The Forest Kingdoms of Hasrane
Nature is chaos, chaos is nature, nature is the world
Structure
The Forest Kingdoms of Hasrane are divided into 5 kingdoms, each ruled by lords and ladies of the forest. They all are unique but united, and all answer to the rulers from the Eternal Oak, High King Trakkos the Twice Born and Lydria the Maiden of Ira. They rule as king and queen of the forest, and from them they help lead the Wood Elven people to the future and to help them preserve their great forest.
Culture
Wild and free are apt descriptors of the Wood Elves. They are creatures of immense emotion, and their long lives lead them to explore their surroundings and their place in nature and the world as a whole. However they are also a people of immense suspicion and caution, as they have learned that the world outside of their forest homes has no care for the natural order of the world. However one would be very naive and just plain stupid to believe that just because they like nature that they are pacifists and kind loving souls. They are absolutely ruthless killers, and have at times gone on hunts against those outside their magical forest to honor their god Khonir. They will string your insides up onto their bloody stones and show them to all who may have once known and loved you if you even dare attempt to harm their home in anyway. Countless expeditions by humans, dwarves, demonic cultists, beasts, and many more have been slaughtered wholesale by these glade hidden warriors.
This ruthless and sometimes cold demeanor is a result of their beliefs inspired by their chief deities that nature is chaotic. If an animal is too weak to preserve itself, then it simply dies out. Due to this the Hasrani are always trained and ready to prove their willingness and ability to survive, and it is considered a rite of passage for young elves to prove that they can survive on their own for a time to show that they are proper Hasrane. However due to the magical nature of their forest, they haven't hunted all other animals out of existence, rather they understand that while nature is chaotic it does have a balance in the chaos, and one that is best to flow with rather than try and do what one wishes. So they live not just at peace with nature, but as very much just another part of the ecosystem of the Great Dale Woods. "Harmony through chaos, and chaos through harmony" is a popular phrase among the Hasrani.
When it is said that the Hasrani are capable of extreme emotions, it is not an understatement. They are unburdened by the civility and rigid social norms of their Iadin kin, but at the same time are also not obsessed with the cruelty and suffering like the Drow are. They are free to be their own people, and due to this Wood Elves are capable of both extreme maliciousness and unconceivable compassion. They are neither good nor evil, they simply exist as they do. Though because of this wild and free nature, it also shapes how the Wood Elves live their daily lives. For one, romantic relationships are far more open among the Hasrani then the Iadins, as they do not see the point of jealously trying to possess one partner and instead believe one should be free to wander as they like. This is also a point of scorn for the High Elves as they look down on the Wood Elves as "pleasure obsessed primitives. It is also for this reaosn that most Wood Elves do not have last names.
Another consequence of this wild nature is the wanderlust it inspires. Many young (or at least young according to Elven standards) Hasrane will be overcome by feelings of wanderlust and excitement, and as such will begin wandering around the Forest Kingdoms. However, this almost always leads to them traveling out into the outside world. It should be remembered that the Hasrani do not fear the outside world, they are simply just cautious in getting involved with it unless it can directly affect them. Due to this, it is actually not too uncommon to find wandering Wood Elf adventures living out hundreds of years out in the kingdoms around Nilush, drinking and partying and fighting all manner of things before eventually coming back home and being welcomed with open arms. This is simply just seen as a stage in many of their lives, where they can better understand how things work within the wider world and their place within it.
Wood Elves are a resourceful people, despite what their looks may show. They do not wear much in the way of heavy armor save for mainly leathers and strange magic leaves they can wear like scale mail, and even tree wood as strong as iron if the stories are to be believed. This is because they favor the bow as their chief weapon, and prefer to remain incredibly mobile rather then slowly and clumsily march in formations to the enemy. If you have see a Hasrane archer, then it is too late, as about a dozen others will be all around you by then. They are also known for their strange and powerful druidic magics, as while they may not be as gifted in the ways of arcane arts like their High Elven or Moon Elven kin, they prefer wisdom far more than intelligence. Practical knowledge will beat out the scholarly teachings of some magic academy any day. With he living tree folk that live amongst their kind, they actually are one of the only societies that do not have much need for a magical academy, as the fey creatures and tree-kin hep teach their young how to harness and control the magic of nature itself. These tree-kin are also said to posses a mere fragment of dead Wood Elf souls in them, for the Wood Elves have at times copied fragments of their souls upon death into magical gems they can have these trees wear, so that a tiny fraction of their wisdom and guidance can be preserved as timelessly as the Wood Elves are themselves.
History
Long ago in Elven History, the world would be freed of demons, and soon many would migrate in the Great Exist. One such group was the group called the Hasrane. The Hasrani were elves that had lived in nomadic groups around forests on Iadith, who had formed a sort of hunting nomadic society. It is said that suddenly after the demons had all been banished, they heard some strange calling, almost like a beautiful Sylvain song. Many would feel a strange pull to this song, and would be some of the first to leave in the Great Exit, braving the travels across the continent of Nilush. They braved Giants and tribes of pre-civilized mortal races such as humans and orcs, and eventually would come across moving through what would become Vebastonne the source of the call. A strange forest that would become known as the Great Dale Woods. This wood was one where as the Hasrani came to find is where the Wyld Realm has bled into the Mortal Realm. This has led to the forest to become bathed in the Fey energies of the Wyld Realm and due to this, the Hasrani began to worship the forest, for at the center of all the fey energies leaking in was a super massive tree known as the "Tel' Nar Amne", or The Eternal Oak, which they believe had grown roots so deep they spread across the entire planet. This tree was seen as a manifestation of the Elven Goddess of Nature and the Mother of the Elves Ira. Due to this, the Wood Elves would be born as devout followers of the elven goddess, and her husband Khonir, the God of the Hunt.
