A bit of lore for my upcoming 5th Edition game. Apologies to Zak S for the Queen of Hearts bit.
Once upon a time the first woman wandered the world alone. One night she slept under the boughs of the Tumtum tree and dreamed a dream of light and living things followed by a nightmare of darkness and death. When she awoke she had split in half, one side the Faerie Queen resplendent in silver and green and the other the Queen of Hearts, terrible in a vampires red beauty. The Queen of Hearts shied from the morning light and fled to the darkened east, while the Faerie Queen caused the Tulgey Wood to grow around her, stretching from the mountains to the western sea. The Faerie Queen wondered her woods alone until she came upon the Wabe and there she danced a dance to praise the moon and sun. When her dance was done she was no longer alone, for from the Mountains the Beast King had seen her dance and became enraptured of her beauty. They kissed beneath the stars, and from them sprang the fey of the Tulgey Wood; Pixies and Brownies, Satyrs and Sprites, Nyads, Dryads and countless other creatures. The animals of forest and mountain and the fey of the Tulgey wood lived happily ever after under the reign of the Faerie Queen and the Beast King.
Except that ever after wasn’t forever.
The first betrayal was the Jub Jub bird who flew above all else and came to believe that it was superior to the groundlings. The Jub Jub bird longed to make a nest above the clouds and chose the moon as a home. It broke the crystal sphere around the moon and caused the Elfs to fall from the sky to the forest floor. The Queen accepted the Elfs into her realm and gave them leave to live in the trees.
The next betrayal was the Bandersnatch, who grew so frumious that the Queen allowed the Elfs to live in its trees that it began to eat all the other creatures. First it ate the squirrel and hare as was its right, then it ate the boar and hart and the Queen accepted its hunger. Then it ate the fox and wolf and the King admonished it, then it ate the lion and bear and the Queen commanded it to eat only the nuts and berries of the wood. The Bandersnatch by now had grown monstrous large, and full of vengeful hunger. It broke the Queen's commandment and ate the elf and faerie. The Moon Wizards opened a door at the edge of the wood, and the Beast King wrestled the Bandersnatch down and threw it out of the Queen's Realm.
The Bandersnatch sulked in exile and roamed the world outside the wood nursing vengeance in its heart. In exchange for their mountain home, it revealed to a Prince of Men the path opened by the Moon Wizards to the Tulgey Wood. This Prince, fleeing the darkness to the East led his people to the wood and the Faerie Queen accepted them. However, men are doomed to darkness and although they were fleeing from strife they could not escape it. The Prince declared himself the King of Clubs, and fought against the foes that pursued them to the wood. They raised stone castles and towers across the Tulgey Wood and waged war against the evil Queen of Hearts. They lost, and the Vampire Queen of Hearts took the King of Clubs head back to her castle. The Club Kingdom fell and its people dwindled to shadows in the ruins. Those that did not become ghost and wraiths took shelter in the Northern Fells and Southern Swamps swearing fealty to the Faerie Queen.
All the while the Bandersnatch lay in the darkness of the mountain, hatred and hunger for revenge against the Beast King and his Queen burning in its belly. The Queen of Hearts learned of the Bandersnatch from her Club thralls and ventured to its cave. She convinced the Bandersnatch that its hunger would be sated only by devouring the Jub Jub. This was the last betrayal. Driven mad by frumiousness and the honeyed words of the Heart Queen it climbed the tallest peak of the mountains and leapt to the Jub Jub’s nest on the moon. In its hunger and fury the Bandersnatch raped and devoured the bird. And then fell to torpor its cavernous hunger temporarily sated by the the pregnant Jub Jub in its belly. The Queen of Hearts stole upon the Bandersnatch while it slept, cut the Jub Jub from its belly and then removed the egg from the mangled bird. She sent her Slithy Toves to carry the egg to the Tulgey Wood and set Mome Raths to guard it. They built a secret nest at the Wabe and from the egg sprang the Jabberwock.
The Jabberwock was born of lies and betrayal, hatred and hunger. It grew into a great green serpent, pale and hideous in might and malice. The Queen of Hearts nursed it with blood from her breast and tried to bring it under her will but the Jabberwock proved too mighty to tame. The Vampire Queen abandoned it to the Wabe, but not before she sang it a song of deceit enchanting the creature to consume and defile the Tulgey wood. The Faerie Queen heard this song from across the woods, and for the first time in her life she grew afraid. Comforting his wife and Queen, The Beast King vowed to slay the Jabberwock and set off with a mighty host to face the creature at the Wabe.
Long did the Beast King and Jabberwock struggle, wrestling at the Wabe while the host of the Faerie Queen faced the Slithy Toves and Mome Raths. Great are the tales of valor of the Battle at the Wabe; how the Chief of the North Men hew the heads of a hundred Mome Raths, The Witch woman of the Marsh succored the Beast King's wounds when he was first cast down by the Jabberwock, how the Moon Wizards held the Wabe against the Slithy Toves. The valor of the free people of the Tulgey Wood was not enough however, The Jabberwock overcame the King of Beast casting him down thrice and on the third time the King died. The Queens host fled the field and would have been overcome but for the valor of Nicnevin the Elf Maid who held the rear and made a stand in the ruins of the Knaves Tower at the river crossing.
The assault of the Jabberwock ended at the river. All the wood east of the Sweetail fell under darkness. The trees became black and twisted the animals corrupt. The Jabberwock defiled The Wabe and the body of the Beast King. From the defilement sprang forth the goblins and they multiplied in sick fecundity amongst the brambles and shadow until the Tulgey Wood was split, the Faerie Queen's Realm of Light to the West and the Jabberwock and the Goblin Wood to the East.
The folk of the Tulgey Wood held onto hope however, bound together in their struggle they pledged fealty to the Faerie Queen. From the Animal Princes to the Moon Wizards and tribes of men, all still ight together to preserve what remains of the Queen’s Dream against the evil of the Jabberwock.
The End.
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