The Sylvan Valley

The Sylvan Valley is a dense, forested valley surrounding the Sylvan River. The river itself starts at the base of the Border Range and flows north until it meets the sea.
The northern part of the Sylvan Valley is located in the territory of Illium where its forests have been aggressively thinned by human colonists for wood and farmland. As the valley flows south into the wood elves' realm it remains more untouched. Its forests are home to wonders, as sacred to the Old Faith of the elves as they are profitable for human traders. Materials such as sylvanbark and dryad are powerful and rare, and even generic gum trees and oaks breed harder, denser wood than most other regions of the world. This has made the Sylvan Valley a gold mine for Illium's lumber trade, where raw woods are shipped downriver to Marmella where they are processed into luxury furniture, ship parts, tools, weapons and many other items.
The Sylvan Valley has been the staging ground for the majority of the conflict between Illium and the wood elves. Rangers patrol the borders on both sides, and whilst skirmishes are rare they can be deadly. Many of these rangers also facilitate trade and communication between the two hostile territories. Over the three-hundred years Illium's human settlers have bristled against the wood elves to their south there have likewise been unions between the two, resulting in communities of half-elves. They have grown up deep in the forests, adjacent to but apart from both humans and elves.