One of my regrets about the first time I ran ROW was that Heldren had so much backstory, but if the players just jump into going into the woods (like mine did) they will never know how much depth was there. So based on some ideas from this forum, I decided to modify 'Hollow' from Tales of the Old Margreve to get the players more engaged with Heldren before the actual snow travel began. https://paizo.com/products/btpy8hp6?Tales-of-the-Old-Margreve
The backstory
1000 years past, a Jadwiga dallied with an elven druid and gave birth to twin girls. One was pale as snow like her mother, the other bore the colors of the forest, like her father. Migori went to live with her father, while Jenevra stayed behind in the lands of Irrisen. Both of them felt the call of the woods, but where it was indulged in Migori who became a Druid, in Jenevra it was twisted by the cruelty of the Jadwiga who did not believe a half-elf could truly be noble.
This led Jenevra to make a deal with a devil, traveling to the Border Wood, she built golems of wood and used them to help her collect souls that she used to increase her power. The most powerful of her constructs wielded a vorpal scythe and was known as the Hollow Man. For years, those around her lived in terror and tried to band together to resist. During this time Jenevra found the location of her sister in the forest, and sent many of her minions after her. But Migori had become powerful in her own right, and instead of ending her, Migori vowed to bring Jenevra to justice, leading a coalition of villagers and the denizens of the forests to bring an end to Jenevra and her wooden soldiers.
Those who fought in the battles referred to them as 'The Hollow Wars' and many lives - and sometimes souls - were lost in the fighting. The town that became Heldren constructed a statue to 'General Migori' and every year on the date the Hollow Man was finnally defeated, burned a wooden figure in effigy, a tradition that is still remembered, though not practiced in current times. Jenevra herself was defeated and vanished into the forest, and was not heard from again for a millenium.
Jenevra had attempted to merge her consciousness into that of a treant, but in the process drove the treant into torpor. It was the opening of the portal and the energy through the ley lines that awoke one of her wooden guardians. It returned to its mistress and began to collect the life force of small animals, begging to awaken Jenevra. She did not return to consciousness, but instead began a mournful, wordless keening that drove animals near to madness. She felt want... she needed something bigger, something with more soul... and that led the pale shadow of the Hollow Man into the town of Heldren late one afternoon...
