Arûvhalen - The World Tree

Intro

Arûvhalen, called the Sun-Bearer in old songs, now stands only as a vast, hollow stump. It was felled in the War of Wrath, when the Dragons rose against the Light Ones and set the world-tree ablaze, its burning boughs turned the very heavens red as they fell. On Eiraval, where the majestic trunk once shouldered the sky, there remain only scorched rind and petrified roots that plunge into the deep. Those underbough vaults are jealously held by the Tenebrites, giant termites that have taken the dead roots for their hives, sealing their galleries with amber resin and meeting trespass with a hostile, relentless chittering.

Early History

When the Light Ones descended from the Heavens and began to shape the earth in their own design, they knew their will was not of the world. They would not wrestle mother nature into obedience, but bless it, working in harmony with what already breathed and grew. So they planted a seed greater than any other in the heart of Tenebrion, on Eiraval. Its roots braided into the deep and its trunk climbed the sky. Long years passed, slowly but surely, the sapling rose to a height that dwarfed all forests.

As the tree gained stature, creatures from every horizon gathered to marvel: the Heir-Hawks of the Messials, and the Royal Gryphons of the Valpines. While the ancient Kraken turned away in cool disdain, and the Dragons watched with a jealous heat. The Light Ones poured their own strength into the growing bole, light against blight, warmth against rot, warding against plague, and foreseeing ill will among certain sentient kindreds, they set guardians at its foot. Thus were the Arü made: keepers of the boughs, stewards between the sky and the soil.

The Golden Tree

The Arü became the chosen of the Light Ones, the first people to walk the earth, humble yet great, slight yet strong. They were woven to belong among all living things, and the Light Ones shaped them in their own likeness, wishing them to dwell within the world rather than stand above it.

As Arûvhalen grew, it reached for the sky as though to bridge Heaven and Earth. Its branches spread wide and far, its majesty could be seen from far horizons, holding up the sky. Upon those branches ripened golden apples, bright with the Light Ones’ power, glimmering at night like starlight. Dew gathered on its leaves, billions upon billions, and fell as gentle rain, watering even the most desolate places, waking deserts to green.

The greater the tree became, the more it shaped the world, and the more it drew from it. Its roots drove down into the deeps and siphoned not only water but the earth’s native magics, Arcane and Elemental alike. The covenant was simple: yield power to the Tree, and the Tree would make a paradise for all.

As the Light Ones poured ever more of themselves into Arûvhalen, their strength waned. Many chose to return to the Heavens, satisfied with what had been wrought and trusting the Arü to keep their legacy. For a time it was truly a golden age, and the world was well tended.

The Rebellion

The covenant the Light Ones offered, a paradise imposed rather than chosen, was a bargain the Dragons never accepted. Proud by nature, insulted by decree, they watched Arûvhalen swell in stature while the Light Ones waned and departed. To the Dragons this world was theirs by right, won in an age-long war against the ancient Titans, with sky and land both claimed by fang and flame. They had fought for and won this world once, they would fight for it again.

When no more than three Light Ones remained, diminished and acting more as guides than gods, the Dragons struck. They swarmed Arûvhalen in their tens of thousands, led by Khalazgorix the Black, "the Mountain that Burns". Vast beyond measure, he unfurled his wings and cast a moving night upon the earth, with his first breath he seared the world-tree, and with his hosts he fed the blaze. Alarm bells rang across Eiraval and out through Tenebrion, but a people grown comfortable in paradise answered slowly and clumsily, while the crown of the Tree burned like a falling sun.

Allies of the Arü rose to meet the onslaught. The high Heir-Hawks and the Royal Gryphons took the sky, claw and beak against fire and scale, and the heavens reddened as the flames ran through the canopy like a storm, golden apples raining down as if shooting stars.

This was the War of Wrath. It ended with the fall of Arûvhalen and the slaying of Khalazgorix the Black, and with High King Zyrellion, victorious, cast into a breathless sleep from which he did not wake. In the long aftermath the Arü dwindled and broke, the Dragons, culled and chastened, fled far into the east. What remains upon the island is a great stump, sailors call it the Navel, an eternal reminder of the day Dragons refused to bow to Heaven.