History becomes garbled after this point, becomes time is an ever changing thing within the Great Dale Woods. A day can become years, while in another instance a day can pass within minutes, and sometimes it can do both at once. Due to this the time spent in the Great Dale Woods doesn't entirely match up with the history of the rest of the world. What is known is at this time, great hordes of Garuuk Blood will invade the forest, seeking to destroy and ruin the forest simply to raise shrines in the names of their dark gods. Though the Wood Elves were skilled warriors, they were scattered and easily overwhelmed by the sheer sizes of these herds being led by a vile Garuuk under the name of Keltraz Gorefang. He would lead the hordes in mass slaughter against the Wood Elves, and many feared the end of their people and the desecration of the Eternal Oak, when suddenly from the Eternal Oak, a mighty warrior would show himself. He was said to have been a nameless Wood Elven warrior who wandered into the Eternal Oak hoping to die under its roots, when he would be transformed into Trakkos the Twice Born. He would unite the scattered tribes and in one grand push, killed Keltraz and caused the few Garuuk to survive the slaughter to scatter. After the fight, Trakkos would ask for one maiden to accompany him to the Eternal Oak, and after this event, this one maiden was transformed into Lydria the Maiden of Ira. The two would rule as High King and Queen, and would separate the realm into kingdoms based on the areas of the Great Dale Woods, this being: the Kingdom of the Faint, The Kingdom of the Falling Stars, The Kingdom of the Everpath, the Kingdom of the Oak, and The Kingdom of the Syleian. This would unify the Wood Elves, yet let them still be distinct as such was the wild nature of the Wood Elves.
After this, history played out largely under the shadows of the tress. Outsiders would always seek to invade the land to salvage the valuable resources and treasures hidden deep in the forest, but none would succeed. However a great orc invasion, around the same time as the War of Green, would invade and while they were stopped from invading further would ravage an entire canopy of trees and forever taint the land with their presence. On top of this a strange event that began at about the time of the fall of the Vunao Kingdom and the formation of the Deadlands, and recently has become more pronounced is known to the Wood Elves as the Adoe Ath nevae, or Time of Darkness. This was a time in where many of the roots of the Eternal Oak began to wither and become unable to be used to travel the world, and some sort of great darkness had been responsible for the rotting roots. This Great Darkness is said to lie at the heart of the world, and is not natural to the pure world of Ira's Creation. It is because of this that now the Wood Elves have spiked in their activity, seeking to halt this great evil corrupting the world and driving the magics of the world out of balance, lest the dreaded prophecy of the "Aes uneli" or End of Days come true, and the entire world be destroyed.
Demography and Population
Wood Elves are the primary population of the kingdom, if one doesn't count the countless sprites, fairies, tree-folk, dryads, and other such fey like creatures as "citizens" of the kingdoms.
Territories
The Great Dale Woods is the extent of their territory, however its suspected that they have also spread into the Wyld Realm as well. If it can be believed, there are also small outposts and gatherings of Wood Elves in magical forests across the world, where they typically mark their borders with strange stone pillars known as Syola Stones. They are marked with their strange symbols as a warning to any who would dare encroach on their territory. They are sometimes after an invading force is repelled, string the broken bodies, and sometimes just assortments of their body parts, on these stones to scare others away.
Religion
The Wood Elves freely worship the elven pantheon, however the two deities they worship above all others are Ira, Goddess of Nature and Mother of Elves, and Khonir, the God of the Hunt. They provide both shelter for the Wood Elves under the trees of the Great Dale Woods, and the skill to hunt game and even their enemies. However due to this, the other Elven gods and goddess of the pantheon are less worshipped, only really worshipped when needed, such as only really worshipping Yulla when casting magic of a non fey or nature method, or Lindur only when in need of companionship or fertility. Due to this, many of the Elves of Iadith look down upon them as savage and wild, and while in some regard they are more "wild" then their Iadin cousins, the Wood Elves simply see themselves as far more devoted to their 2 gods then the Iadins could ever hope to be with their large pantheon.
Foreign Relations
Other Elven people tend to look at the Wood Elves and their kingdoms with a mix of superiority and scorn. For they view their forest brethren as primitive and savage, no matter how untrue that might be. Most other nations view Wood Elves as a minor threat, but one to avoid largely for the most part as simply trying to purge their lands is not only pointless but the cost would be too great. The Wood Elves simply do not care for the outside world, save for if foreign armies seek to bring destruction to the Dale.
"Beautiful and Terrible!"
Type
Geopolitical, Kingdom
Capital
Alternative Names
The Forest Kingdoms, The Hasarane Kingdom
Demonym
Wood elves typically refer to themselves as "Hasrane/Hasrani"
Leader
Government System
Monarchy, Absolute
Power Structure
Feudal state
Official Languages
Neighboring Nations
Notable Members
Related Species
