@Verdant Heart's Domain is the innermost region of the Elderwood, known among humans only as speculation. No confirmed human account describes it. Maps mark it as empty.
Among the Wood Elves, it is not called a territory.
It is called The Domain.
This is the space where the Verdant Heart’s presence no longer radiates outward — it saturates inward.
There is no visible threshold.
Instead, perception shifts.
Light fractures into uneven shafts.
Sound arrives slightly misaligned.
Air thickens, heavy and resin-sweet.
Direction loses coherence.
Compasses fail not from magnetism, but irrelevance. Cardinal orientation ceases to matter. Space reorganizes around proximity to the Heart.
Distance is no longer measured in miles.
Geometry behaves with deliberate inconsistency.
Trees curve into circular growth patterns, trunk becoming root.
Roots stretch skyward and branch into suspended canopies.
Horizontal trunks float unsupported.
Gravity tilts subtly within certain groves.
Sap droplets suspend midair.
Shadows detach or misalign.
These distortions do not feel chaotic.
They feel structured—arranged according to a system not bound by conventional physical law.
Time does not fracture. It accumulates.
Reported phenomena include:
Echoes preceding footsteps.
Wounds bleeding in delayed surges.
Discrepancies between internal and external time passage.
Observations of self-images moving independently.
Elven lore suggests the Dreaming One’s slumber bleeds upward into the Domain, creating layered temporal perception.
Reality is unstable.
Magic becomes particulate and visible—like suspended green pollen.
Effects include:
Spell distortion (color, temperature, duration shifts)
Metallic resonance in weapons
Structural weakening of constructed wards
Heightened physiological awareness
The air carries metallic-sweet undertones. Breathing feels deliberate. Loud sound produces subtle arboreal reaction.
The closer one approaches the Heart, the more profound the distortion.
From within the Domain, the Verdant Heart cannot be mistaken for a tree.
Its trunk dominates horizon and sky. Weather forms along its bark. Lightning occasionally courses downward like illuminated veins.
Emerald radiance filters through warped spatial layers.
Beneath it lies the Dreaming One.
Within the Domain, the Dream does not whisper.
It permeates.
Wood Elves do not permanently inhabit the Domain.
No settlements exist within it.
They enter only for:
High ritual
Direct communion
Prolonged exposure is said to erode individuality. Thought patterns shift from singular to collective instinct.
In the Domain, the Verdant Heart’s will is not external.
It is immersive.
Speculation among Mage Guild scholars includes:
Spatial folding around a metaphysical anchor point.
Cyclical temporal circulation through root networks.
Projection of a dreaming consciousness into material reality.
These remain untested.
Because no expedition has returned.