The Cursed Forest

The first depth, and the only one under an open sky with trees. Rolling hills, a winding river that glows violet and a dark lake, all grown from the run's seed. Clearings hide camps, a cemetery, a stone circle and caches.

#What you'll find

• Campfires. Stand within a few metres, go three seconds unhurt with nothing hunting you, and the fire restores health, stamina and mana.
• Water. Wade the river and swim the lake. The lake is where you fish, from the jetty by the fishing shack.
• Glowing mushrooms. Eat one (E) to heal 30% of your health plus 12, then watch the forest breathe for ten seconds.
• The Broodmother's lair, deep in the trees in every forest. See below.
• A Drake Matriarch's nest in some forests (about 2 in 5), as far from the lair as it can be. See below.
• Drakes in the sky. Under the open sky, Drakes and Elder Drakes take to the air and breathe fire down on you. See Drakes and dragon fire.
• Taverns sometimes stand in a clearing: food, drink and a hearth where the dead won't follow.
• Weather: rain, snow, a Blood Moon or blood rain can roll here.

#The Broodmother's lair

A clearing ringed by dead trees and strung with silk. Every thread is tied to something: orb webs fill the gaps between the trunks, hung from frames tied off to the bark, the branches above and the ground below. Guy lines sag from tree to tree, a sheet of silk hangs like a low ceiling, skirts of silk drape from the trunks to the ground, and the lower trunks are wrapped.

• Her retreat is a funnel of silk at the back that narrows into a hole in the earth. She waits in front of it, and wakes when you come close.
• Cocoons hang from the branches on drop lines or stand bound against the trunks. Egg sacs are glued to the bark and huddled by her door.
• A chest stands at the foot of one of the trees: what she took from the last ones who came.
• Spiderlings guard the way in, and she calls more when she's hurt. See the Broodmother.

#The Drake Matriarch's nest

Not every forest has one. When it does, the clearing is scorched black and burnt clean of grass, ringed by burnt-out trees. In the middle, a great bowl of branches and logs laid over each other, many burnt black, around a bed of ash and glowing coals. Her eggs lie in the embers, scaled like her, with ember light breathing through their cracks. Smoke rises off the nest and small fires still burn in the branches.

• She stands guard between the nest and the way in, and wakes with a roar when you come within about 17 metres.
• Her hoard: a chest beside the nest with gold spilled round it. Bones of her meals and a burnt wagon lie about the clearing.
• The eggs hatch into drakelings when she's driven below half health.
• The fight is on Drakes and dragon fire.

In development builds, the console commands tp lair and tp nest take you straight there.

Who walks here

Share of the ordinary dead on this depth (bosses and mimics aside):

• Skeleton25%
• Ghoul14%
• Shambler13%
• Gloomweaver11%
• Bone Archer10%
• Goblin9%
• Spiderling brood6%
• Zombie pack4%
• Goblin pack4%
• Drakeling3%
• Drake2%

Ways out

Forest Waystone or Hanged Man's Stone. Hold for 10 seconds.