The jungle-dwelling elves of
Southern Terrenos are believed by many scholars to be among the first of the races to walk the world in the Age of Divinity. Extremely long-lived, the
Caverillian elves have grown and adapted their culture in harmony with the natural world around them. So close is the bond between an
Elf and their
genehed, or land of birth, that should the land falter or grow fallow, so too will the elf suffer. This unique symbiosis extends to the unique methods of agriculture employed by the Caverillians.
Caverillian Livestock
While in the more temperate lands to the south of the jungles of Terrenos the wood elves are known to farm a large, ox-like beast known as
taurechs, there are few large domesticated beasts that can thrive in the perpetual twilight of the jungle floor within the lands of Feyr Caverill.
Panthren are the most well known of the beasts employed by the elves; these enormous six-legged felines are natural climbers, able to scale the trunks of the jungle with ease, as well as leap from tree to tree. Panthren are employed by elves in a similar manner to horses in the northern lands, with a similar degree of speciation, from the heavily built, slower dray panthren to the smaller and lithe, fast moving racing panthren. Elven soldiers are known top ride into battle on
rhedeg, medium built panthren that are trained to be fierce combatants in their own right.
Panthren meat is not greatly palatable though, and so the Caverillian elves have domesticated a number of varieties of
Araph. Araph are slow moving, six-limbed climbing herbivores who feed on lichens and leaves. Araph are farmed for meat, milk, and pelts and araph meat forms a staple of Caverillian diet. Araphs spend their entire lives on the trunk, never venturing down to the jungle floor, and elven araph farms consist of large networks of foraging trees linked with ropes and bridges where
arherds tend to their flocks.
Further down, on the jungle floor, a native type of fowl called
caswar is farmed for eggs and meat. Caswar are flightless ground foragers, and are almost sightless, relying on a type of tremor sense to seek out small insects as prey.
Of note are the elves who farm Cawgryfn - giant moths native to the jungle of Feyr Caverill. Cawgryfn are treated with considerable reverence by the elves of Feyr Caverill, in particular the night elves, who see them as holy animals of Saiorsenine, the elven moon goddess. Mothmeat is reviled among the Caverillian elves and the giant beasts are never farmed for meat. Instead, Cawgryfn cocoons are harvested for the production of elven silk, prized for its richness and durability. Cawgryfn depend on a specific species of tree to feed and grow, and these mothbract trees are cultivated in large, sheltered groves for the purpose of farming the massive beasts.
The Cawgryfn, as they mature, progress through a series of instars, producing a larval coccoon with each new molt that is harvested for differing grades of silk. The final instar and pupation gives rise to the finest grade of silk in the largest quantity.
Adult Cawgryfn are almost always turned over to the Cymridos Ahn Fen, or the Order of Blessed Night. This chivalric and militant order harken from the earliest days of Elven history. Comprised exclusively of night elves, the Cymridos fervently believe that the Cawgryfn are the reborn souls of their brothers and sisters who have been lost on battle. The Cymridos are trained to ride the Cawgryfn into battle, descending under the cover of darkness on silent wings to sow mayhem in the enemy ranks before alighting again.
Adult Cawgryfn have a lifespan of little more than six lunar months before they pass on of old age. They are combat capable for the entirety of their adult life, with their final decline happening rapidly, usually over a course of a day or at most, two. Cymridos knights who have bonded with a Cawgryfn feel their loss keenly and usually filled with a great melancholy; for this reason, they are known amongst their people as Mournriders.
Caverillian Crop Farming
Crop farming as understood by the northern races is absent from the jungles of Feyr Caverill. The dense jungle canopy prevents all but a fraction of the light of the sun penetrating to the floor, and the elves lack the vast tracts of open land needed for
Human food crops such as wheat or corn.
Elves farm a number of epibiontic plants, however, using the vast trunks of the ancient jungle trees as substrate for these vertical crops. The most well known of these crops is Split Leaf, known to the elves as
Beraf, grown for both the leaves and the fruit. The leaves are mildly poisonous to non-elves, however. Another common Elven crop is
Elderbeard, a form of lichen that can be grown prolifically on certain species of tree and with careful tending.
Elven agriculture also draws upon a number of plants that grow in the near darkness of the jungle floor.
Jabuta trees produce a large stone fruit that grows directly from the trunk of the tree itself, and can be grown in groves or jungle orchards in and around the base of larger trees.
Surrine trees also produce a cherry-like fruit in the jungle twilight which, although somewhat unpalatable to non-elves, is highly prized among the elven peoples for both its food and medicinal uses, with the pit also being processed, dried, and crushed to be either ingested or smoked as a mild hallucinogen.
Elves also farm a variety of mushrooms in thick natural compost of the jungle floor.
