Arne'Athosia¶
"We are guardians of the tree, Open now, set your roots free." — inscription at the Shrine of Caerylas (S054)
Arne'Athosia (pronounced aR'na a'THO'SEE'a) was "the great elven Kingdom" of Athosia, the realm of the High Elves whose capital was Alyr-Emuien and whose cities included Anoth-Urulien (S054). Its forests are now "the Forbidden Forest", the corrupted heart of Etterwood east of Proturas, where the imprisoned essence of the Elder God Teneb'Vari twists everything that lives (S051, S054). In the histories it is remembered as the field where the arch-demons of the First Rift War were slain, and as a land the Draconian Empire of Pherox once pushed into (S386, S372). Also called Arne-Athosia.
Geography¶
The kingdom's heart is the Forbidden Forest, "noticeably darker" than the woods around it (S054). Alyr-Emuien, the capital, "is the HEART of the forbidden forest" and lies fifty miles south of the Shrine of Caerylas; the ruins of Anoth-Urulien stand five miles from that shrine, with the Shrine of Kae-Ferrel on the old city's outskirts (S053, S054). Lake Lienne, with its enchanted waters, lies within Anoth-Urulien (S054). Below the forest run dwarven roads from the city's Dwarven Gate to the capital's ruins and on to the kingdom of Duer'Gerrum, through an Underdark in which "a giant scourged serpent makes his home" (S054).
North of the forbidden zone the Boreal Elves of the Utinus Domae Tribe, the Sons of the Night, guard the border; "many of its warriors (allied with other Tribes) have been called south to fight the Proturans" (S052, S054). The Boreal Elves "guard the area from a safe distance" and, having learned to lead the forest's monsters, "herd them South" as a buffer against Proturas (S051, S054). Entry from Proturas is by Etterdun and the hills of Etterwood, or by a rift-crossing through a greenish fold of the Rift to a repaired Lorsythian gate in a kobold-held cave (S052, S053).
Alyr-Emuien¶
Alyr-Emuien (pronounced A'LEER em'OO'EEN) "was the capitol city of Arne'Athosia" (S054). Its ruins hold the prison of a Necruspex of Teneb'Vari, a servant "equivalent of an Ascendant, which players have no hope of taking on" (S054). In the remembered dreams of the Ascendant Inwe, "its ancient prison is failing. Corruption from the Necruspex is spreading and making nearby parts of the forest very dangerous. The prison was constructed by Kalar himself, and there is no one now who knows how or has the power to reinforce or repair it. It is only a matter of time before it collapses, although a complete collapse is unlikely for another few thousand years" (S054).
Gap
Nothing describes Alyr-Emuien as a living city, nor says when it was abandoned or whether anyone has entered its ruins since.
The Forbidden Forest¶
"When Teneb'Vari was imprisoned, her essence was split into many parts and scattered across Terrun. It corrupts everything around it, including the wardens the Boreal Elves put around the ruins to guard it. Freeing her is no easy task and so even though she can corrupt everything around, she has not yet been able to free herself" (S051). One such part lies near the Shrine of Kae-Ferrel, and "this part of the forest generates many monstrosities" (S051).
Corruption in the forbidden zone follows stages (S052, S054). A creature first becomes a Dark Feeder, with "insatiable hunger", avoiding the light; then a Dark Stalker, "black ooze drip[ping] from broken flesh in places", hunting in packs; then a Dark Raver, "in constant pain", which "only blood and death can satiate"; and at death a Dark Scourge, an undead "under the direct control of the spirit of Teneb'Vari" that "develops into a cunning, ruthless and absolutely evil minion". The forest's Scourged include giant toads, giant stags, treants, wolves, bears, snakes, spiders, gorillas, panthers, kobolds, elk, vampire bats and ravens, and Boreal Elves themselves; Blackroot Vines hold and consume the flesh of those who tread on them, and will-o-wisps with packs of animated dead lure travellers "to their doom in nearby pits, bogs or scourged wildlife" (S054).
The cultists of Teneb'Vari "have created a large underground network in the forbidden zone" that "surrounds and connects several shrines and temples". They are "some humans and other races, but mostly a corrupted Boreal Elf ... which looks a lot like a Dark Elf with bluish-slate colored skin", led by a Necruspex (S052, S054). Through a secret pact with the Cult of the Dragon, they were using a claw of the primal red dragon Vixseranyol with an ancient dragon skeleton to animate a red bone dragon (S054); the Proturan campaign's party found Scourged kobolds and Boreal Elves at the work in the tunnels beneath the Shrine of Kae-Ferrel (S055, S056).
The Shrine of Caerylas¶
The shrine stands five miles from Anoth-Urulien and fifty north of Alyr-Emuien (S054). Its tree was "a gift from Arya": in Inwe's childhood "only about 20 feet tall and with a small foot-wide trunk", with "white bark and its leaves a silvery-green", "in excellent health and emanating a noticeable aura of energy" (S054). "Elves from all over make pilgrimage to the tree for its blessings of fertility and rejuvenation." "The fate of the elves is intertwined with the Caerylas Trees. Without the trees, elven fertility will not be enough to sustain the elvish population, and eventually their entire race would be but a memory" (S054). Within the inner sanctum lay a Seed of Caerylas, one of only three, each "capable of growing a new tree and holding vast energies capable of resurrection, restoration and life"; the tree's health is tied to its seed, and "without it, the tree's powers fade" (S054).
