Great Forest

The Great Forest itself is second in size only to the Azure Sea of Quill, and even so, it is a vast temperate forest, the sheer scale of which can evoke wonder in even the most well-traveled Skyborn. While the dense undergrowth and close confines of Quill’s Azure Sea keep the local fauna relatively small, the oversized trees of the Great Forest, with their large straight trunks and foliage that is mostly confined to top growth, allow for wide pathways and natural vaulted amphitheaters. So, too, the inhabitants of the forest can sometimes be built on a colossal scale, and often take rather unexpected forms. In fact, the exact borders of the Great Forest have historically been very hard to delineate, and it’s only been in recent times that we have discovered why: the trees can walk.

These walking trees are not to be confused with the Verthod themselves, who of course can easily be mistaken for some sort of ambulatory tree. No, these trees are the great woody giants that make up the majority of the forest itself, called Gastwudu by the Banyari.

The Great Forest is also home to multiple tribes of Banyari, including the Verthod and Nitansien. High in the canopy of the greatest of tree in the forest, you’ll find a world wholly separate from life on the ground. There are scores of small plants and animals who spend their entire life cycles upon a single massive branch. Tiny horned weevils, odd mollusks resplendent with shells of mottled blue and pink, and the bizarre little mammals that we call Long-Muzzled Golden Honey-Lickers. Here you’ll also find countless pools of water, collected in the crooks of forked tree trunks or settled within small depressions upon the largest of branches. It is in these pools that the Banyari known as the Nitansien are spawned.

Finally, there are two Banyari meeting places within the Great Forest: (1) the Dust Haven and (2) the Deep Grotto.