High Forest of Arborea

The forest rolls like a green sea from snowline to shore, its canopies layered into lofty “high-roads” of interlaced boughs and light-wells that drop shafts of sun to fern-glades below. Giant ruins from the age before The Seldarinecolonnades, stairways, and amphitheatres—are softened by root and vine; many have been adopted as seed-libraries and rain-gardens. At the realm’s heart stands the Hollow Crown, a ring of living oaks grown around an absence where the Great Oak once rose; the empty center is not desolation but a listening bowl, and vows spoken here are taken seriously by the land itself.   Rivers run with patient purpose: some thread the canopy as “branch-streams” in barky gutters, others disappear into Rootways, cool, luminous tunnels where mycelial lanterns map the soil like constellations. Clearings serve as parley greens and feast lawns; cliff-bowls act as theatres where choruses blend with night insects and leaf-sigh. In winter the snow laces branches without breaking them, and blue blossoms mark safe crossings on frozen creeks. At the margins, the High Forest braids seamlessly into Arvandor’s other courts, Crescent Grove’s starry promenades, Erevan’s Ever-Shifting Glade, and, on festival nights, meadow-paths that remember Iallanis’s mercy.  

Notable Locations

The Hollow Crown

A vast, ringed stump where the Great Oak once rose; pale sap still wells like starlight, and pledges sworn here bind as gently as bark, protective, never choking. On equinox nights, the crown’s rings glow and replay leaf-memories of seasons past.  

Heart-Seed Conservatory

A living seed-vault under braided roots and glassy resin where wardens keep cuttings of vanished groves and rare herbs; when a community atones for harm done to woodlands, a seed from here will sprout overnight in their square.  

Moonbough Overlook

A cliff of moonstone and silver birch where Sehanine’s phases pull a translucent bridge from the air; during full moons it opens a calm, lantern-lit driftway to the Crescent Grove for weddings, farewells, and reconciliations.  

Giants’ Weir-Terraces

Ancient spillways and orchard steps left from the giant age, now reclaimed by vines and songbirds; water through the hollowed stones plays a soft organ tone that gently hushes quarrels. On rare war-feast nights, a high sluice tilts toward Ysgard and then stills again.  

The Mercy Run

A ceremonial hunt-way marked by antler totems where wild hearts are chased to exhaustion and offered clemency, not killing; petitioners who choose mercy bear shed tines braided into their hair, and wake at dawn free of old rages.  

Skyroot Arcade

A lattice of living bridges between canopy halls; the boughs rise or dip to meet kind travelers and arch away from those who come to exploit. Singing softly aligns the spans to the nearest hospice meadow.  

Bark-Script Gallery

A shaded colonnade of elder oaks whose outer bark flakes into legible curls; vows carved here are “written” by the tree itself, copied by new growth along three trunks—keeper, hall, and common—so promises circulate like sap.  

Thorn-Gate Crown

A ring of rose-hawthorn grown into an airy arch; after three nights without decree or curfew, its thorns retract and a meadow road unfurls toward the Outlands’ Sylvania, returning to briar at the first heavy-handed edict.  

Lumen-Oak Choir

A grove of bioluminescent oaks that hum at twilight; standing within their glow eases fear and steadies breath, and choruses practiced here carry clear for leagues without startling deer or nesting owls.  

Foxfire Steps

Terraces of glowing fungi descending to a mirror-spring; a patient watcher sees not their own face but the near-future of a grove they intend to cut or spare, and the water sweetens or sours accordingly.  

Oath-Sage Terraces

Herb-ledges, oath-sage, silver-thyme, moon-mint, cultivated in old ruin walls; smoke from their braziers marks reconciliation rites, and the terraces refuse to hold fire for those who speak in bad faith.  

Rootmoot Ring

A natural amphitheatre of interlocked roots where treants, dryads, azatas, and wardens hold judgments; sentences tend toward restoration, replanting, teaching, rebuilding, rather than pain.  

Star-Catcher Pines

Needled spires that snare starlight in resinous filaments; luthiers draw “star-gut” for harps and bows used in rites of remembrance, and the pines will not yield a thread to hands that mock the dead.  

Wind-Speech Grotto

A cave-mouth where Aerdrie's zephyrs bring whisper-news from the high realms; messages of mercy ride the cleanest currents, and boastful threats return as tangled echoes.  

The Quiet Returning

A secluded meadow where lost petitioners who fell far from home reform at dawn beneath lark-song; wardens leave bread, fruit, and a first map here each morning.  

The Green Anvil

Sun-hot stone shelves where artisans coax living joinery from heartwood and vine; no metal is smelted here, but tools and frames grown on the Anvil take a finish like rain and survive a century of storms.  

Portals

The realm has a permanent portal to Grove of the Unicorns.  

Inhabitants

Elven petitioners, live lightly in treelairs and cliff-towns, guiding travelers, tending seedbanks, and guarding guest-right fires. Dryads, Nymphs, satyrs, and other good-hearted fey keep oath-gardens and “listening hedges”; Azatas (bralani, ghaeles, lillends) drift between glades as patrons of art, courage, and swift aid; leonal and other Agathions patrol the long borders where the wild meets the world. Wardens of Ehlenestra, druids, rangers, and healers, carry woven badges of leaf and horn and answer blight with care before they answer it with steel.

When tempers flare, wildflowers release a calming pollen; resisting it takes stout will or sincere apology, and the realm always prefers the latter. Festivals thicken the air with “revel resonance”, healing and restoration run a step stronger, while grudges feel heavy and hard to voice. In storm-time, Harmonic Winds arrive as chords; hum along and speech travels cleanly and feet sure, shout against them and words tangle. Blight never slips past unnoticed: sap “weeps” amber at trail-edges as warning; hunters who spill blood for sport see their arrows sprout catkins and their scents turn loudly of nettle until they repent. At old oath-sites, night-lichen constellations brighten; near broken vows they fade to a cold, dull crust until the promise is mended.   Magic that protects, heals, shelters, reconciles, or honors the wild finds gentle lift here: sanctuary, protection from evil, shield other, heroism (and greater), tongues, and sending tied to a sworn promise gain a subtle edge, and if the vow was made as art, hearts stand a touch firmer against fear. Summoning that calls willing woodland allies and creation that grows living things are welcome; spells that harm life, mock the dead, or bind by terror are impeded, and devil-style contracts fizzle like wet tinder. Work done in cadence, rebuilding terraces, replanting burned swales, cooking for the wounded, earns a small daily grace: treat one failed Craft/Profession/Heal check as if aided by competent helpers. Those who raise the wronged within Florallium or here at a singing cairn find the cost gentled and the prayer heard more clearly; those who desecrate a grove discover that fire runs cold and axes bite dull until they set the damage right.