Its guardian is the High Priestess Caolynni, mother of Inwe. Her body "expired during the Hollowing", some two hundred years before the Proturan campaign, "but the seed keeps her alive while it's in the shrine. If she left, she would die immediately." She "has not seen another elf since the Hollowing" and "is quite desperate to die" (S054). When Inwe begged her to carry the seed to safety from the spreading corruption of Alyr-Emuien, she refused, "citing the lost generations of elves should she abandon the last tree now", and promised only to send the seed away before the corruption overtook the shrine and to "die defending the Tree even after the seed has moved on" (S054). The shrine was hidden when Anoth-Urulien fell and "only recently unveiled again" in Inwe's childhood (S054). By the time of the Proturan campaign the tree was corrupted (S053), and Caolynni entrusted the seed to the party with a geas on each of them: "The future of the Elven race is in your hands. You must see that it is safely delivered to noble High Elves or righteous Aryic Priests" (S054).
The Shrine of Kae-Ferrel¶
"Once a shrine to Moros, Keeper of the Dead in the Kalari pantheon", the Shrine of Kae-Ferrel, also called the Temple of Kae'Ferrel, stood on the outskirts of Anoth-Urulien. "There is not much left above ground of the shrine. It has mostly collapsed and only a mound and few stones peeking through the underbrush give away that this was once a structure" (S054). Below, it "is large and ruined and parts filled with water and some with poisonous gas", and "fully Corrupted" (S054).
The shrine has three wings, one for each Ascendant of Moros: Hesperos, "Guide. The Evening Star"; Equidna, "Guardian, Jaguar guardian of the Dead"; and Ulchre, "Gatekeeper. The Stone Warden. Internment" (S054). Each held chapels where prayers and offerings were made, ancestral altars where "the great elven families recorded genealogies", and crypts for "prestigious and notable individuals", interred "with their most prized possessions ... often magical, valuable art or both" (S054). The guardian at the entry stands down for the password: "We humble ourselves before the Keeper and seek his permission to enter the places between life and death." The chapel doors bear a doorway into shrouded mists and the verse "Through the shadowed veil we take flight, / Death's glow cuts through the night. / The passage is led by a ghostly light"; the spirit room, "The Gatekeeper holds the doors tight, / The Guide lights the path through endless night. / The Guardian shields from lurking fear, / Where the Traveller walks, eternity is near" (S054). The central areas, the Whispering Chamber and the maze called the Path of the Dead, now serve Teneb'Vari and are described on the Underdark page. Beneath the Veil Chamber a secret crypt, opened by three keys, held the Claw of Vixseranyol, "each finger ... the size of a small table" and about a hundred pounds (S054).
History¶
In the Age of Magic the Draconian Empire of Pherox "pushed into northern Dalmar and Arne-Athosia" by 690 MA, and later fought wars in the south "with Arne-Athosia, Dalmar" and others (S372). In the First Rift War the demon hordes of the orc summoner Thu'karam were fought for seventy years along the mountain ranges "until the arch-demons were slain in the battle of Arne-Athosia" (S386, S372); the History of Terrun dates that war to 1689–1804 MA.
Anoth-Urulien fell in the War of the Moradrim, which the History of Terrun dates to 2413–2431 MA (S386; see Earlier accounts). The kingdom outlived the city: Anoth-Urulien "was already in ruins in the latter ages of the Kingdom of Arne'Athosia", and the Shrine of Caerylas was unveiled again in Inwe's childhood (S054). By the Hollowing, some two hundred years before the Proturan campaign, Caolynni was the only elf left at the shrine, and the forest's elves today are the Boreal Elves who guard it from outside (S054).
Gap
No source says when or how the Kingdom of Arne'Athosia ended, who its last rulers were, or where its High Elves went.
In the Fourth Age the kingdom still had a name to go home to: a warlock of the Escape from the Underdark party had a mother "dead back in Arne'Athosia" (S328).
In the Fifth Age, after the sack of Dunharr, "the Proturan Council has declared war on the Boreal Elves in the Ettermore Forest" (S051), and Malathar's steward Perithus led "several waves of diggers" to Kae-Ferrel for Eksuru, "not expecting many of them to live" (S052). The Proturan campaign's party reached the shrines first, won the Seed of Caerylas from Caolynni, solved the Path of the Dead, broke the bone-dragon rite and "retrieved the Claw of Vixseranyol" before leaving Etterwood for the borderlands of the Urok'gar Confederation (S055–S059).
Earlier accounts¶
- The Compendium (S372, S384) dates the War of the Moradrim to 3013–3031 MA; the newer History of Terrun (S386) to 2413–2431 MA. Both agree on its course: the dark elves "began by invading the elven kingdoms from their underground strongholds", and "with the elven kingdoms overrun, the elves became refugees".
- The Fourth Age campaign (S328) found a Caerylas Tree and shrine "in the elven forests of Uran'Syvalla to the west" of Redallion in Angorath: a 600-foot tree, "leafless, black and covered in red pulsing pustules", inside the marble ring described above, besieged by "thousands of Elven Husks" and two Wicker Giants, with some three hundred elven dead within. The Fifth Age sources call the tree of Arne'Athosia "the last remaining Caerylas Tree" (S054). Whether the two trees are the same, two of the three seeds, or one tree in two ages is not said; the Angorath page holds the Fourth Age shrine.
In Play¶
The Forbidden Forest is a place the Boreal Elves themselves will not enter, where the Scourged are driven south toward Proturas and the cult of Teneb'Vari works underground. The shrines are five miles apart; the capital is fifty miles further and no one has come back from it. The campaign's passage is told in the Proturan campaign chronicle.