The Largest Forest on the Continent — and the Oldest Power Still Breathing
No mountain range, no empire, no desert commands as much land — or inspires as much caution — as the Elderwood.
Roads vanish. Camps decay. Stone sinks beneath patient roots.
To humans, it blocks expansion.
To Wood Elves, it is everything.
To the Dreaming One beneath it, it is body.
At first glance, the perimeter seems almost natural.
Massive trees form a living barricade. Sunlight filters through open canopy. Wildlife moves freely.
Then patterns begin to fail.
Trails loop subtly.
Streams shift between visits.
Supplies spoil without cause.
Watchers are felt before they are seen.
Logging camps rarely endure. Tools rust prematurely. Livestock disappear. Workers glimpse figures standing motionless between trunks — bows drawn, patience unending.
Deeper within, the Elderwood abandons subtlety.
The canopy seals into green-black dimness. Light thins to fractured strands. Terrain becomes unreliable.
Plants behave with awareness.
Vines tighten toward warmth.
Flowers release mind-altering spores.
Roots rise deliberately to impede retreat.
Here the Verdant Heart’s presence presses against thought — a weight behind the eyes, a soft erosion of certainty.
Fey manifestations increase dramatically.
Not merely as process — but as presence.
Slender Slayer-Forms stalk intruders.
Maidens of vine and thorn drift between trunks.
Insect swarms gather into fleeting humanoid silhouettes.
The Old Men of the Forest walk in solemn patience.
High above, Wood Elf canopy cities span colossal branches — grown from living wood, woven with hardened vine. Lanterns glow green at night.
From below, they resemble constellations caught in foliage.
The elves dominate this region — not through fear, but through communion.
They have given portions of their will to live beneath the Verdant Heart.
No confirmed human account describes its interior.
The Domain defies orientation.
Direction dissolves.
Gravity tilts subtly.
Time layers instead of flowing.
Sap floats suspended midair.
Shadows detach from their sources.
Magic thickens visibly — emerald motes drifting like luminous pollen.
At the center towers the Verdant Heart, trunk vast as a fortress, branches entangled with cloud. Beneath it rests the Dreaming One, whose slumber saturates reality so fully that space behaves like unfinished thought.
Even Wood Elves do not dwell here permanently.
They enter for ritual.
Prolonged presence risks dissolution of self.
In the Domain, the forest does not merely react.
It perceives.
The Elderwood is not chaos.
It is hierarchy shaped by dream rather than decree.
The foundation.
Its sleeping mind generates the forest’s magical density and gives rise to fey manifestations. It does not consciously rule.
It imagines.
The conduit.
The colossal tree channels the Dream upward and outward. It directs through pressure, omen, and vision. It exerts will when necessary — and all aligned beings respond.
Worshipped as god, it is an extension of the Dream beneath.
The manifestations.
They take countless forms: beast, maiden, insect, ent, masked hunter, luminous spirit.
They obey the Verdant Heart when its will is exerted directly.
Yet they are not mere mechanisms.
In silence, they wander, explore, rival, and experiment. They possess greater individual freedom than the Wood Elves — for they were born aligned, not surrendered into alignment.
They are expressions of imagination given flesh.
The First Children.
Ancient Tenders who cultivate, guide, and when commanded, destroy. Revered by elves as sacred manifestations of the earliest dream-forms.
They prune gently.
They crush decisively.
The conscious interpreters.
Green-skinned and long-lived, they have chosen to live in devotion to the Verdant Heart. Through ritual and communion, they surrender portions of individual will in exchange for unity and guidance.
Their society centers on:
High priests communing in the cavern beneath the Heart
War leaders coordinating with fey manifestations
Lore-keepers preserving root-pattern omens
They are not masters of the forest.
They are an organ within it.
To the Elderwood, humanity is not wicked.
It is invasive.
Iron wounds root and dream alike. Fire scars imagination. Roads impose direction where none belongs.
Response scales with intrusion:
Outer Edges — Watched and warned
Cursed Wilds — Hunted and tested
Verdant Heart’s Domain — Unmade
The forest does not negotiate treaties.
It responds to pressure with manifestation.
The more Thalosar pushes northward, the sharper the fey become.