Darkwood and the Ninth Gate

Version / correction: Earlier local adaptation based on Darkling: Idlewood. Preserve the route and campaign material below as that adaptation's record; its eastward route, displaced First Gate, and three escapee heirs do not define Everterra canon. In Everterra, the Ninth Gate is at the northern edge of Darkwood against icebound mountains, and the brothers' escape happened years before Idlewood. See Everterra: Darkwood and Everterra: Ninth Gate.

Darkwood route

The campaign gazetteer says the eastern road crosses whisper marsh, drowned corduroy roads, and mileposts cut with tally marks before reaching the Ninth Gate. The Gate complex rises from a black-stone causeway. Nine towers are visible, but only eight cast shadows; the missing shadow points toward Idlewood.

Chapter 8's title and proposed journey are “Through Darkwood.” In the expansion, the route map adds a quarry fork, drowned milepost, whisper marsh, corduroy bridge, ruined tollhouse, and fog flats. It also proposes a Crown field unit and possible travel encounters. These are GM material for a future chapter; the accepted playthrough has not yet traveled this route. No additional road distances or travel times are established here.

Ninth Gate

The Ninth Gate is the prison complex from which Seraph, Hugo, and Garr escaped. The campaign's hidden history says the Office of Gates removed a prototype called the First Gate from this complex and buried it beneath what became Corvin Farm. This is original Idlewood campaign history, not a claim about published Forgotten Realms canon.

The return to the Gate, its outer works, the register, and its current occupants are future chapter material. The expansion describes potential rooms and encounters, but none is recorded as visited in the accepted session. The map manifest lists a ninth-gate tactical map of 54 by 36 five-foot squares; it does not provide an overland scale.

Sources

• Campaign book, “The Truth Behind Idlewood,” “Darkwood and the Ninth Gate,” and Chapter 8–9 summaries.
• Table expansion, Chapter 8 route map and Chapter 9 outer works; both remain preparation.
• Campaign state, Chapter 8–9 statuses and summaries.
• Asset manifest, ninth-gate tactical map preset.