Sacred Forest Village

Sacred Forest Village was one of the four settlements located near Nazo Mori, such as Lost Village, Iron Heart Village, and Laughing Plains Village.

Ominous Event
During one of the many festivals the villagers of Lost Village carried their celebration into the Forest of the Enigmas itself, lighting a bonfire and dancing and singing there. Only one villager did not dare to call the forest's wrath. He returned two days later, and the complete village was empty, with no trace of the two hundred souls who lived there. The people of the other settlements burned the entire village to the ground, and the area was avoided by everyone in the region.

Decline
The scholar Isawa Hobaru entered the forest to inspect the ruins within the Nazo Mori, returning several days later with few of his men, all dazed and confused. By their appearance they seemed to have been gone for far longer than a mere few days. After recuperating for three days, Hobaru returned to the ruins announcing he must finish what he had started. Three months later the shugenja appeared simultaneously in all three villages around the forest's edge. He went berserk and killed three villagers in each settlement before self-immolating and burning away. Since then the villagers have only harvested trees from the forest's outermost edge and any dead or fallen trees, planting two trees for each one they harversted. The village fell into relative obscurity and ceased expansion.

Practices
Now a farming village, the villagers sought to conceal themselves from the forest spirits by transplanting trees into their town, and centuries later a respectable copse of trees occupied the center of the village, and considered them sacred. They created protective tokens and talismans, such as a small wooden tile carved with intricate symbols. Anyone harming one of the sacred trees was deemed a blasphemer and exiled from the village.