#gloma

It is powered by something mysterious. Gloma continues to guard the walls and inner workings of a kingdom despite it now being deserted for thousands upon thousands of years.

It guards the kingdom just as seriously as it did when the place was inhabited implying that either the kingdom still holds a grave secret or that Gloma itself is stuck in the past and simply following set instructions.

I wonder if the Winkies ever tried to politically get Nick to marry Gloma.

While I guess this is dependent on how you actually get that title in Oz, while Gloma is a Good Witch that is in Winkie Country, she is not, by the canon of the 40 actually officially the new Good Witch of the West.

She probably would be in ealier Baum canon when it seemed to be more, the most powerful Witch who ruled there, separate from the royalty there, but later on who seems to get the title is the powerful witch and ruler of that place.

While she is a Queen, she is not the Queen of the whole place, so even more so for my idea.

So Nessarose dies, but ends up in Black Forest and this colorless domian as her afterlife. She spends years there, just trapped and hunted by the conscious animals there and basically being tormented by the place. (Not trying to veer into the idea of Hell and Heaven much but it does feel like a place she was put in as a punishment for some years).

But over time she begins to learn. She learns there is magic here she can harness, and slowly does so. Sparking the first bits of color ever seen in that domain with that magic.

She has changed in this time, but only so much. It still takes years but eventually she becomes a witch fully in her own right and has taken over and become the ruler of the Black Forest. It is due to her magic the place eventually comes to stand in a place in Oz between life and death. When she becomes known again, she does take on a new name.