Quick Overview
The Deadwood are furbolgs living in Felwood whose settlements have been overtaken by corruption. Their hostility places them in direct conflict with the uncorrupted Timbermaw and links them to the Winterfall of Winterspring. The poisoning of their homeland is a consequence of the Burning Legion's assault during the Third War. Their history is the story of how a forest's ruin divided communities that once belonged to the same natural world.
Full History
The furbolgs of northern Kalimdor did not begin as enemies of the forest. Their communities lived among its trees and streams, keeping traditions tied to the spirits and cycles of the natural world. When the Burning Legion invaded during the Third War, that old relationship was broken. Demonic influence swept through the woodlands around Mount Hyjal, transforming wildlife and weakening the peoples who relied upon the land. The region that became Felwood was among the most grievously wounded.
The Deadwood suffered that change. Their settlements in Felwood came to be inhabited by furbolgs affected by the same taint that turned formerly peaceful creatures savage. The name of the tribe became associated with places where travelers could no longer expect the ordinary customs of furbolg hospitality. Deadwood Village and the northern settlements around Felpaw were reminders that corruption did not simply stain trees and streams: it reached the families and tribal bonds of the people who lived there.
Beyond their immediate territory lay the Timbermaw, whose people had survived in a mountain refuge. The difference between them was not a division between natural enemies. It was the consequence of unequal survival. The Timbermaw were able to preserve their traditions while the Deadwood fell prey to the same darkness that ruined Felwood. The resulting hostility gave the Timbermaw a terrible choice: defend the hold from their kin, seek a way to end the corruption, and accept that the old shared world might not be restored quickly.
The Deadwood were also connected with the Winterfall of Winterspring. The mountain passages linking the two regions made the threat more than a local Felwood problem. Corrupting influences and hostile furbolgs could affect both sides of the range, while the Timbermaw controlled an important route between them. The conflict became a triangle of corrupted tribes, surviving kin and outsiders seeking passage. A traveler could encounter each side of that larger struggle without ever seeing the demons who had set it in motion.
By the opening of World of Warcraft, the Burning Legion's defeat has not healed the Deadwood. Their villages remain threatening and their relationship with the Timbermaw bitter. The tribe gives Felwood's tragedy a human-scale shape despite its nonhuman protagonists: one people shelters what remains of its culture, another inhabits villages poisoned by the same war, and the difference between them is the survival or collapse of a bond with the living forest.
The Living Archive · Subject Chronicle
Through History
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