Эретор: Аруун

Аруун

The southern reach of Erethor is a wet tropical rainforest as full of mysteries as it is of unusual living things. It is most commonly called the Aruun, which in the tongue of the elves simply means “the wet trees.” The woods transition quickly from the temperate Caraheen swamps in the north to the humid and verdant woods of the tropical forest. To the south and west, the rainforest stops at the sea, growing right up to the exposed rock and crashing waves of the shore. To the east, it dries out as it breaks apart in the southern plains of Erenland. In this region, the forest becomes patchy and intermixed with hot, open savanna.
In the heart of the Aruun, the landscape is uneven, carved by countless tiny streams and creeks that collect into many small rivers that slowly drain into the Kasmael Sea. Large lakes and wet glades dot the region, and the eroded spine of an ancient mountain range, now covered over in green, rises above the surrounding canopy. In these old hills and in the depths of the encircling forest, there are dark and quiet places
where even the Danisil do not go. There are ancient temples to the Lost Gods and a hidden city abandoned by the elthedar when Izrador fell. Foul spirits haunt these places now, and only the very brave or the very foolish venture into them. The climate is hot and humid, with rains brought ashore by warm southern winds. There are only two seasons, the wet and the dry, but only a native Danisil can tell the difference.

История

Though it is generally accepted that elven culture was born in central Erethor, some scholars claim the first elven tribes may have originally come from the Aruun. Some rare artifacts and odd cliff-dweller ruins in the central rainforest seem to support the claim. Other scholars think the first Caransil and the first Danisil came from the same ancestral people and subsequently settled their respective regions of Erethor independently. Most agree, however, that the Danisil are one of, if not the, oldest elven cultures.
Through much of the First and Second Ages, the elves of the Aruun were respected as scholars and academics by their kin, though some elves maintained a quiet disdain for the elves who focused on learning and study over the threat of the Shadow in the North. Aradil, however, recognized the value of the Danisil’s contributions to elven learning, and she foresaw that their collection of knowledge would be of great value in the baleful days to come. Aradil’s foresight proved correct, and her admiration for the Danisil has done much to improve their relations with other elfkin.
The Aruun has suffered its share from the ravages of war. It was attacked in both the Dornish and Sarcosan invasions, and the Danisil always dispatched their wizards to aid in the wars against the Shadow. Now they wage a desperate battle within their own forest, as Izrador’s demonic minions relentlessly hunt them in the heart of the Aruun.

Население

The Danisil, or “wise elfkin,” are the ancient people of the Aruun. Though the Danisil’s beloved censuses have become scattered and disrupted after a century of war, their scribes are reasonably sure that there are roughly 150,000 Danisil scattered amongst the hidden towns in the rainforest. Their populations have suffered at the hands of the Shadow and his demonic minions, but not as badly as their kin to the north.
The Aruun is not an easy place for those born on the plains to survive. There are poisonous plants and insects, dangerous predators, and foul spirits. Despite these dangers, the fall of Erenland has driven as many as 20,000 halflings and humans to seek refuge in the rainforest. Most of the halflings have been taken in by their Danisil cousins due to their possible shared ancestry, but most humans have been left to their own resources. The Danisil historians have long memories and still remember that the Sarcosans and Dorns once tried to invade their lands.

Поселения

Like the other elven peoples, the Danisil live in the trees. Their villages and towns are typically along larger river courses in small groves of boa-bil trees. These trees are tall and thin, but with high canopies of many strong branches. The druids amongst the Danisil grow hanging vines from these branches, which weave together. Eventually, the resulting nets of vines are so thick that whole platforms can be built on top of them.
Atop these platforms, the Danisil build their villages and towns. Their buildings tend to be small domes, with walls crafted from living woven vines that grow entwined so tightly that they keep out the ever-present rain. Smaller homes may consist of a single dome, while larger dwellings and civic buildings consist of several interlinked ones. Sometimes, buildings are grown into full spheres and suspended above other dwellings, forming upper levels that can only be accessed by stairways of vine and branch.
The vine-crafted villages and towns are typically home to several hundred elves and are built around a central building that functions as an observatory, debate hall, and library for the locals. The center also contains the town’s smithy (one of the few buildings with floors of slate to protect the vines from the heat) and the vats where the villagers brew lacquers and resin glues.
Of all the tree settlements the elves construct, those of the Danisil are the ones that are the hardest to locate. The stairways leading down to the forest floor are subtly enchanted so that they fold into the trees they circle around or draw up into the village at night. Towns are also built above or adjacent to rivers and streams, where the running water serves as both a means of transport and a ward. Even the Danisil’s canoes can be lifted into the villages at night.
Though these defenses have served the Danisil well in their ongoing war against the Shadow, the truth is that these constructions have been needed for many thousands of years. The nighttime forest has long been rife with demonic spirits, and the Danisil learned long ago how best to protect their dwellings from these evil beings.  

