Valley of the Tall Trees

The Legend of the Lady of the Woods

The Valley of the Tall Trees is the main location in one of the favorite legends about the creation of Ceravya. It was the place where the showdown of one of the most important battles of the gods occurred.

The rivalry between Acheron, God of death and destruction, and Lareena, Godess of light and growth, had been fierce throughout the early days of the world, but it had mostly resulted in smaller squabbles between the two. When Acheron decided to push down the earth to create a direct path to the underworld, however, it was too much. Lareena appealed to her fellow gods and godesses and they agreed that this act of destruction took things too far. Thus, she called on her closest allies, the mistress of the wood spirits and the highest lady of the river nymphs, and the three went out to challenge their foe.

They arrived at a scene of massive destruction - a whole area of land had been pushed down already, with sheer cliffs reaching up on both sides. Enraged, Lareena confronted Acheron about his actions and declared his deeds to be against the wishes of the godly council. The other god only laughted in response, though, and told her that she was too weak to stop him.

Shocked by this lack of respect, Lareena and her two companions challenged the traitor to the right for this spot, and an epic fight ensued. Acheron was one of the most powerful gods and for a while it seemed like he would keep the upper hand. The wood spirit noticed his one weakness, though, and bravely sacrificed herself to create a wooden cage to imprison him in. With this dedicated action, Lareena was able to push him in and lock his soul inside the cage, rendering him powerless.

Still, the bare valley remained, as well as the indentation in the ground, where the wood spirit had fallen. To honor her sacrifice, the godess used her powers of growth to create a forest from the fallen body of the lady of the woods - the densest one that could ever be found on this world - and the nymph created a new spring in the mountains that flowed down to fill her deathbed with bright and clear water. And that was how the Valley of the Tall Trees came to be...

Geography

The Valley of the Tall Trees seems like a wondrous location at first glance. While it gently slopes down from the north, both the east and west are sheer cliffs of brownish-grey stone that make the valley almost inaccessible from these directions. These walls are canyon-like, while the valley itself is too wide to give it that description overall. The valley itself is filled by dense forest that is the heart of this ecosystem. The Corrya river runs through from the mountain range in the north to the sea in the south, and pools into a great clear lake in the middle of the valley, where it is joined by a smaller side river coming in as huge waterfall from the east.

Ecosystem

Within the valley, a dense forest of multiple layers of trees and underbrush has taken root, which could be called a jungle, even though the climate in the valley is more moderate than one would expect for this ecosystem. This growth is clearly supported by the large river and lake.

The forest is well populated by a diverse range of animals of all sizes, which live in the underbrush, the trees or the river and lake. Naturally, they barely restrict the plant growth on the different layers, but plentiful years for herbivores sometimes lead to small clearings in the jungle.

History

When the elves first arrived in Ceravya, they split up into three distinct groups with slightly different understandings of their new home. Each group chose a different area to settle in, and the one that later became known as the wood elves choose the forest within the valley as their domain.

Since then, humans have tried twice to claim part of this jungle as their own, but each time the forest thwarted their attempts with lack of reachable resources and undescribable dangers. The wood elves watched both approaches, but never interfered on either side...

Type

Valley