Kessig

Kessig
Information
Plane	Innistrad
Colors
Demonym	Kessiger
Formerly part of	Ulvenwald
Scryfall Statistics
	artworks

Kessig is Innistrad’s rugged, rural heartland — a province of endless autumn, where human settlements cling to clearings between deep, haunted forests. Here, life is hard, the land is untamed, and danger prowls just beyond the fields.

Description

Kessig is a province of perpetual autumn in the interior of Innistrad. It consists of rolling farmlands surrounded by dense, dark woods. The deep forests influence daily life heavily. The small human communities in agricultural villages, trappers, and hunter groups live at risk in these woods, trying to make a living. Between the isolation and constant danger, most townsfolk here are wary of outsiders.

For the Kessiger, life is work. Kessigers are farmers, weavers, millers, and stonemasons; they are close to the land and must work hard for every meal. This makes them self-reliant, pragmatic, and plainspoken. Kessigers don't purchase tools from the general store; they forge their tools themselves. They don't learn arithmetic or memorize the names of important Lunarchs or prominent families; they learn harvest dates and the shapes of edible weeds. They don't quote great works of literature; they call it like they see it, in their own plain words.^[1]

Kessig is heavily inhabited by werewolves — it has been perhaps hyperbolically stated that in Kessig, the werewolves outnumber the priests.^[2]

Locations

The Approaches - an isolated region that has resisted Avacynian worship.^[3]
- The Bog - a swamp pool where the Entity of the Bog resided.^[3]
- Hremeg's Bridge - a small town, led by Mayor Gurtlen.^[3]
- The Priory - a center of the church where the Seelenstone resided.^[3]
- Verlasen - the largest of the three towns in The Approaches.^[3]
  - The Manor - a great house formerly owned by the vampire Vaast Markov, since been taken over by Davriel Cane.^[3]
The Breakneck Ride - the collective term for the few paths that lead into Kessig from the other provinces. Each crossway is fraught with peril, leading travelers through the Ulvenwald and over treacherous slopes, so those who make the journey do so at as brisk a pace as possible.^[1]
- Bower Passage - from Gavony straight through the heart of the werewolf-infested Ulvenwald. This dirt road follows a twisting path through the tree branches that arch overhead like the ceiling of a cathedral. In the daytime, the sun streaming through the trees can be quite beautiful, but it's still foolish to be stingy with the whip. Dryads and nature spirits are said to haunt the passage, and werewolves can track horses by scent.^[1]
- Briar Bridge - this path comes from Nephalia through the rolling, autumnal hills that surround many of Kessig's farming communities. A thicket of thistles and tall thorny grain stalks flanks the road. The road intersects a sleepy river, where the path crosses over a covered wooden bridge. The bridge is a sturdy way across the river, but it is also a dark place prone to ambushes, and one of the only routes by which a vampire can cross into Kessig while the moon glistens on the water.^[1]
- Hairpin Road - winding down from Getander Pass in the cloud-ringed Stensian mountains and around bat-plagued precipices. The road switches back over and over again, climbing and declining, always keeping the rider or carriage dangerously close to a sheer drop. Falkenrath vampires keep a careful eye on this road, as they haunt the pass above it.^[1]
Devil's Breach - a fiery cave in the rocky hills of Kessig on Innistrad, known as a lair for devils that raid the nearby countryside at night. Smoke, heat, and eerie voices pour from its widening mouth, making it a feared landmark among local villagers.^[1]
Ereschstag - the town of werewolf-ally Elder Adila Rimheit.^[4]
Gatstaf, Parish on the Canyon - a village on the lip of a deep crevasse, surrounded by rocky wheat fields and shot through with chasms and caverns. Gatstaf is well-known for its thorny yet hearty grains, its coal mining, and its skilled leatherworkers. Residents of Gatstaf are pious, but belligerent, and have been known to assemble mobs to attack homes and families believed to harbor werewolves. Gatstaf is also known for a nearby religious landmark - a crossway runs down from Gatstaf to the Gatstaf Grotto below.^[1]
- Bey Manor - the manor house of Master Bey, and his niece, Nadia Bey.^[5]
- Gatstaf Grotto - location of a famous natural spring and an Avacynian altar, where Avacyn cast the Cursemute, creating the Wolfir. With the arrival of Emrakul, the grotto became host to a horror that devoured anyone who dared enter. The so-called 'Thing in the Grotto' was a stealthy, monstrous, many-headed creature that resembled both wurms and maggots, with characteristics of Eldrazi spawn as well.^[1]
Hollowhenge, the Lost Capital - Kessig's former provincial seat of Avabruck, now a ring-shaped ruin of wood and brick. Former site of the Temple of Saint Raban, Avabruck's central cathedral, which was shattered by the werewolves.
Karo - a small village.^[6]
Lambholt, the Threatened Pasture - a farming village at the center of miles of sheep, goat and cattle pasture. The pastures near the town were once mingled with woods - dense arms of forest that once joined the Ulvenwald, but the Kessigers here chopped down all but a few trees to clear the way for their farms. It's thought that wild essences were recently the destruction of their forest, for werewolves continually terrorize the livestock and humans of Lambholt. The villagers of Lambholt once celebrated a Harvest Festival, but that tradition has been supplanted by a monthly hunters' contest. Villagers and champions carve trails through the surrounding Ulvenwald, seeking a pelt or trophy from the most powerful supernatural creature they can find. Many never return.^[1] More recently, the lurking evil of Old Stickfingers also plagued the town.
The Natterknolls, the Murmuring Highlands - the highest points in Kessig are rocky ridges and cliffs that flank the woody valleys of the province. Werewolves range here as well, but the Natterknolls are also known for gibbering hermits and backwoods witches. Several Kessig villagers have fled their homes to dwell in shacks and woodland lean-tos among the gentle crests of the Natterknolls, and it's said that their nonsensical tirades echo through the valleys each night.^[1]
Rockfall Vale - Kessig’s narrow ravines, echoing with panic as werewolf howlpacks herd their prey.
Ulvenwald, the Impossible Wood - a dense, dark, and foggy forest, notorious for supernatural threats. Travelers risk attacks by werewolves and spirits, as well as unexplained disappearances.^[1]
- Briarbridge - a village by a stream, known for its two creaking waterwheels.
- The Celestus - a large astronomical device that was used in the ritual of the Harvesttide festival.^[7]

History

Bordering Stensia, Kessig was the last settled of the continent's four provinces.^[8]^[9] Before the humans ventured into the wild wood, before their squash farms and apple orchards displaced their ancient trees, before the silver of Avacyn and the prayers of the priests brought light under the forest eaves, the Ulvenwald was a dense, majestic forest towering over low, leaf-papered hills. Even then, ghostly spirits and howling wolves stalked amid the trees, and werewolves fled from the towns and villages of Gavony's moors into the sheltering wood. But then humans moved into the area and named it Kessig, felling trees and planting crops and praying to the angels to keep the evils of the forest at bay. Despite their efforts for over a century, the claws of humans still hold the tiny human villages in their grip. Kessig has been largely unaffected by the fluctuating fortunes of Innistrad over the past hundred years. Even before Avacyn's disappearance, the reach of her priests and cathars only extended so far, and Kessigers have long relied on folk charms and superstitions to protect them from the evils of the forest. Avacyn's return strengthened the wards and blessings, but it did not eliminate the horrors of the Ulvenwald.^[1]