Язык

The Danisil speak a particularly old form of High Elven that sounds slightly formal and archaic to the ears of other elves. Many also speak Halfling due to their long relationships with the nomadic halfling tribes. A sizable minority of the Danisil also speak Sylvan, and are some of the few elves to have mastered the elemental tongue.

Правительство

Like the other elven peoples, the Danisil live in the trees. Their villages and towns are typically along larger river courses in small groves of boa-bil trees. These trees are tall and thin, but with high canopies of many strong branches. The druids amongst the Danisil grow hanging vines from these branches, which weave together. Eventually, the resulting nets of vines are so thick that whole platforms can be built on top of them.
Atop these platforms, the Danisil build their villages and towns. Their buildings tend to be small domes, with walls crafted from living woven vines that grow entwined so tightly that they keep out the ever-present rain. Smaller homes may consist of a single dome, while larger dwellings and civic buildings consist of several interlinked ones. Sometimes, buildings are grown into full spheres and suspended above other dwellings, forming upper levels that can only be accessed by stairways of vine and branch.
The vine-crafted villages and towns are typically home to several hundred elves and are built around a central building that functions as an observatory, debate hall, and library for the locals. The center also contains the town’s smithy (one of the few buildings with floors of slate to protect the vines from the heat) and the vats where the villagers brew lacquers and resin glues.
Of all the tree settlements the elves construct, those of the Danisil are the ones that are the hardest to locate. The stairways leading down to the forest floor are subtly enchanted so that they fold into the trees they circle around or draw up into the village at night. Towns are also built above or adjacent to rivers and streams, where the running water serves as both a means of transport and a ward. Even the Danisil’s canoes can be lifted into the villages at night.
Though these defenses have served the Danisil well in their ongoing war against the Shadow, the truth is that these constructions have been needed for many thousands of years. The nighttime forest has long been rife with demonic spirits, and the Danisil learned long ago how best to protect their dwellings from these evil beings.

Религия

The world of the Danisil is home to more of the Eternal and the Fallen than any other region of Erethor. As a consequence, the Danisil are even more sensitive to the presence of supernatural spirits than the other elven cultures. Though the Danisil do not actually worship these entities, they do have a long tradition of rituals that allow them to curry the favor of some spirits while protecting themselves from the attention and wrath of others. These practices have taken on the solemn nature of religious homage and have suffused every aspect of daily life for these elves.
Most of the rituals the Danisil practice are simple offerings and invocations that color their daily activities. At each meal, for example, before taking their first bite, the Danisil hold pieces of whatever they intend to eat behind their backs in case a passing, friendly spirit happens to be hungry. Though the offering is seldom taken, many claim they have seen it happen. Before washing, the water a Danisil uses is first stirred vigorously with a wooden stick. This chases out any evil spirits waiting in the water to vex the bather. Prayers are offered over every hunter’s kill, and fishers spit into the river before casting their nets, offering a portion of their own spirit to the river for the spirits of the fish. And any piece of clothing has carefully embroidered wards of protection against evil spirits and invocation of good spirits, the results of millenia of careful study.
Other rituals are significantly more involved and potent, with far more dangerous consequences. Every birth is attended by a powerful wizard who protects the pregnant parent in a shielding circle of silverinscribed glyphs so that skulking demonlings are not able to possess the newborn child. When a Danisil is injured, any blood spilled on the ground must be scooped up along with the forest litter on which it fell and cast into the nearest river, lest a foul spirit use the blood to track the injured elf and poison them through the wound.
Though these practices may seem superstitious, the Danisil have learned that they are all too important for their continued survival. The line between scholarly studies and spiritual practices tends to blur when dealing with these supernatural beings, and blood, flesh, and spiritual essence are powerful currencies in the spiritual realm. The most visible evidence of this are the rites of ritual scarification that most Danisil participate in once they obtain their majority. The scars form warding patterns similar to those used in other Danisil rites and inscriptions. However, since they are cut into the elves’ flesh, their power is much greater than if they were inscribed with paint or even ink.

