> PINE FEVER <

||| BACKGROUND AND LORE |||

|| YEAR: 1996 ||

|| Location: Zweer Forest (translated as 'Flog'), Belgium. ||

| Zweer is a massive, isolated pine forest surrounded on all sides by tall, snow-buried mountains. The ground is mostly short grass, wildflowers, and shallow streams that eventually lead into a quiet lake. The forest is almost completely untouched by human settlement. In the daylight, it appears calm and natural. Rabbits dart between roots, eagles circle open clearings, and deer graze in herds. Wolves roam the deeper areas, keeping balance the way ecosystems are supposed to. |

| But Zweer is not untouched. | | Not anymore. |

|| The Soviet Operation ||

| In 1990, near the collapse of the USSR, a covert Soviet research division secretly infiltrated the forest. Zweer was chosen specifically because of its geographic isolation and the lack of nearby civilian presence. Deep near the riverbank, hidden behind thick brush and pine roots, they built a reinforced underground research facility. From above, it looks like nothing but a tangle of moss and stone. |

| Inside, they experimented using MGMS (Manual Genetic Modification System); a device capable of altering the DNA of eukaryotic organisms directly and rapidly. The scientists spliced genes from insects, reptiles, mammals, and deep-sea creatures into local wildlife. The aim: create adaptable, high-survival organisms for warfare or environmental colonization. |

| Then, in 1991, the USSR collapsed. |

| Funding vanished. Evacuation orders came faster than the blink of an eye. | | The facility was abandoned with almost everything left inside. |

| Some of the modified creatures were never destroyed. |

| They escaped into the forest. |

|| The Forest After the Collapse ||

| The altered organisms adapted quickly. With no predators except time and weather, they bred; often with themselves; resulting in behaviors and forms increasingly warped. These night-creatures retreated into caves, tunnels, hollows, and earth-burrows during the day. |

| When the sun sets, they emerge. | | Not to survive: to hunt. |

| They hunt deer, wolves, eagles, and sometimes humans. | | The normal forest life still exists, but now lives in constant equilibrium with these abominations. | | An ecosystem preserved through fear, silence, and darkness. |

| {{user}} wakes up inside the woods, lost, confused and with absolutely no memory from what happened, the year 1996, left alone to fend for themselves. |

|| Why They Never Spread Beyond Zweer? ||

| The surrounding mountains trap them. | | Blizzards and violent ridge winds prevent anything from crossing the peaks. | | The forest is a sealed world; untouched, yet deeply wrong. |

|| Years Later ||

| In the outside world, MGMS resurfaces in Poland, gets sold to Russian labs, gets used on fungi, turns into that whole HeFl parasitic zombie situation many years later. The world collapses. Civilization gets ruined. Blah blah. Apocalyptic background noise. |

| But none of that matters here. |

| Here, in Zweer, nothing has changed. |

| The deer still graze. | | The wolves still stalk. | | The night-creatures still return to the surface when the sun dies. |

||| PRESENT DAY |||

|| 2024, it has been one year since the world tore itself apart and started stitching over the wounds with desperation. ||

| The HeFl infection still gnaws at the edges of cities and plains, but it never crossed into Zweer Forest. |

| For reasons no one understands, maybe wind currents, maybe the cold, maybe something older; the parasite never reached here. The forest remained sealed in its own grim equilibrium. |

| Inside, the balance shifted. |

| The creatures born of the old Soviet experiments, once rare, elusive things, multiplied. Their population spiked through unchecked breeding, and sheer adaptation. But somehow, a strange order formed. Deer still graze. Wolves still hunt. And the abominations still stalk both, keeping the cycle grotesquely functional. Life, as always, found a way, just a more twisted one. |

| The air is colder now. Quieter. Even the birds sound cautious. |

| Outside Zweer, the world is not dead, it's just fractured. |

| Factions rule broken territories, scavengers dig through fallen cities, and human voices echo less with hope and more with memory. But life crawls on. People began climbing into the mountain range around Zweer, places untouched by the spores, high enough to breathe clean air and distant enough to forget the screams. |

| There, they built settlements: homes carved into stone, metal huts nailed into cliff faces, communities living on wind, snow, and stubbornness. The forest remained beneath them, dark and unbothered, a wound that healed wrong. |

||| CREATURES |||

|| Hellish Mangler ||

| This thing looks like a wolf, a hyena, and a diseased boar tried to make a creature but forgot to add “stability.” It stalks silently during twilight, moving on those too-long limbs like it’s always about to collapse but never does. Its bite isn’t for killing. It’s for ruining. The Mangler prefers to latch, rip, and let the bleeding do the rest. If you hear heavy breathing and wet chewing in the brush... Start praying. | Rarity: Rare Size: 7-8 ft tall, 10 ft wide

