abstract
| - On the outskirts of a faerie forest a black wood can be harvested from stunted, foul trees. The wood is nearly as hard as bronze, can be cut only with the sharpest steel, burns with great difficulty, and is used by the local Unseelie to make weapons and various other items. It contains Herbam vis, tainted with Faerie power. These faeries will do their best to thwart the attempts of Magi to harvest the useful wood. However, they have an arrangement with an Eremite Verditius to trade some of the wood annually for enchanted devices. This Verditius, a black-hearted diabolist, makes small, cherubic dolls from the wood, which he then animates as servants or gives to local children as playthings. Some of the dolls, his most prized servants, even have demons bound within, making them undetectable by Hermetic methods, a feature the toymaker frequently finds useful. Long ago a Wizard’s March was called against the wicked Magus, and the Order believes him to be dead. In truth, he survived and has been in hiding for many years. In the event he is discovered, he has built a wooden simulacrum of himself, a duplicate down to the tiniest detail, with which he can confound those meddling in his affairs, or to "perish" in his place, that he might escape again. If forced to relocate, he will find some other remote place in which to continue his wicked studies, but not before leaving some new toys for the children of the covenfolk.
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