Protective spirits

The Aruun Rainforest is home to countless Eternal spirits, many of which the Danisil invoke at one time or another.

Seecha

Seecha is the omnipresent entity inhabiting the rainforest’s rivers. They are not a foul or overly friendly being, but one who must be courted by fishers and canoe hunters.

Bashia

Bashia is the mindless essence that resides in the hanging vines that support Danisil villages. Their druids long ago learned how to encourage that essence to grow however they wished.

Baneful spirits

The Aruun also suffers from a plague of vile spirits.

Tuks

Tuks are tiny and common demonlings found throughout the Aruun. They are stupid but mischievous and troublesome, and in large groups they can be dangerous. They are known for raiding villages and camps and are said to steal unwatched babies.

Chappa

Chappa is an insidious entity who possesses swarms of insects and uses them in mass attacks on her victims. The terror of a million mosquitoes swarming a single elf or the horror of a thousand centipedes all biting at once are not to be taken lightly.

Terrod

Terrod is the Danisil name for one of the oldest entities in the Aruun. Terrod inhabits the ruins of Ibonsul, and all other demons flee before it. Though it has lost most of its conscious mind, its instincts and powers remain truly awe-inspiring. Terrod wants nothing but to be free of its forest prison so that it might rage across Eredane, destroying everything in its path.

Торговля и ремесло

The Danisil’s crafts focus more on study and learning than on producing goods for trade. In addition, their metalwork, while as finely made as that produced by any elf, is rare due to the lack of raw materials. What smithing the Danisil do is kept for themselves and their communities.

Laminated linen

Due to the rarity of ores and the wet climate that can rust or rot nearly anything, the Danisil have developed a unique material from which they make most of their crafted goods. This is laminated linen, formed from layers of cloth glued together with resin glues and coated in more layers of durable lacquer. Though the materials can all be found in the forest and many are crafted from plants, the resulting material is as light as cured leather and as durable as thin sheets of worked metal. It is also proof against water and rot; indeed, many a laminated bowl has been left in the nook of a tree for years without any noticeable degradation.
The laminate can be made stiffer or more flexible by varying the glues and lacquers. Perhaps the strongest testament to its durability is that the Danisil use it exclusively when making their armor. Every Danisil warrior is sent to war with a linothorax breastplate and greaves, often ones they made themself over a period of several weeks. The armor can absorb an arrow shot or turn aside a blade, and it can even be repaired in the field; most Danisil warriors carry small pots of resins so that they may do exactly that.
The Danisil use similar techniques to craft books. While most paper and parchment would rot in the sticky air of the forest, the lacquered cloth pages of Danisil books are resistant to stains and damp. In fact, even wizards to the north try to seek out spellbooks from the Danisil, as no book is as durable or as finely bound.

Alchemical Lore

The Danisil also have extensive knowledge of alchemy and the forests around them, allowing them to concoct potent potions and herbal brews. The druids and herbalists of the Aruun produce the finest healing ointments and potions in Erethor. With the ongoing war, these creations are rarer and more valuable than at any time in the past.

Middlemen

The close relationship between the halflings and the Danisil mean that the Danisil’s few traders are the default middlemen for halfling spices, tobacco, and cloth. These commodities are highly valued in the Caraheen and serve as lucrative trade goods for the Danisil.

Пути и традиции

The Danisil are among the oldest of the elves and have lived in the Aruun Rainforest for thousands of years. Many of their traditions involve the forest or the creatures found within.

Hunter-Scholars

The endless imprisonment of the Fallen have driven many of them to permanent delirium, while others have always been malevolent beyond description. The Danisil have had to learn to pacify, avoid, and destroy these dangerous creatures, and so these elves have become able hunters and killers of the Fallen, especially the evil ones known colloquially as demons. The finest of the hunters are the Dan’doral, the hunter-scholars of the Danisil.
The tradition of the Dan’doral developed thousands of years ago as the Danisil’s ancestors learned to combat the demons that haunted their rainforest home. Fighting demons was more than just a measure of strength at arms, as these creatures were cunning and powerful foes that often laughed at mundane blades and arrows. A number of the Danisil’s foremost academics turned their research toward understanding these foes and uncovering how to defeat them. A few even took to the field against the demons, putting their theories into practice.
Over centuries, the most successful of these scholars took on students, passing down their knowledge. Eventually, every village or town would have several hunter-scholars, each responsible for researching and understanding the spirits around them. And should an evil spirt turn up, they were the ones to hunt them down.

