The Northern Forests – Qa’Ni

To the elves of Qualinost, their sacred forst lands are known as Qa’Ni. To the humans of Silvermere, it is known simply as The Northern Forest. Despite the inauspicious label, its plain name still evokes awe and wonder from the residents of Silvermere who can only marvel at the legends they’ve heard of magical plants and animals that inhabit this strange autumnal wood.

The forests north of Silvermere are fixed in what seems an eternal autumn: Leaves and foliage grow bronze, gold, and copper throughout the year. Many of the plants are just as strong as the precious metals they resemble, and the land is always providing a bountiful harvest.

Fruits and vegetables that grow in this mild climate are perpetually in season. Some grow as tiny as a seed with others as large as melons – and can be found in all shapes, colors, and tastes. Large mushrooms and mosses grow in the shaded damp spaces of the Silver River’s hundreds of creek- and swamp-like tributaries.

Oh those delicious fruits! Plucked daily and never in short supply.

It is wise, however, to bring someone who is familiar with the local flora. While many of the native plants have strong healing and curative powers, others contain powerful toxins and hallucinogens – or are protected by the local pixies and quicklings who hold certain herbs sacred.

Few predators come to the forested area that the elves call Qa’Ni. Grazing animals are well protected – both by their elven neighbors as by their own natural defenses. Creatures in the wood tend to be strong, swift, or else find a sorcerous means of defense. Enchanted trickery, deception, and disorientation are far more common than direct confrontation.

Further north, the soft and fertile soil gives way to an increasingly barren and rocky outcropping before a sharp descent to the rocky ocean below. Large predators and ill omens occasionally find their way to the otherwise tranquil lands of the elves in the northern forests of Qa’Ni.