Once upon a time, not so long ago in this campaign setting, in the hills just beyond Oakenshire’s northern edge, where the Havenspass Trail begins its winding descent into The Mistwood, and the ancient oaks hide secrets…

There, amongst their roots lived Zyr, a squat, sentient tree stump no taller than a halfling’s knee, bark rough as old leather, with two knotty eyes that glowed faint green when the moon was right.

He had awakened years earlier from the rot of a fallen oak, limbs of root and twig sprouting like awkward afterthoughts. Zyr spoke Elvish, and understood the various language of plants. He spent his days shuffling between ferns, listening to the trees complain about the wind and the occasional axe.

One crisp autumn afternoon, Samuel the Wood Elf tailor left his shop in Oakenshire with a freshly sharpened hand-axe slung over his shoulder. Samuel enjoyed the quiet work of gathering rare oak bark and tough yet thin plant matter for use in the construction of the fine cloaks he sold to travelers passing through the area. But today was about stockpiling some standard timber.

Lumbering was small-scale here; every villager lent a hand when the winter woodpile ran low. Samuel’s elven blood made him gentle with living trees. He never felled the old ones, but a dead stump on the trail’s edge? That was fair game for kindling.

Zyr had paused that day beside the path, half-buried in leaf litter, arguing with a squirrel over the ownership of a particularly juicy acorn. The stump’s knot-eyes were half-closed in contentment when he heard boots crunching on gravel.“

Samuel spotted what looked like perfect kindling. “Dry as bone, straight-grained, and no one will miss it.”

Zyr’s eyes snapped open. “Hold, wood-kin! This stump is spoken for!”

But Samuel, humming an old elven weaving song, had already swung. The axe flashed once in the dappled light. Steel met bark with a wet thunk, embedding deep into the top of Zyr’s flat “head” where a crown of twigs once grew.

Sap—bright green and faintly luminous—spurted like blood. Pain exploded through Zyr’s entire being, a white-hot shock that made his root-legs buckle. “AIEEE!” the stump shrieked in perfect Elvish. “You fool of an elf! I am no mere firewood!”

Samuel froze, axe handle still vibrating in his grip. The stump stared up at him with wide, betrayed knot-eyes. Sap dripped down its bark face like tears. For one horrified second the tailor realized he had not struck dead wood, but something alive, something that bled and spoke the tongue of his ancestors.

Zyr wobbled, the axe protruding like a ridiculous metal crown. “You… you have cursed me with your steel,” he groaned. “Now I leak upon the trail like a slaughtered pig. The trees will mock me for centuries.”

The stump staggered sideways, root-legs tangling in ferns, and lurched onto the Havenspass Trail proper. “Tell the oaks I died a fool’s death,” Zyr wheezed, voice fading as he shuffled away into the mist.

The Wood Elf returned to his shop, hands trembling, unsure of events, but sure he'd never look at a pile of wood the same, ever again.

Zyr wandered the trail for three days, axe-emedded and slowly closing around the very metal of the axe head, cognitive functions reduced, hoping someone would help him.