Ophidian Forest is a Croatian/Dutch/US black metal collaboration with individuals writing for the US metal webzine Maelstrom.
They create chaotic Pagan black metal by means of exchanging files over the net and by snail mail as they live thousands of miles away from each other. In fact, none have ever met each other in person, and so, without the current ease of global communication, it's far less likely that this project would have been possible way back in the Nineties.
Guitarist/bassist Zaragil lives in Croatia, drummer Otrebor lives in San Francisco, and vocalist/keyboardist/lyricist Amalgamoth is from the Netherlands.

Ophidian Forest's current source of inspiration is the most glorious time of the Frisian kingdom around the start of the 8th century CE (common era), led by the brave king Redbad (680-719). His last-minute rejection of getting baptised in favour of joining his Pagan ancestors in what the Christians call Hell has become a legend of its own and is in our day still commemorated by some people (The Pagan calendar mentions Rey Redbad Day, on August 9th). King Redbad dared to stay true to his Pagan roots and his ancestors and made Frisia an important counterforce in Western Europe. In the centuries after king Redbad, the Christians destroyed or altered nearly everything that reminds us of Pagan Frisia, but they never managed to erase the legend from collective memory. Apart from the Redbad theme the lyrics on our current album are also inspired by Norse mythology and Pagan mystisicm.