White Forests

Towering Watcher by Naelin

Scattered across the many islands of the Haan Archipelago, small patches of land make a clear divide in the terrain: Lush colorful forests and grasslands suddenly lose colour, giving place to an entirely white landscape.
While the reason behind this phenomenon is debated, it is certainly related to an inability for coloured plants to grow in the soil of the area: All attempts to do so have failed, and even planting fully grown green plants into a white forest's soil caused the almost immediate death of the plant.
Among the white forests, the Chalk Expanse is the biggest, most impressive and most famous.
Located in the north half of the island of Karte, it spans around 32000 square kilometres of massive white trees, fog and waterfalls in a massive, humid, dense terrain.

Life in a white forest

While flowers and fruits still can (and do) have vibrant colours, all of the plant species that grow in these areas have trunks, stems and leaves that are bright white, generally fading into a pale lilac on the most "colourful" areas or when the white woodlands are appreciated from a distance.
Fungi are not affected by the terrain, and so they give scattered specs of colour to the white forests, though some of them have adapted to be white as camouflage in the bigger formations.
Lots of creatures, especially those originated in the Chalk Expanse, have adapted to these forests by becoming completely white or learning other tricks to disappear among the monochrome plants.

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Fauna

Hirschmall by Naelin

Most of the so-called "white fauna" originated in the Chalk Expanse, and many moved on to inhabit other environments.
Most well known is the case of the hirschmall, which originated probably in one of the western islands but has moved on to inhabit most of the archipelago.

Herald's Gnaw by Naelín

Another prime example is the herald's gnaw, a species of gnaw that inhabits solely white forests and snowy areas, and gets its name for its wide use as a symbol in flags and shields, such as in the Kingdom of Merthiorn.
The Licern, originated in the white forests of Thaur island, has been long since domesticated by the societarian and spread across most settlements on the west side of the archipelago.

Flora

The flora of the white forests has grown diverse and successful.
Due to the scarcity of the white forest areas and the extreme difficulty to grow these plants on normal soil, no white plants have been domesticated by societarians, though many of them are harvested in the wild for food, medicines or to make perfumes.

Towering Watcher by Naelin

The most famous of white forest plants is the towering watcher, the biggest tree in the entire archipelago which grows only in the Chalk Expanse in Karte.
They can reach 140 meters high and have a 10 meters wide trunk. Their delicious fruits and their wood is harvested from the ground, but they are never cut down.
Other popular white plants are the dream of rocks and the wind descent, the first being a creeping plant growing in the rockier areas, the second a vine with long hanging stems that grow lots of small light blue flowers that produce a delicious, fresh aroma.