Athel Loren, known as the Everwood in the Empire and the Whispering Wood or Fey Forest to Dwarfs, is a vast, ancient forest spanning the western slopes of the Grey Mountains, between Bretonnia and the Empire. It was established as the homeland of the Wood Elves millennia ago, when most of the Elves of the Old World returned to Ulthuan following the Sundering and the War of the Ancients.
The forest is ruled by the twin Elven leaders Ariel and Orion, each embodying a divine aspect of nature. Ariel represents the peaceful, regenerative side of the forest, fostering growth and renewal, while Orion embodies its warlike, unpredictable, and destructive aspects. Together, they are said to serve as the aethyric conscience of Athel Loren, ensuring the balance of life, death, and war within its bounds.
Athel Loren is suffused with powerful, primeval magic. The forest is alive in ways incomprehensible to mortals, and time itself flows unevenly within its borders. Travelers may spend hours within the trees and emerge to find only minutes have passed—or enter briefly and return to discover decades or even centuries have elapsed. This temporal distortion makes navigation perilous for outsiders and impossible to map accurately.
The forest is home to countless spirits of the wood. Treemen, Dryads, and other mystical beings dwell among the ancient trees, acting as guardians and emissaries of the forest’s will. The living forest itself can rise to defend its borders: when the Wood Elves go to war, even the trees march alongside them, roots and branches striking at invaders.
Wood Elves are fiercely territorial. They rarely tolerate strangers, and those who enter Athel Loren uninvited are seldom seen again. Local Bretonnian peasants, who farm the forest’s outskirts, tell tales of lost travelers and warn against venturing too far into the trees. Even the bravest of knights know that the forest protects itself through cunning and sorcery, punishing intruders in ways both subtle and deadly.
Athel Loren is more than a home—it is a living realm, constantly watched over by its guardians. The Wood Elves defend it against encroachment from humans, Beastmen, and other creatures, maintaining a fragile equilibrium with the surrounding lands. Bretonnians respect the forest’s boundaries, leaving it largely undisturbed, while the Empire regards it with wary awe, knowing that few who enter return unchanged—or at all.
The twin rulers ensure the forest’s continued vitality, guiding its inhabitants in accordance with nature’s dual aspects: creation and destruction, peace and war, patience and fury. To the Elves, the forest is sacred, every tree, stream, and glade imbued with purpose. To outsiders, it is a place of mystery, danger, and uncanny beauty, where the laws of the world are rewritten and the forest itself seems to watch and judge.
Athel Loren is not a uniform forest, but a vast, ever-changing landscape stretching from the plains of Bretonnia into the foothills of the Grey Mountains, following the banks of several great rivers. Across its breadth, the terrain shifts dramatically: rocky highlands dotted with crags and boulders, boggy lowlands with hidden lakes, open meadow-like clearings where long grass dominates, and dense woods where a single species of tree may prevail.
Amid this diversity, the glades are the most notable features. These natural clearings allow sunlight or moonlight to penetrate the canopy, creating pockets of open sky within the shadowed forest. Glades are more than mere clearings—they are loci of magic, where the currents of the forest’s mystical energy rise close to the surface, making them sacred and vital to the Wood Elves. Some glades are shared among multiple kindreds, while others are avoided entirely, imbued with subtle dangers or blessings.
When the Wood Elves first entered the forest, each kindred chose glades that suited their nature. These choices were not arbitrary: the character of a glade influences the kindred that settle there, shaping their customs, architecture, and way of life. Some kindreds remained in a single glade for generations, while nomadic groups wandered the forest, always seeking the same type of glade among familiar trees wherever they traveled.
Over time, glades grew into interconnected clusters, forming the heart of Elf settlements. A glade was not simply a single open space, but often a network of clearings linked by hidden paths, streams, or magical markers. These networks allowed kindreds to adapt to changing conditions while remaining in harmony with the forest, maintaining access to its resources and protective wards. Even as a kindred moved its focus from one glade to another, it usually stayed within a broader region of the forest, preserving its ties to ancestral lands.
The Wood Elves’ lore records many famous glades, each with its own character and inhabitants. Some are places of beauty and celebration, used for festivals, training, or communion with spirits. Others are revered for their danger, serving as training grounds or tests of courage. Through the glades, the forest itself interacts with its inhabitants, guiding their choices and shaping their destiny.
In this way, Athel Loren is a living, breathing realm. The glades form the nodes of its magical and social networks, the spaces where the forest’s power is closest to the surface, and where the Wood Elves are most attuned to their homeland. Outsiders who wander into a glade may glimpse its beauty, but the forest rarely allows them to leave unscathed; the glades are protected, not only by Elves but by the forest itself.