Lore

In the beginning there was only Caedhriel, the spirit of the Aether. From its heart sprang Tathann, the First Willow, and beneath its boughs the mortal races opened their eyes to the world.

An age of confidence. Roads cut through the wilderness, willow cuttings shelter the waystations, and the trade between mountain, river, and forge builds a civilization that stretches across Caedhraeth.

It did not come as a war. The willows began to fail, the spirits turned, and what mortals had built across forty Turnings was unmade in less than a generation.

The first decade after the Withering was a time of counting what remained. From those small fires beneath surviving willows, the present age of Caedhraeth began to take shape.

One of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the inner lands, Willowdale stands beneath one of the original willows that Tathann seeded before the counting of Turnings began. Since the Valenra first emerged in the New Growth, its ancient willow and the Academy built around it have made the village the gathering place of the Aether-touched.

Field notes from the mist-hung dark beyond the willows, each entry a creature met and a wound earned. The handwriting begins small and precise, and grows less so toward the final pages. Not all the stains are water.