Elthia - Vaiengaard

The Alors say that Vaiengaard’s boughs strangle light from the air and give it to the dark ones as ransom for our lives. Their sermons tell how she chokes crops to dissuade gluttony and her frequent rains damp our clothes cloths to cool our wrath. As for if she’s benevolent, I can’t say; at least within the brambles and woods of the great forest those who hunt the simple folk are quiet.   Some remember stories of our past—before they came. Before we mortals and lucent fey were torn from our demesne (de-MAIN) and scattered to the winds of Elthia. On a rare occasion a haggard drifter used to brave Vaiengaard’s borders. Some would entrust fragments of our past. Of our forefathers’ birthright of arcane mysteries, wonders of artifice, and sprawling empire, of the halcyon days of yore. Some would dare not speak at all. Such wealth and awe as that is forbidden by our current state. Even a treat of whimsy—a mere moment—to entertain such fantasies is solen by the biggest fact of our lot: we are the hunted. Precious few now endure to carry the embers of hope. Most merely pray that the claws and teeth of unspeakable horror only meet the flesh of their neighbors. Brothers turn on brothers. The spiteful and cruel muddle air o’er their murky mugs with mutinous murmurs and heap condemnation upon supposed witches, magicians, and turncoats. Flame and axe mete false equity and the diminished fools retreat behind their fallacious justice just to steal a moment of security from the jaws of submission.   I see what they do not. I for one have seen the dark ones bleed I’ve seen the ruins of once great keeps beneath the forest’s roots. Beyond the Great Forest’s canopy there are shards of sun in the sky when I endure the climb of her highest branches. The winds of Vaiengaard whisper of destiny unclaimed.  

A Tattered Bulletin at the Vestige