Dark Arbor
Geography
The Dark Arbor is, by far, the thickest forest in Hellenis. Though its foliage is mostly deciduous or coniferous and native to temperate climates, it resembles the densest tropical jungles in its density. There is something unnatural about the absolute profusion of plant life in the area, the tallest trees will have shorter trees growing beneath them, with shorter ones yet below them, with bushes and shrubbery beneath, and still grasses or ferns growing below those. It has been confirmed many times over that nowhere near enough sunlight reaches past even the first couple of layers to allow for this, and yet the forest continues to grow, heedless of its own impossibility. The arbor contains many rivers and lakes, though with foliage so dense, the numbers of either can only be guessed at.
Ecosystem
It is believed that of all species of animal that exist in Hellenis, over two thirds live only in the Dark Arbor. For vegetation, the proportion reaches nearly ninety percent. Any attempt to give a holistic picture of something so varied and complex would be doomed to failure, even discounting the difficulty in physically traversing and observing anything, which itself ignores the incredible physical danger many of the forest's denizens pose.
Localized Phenomena
Between the Unseelie, the Wild Hunt, the Dusk Wardens, and the Court of the Eclipse there are enough intelligent extraplanar denizens of the Dark Arbor to fill several volumes of fairy tales and horror stories. There are, of course, also many more non-sapient extraplanar creatures, natives of Khthon warped by exposure to one or both magical influences intelligent and otherwise, and innumerable non-living phenomena that can't be found anywhere else. Many parts of the forest are so thick that no sunlight reaches the ground, but that has nothing to do with why it was named "Dark."
History
A forest has existed on this particular plot of land for as long as beings capable of writing have observed it. It was not, however, always the Dark Arbor. The exact cause of the planar thinning is uncertain, though a minor portal tearing open during one of the Great Demon Wars seems most likely. Whatever the reason, a change began to spread from a point deep within the forest. Shortly thereafter, a different transformation undertook another point within. The arbor today is a result of those two influences overlapping and merging, then saturating the entire area. The two sources went undiscovered for many years, but it was eventually determined that they stem from two areas where the veil between planes has become paper thin, one bordering the Feywild and the other the Shadowfell.
Tourism
No one ventures into the Dark Arbor on purpose without a reason far more compelling than tourism. At least, no one from this side of the planar veil.
Type
Forest
Location under
Contested By
Related Myths
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