Mei'laria, the Ancestor Grove

"We all come from nature... some simply are more close to it than others."

--Shelana Naelen, the Crystal Sibyl, in 445 AB.

After the fall of Erinion, the Erini elves were beaten and bloodied from centuries of war and death, as well as the loss of the greatest civilizaiton the world may ever know. For a time they mourned, and over the next few centuries some decided that elves should return to their old home in the Isles of Erinion and rebuild, in monument to their forgotten glory. Others decided that Jhar'gorn and Erinion were lessons harshly taught, knew not to ignore the warning twice. They returned to nature, instead of attempting greater and greater glories, these elves, later known as the Forest Elves found beauty in the pathless roads and creaking oaks of nature.
It would not last. The Feast of Hell expanded westward in 356 AB, ravaging the country, and only sparse warnings from horseback messengers could prepare those farther from the hordes of living dead. However, the vast majority of elves did not come to this forest to forget the lesson they had learnt. Jhar'gorn was utterly destroyed when the elves were divided between conquering and rising above nature and living in harmony with it. Erinion was decimated when they rose too high and knew too much, making powers beyond jealous. They would not flee to civilization to whether the world, they would remain.
Tens of thousands of reanimated corpses, brought back from the soil after centuries or seconds of rest alike, descended upon these elves, tearing them with tooth and nail to pieces to feed and multiply in number and size. Some resisted, but many saw the futility of fighting such a darkness, and waited for their end atop a grassy hill which overlooked their forested home.
It was said that, millennia ago, the elves of Er'laria would transform into nature upon death. This is obviously not the case, as one can deduce by the corpse of any elf in the gutter of the southern cities, but the fable continues nonetheless. The Feast massacred these Elves, who remained in the nature that birthed them so long ago, and moved on, continuing to repeat the same massacre in every town northward until they had ruined every semblance of civilization in the Bay of Evandyr.
The forest heard the familiar cries of their children. Left dead upon the earth were hundreds of elves, the last loyal to the natural world and not to it's subjugation. As the sun rose that morn, the cries of anguish were silenced, different cries echoed forth in the Ancestor Grove, cries of newborn babes, and creaking of ancient trees.

If you listen and breathe, you might hear them. In the sunrise birdsong. In the rain. In the songs of whispers and shadows.

Location under

Voth's Reach Woods