These guys don't kid around. They left a man to die in that dungeon and then rot until he was nothing but bones! Nothing's worth that fate.

A dark forest indeed.

Dark Forest was such a great sub-theme. Robnhood!

@MCLegoboy said:
"These guys don't kid around. They left a man to die in that dungeon and then rot until he was nothing but bones! Nothing's worth that fate."

Nah. He just got stuck behind the ladder and couldn't figure out how to get back out. And also may have eaten some of the leaves because he got a little hungry.

That little fountain is nice.

@RogueWhistler said:
"That little fountain is nice."

yes, its more of a well with pump and its very pretty. This is a good example of how using a baseplate can spread out a set nicely; between the main tower, catapult, and the well.
I do think however that this is the worst of the dark forest range though. the catapult is not good. I was always afraid of breaking the ladder they used for the spring, the tower was kind of basic-y. The bigger set was loads better and the smaller set had less issues. this one also only had two dark forest figs. That being said, I do like the 'lock' on the jail/ladder (nice artistic touch) and the well (also pretty). one of the burps could swing outward to give you more space to put your hands inside (but there was not much in there).

Oh 1996, the first year of my twenty-year "dark age". Silly teenager-me.

My older brother owned this and the large set as a kid. My older sister had the smallest set, so I was well aquainted Dark Forest. I eventually aquired all three sets myself, this being the last.

I feel like having open flames directly under and almost touching leafy foliage like that is just asking for disaster. No wonder the fort looks so ramshackle, it probably burns down every couple of days

I remember buying this set in the summer of 1997. Dark Forest and the Royal Knights brought me out of my first Dark Age and kept me going until Star Wars arrived in 1999 and monopolized my attention.

For some reason my wife bought this in 1996. She owned hardly any Lego sets at the time. It currently sits unopened after 29 years.

This was one of only two sets to contain the updated "Robin Hood" minifigure, known as "Rob'N'Hood" in the US and LEGO Racers 1. I wonder if the guy with the blue feather ever got a name. I somehow like the little well that stands beside this "stronghold", you rarely saw this kind of things in the older Castle sets! Also that set name was very creative (and muuch more interesting than most of the bland, descriptive set names mostly used today).

Dark Forest was a really cool theme. A shame it was left to the obscurity of NA exclusive, with many people outside of there barely noticing it ever existed.

I wonder why they decided against a regular release? Sometimes it seems sub-themes weren't released globally to avoid overlaps with a similar new theme that year (Unitron-Aquazone, Aquaraiders-Divers, Outback-Town Junior) but I can't think of anything in 1996 that would be "too similar" here (Imperial Armada perhaps?), instead leaving a suspicious gap for 1996 Castle.

A few selected toy stores did actually sell the 2 smaller sets (including this) in Europe as "Forest People" - funnily this evokes the obvious connection to the classic Forestmen, however these were mostly known as "Robin Hood" in Europe. In a way Dark Forest is "Forestmen II" like there's also Blacktron II, they even used the same shields.

Dark Forest is also notorious for linking the "Tarenta era" Castle sub-themes together in-set:
Dark Forest had Royal Knights and Dragon Masters appear as enemies, while Fright Knights included a single Dark Forest robber as one of Willa's "bewitched" mindcontrol minions (also giving most people their only glimpse at the theme.
It is interesting to see how tightly connected the 9 sub-themes of the first "fully developped" Castle line (sorry, Classic Castle!) actually was, compared to later lines. At least a single set can be found linking everything together via the shared figures/crests:
6103: Lion Knights, Black Falcons, Forestmen, "Peasants"
6060: Lion Knights, Black Knights
6086: Black Knights, Wolf People/6057: Black Knights, Black Falcons
6105/6082: Dragon Masters, Wolf People
6078: Royal Knights, Dragon Masters
6046: Dark Forest, Royal Knights/6079: Dark Forest, Dragon Masters
6087: Fright Knights, Dark Forest/6097: Fright Knights/Royal Knights

The same never happen for the later themes, keeping them very isolated (except a few shared torsos between Fantasy Era/Kingdoms perhaps).

EDIT:
Dark Forest was also absent from the 697 Ideas Book, despite it's 1990 predecessor containing the similarly exclusive Set 6071.

EDIT 2:
What is even stranger is the fact that hand-drawn images of Dark Forest sets and Minifigs were shown in 1995 issues of "Klick!" (the Austrian Lego Club magazine, precursor to World Club).

