My deer La wants very much to be a really recognized archaeologist in The Forest, in part because I think it would be a fun job and in part because it seems like something that hasn't been done before. La is also obsessed with humans, so there's that. Consider this page La's research as much as it is mine.

The Endless Forest is rich with little details that I adore--that one spot by the pond full of dragonflies, the different sounds of the masks, but I am most entranced by the implied history of the setting. There are some details given to us by ToT, but for the most part the creators and game are ambiguous (intentionally, I believe) about many details. This is fun because it means that each of us is free to explore how we want and draw our own conclusions about the world we play in. And I'm here with some possible conclusions and I'd love if you'd share yours.

This page lists things from the real world that resemble or have some relevance to things in The Endless Forest. Anthropology, archeology, art, different cultures--all that. I'll update it whenever I get new information or catch an error.


I don't often go to The Playground, but one thing I noticed when I got there was the scattering of megalithic standing stones.

A good real live example would be the Carnac stones—a collection of around three thousand standing stones in France. The Carnac stones are arranged, unlike the Playground megaliths.

There is a Christian Legend that says that an army of Pagans chased Pope Cornelius and he turned them to stone (and that that's how the Carnac Stones came to be, apparently). Considering that Endless Forest Deer have the ability to convert Pagan souls, is it impossible to believe that they could turn living humans to stone? It could explain the haphazard organization as well as the upright shape.


I have always found that those statues resemble gorillas, but gorillas are very rare in mythology worldwide, and seem to have no place in the histories of Christianity and European Paganism.

Their size and texture reminds me of the Olmec heads found in southern Mexico, which date back as far as 1500 BCE. Seventeen enormous carvings of human heads have been left by this ancient culture.

As for The Crying Idol, the Ancient Greeks were the first people to create fountains and it was generally the case that fountain sculptures were of deities. Seeing as we call it The Crying Idol, I think it's fair to assume that even if it isn't a god it was something to be worshiped.

Spyrre pointed out that the idols' faces resemble 5 to 6 thousand year old stone sculptures found in Ukraine.

Gurgelin pointed out that the statues look like jizou statues. The spirits (kami in Japanese, this word doesn't directly translate to English and is both spirit and god) that inhabid the jizou protect, among other things, children and travelers. Not all jizou resemble our forest's idols, but I found some that do look like ours. Gurgelin also showed that some statues from the Oscar-winning Miyazaki animated film Spirited Away bear a striking resemblance to those in our beloved Forest.


If one observes The Ruins from above, one can see that the floor plan of the old Christian church was in the rough shape of a crucifix, which is very common for grand cathedrals. Based on the height of the pillars, the cathedral was likely quite tall. Near the middle of the main aisle, where the two planks of wood on the cross would meet, is The Endless Forest's Point of Origin.

Here is a sketch of the foundation of that I found on the Tale of Tales page about The Ruins. That page says speaks of, "...the presence of an important archeological site where an abbey was built over the remains of a fortress to defend against the French Kingdom around the year 1000. Today nothing remains of the abbey but its foundations. ... we imagined our own version of what the historical site could look like. Fitting with the romantic picture of our forest, we created a ruin of the gothic Saint Salvator church, based on actual measurements."


On the pond page of the Tale of Tales site, the questions are already posed for me: "Where are the people who built and used this bridge? Did it serve the monks when they went to mass in the cathedral? When did the humans disappear? Or did they not?"


The Twin Gods' statues are so different aesthetically from the other stones in The Forest that I'm decently convinced that they were made at a different time by different people out of a different material.

Another wonderful addition by Spyrre is that the Twin Gods, when "hugging," look a lot like "The Kiss," a hundred year old sculpture by Romanian artist Constantin Brâncusi.

Gurgelin added her view of the statues here and here as kneeling humanoids with long beards, hair, and robes. She noted the "scary snake face" in the middle of their backs as well, something that I had noticed but never analyzed.

IoRez shared (more eloquently than I could ever have managed) that the Twin Gods resemble "the Omo Dei (Latin for "man (is) of God) - the representation of a god beholding itself (reference from Dante Aligheri's Inferno), and a medieval notion of God's signature on man. Representative of duality, the Omo Dei also implies the seeking of the center. The two faces regarding one another is a symbol of introspection and inner divinity. When viewed at once, the two faces appear to actually be two halves of the same face. This is a common theme amongst twinned/paired statues in the Far East, often a set of lions or dragons." He suggested this album art as another example of Omo Dei in art.


There are stumps and logs in The Endless Forest. That's weird.



They are even, as if cut by tools. The wood inside makes them look like they were cut recently. Granted, a few of the logs have been around long enough that plants are growing around them to make nursery logs, but most appear recent. Our deer sit around them and jump over them, but who put them in that arrangement? Who has the tools to cut them cleanly and move them? Vala pointed out to me in another thread that sometimes you can hear a tree fall if you listen to the game.



The Mesopotamian god Lamassu is often depicted as having a bull body and a human face. You'll see him a lot if you look through ancient art. Sometimes other animal parts are sometimes present.

There is also Al-buraq, a winged steed with a human face. While not Christian, it is important in Islam and is said to have carried both the Prophet Muhammad and Abraham.

Frida Kahlo at one time painted herself as a deer. That's a very recent reference (mid 20th century) but Kahlo's big and worthy of mention.


If you know something I don't know, please tell me. If you would like to contribute anything, let me know and I'll add it in and credit the thoughts to you. If I've got something wrong, tell me. If you have an opinion differing from mine, please share it. If you liked this, please let me know.

Do not worry about this being an older thread. It and its contents are active, I promise. It's just a slow process of research, learning, and suggestions.

I'm always looking to learn new things.