Tallpine Territory
The Spine of the North
Stretching from the eastern slopes of the Sapphire Summits to the rocky shores of the northeastern coast, the Tallpine Territory is one of the largest continuous forest in Elysoria. Spanning more than a thousand kilometers, it blankets the northern continent in a thick, enduring canopy of pine, spruce, and fir. This is not a place of passage—it is a place that must be endured, respected, and survived.
The name is no exaggeration. The trees here truly tower—many of them older than any kingdom, rising like green pillars into the sky. Their trunks are thick as wagons, their roots as wide as outstretched arms. Beneath them, the forest floor is dim, cool, and surprisingly quiet. Fallen needles muffle footsteps, and the wind speaks only in hushed tones through the high branches.
Few trails exist beyond the edges, and even those tend to vanish within a day’s walk. Most who enter the deep forest do so by necessity—hunters, trappers, and wandering monks chief among them. Some claim to follow ancient footpaths, passed down orally from generation to generation. Others trust instinct and luck. Either way, navigation in Tallpine is more art than science.
Roughly halfway through the territory lies the Cragclaw Heights—a jagged spine of low mountains and knife-edged hills. Some travelers use them as landmarks, others avoid them entirely, wary of unstable slopes and the creatures said to nest among the rocks. To the south of these highlands lies the transitional region known as Timberland Thicket, where the forest thins and the trees grow younger and more spread out.
The fauna of Tallpine are robust and elusive. Massive herds of frosthorn deer migrate through ancient routes that even locals cannot explain. Packs of shadow-coated wolves prowl the undergrowth in near silence. And somewhere, according to local stories, the Cragwolf Alpha still roams—a beast as big as a bear, clever as a man, and utterly without fear.
For all its danger, Tallpine Territory is not a cruel place. It is simply indifferent—a wilderness too vast to be claimed, too old to be tamed. Those who live near its edges speak of it with a mix of awe and weariness. Those who vanish within it become part of its silence.
The Splitpine Inn
Splitpine Inn
They say the Tallpine that fell at Pinevale Run was the size of a siege tower—thicker than a cottage at the base and nearly four hundred paces from root to crown. No axe brought it down. No flame scarred it. A storm rolled down from the Sapphire Summits one autumn night, and by dawn the tree had fallen clean across the river, as if it had simply chosen to rest. The trunk didn’t crack. The roots didn’t tear. It lay whole—bridging the river with a grace no man could’ve engineered. In the years that followed, travelers began to use the fallen tree to cross the river safely. Someone carved steps. Someone else hollowed a bit of the middle for shelter. Eventually, that hollow became a fire-warmed room, and that room became the Splitpine Inn—so named because it exits on both banks of Pinevale Run. The inn now serves as Vielwood’s heart, with rooms carved lengthwise into the tree and lanterns hanging from preserved branch stumps. A hearth burns at the old root-well, and the bark has been carefully treated to remain intact. Locals say it’s warmer than stone in winter, and steadier than any timber-frame building in a storm. Some say the tree still listens. That if you sleep on the downstream side, you dream of the sea—and if you sleep on the upstream side, the dream of the forest. Whether that’s true or not, the inn still stands, the tree still holds, and the river still passes beneath.
by This image was created with the assistance of DALL·E 2
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