This wood is old and very thickly grown. The giant trunks of trees stand close together, rising like dark lances eighty feet or more. Duskwood and shadowtop are the predominant varieties, with some felsul and oak on the southern edges of the forest.

The depths of Adhe Wood is a place of perpetual gloom, home to many spiders and ettercaps. Some ancient and evil magic works in the heart of the wood – perhaps a crazed mage given to experimentation or an artifact that warps the local wildlife – and the result is a wild variety of spiders. The sage Alither of Lyrabar believes the source of the numerous spider mutations is a diseased or magically altered deepspawn (“the Father of Spiders”). Another sage, Othla Multar of Spandeliyon, believes that drow are behind the arachnids, breeding and release them here to guard an entrance to the Underdark. According to this theory, drow emerge from time to time and steal southeast into the Tsurlar Forest, where they trade with pirate ships in hidden coves. No adventurers have investigated the true cause of the wild variety of spiders – at least none have returned to tell others what they found there.

Arachnids encountered here may be of any size, and most have strange spell-like powers and body weaponry (such as hooked slasher-claws or sting-tails). They stalk each other and intruders in an endless bloodlust. Local lore in Tsurlagol whispers that the bloodless, web-shrouded husks of many fallen adventurers litter the forest, and that the ruins of an old temple they were trying to reach can be glimpsed from the North Road – a temple shrouded in spiderwebs and adorned with statues of rearing snakes whose eyes are gigantic emeralds. There is much argument among citizens of Tsurlagol as to just which god this temple is dedicated to, but everyone seems sure that it is a storehouse of a fabulous collection of gems. Strangely, the inhabitants of the nearby hamlet of Sevenecho profess to have never heard such stories – but they never go near “spider-haunted Adhe Wood” either.