Gloomscale boulders and the cap of invisibility
Russian tales have a hat that hides you. It is called the shapka-nevidimka, the cap of invisibility, and whoever puts it on vanishes from sight. In Forgotten Eras one of those caps fell into the forest a long time ago, and the forest has not been the same since.
The cap in the tales
The cap turns up all over Russian folk tales, usually as one of a set of magic things that the hero wins by a trick: walking boots, a flying carpet, a tablecloth that lays its own feast. Pushkin used it in "Ruslan and Lyudmila" in 1820. The sorcerer Chernomor carries off Lyudmila to his castle, she finds his cap, puts it on backwards, and disappears from under his nose.
A storm, a rock and a thousand pieces
Our legend goes like this. In ancient times a cap of invisibility fell into the forest and landed on a great rock. A cursed storm, the Gloomscale storm, struck the rock and shattered it into thousands of pieces. Every fragment of that boulder still carries a little of the cap's power, and any creature that passes close to one can vanish.
In play the good Gloomscale boulder is cover. Stand behind it and ranged attacks do less damage to Ivan. The art notes describe it as a large, jagged rock wrapped in dark swirling mould, with faint glimmers of light trying to break through the surface.
The poisoned stones
Not every piece stayed good. In the heart of the swamp, the stories say, a fragment of a dark artifact tainted with Baba Yaga's poisons fused with some of these stones. They kept the gloomscale but lost the kindness. When someone comes near, a poisoned boulder summons shadow creatures that attack and weaken anyone who lingers. As long as Ivan stands on one of these cursed stones, the shadows will hunt him until he breaks the stone or runs.
The cursed Gloomscale: the mould spreads, glows a sickly green and lets out tendrils of darkness.
You can tell the two apart before you step on them. The cursed version is drawn with a mould that spreads fast and glows a sickly green, and tendrils of darkness writhe around its surface. The good one is moss and stone. That is the whole design brief in two colours: one rock you hide behind, one rock you leave alone.
The swamp's poison comes from Baba Yaga, and her story is here.
Sources: "Forgotten Eras Weekly Update #5", Forgotten Eras on Steam, 9 October 2026. A. S. Pushkin, Ruslan and Lyudmila, Saint Petersburg, 1820.
