The Aulaen
"Beauty grows from death - this is the principle we live by."
Although most peoples and races have origins shrouded in myth and legend, the ulfar stand out in that their birthplace is exactly as important as they paint it. Long ago, in the era when the sun itself turned on humanity, an Exalted's blood soaked the ground.
That gentle hero of humanity deserved better than the cruel fate which awaited her - just like so many who died during the Long Night.
But even amidst that tragedy - even after the death of a demigod - new life still emerged.
Born of Divine Blood
"The Umber Stag... she lived long before my time. The world is a darker place without her authority."
During the devastating Long Night, civilisations crumbled to rubble, and the people cried out for aid. The threat of reality being utterly consumed had never been so real, before or since, and in the fight against the boundless dark, countless heroes were consumed.
But though tales often revolve around the heroism of the Harbingers - those doomed mortals who picked up shards of authority - far fewer remember that even demigods were killed during that time.
The Umber Stag was an Exalted loyal to Lapis, and her authority is uncertain. She ascended to divinity and died in an age from which precious little information has survived. But given what occurred after her demise, it was very likely that she was the Exalted of growth, life, or nature. Though she fought to defend humanity from the ravages of the Lirustime, she was ultimately killed and fell to the ground.
But something not seen before or since came to happen.
That soil, stained with the blood of a demigod, eventually became the birthplace of a new race of ikayal.
The Soil's Whispers
"Some attuned ones can still hear her... murmuring encouragement from the earth..."
Where the Umber Stag fell, a forest erupted - one unlike any other in Wyral.
One where the trees seemed almost... alive.
The undergrowth is tangled and impossible to navigate for most outsiders. The trees are gnarled and thick, so much so that it seems they have lived since an elder age of the world. Their fruits cause strange things to happen to the senses, as if attuned to the remaining divinity of a dead Exalted.
And deep, deep within the heartwoods of the Aulaen, where no outsiders have ever been permitted, the ulfar rose from the earth - growing like saplings, according to some, and forming out of the soil, according to others.
Whether or not they hold some measure of divine blessings, ulfar society has an extremely close relationship with the forest. They painstakingly sculpt their houses out of ancient trees - ones which their families have lived with for generations. Despite their ponderous size and wide antlers, they seem able to pass through the dense forest with ease.
Some believe that it is simply the product of being so used to that tangled forest.
The more popular speculation is that the Aulaen is more alive than we think possible.
The Encroaching Canopy
"Is it not their nation that speaks of 'equivalent exchange'?"
When the emperor Artexanar first set his sights on the Aulaen, he likely assumed it would be a simple affair. After all, what is a forest but a fire waiting to happen? As for those within it, and for the sacred grounds that would be desecrated... well. Zefiru already held two Exalted-blessed regions within its ever-expanding borders.
But he could not have anticipated the force of the resistance.
When the peaceful ulfar sensed the fires, they taught the invaders the true meaning of fear - putting their inhumanly strong, well-protected bodies to a use that almost no one had seen before. Their rage burned far stronger than the flames they strode through, and remains alight to this day.
But the Aulaen itself? The Aulaen changed.
No one can quite say how. If the ulfar know, they refuse to say - not even to other ikayal.
Yet the forest is expanding, little by little. A Zefirua village falls under its canopy. Then another.
The inhabitants do not return.
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