Rite of Passage

Most of the cultures of Eredane have rites marking the passage from child to adult, but the Spirit Walk of the Danisil is one of the most dangerous of these customs. When the adults of a village believe a particular youth is ready, the eldest blood relative of the initiate gives them a single boa-bil seed and a sepi fighting knife. The youth quietly leaves the village early the next morning, without supplies and armed only with their new blade.
The youth travels into the Arunath Mountains, often many days journey from their home village, living off the land and avoiding the many hazards of forest travel. They may not ask for or accept assistance from anyone they chance to meet along the way. Once they reach the mountains, they plant the seed and wait until it sprouts. When it does, they are free to return to their village, where they are received as an adult.
This trial is not as simple as it may seem. The initiate must often travel hundreds of miles through trackless rainforest, dealing with dangerous predators and fell spirits all the while. The Arunaths are known for the cruel demons who dwell there, and even experienced wildlanders avoid the mountains when they can. From start to finish, the Spirit Walk may take sixty days or more to complete. Many become lost or hurt along the way, taking even longer to make their way home. Others are never seen again. But the Danisil see this trial as a vital way for the youth of their culture to learn the forest that is both their benefactor and their bane.
For those who succeed, there is no greater proof of their majority and their right to speak in the councils. Outlanders familiar with the demands of the Spirit Walk know that the Danisil are uniquely formidable, whether they are friends or foes.

Против Тени

The Aruun is dangerous for both the Danisil and the Shadow’s minions, and thus far the Night Kings have been loath to commit their armies to invading it. However, Izrador’s machinations still sap the strength of the Danisil and prevent them from dispatching more forces to aid their cousins to the north.

Demon Minions

Many of the Aruun’s spirits are bound by the ruins of Ibon-sul and would do anything to escape. Though loath to serve any master, some have made vile pacts with Izrador in exchange for promises of freedom once his powers are fully restored. These divine assurances have set many rainforest spirits to hunting elves, where once they were more concerned with fighting their own kind. These beings now eagerly hunt Danisil, and unlike in the north, this war is one with no front. The enemy is everywhere and anywhere. They know the forest as well as the elves do, and they can possess many of the forest’s plants, animals, and even weak-willed elves, using them to ambush and track their prey. The constant vigilance and combat readiness demanded by this life of war is beginning to take its toll on the tribes of the Danisil. Even their best hunter-scholars are being taken down by increasingly daring, packlike bands of foul spirits.

Eridon

Eridon is one of the most skilled potion makers and herbalists in the Aruun. Her mixtures are valued across Erethor, and she has been summoned to Caradul many times to consult with the Witch Queen. Eridon is more than eight hundred years old, but her own elixirs have kept her looking significantly younger. The woman lives alone in her small treetop workshop, several miles from the nearest village. Her family often expresses concern for her safety, but she is unworried. There are rumors that she has bound several powerful spirits and even a demon to her service, and that they afford her all the protection she needs.

Yihil

Yihil achieved the status of master Whisper Adept while little more than a child, and they spend more time communing with the Whisper than they do talking with members of their own tribe. They often spend weeks at a time alone in the rainforest, and it is said they carry on an almost continual consultation with Aradil through their connections to the Whisper. They are ever wary of the movements of Izrador’s minions, spying on them through the Whispering Wood. Their reports to the Danisil warriors are vital to the warriors’ ability to anticipate the fallen god’s forces. Yihil is young and indeed looks very youthful, but they have abilities and wisdom beyond their years.

Места и особенности

These are a few prominent locations in the Aruun, both those vital to the continued existence of the Danisil and their greatest threat.

