The Grave Tree
(a.k.a. The Tree of the Savannahs, the Life-Bringer)
Physical Description
Body Features
It is the youngest of the Cloud Crowns, and therefore the smallest. It is the shortest, its trunk the thinnest, its roots covering the least amount of distance. But it is still a Cloud Crown; it is massive and towering, and it is visible for leagues. It is the largest easily-identifiable thing in the region.
It also tends to have the driest top leaves simply from being in the sun so much. Even for a Cloud Crown, which spends its life protecting other life from the light, it takes a heavy beating.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
The youngest of the Cloud Crowns lives in the northeast Savannah. The land used to be a massive desert, dry and arid. Most was cracked earth but to the north there were sand wastes. It was the site of many battles during the Elemental Wars, and one in particular towards the end that left literal mounds of bodies.
This tree in its time as a ðōnulaeab was one of the youngest. It had never known a time before the zerɮudōju and had great empathy for the younger races. During the Elemental Wars, its heart broke, as did those of all other ðōnujulaeab. But it was moved to make a change.
It made the decision to change itself into a Cloud Crown, one that the other ðōnuljuaeab approved of. It felt itself begin to grow and headed to the north and east to the desert. Its head stretched ever higher, its feet ever heavier. Its wood strained to keep moving. It arrived in the desert and beheld the fallen ɮudō warriors. It walked to the centre of the carnage and planted itself there.
It wept to grow over such violence. To know what had happened here. But soon the earth and plants buried the dead and their glittering weapons and armour. For with the arrival of a Cloud Crown, clouds gathered to its branches and brought water and life to the desert. Over time, the land became fertile again, fed by the bodies of the dead. The Cloud Crown transformed a near-lifeless desert into a Savannah flush with life.
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