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Arborea

The Olympian Glades of Arborea, sometimes simplified to just Olympus or Arborea, was the Outer Plane in the Great Wheel cosmology model embodying the chaotic good alignment. A plane of joy as well as sorrow, Arborea was the home of the dreamers, a seemingly delicate sylvan realm of astounding heartiness and deep-seated enchantment. Its beauty was almost overwhelming, the landscape embodying the lovely and peaceful, and the passionate and wild, all at the same time.   Arborea was first and foremost a land of emotions, running high, deep, and far. These were not all positive emotions; Arborea was a place of powerful love and hate, where rage and joy were equally common and equally honored. Like Limbo, it could be considered the opposite of Mechanus, not in the sense that it countered rigid order with formless chaos, but in that its deep-seated feelings were the antithesis of Nirvana's mechanical logic.   Arborea was most accurately described as "boisterous", favoring melodrama as opposed to stoicism. Vibrant energy filled the plane, the air tingling with excitement and constant anticipation in the literally emotionally charged atmosphere. It was not merely a place where the emotional gathered, but a place that made those present short-tempered, passionate, and, at times, hammy. It was a larger than life realm of huge appetites that changed as quickly as the heart, where the violent moods and whims were backed by steel and the fervent affections and passions blazed bright before burning out.   Greed, envy, lust, and wrath were strong on Arborea, and emotions could be released with dangerous consequences, but that was not to say that the plane was an evil one. Arborea was as much a plane of good as it was one of chaos, disavowing the notions of those who saw chaos as destructive disharmony or a tumultuous maelstrom. Rather, the Olympian Glades were a realm of individuality and independence, a good-natured place of celebrations and strong desires where personal freedom was paramount. As strong as the vices were, charity, justice, love, and kindness were equally rampant on Arborea.   Despite their rowdy and chaotic nature, Arboreans were bound by superstitions, ancient tradition, codes of conduct, and systems of respect that no one would dare violate. All Arborea was permeated by a supernatural power of oath-binding, more concentrated in some places than others, that prevented others from going back on their word lest they suffer horrible consequences, the worst of which could include a painful death. One of Arborea's more subtle aspects was its addictive quality. The longer one stayed, the more likely one would never want to leave, and after about a month would possibly need to be dragged back home by well-meaning friends. Just because they left Arborea however, didn't mean they had escaped its pull; they would need to be confined until the intense yearning subsided and its influence had waned.   Layers   Arvandor   Main Article: Arvandor   The layer of Arvandor was sometimes referred to as Olympus. Its two realms—so vast and influential that their names became synonymous with the plane and the layer they occupied—coexisted with little conflict: Olympus, home of the Greek Pantheon, and Arvandor, domain of The Seldarine. The two domains were separated by thousands of miles of unclaimed wilderness and, due to the slight curvature of the landscape, were not visible to each other despite being located at the highest peaks of their respective lands.   Arvandor contained the great forests for which Arborea was known, towering assortments of monstrous maple, birch, oak, and other deciduous, broadleaf trees rivaling the redwoods of the Material Plane in height. The height of the trees left the forest floor relatively bereft of brush, the rolling land beneath the canopies a great open space of velvet moss and ferns. Clear glades were as common as briar patches and tangles, but paths snaked through what undergrowth existed, and even without it one could climb through the trees without touching the ground.   While not as wild as The Beastlands, Arborea still had its share of ancient groves, and would quickly grow untamed away from claimed territories. Towns were rarely needed either way, for the lush layer was almost paradoxically bountiful, far more so than most planes. Flowers bloomed and bore fruit simultaneously, and even in the wildest regions plentiful food could be found if one was clever.   The day and night cycle of mimicked that of the Material Plane, a crystal blue sky with a golden sun above the trees in the day and a white moon amongst a river of stars on the warm nights. Arvandor's unpredictable weather might manifest as sudden squalls beating the paths with heavy winds, leaving sunny arcs of warm light filtering down from above minutes after it passed. There was seemingly always the faint sound music in the distance, as often the playing of instruments as the tune of wind curling through the holes in the trees.   Arborea was also a layer of steep mountains cut by great passes, all massive enough to make those from the Prime Material Plane stare slack-jawed. What would be mountains there were hillocks in Arborea, the actual mountains larger than all but the floating earthbergs of Ysgard. The uplands were covered in snow that shined beautifully beneath the sky.   Aquallor   Main Article: Aquallor   The second layer of Arborea was also known by many names; it was Ossa to the Olympians and Aquallor to the Elves. Regardless, the layer was an endless, emerald ocean, an entirely aquatic plane that few travelers could make their way through. It was disputed whether or not the plane had any land above surface, whether in the form of scattered islands or coastlines, but even stranger was the depths.   Unlike Lunia's Silver Sea or Thalasia in Elysium, the seas of Ossa were ironically shallow for a plane of otherwise great size, no more than 3ft deep over most of the realm. The shallow seabed was occasionally broken by cavernous trenches that opened up in random places, and the lower depths of the plane were pitch-black. By traveling through the underwater chasms, one could reach the undersea domains of various sea gods. The weather changes in Aquallor were as quick as those in Arvandor, taking the form of titanic storms that wracked the surface of the mighty sea, as well as great undersea currents that threw travelers miles off course.   Mithardir   Main Article: Mithardir   Also known as Pelion, Mithardir was a fitting name for the third and deepest layer of Arborea, its name meaning white dust in the Elven language.  It was a borderless plain of fine, chalky grit, a white desert nearly devoid of all life. The particles in the air were as cold as ice and so easily mistaken for snow at first glance, though snow was also potentially present along with the sand. The desert was neither hot nor particularly cold either way, just temperate in most places, but it was extremely dry. So long as the air was still, not much of the choking grain would lift off the ground, but more often than not the incessant winds ended up grinding the bones of unprepared explorers to powder. Mithardir's dramatic weather manifested as lightning storms that regularly swept the desert, driving huge storms of dust ahead of them that could bury travelers alive.   Pelion was sometimes called 'the realm now known only for dust" and for good reason. Once upon a time, like Arborea above it, the layer was a great forest, home to beings alternately described as Giants or titan-like gods. Whatever powers once dwelt there had long since died or departed to elsewhere in the multiverse, the remains of their disintegrated domain little more than a few scattered ruins of towers and tombs peeking out from the ever-shifting sand.   The time of the ancient powers of Pelion had long since past, and the whole layer projected a sense of emptiness, like an abandoned house. Whole ages had gone by, with entire races having completely disappeared since they vanished, and even in those eras Pelion had been a land of legends and dust for untold centuries. Whoever they were, they were undoubtedly might beings with great powers of divination and access to True Words, words of power so potent that to utter them could destroy mountains, create life, and slay anything. Their realms, treasures, and ancient secrets laid hidden beneath Pelion's surface, the remnants of their once great cities consumed by the march of time, but perhaps still uncoverable by those with the foreknowledge and patience.
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