The Great Archive of Zarzibal

Though all of the Danisil villages have their own libraries, Zarzibal is famed throughout the lands of the elves, even if almost nobody knows how to find it. The village of Zarzibal is hidden deep in the heart of the forest, with subtle wards that can even confuse and redirect the supernatural beings that attempt to locate it. It is constructed in the boughs of a truly ancient boa-bil grove that rises from the center of a slow-moving stream, and instead of a single platform, the villagers have grown a single globe in the center of the trees large enough to hold ten floors inside.
Within, the several-score inhabitants of Zarzibal continue a lifelong work. They maintain a collected library of all of the research and history of the Danisil people. This is intended to be the ultimate safeguard against their foes, to ensure that even in the event of some cataclysm, their people’s knowledge will not be lost. As with all Danisil books, the Great Archive’s works are all recorded on tomes of laminated linen, making them much more durable than any type of paper. Secrecy is the greatest guardian of Zarzibal. Only several dozen outsiders know how to find it, and each is given a pendant enchanted with a subtle spell. Should the wearer of a pendant ever try to tell another being where Zarzibal is, the enchantment will quickly unravel the knowledge from their mind, and removing the pendant does the same thing.
However, the scholars of Zarzibal are not insular recluses. Each year, several venture from Zarzibal to visit as many Danisil villages as possible. There they ask permission (which is nearly always granted) to painstakingly copy each book in the village’s library by hand. This may take years, but once they are finished, the scholars bear their treasures back to Zarzibal, and the Great Archive grows a little bit larger.

Ibon-Sul

There are places in Erethor where even the most stalwart wildlander fears to go. Places where natural magics born in the dawn of the world still haunt the land, and spirits of vile intent stalk the rainforest. Strange beings have existed there, trapped and hungry for vengeance, since the time of the gods. The ruin of Ibon-sul is the largest and worst of such places.
The Scribe Archives make just one mention of Ibonsul, and this is only a vague note on an ancient map of southern Erethor. The map dates from the Time of Years before the First Age and indicates only that the ruins of Ibon-sul are thought to lie in the trackless wetlands south of the Arunath Mountains. If some of the Danisil’s oldest books contain mentions of this land, it is not something they share with others.
Some stories call the site the Demon Ruins, and others name it the Ialorn or “Sunken Place.” Ibon-sul was once a great city of the elthedar but was destroyed in the cataclysm of the Sundering. It is now a vast ruin, half-buried in the stagnant water and mud of a forbidding swamp. Huge blocks of stone protrude from thick, creeping vegetation. Massive walls stand broken, and enormous towers lie toppled over one another. Oily water surrounds everything. Explorers would find the tumble confusing and impossible to navigate without the aid of magic. The ruins cover perhaps a dozen square miles, and near the center, a large hill rises above the surrounding swamp. The hill is covered with the ruins of an enormous temple beneath which many rooms, passages, and chambers contain untold mysteries and relics of the Silent Ones.
The ruins themselves are as deadly as their residents. Their antiquity makes them prone to cave-ins and sudden collapses. They contain quicksand-like bogs and deep waters full of entangling vegetation. They swarm with poisonous insects and large predators. And there are worse things stalking the ruins of Ibon-sul: things that give the place its palpable feel of dread and spawn the terrifying legends told about the city.
Thousands of years before the Sundering, the clerics of Ibon-sul created a portal to an abyssal realm. They called forth from it fell demons and devils that they then bound and studied. When the Sundering came and the city crumbled, those beings were released, and through the failing portal ventured even more powerful, more dangerous demon lords. Infuriated by the arrogance of Ibon-sul’s clerics, the fiends set upon the people of the city, devouring their bodies and their souls. The outsiders subsequently discovered that they could not return to their infernal realms, and that the glyphs throughout the shattered city kept them from leaving the rainforest. The more powerful the demon, the less distance it could travel from the ruins of Ibon-sul, a fortunate thing for the world of Aryth. Instead of rampaging and laying waste to the world, they turned on one another. A terrible battle raged, further destroying the city and scarring the Aruun with corrupt magic. This demonic civil war raged throughout the Aruun for a thousand years and more. At first, the demons waged their battles in their natural demonic forms, unleashing terrible magical forces. As more of them saw their physical bodies destroyed and became formless spirits, the war became more subtle, and many of the possessed plants, animals, and other residents of the rainforest became the demons’ pawns in an eternal struggle for dominance.
Most of these warring demons long ago scattered throughout the Aruun, finding lonely and hidden places to dwell: old ruins, fetid swamps, dank caves, and the like. Several powerful entities still claim the ruins of Ibon-sul as their home, and any explorers foolish enough to enter the ruin, if not attacked and killed outright, will certainly become pawns in the demon war.
If the glyphs that bind the spirits are ever dispelled or destroyed, the spirits will be free to roam the world and slaughter at will. This would spell doom and, if not the end for all life on Eredane, something very close to hell on Aryth.