Autumn Kingdom
To the South lies the Autumn Kingdom, the smallest and most mysterious of the Four Kingdoms. Dwarfed by the desert that lies below it and the southern curve of the Spring Rim that looms, rocky and treacherous, above it. The shade of hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of trees help to keep the cities of the Autumn Kingdom in shadow.
Or perhaps it is something else that keeps the fourth and final kingdom such an unknown entity.
People do enter the forest, this is known. The villages on the Spring side of the Spring Rim report skilled mountain climbers that emerge from the high cliffs of the Autumn side. And shipments of lumber arrive regularly to ports in every kingdom. Yet, the Cliffs of Willow Rain leave the Autumn Kingdom inaccessible by boat. The Spring Rim on that border is the most difficult section to traverse. And the traders who bring wood of all sorts to markets on the other side of the world, well. They never seem to be from Autumn. Or to be willing to divulge where they got the wood from.
And has anybody actually seen someone who went in... come out again?
What we know about Autumn, well. It is largely rumor. Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody from the Autumn Kingdom. Some say their monarch has lived and ruled for thousands of years. Some say that cutting down a tree before its time is punishable by death. Some say that only people below a certain height are permitted to leave the nation or that anyone who enters must stay forever. Some say to never eat Autumnal berries or that their aunt’s second cousin was lost to the trees. The peoples of the Autumn Kingdom are insular and loving, they are open-armed but vicious, they are knowledgeable and they are ignorant, they are tolerant and they are bigoted, they are complex underground civilizations and they are just a bunch of elves squatting amongst the trees.
Has anybody ever returned from the trees? They whisper. And their eyes turn to the south.
So, the Autumn Kingdom is secretive. And that is that.
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