Wyldewood Magic

Wyldewood Magic is one of our peoples' greatest wonders, capable of creating truly incredible things that can surpass most traditional forms of material, it's no surprise that it's both the greatest Elven secret, and our most sought after commodity.

— Lady Tialha

Wyldewood Magic is an ancient elven magical process revolving around the nurturing of trees with Nature Magic to create truly incredible, unique materials. The secrets of Wyldewood Magic are closely guarded by the Elven factions and seldom are outsiders even allowed to acquire Wyldewood products such as Silverel, let alone see the growth process itself.

History of Wyldewood Magic

The Era of the Hysilens

It's widely believed that the art of Wyldewood Magic was learned by the elves from the Hysilens, and while this can't be confirmed without a doubt, there are a few ruins across Nezrin that hint at the Hysilens growing resources on trees which would corroborate such an idea. Either way, it is well known that the Elves first began to use Wyldewood Magic in the later years of the era of the Hysilens, beginning their long, rich traditions with regards to the magic.

Early History

Elven secrecy about Wyldewood Magic makes knowledge about it... rather difficult to come by, at the best of times, but it's well known enough that the elves began using and developing Wyldewood materials with the magical processes of this magic from an early point in their societies and famously began to wield these materials during the Great Demonic War, many of the products of the Wyldewood process rising to legendary fame during this conflict as their potential became apparent for all to see.

Modern History

Many attempts have been made by non-elves to capture lightning in a bottle so to speak, and copy the successes of the process employed by Wyldewood Magic, but none of them have been successful. The elves have become slightly more open about trading the Wyldewood materials since the demonic war's conclusion, but they remain tight lipped about the techniques involved in the process and fiercely defend the sites needed for the process from intrusion for any reason.

Elven Magic

The idea of Wyldewood Magic is one that has been understood by most societies - manipulating special trees with magic to extract materials, mix them with Aether and the bark of the tree, and create an end product - but the specifics of how Wyldewood Magic achieves these ideas and creates potent results is a part that has eluded magical minds for as long as knowledge of the magic has existed.
In many ways, the magic is extremely synonymous with the elves, who use it and the Wyldewood Trees involved in its use, for a variety of things; the process itself is just one of many use-cases the elves have for Wyldewood, they also use the wood itself for building projects, vehicles, furniture and everything else; by all metrics, the Wyldewood Process and its wondrous trees are a key lifeblood of elven societies all across the world.
As such, it isn't too difficult to see why they're so loathe to reveal anything about it to outsiders; even the sale of the actual materials is heavily monitored and controlled by elven realms.

Uses of Wyldewood Magic

Wyldewood Magic is more involved with the process than its actual uses, but there is a particularly famous product of the process which is denoted below in addition to a rundown of the process itself.

Wyldewood Tree by Olga Permiakova

The Wyldewood Process

Wyldewood Magic is a very incremental form of magic, based upon planting a special tree in a specific location around a metal ore vein, and it is generally broken up into several very critical steps, none of which can be skipped or done half-heartedly.
The most important part of the process for the Elves is finding an appropriate metal ore vein; the vein needs to be either surface-facing or not too deep - and deeper veins absolutely require the use of Geomancers to manipulate the land and create a safe spot for the second step. Once such conditions are met, a Wyldewood Sapling - specifically prepared by a Druid to make the process possible - is planted and tended to by the Elven grove warden in charge of the area's Wyldewood Processes.
This tree has to be planted very precisely, requiring its location to be close to the vein, yet in a position that collects Aether regularly to power the tree's powerful magics. Additionally, structures are always build around these trees to form great elven temples, the nascent powers of which further increase the capabilities of the trees themselves. At this stage, the tree needs time to grow, and even with Nature Magic to aid in that process it takes on average half a year to a full year for a wyldewood tree to reach maturity.
Once the tree is grown, however, it just requires care and nurturing from the grove warden - known in elven society as an Arbormancer, who knows nature magic and earth magic alike and can fulfil the other necessary roles as a result - to guide its roots towards the vein, effectively tethering its magical existence to the vein of ore. At this point, the tree is able to draw forth nodules of ore and seemingly process it with its natural aether and magic, growing branches infused with these metal nodules, which serve as the basis of wyldewood metals such as Silverel noted below.
The tree is known to be quite slow at pulling up metal ore, but it's supremely efficient due to the mystical powers of its Wyldewood bark, allowing it to create these metal-infused wooden offcuts while preserving the metal ore vein far longer than traditional mining operations would. Many people surmise that the trees themselves impart unique magical effects to the bark to make up the difference to making the metal-wood more like metal than wood, but nobody knows for certain.

Silverel

Potentially the most famous material created from the Wyldewood Magic process, Silverel is a Mithril substitute created with the process. The material - like all Wyldewood Metals - is more a wooden material than a metal one, but has metal nodules imbued within it.
The properties of Silverel make it an excellent magical tool, benefitting from the actual benefits of mithril itself while gaining substantial magical conductivity due to the Manarium within it; it's generally lighter than mithril, while being marginally weaker, but has far higher magical amplification properties, which is true for all Wyldewood Metals.

Wyldewood Tree Temple by Chelsea Ware