s beautiful as a walk through the Tristram wilderness is, with its lush fields and picturesque rivers, the air seems to take on an otherworldly foreboding as one approaches the fishing village of Wortham. My search to catalog the weird, the fabulous, and the all-too-often-dangerous inhabitants of our world had led me there. I hoped to find a guide who could bring me safely into the Festering Wood and back, for I had come to see for myself the strange creatures that are the “gnarled walkers”.

What then, you may ask, is a gnarled walker? Is it simply an ensorcelled walking tree – a wood wraith – or is it something more? Does it truly live? These are the questions I sought to answer as I strode into the village of Wortham that bright day, which had somehow turned dark and dreary while my attention was elsewhere. But the few people I encountered in Wortham were a taciturn lot, unwilling to answer my inquiries.

As I inspected my way around the moribund town, it was impossible to ignore the fact that the bridge I hoped to take to the Festering Wood had been destroyed, burned beyond repair