Crystalline Forest

Once a flourishing forest, the Crystalline Forest is now an otherworldly spectacle transformed by the cataclysmic influence of the Shining Sea. While other groves nearby were incinerated or shattered by the Sundering , the Crystalline Forest alone survived—yet not in any natural sense. Its trees have twisted and spiraled into crystalline shapes, their branches contorting upwards like gnarled, jagged arms, encased in translucent crystal that reflects the light with an eerie, prismatic glow. Leaves have long since vanished, replaced by fragile shards that hum faintly when the wind stirs, creating an unsettling chorus in the otherwise silent grove.

The forest’s transformation has twisted more than just its trees. Strange creatures, mutated and born of the god shard’s powerful energies, now haunt its crystalline paths. Shardling, small elemental creatures born from the splinters of god shard, flit through the forest like darting shadows, their jagged forms barely visible as they move between twisted branches. These shardlings are as unpredictable as they are dangerous, often fusing with nearby materials to transform or split, their behavior influenced by the strange tides of magic that pulse within the grove.

Ancient things that once lived within the grove have also changed. Spirit creatures, remnants of the forest's original life, have become spectral and fractured, caught between life and crystal. They linger in the shadows, visible only as faint glimmers of color and shape, bound to the crystalline corruption that overtook their home. These beings, like everything else in the grove, are hostile to outsiders, driven by a blend of instinct and the strange force that governs all Shardtouched creatures within.