord, wept for the fallen. Farmers whispered of strange growths sprouting in abandoned battlefields, their roots thick and black as if nourished by the dead. Roads that had once been clear became labyrinths of twisting trees. Rivers carried bones downstream, depositing them at the feet of those who dared to look too closely.

Those who survived the war never truly left it behind. Some returned home silent, flinching at the sound of snapping branches. Others woke screaming, their bodies drenched in sweat, haunted by memories of battlefields that would not let them go.

A Land Marked by War, A Future Uncertain

Two great wars have shaped Shadewood Hollow—the first, fought against the land itself, the second, against its own people. The scars of both remain, carved into the soil, whispered on the wind.

The Great Accord still holds, but the land no longer resists as it once did. Some say it has been broken. Others believe it is waiting.

The Civil War has ended, but its ghosts linger. The South lies in ruin, its economy strangled, its people left to rebuild beneath the weight of Northern rule.

But here, in the shadow of the mountains, in a place where the land once rose to fight back, in a town where the dead are never truly silent… war may not be over at all.

The land has memory. The land has patience. The land does not forget.