Crystal Cut Forest

Nelnor is the crown jewel of the Crystal Cut forest. The city is populated heavily with former Raesh aristocrats who wished a departure from the treacherous warring history of their Feylands homeland.   Here the Raesh of Nelnor have grown a paradise. Their city, also known at the Elven Gardentia is a feat of horticultural engineering. Selective breeding, generations of magical-natural engineering, and some of the world's greatest craftsmen have literally grown a city of unparalleled beauty and serenity out of the surrounding forest. Nelnor is the perfect blend of modern, urban convenience constructed entirely out of the natural forested lands by using a technique related to civil city engineering the Elves have dubbed as 'Natural Engineering'.     Massive trees are grown to be buildings which include windows, portholes, levels, balconies, and other fixtures required for homely and refined living. Pathways of flowers are lined with drooping branches which attract clouds of luminescent and quiet chippering insects giving the modern aesthetic of street lamps. Vines have been encouraged to grow into beautiful statues and are engineered to blossom on each hour. Animals are not prevented from entering and living within the city, they are encouraged. With careful selection of the flora and fauna, the city has become completely self-sustaining in its beauty.     As the plants have been selectively bred to be aesthetically pleasing and to grow in desired ways, so too have the animals had their natures altered to symbiotically maintain the appearance and cleanliness of the city. These altered animals are called Aspects. As vines or plants grow unruly, aspected fawns are drawn to graze upon them, cutting them back to their originally designed patterns. Aspected animal droppings are engineered to leave no offensive odors, and aspected insects quickly and efficiently devour any such excrement while also leaving trails of light and vapors swirling in the air to delight passing citizens.     Rabbits and birds are aspected to be more intriguing to look at. Indeed, their colours are designed to change not only with the seasons but also with the colours of the blossoms the plants produce at certain times of the year, on certain days, and indeed even at certain times of the day. The tallest of trees are engineered to produce headend leaves of transparent amber which filter the light from the sun to keep even the brightest days a soft twilight and to enhance the moonlight into a subtle verdant greens for which you can see by. Those same leaves produce melodious whistles and tinkling music as the winds blow through tiny holes which each leaf, producing music accentuated by the collision of the leaves against each other like that of wind chimes but with the precision of a practiced orchestra.     While the city is self-sustaining, it does require oversight of the Raesh engineers, as even minor alterations in the grand design of Nelnor could have wide-reaching and catastrophic ramifications on the perfectly balanced machine that is the city. One aspect out of alignment or plant not growing properly could cascade into a collapse of the entire system.     Indeed, the modification of nature is so extensive that some believe that it is hardly natural any longer, claiming that by bending the Crystal Cut forest to their own design, that perhaps the Elves might inspire hatred of the spirits that live within. However, their arguments are usually cut short by the aspected bear guardians, who have been aspected to remove any disturbing expressions from the city and curtail violence of any kind. Indeed, it is a paradise. Yes, a perfect utopia if there ever was.  

from the memoirs of Madame Gentry.