Not much is known of the lore/story behind Dark Forest:
Rob'N'Hood (red feather, moustache, bare arms) seems to be much more of a shady figure rather than the heroic image of the character he's based upon. He is shown causing quite a bit of havoc with the Time Cruisers and the "Maniac".
Dark Forest clearly is at odds with the Royal Knights, Dragon Masters and Fright Knights, stealing from the first two and being captured by the last.
It seems the guy wearing blue and a studded vest is supposed to be the second-in-command, whilst the 2 figures wearing farmer's cowls are the lower ranks.
The one with the black cowl is likely the youngest of them. I wonder if he was at one point planned to be King Lionheart's lost son Henry (appearing in the audio drama) who took on the guise of Dickens and joined the robbers.

@Brickalili said:
"I feel like having open flames directly under and almost touching leafy foliage like that is just asking for disaster. No wonder the fort looks so ramshackle, it probably burns down every couple of days "

It'll only do that three times. The fourth one will stay up!

@Vesperas said:
" @Atuin

Thanks for sharing all of that. I wasn't aware of much of it.

I always liked the connectivity between the factions, especially in Castle. It helped give the impression of an actual world, as opposed to a bunch of random factions that showed up out of nowhere, like Aquazone and Space were notorious for doing. "

Space (1978-1999) actually is a good example of very much the same as those years in Castle.

A lot of the factions were heavily connected. Classic Space and everything since the change to metallic black boxes (1996-1999) is a bit less obvious admittedly. Here are some in-set examples:

6703: Futuron and Blacktron I
6704: Blacktron I, Blacktron II, Space Police I and M:Tron (fittingly named "The United Galaxies" in UK)
6984 and practically every SP2 set: Space Police II and Blacktron II
6705: Ice Planet, Spyrius, Unitron

To make the bridge from Space Police II to Ice Planet 2002 just look at the catalogue images from 1993-1995 which feature several images of them working closely together. Even the accompanying text mentions there co-existence and transition from faction to faction.

Spyrius and Exploriens were shown fighting eachother in various Time Cruiser materials.

UFO was shown to fight against Exploriens (EU) and RoboForce (NA) in the respective catalogues.

Insectoids is canonically kind of just a splinter faction of UFO (though one might wonder how that works, given that UFO are reptile-insect-whatever creatures, the Insectoid guys just blue or grey skinned humans...). UFO was planned to be the first chapter of a "Space Trilogy" following the journey of Chamon (red UFO alien) and his brother Lomax, as the try to free their people from an evil emperor. Insectoids is the second chapter (focusing on Lomax, not sure if he was represented as minifig, might be either the blue UFO alien or one of the Insectoids). Their ships were "disguised" as giant insects to not disturb the local fauna of their new found refuge Holox/Armeron. There are hints that the third chapter was likely what eventually became Rock Raiders (as the stories are suspiciously common in certain aspects). Concept artwork exists showing some minifig aliens together with the Rock Raiders. There is a Youtube video outthere of someone showing the official "story bible" for that. The sudden deal with Lucasfilm might have something to do with those plans getting cancelled.

As for Classic Space: There are a few rare advertisment depictions of clear interaction between Futuron and Classic, where the commanders of both factions meet (Captain Kirby and Major Spocky).

As for Aquazone:

There are actually 2 eras - a supposedly older one (set in ca. 3800 AD, according to Time Cruisers) and a later one in more distant future.

The newer one revolved around Aquanauts, Aquasharks and Aquaraiders, with the Aquaraiders being a somewhat opportunistic neutral faction, seeking advantage out of the conflict between 'Nauts and Sharks.

In the future, the Aquanauts became the Hydronauts, fighting against a race of mutated fish-people (Stingrays) of a somewhat unknown origin.

Pirates had some similar connections going on, with the relation of Imperial Soldiers and Imperial Guards being rather wild (Admiral Woodhouse was sent by the king to stop Governor Broadside's corrupt schemes...). Also it is implied that a second "evil" faction of Pirates exists lead by Captain Ironhook nd his "Sea Star" (6268). Redbeard's/Roger's "good" pirates are friends of Kahuka's/Quexil's tribe of Islanders.
The 1996-1997 however messes things up a bit, with things suddenly set 250 years in the past (1502 AD vs. 1750 AD). Is the Redbeard there an ancestor of the other one?

Western, being so short-lived is easier to see as a whole.
And of cause - Time Cruisers connected all of this, even incorporating Town, Trains and Paradisa.

This entire "Lego story universe" ended however around 1999/2000, with sub-sequent themes being rather isolated on there own.