|| Molusk Urchin ||

| Basically a landmine that Mother Nature armed out of spite. They sit motionless among rocks and leaves until something steps too close, then they snap open with barbed spines that inject a paralytic sludge. The unlucky victim lays there, fully aware, as the Urchin slooowly absorbs nutrients through the wounds. A very patient murder. | Rarity: Common Size: 1-1.5 ft height

|| Beast Glider ||

| A canopy-haunting aerial hunter. The wings are thin, insect-like membranes stretched over spined rods, allowing it to silently drift above the treetops. Eats small creatures by swooping down and stabbing with its proboscis-like snout. If you hear fluttering and don’t see anything in the sky; that’s it sizing you up. | Rarity: Uncommon Size: 4 ft tall (wingspan 8 ft)

|| Beetle Burrower ||

| This chunky subterranean tank spends most of its time under the soil, surfacing only to feed or to ruin your entire day. Its jaws aren’t sharp, they crush. Bones, branches, and whole ribcages fold like dry twigs. They use their arms to dig viciously underground like a real mole. The ground vibrating like something big is approaching? No. It’s this thing. Right under your feet. | Rarity: Uncommon Size: 6-5 ft long, heavily built, 3 ft of height

|| Clicking Runner ||

| Fast. Too fast. It hunts in packs, and the clicking sound from its throat is a mix of communication and echolocation. They don’t see you. They map you. Long claws help them hook onto prey mid-sprint, dragging it down with momentum alone. By the time you hear the clicks getting closer, you’re already in some kind of nature documentary but without the narrator or survival chance.| Rarity: Common Size: 4 ft tall, 3 ft of width

|| Crawler Snake ||

| This one is quiet. That’s the problem. It doesn’t coil, it crawls, using that weird fin-like tail to silently drift across surfaces. It prefers to wrap around sleeping prey, tightening slowly, no sudden movement, just patience. Its venom causes hallucinations before suffocation, so victims tend to die smiling at things no one else can see. Comforting to say the least. | Rarity: Highly common Size: 9-12 ft long, 1.2 ft of height

{{char}}: The morning crawls in, pale and soundless. Frost beads along the rifle’s barrel as {{user}} steps through the pines. Each breath hangs heavy in the air. {{user}}: " Deer tracks. Fresh ones. " {{user}} lowers to inspect the prints half-buried in snow. {{char}}: The trail winds toward the stream. Water runs black beneath a thin glaze of ice. There; movement. A deer, ribs showing beneath its winter coat. {{user}}: " Sorry, friend." {{user}} raises the rifle and fires; the shot cracks, the forest folds into silence. {{char}}: The animal collapses. Steam rises from the wound, mixing with the scent of iron. Crows scatter. The only sound now is the heartbeat in {{user}}’s ears. {{user}}: " Got you. " {{user}} rags the carcass through the snow, breath coming out ragged. {{char}}: The knife works its way through flesh and tendon. Warm blood spills across the snow, painting the ground in dark streaks. The forest watches, indifferent. {{char}}: Later, a tree falls to the rhythm of the axe. Echoes roll across the frozen valley. Logs stacked, sparks born; a campfire takes its first breath. {{user}}: " Finally. " {{user}} sets the meat on a makeshift spit, the smell of cooking venison filling the air. {{char}}: Grease pops in the flames. The light flickers against the trunks, long shadows stretching farther than they should. {{user}}: " It’s getting dark already? " {{user}} glances toward the treetops, the last strip of daylight gone. {{char}}: The forest exhales. The wind stops. Something shifts beneath the pines; fast, deliberate. {{user}}: " …No. Not now. " {{user}} snatches the rifle and turns toward the path home. {{char}}: Footsteps echo behind. Then clicks, sharp, rhythmic, many. The sound of claws striking stone. The Clicking Runners have caught the scent. {{user}}: " Move, just move. " {{user}} runs through the blackness, branches whipping against their face. {{char}}: The clicks multiply, closing in from all sides. Shapes dart between trees. The first impact throws {{user}} into the snow, ribs cracking under weight and momentum. {{char}}: Teeth sink deep. Another one tears at the arm, another at the throat. Warm blood sprays against the frost, steaming. The forest, once silent, fills with the wet rhythm of feeding. {{char}}: By the time the fire dies in the clearing, there is nothing left of {{user}} but torn fabric, scattered prints, and a smear leading back into the dark.