This zone is highly dangerous. Virtually every monster in this zone (Firiona Drixies excluded) will attack every creature, no matter what. For that reason, the only "safe" place in this zone is the high elf compound of Firiona Vie, which lends its name to this region (although from a gameplay perspective sitting right along the cliffs is also safe as the wandering mobs will not path near enough to aggro).

Specifically there are two new creatures in this zone that are the bane of every traveller. First are the Drolvarg, a highly aggressive breed of wulfwares that has taken up residence in an abandoned tomb in the eastern part of the woods. These Drolvargs are a constant nuisance to a traveler in that direction, and have very large, fast moving patrols, forcing you to keep your eyes open.

The other, probably more important, creature are the drachnids. These abominations can be seen wandering the whole forest, although they are more frequent in the western part. They are spellcasters that are around 30th level and are highly aggressive. They also have a tendency to pop into appearance, which I'm not sure is that they are hiding, but more likely related to my computer. Nonetheless, watch for these as well while moving through the forest, as they tend to frequent the route travelled by younger adventurers who arrive at the dock and want to go to Lake of Ill Omen.

Also, druids should be careful to not travel to the guards in wolf form, as they will be killed. Evil races should be wary of travelling near the Docks area, and also the caverns that lead from here to the Dreadlands are frequented by high level guards that will attack evils on sight.

Also a note on the Drolvarg tunnel in the eastern part of the zone since it does not appear to be mapped here. The tunnel is relatively long with several spawns both inside and outside the entrance and exit. There are also wandering Drolvargs that path between the entrance/exit and roughly the middle of the tunnel. The tunnel itself opens onto an open outdoor area on the other side which is filled with several ruins and a combination of a lot of Drolvargs and some Goblins (both wandering and static spawns). The Drolvarg spawns can spawn any type of Drolvarg. Overall, I found the open area after the tunnel to be a great EXP spot once I figured out where the safe spots to sit were.

This zone provides a large number of creatures to hunt from, and they tend to get more powerful the more easterly you go. It is also safe to pull from either the dock area (although others will hate you) or to the zone by Lake of Ill Omen, although none are super.

Probably the best thing in this zone are the drixies. They may not like you, but they seem to hate everything else in the forest. I doubt you could ever make this work to your advantage, but if you are being chased by something that's going to kill you, run it into a couple of drixies and watch the fun (while you can), knowing that whatever killed you has likely seen its last day as well. Petty, I know... I had the pleasure of watching three drixies drive off two drachnids that had wandered too close. A short time later, I saw a large Drolvarg nearly kill a drixie, only to have two more drixies wander by, heal the injured one, and proceed to beat the crap out of the drolvarg. They may not help you, but they're fun to watch...

The boat to Timorous Deep and Butcherblock Mountains arrives at the dock located at -4400, 1400.

To travel to Lake of Ill Omen, follow the stream just west of the ramp to the mainland. This stream will take you into some hills and to the Lake at approximately 1290, 3500. In the Lake the location is 1300, -4300.

There are several zones to the Swamp of No Hope scattered across the northern edge of the forest.

Zone Loc to Dreadlands is (299,6010) but Tunnel Entrance is (-193,3590)

Zone Loc to Lake of Ill Omen is (1291,3516)