Eleriad

Place of Origin:

Eleriad lies along the ragged edge of the Scarlands, a land fractured and contorted by the Great Devastation. To the east lies Iliaryon, its closest ally and kin in both blood and spirit. The two kingdoms form the bulwark between civilisation and chaos—guardians of a continent always watching the wound that never heals.

Before the Devastation, Eleriad was a kingdom of harmony and green wonder. It was said the rivers sang with the voices of the stars and that the forests whispered the dreams of the gods and goddesses. The people lived in balance with the land, their cities nestled into vast living silver-leaved trees of or built around natural hot springs, famed for their healing properties.

But when Naediolon collapsed and the Ethereal Wellspring ruptured, birthing the The Scarlands , Eleriad bore the brunt of it.

Long before the Great Devastation tore through the continent, Elariad was famed a the 'Silver Canopy Kingdom". It's Capital Vael'Ylaryn, nestled within a vast ancient forest where the tree glistened with moonlit leaves and shimmering silver bark. These trees - called Elerim trees - were sacred, thought to be touched by the Godess Laeyl and protected by aether spirits.

Eleriads people were poets, diplomats and schlors. They sang to the tress, believed in the quiet power of soul-bonds, and held yearly moonlit festivals beneath the canopy where love matched were celebrated and new soul-bonds formed. Magic hear was subtle, ethereal - a dance of light and nature. The Kingdom was peaceful, relying of Iliaryon's militaristic strength for protection, while it focused on cultivating beauty, wisdom and art.

The Great Devastation sundered not only the land but the soul of Elariad.

The Elerim trees twisted in grief. Though they still shimmer in the moonlight, their trunks are now wound with living thorns - sharp, silver-black and almost sentient, The forest became known as the Thorn-Bound Canopy and the thorns themselves because sacred artfacts of survival. The weapons crafted from them can pierce the corrupted flesh of the aether-being and even sever dark magic's hold of the living.

The people of Eleriad changed too. Once serene and gentle, they have grown fierce and watchful. Though they have retained their culture of soul-sonding and devotion to beauty, they are now warriors as much as artists.

The kingdom has learned to thrive on the edge of ruin.

To survive the rot and madness that leaked from the Scarlands, Eleriad and Iliaryon forged the Wall of Ael’Vareth - an immense structure of living stone, ironwood, and aether-crystal. But the wall alone is not what keeps the darkness at bay. The Eleriadi priests and wardweavers created a Warding Web - a lattice of runes, enchantments, and resonant stones sunk deep into the bones of the earth.

These wards pulse with light when danger stirs beyond the wall. Each year, the wards must be renewed in a ritual known as the Night of Silence, during which all magic is stilled to listen for breaches in the veil between realms.

The wall is not uniform. In some places it rises in jagged peaks; in others it blends with cliffs and gorges. In some regions - where the forest has turned semi-sentient - it is almost grown rather than built. It is a shared duty between Eleriad and Iliaryon to patrol and maintain it.

Temperate-Moonlit Forest Climate

• Mild summers, cool springs, and mist-heavy winters.
• Rain is frequent but gentle; fog clings to the lowlands almost year-round.
• The moon seems unnaturally large in Eleriad’s skies - perhaps due to the post-Devastation thinning of the veil between worlds.

Unique seasonal markers include:

The Moonshear – A week of brilliant full moons in Summer that energise the land.

The Quieting – A deep-winter silence when no birds sing and corrupted creatures grow restless.

The people of Eleriad are marked by their closeness to the Scarlands - not just geographically, but biologically and spiritually. Over generations, exposure to warped magic caused what scholars call a sympathetic mutation: rather than be consumed by the corruption, Eleriadi bodies learned to fight it.

Bites and wounds inflicted by corrupted creatures do not cause madness or transformation as they do elsewhere. Eleriadi flesh seems to recognise the taint and reject it. Their blood, once clear, now carries faint silver threads of Aether, visible only in moonlight. They can channel this corrupted magic and their very blood purifies it. This ability is not without cost. The process is agonising, and not all survive it. But those who do become Scar-Wardens, warriors and healers whose bodies bear swirling scars that glow faintly during storms or when magic surges.