Arborea, also known as the Glades of Arborea, is the plane of Chaotic Good among the Outer Planes.

It is associated with freedom, vitality, passion, self-expression, and the pursuit of a life chosen rather than imposed. These qualities are reflected throughout a plane where wilderness, settlement, cultivation, art, celebration, and adventure exist alongside one another without a single structure governing them all.

Life flourishes throughout Arborea on an extraordinary scale. Forests stretch across vast regions, animal migrations can involve thousands of creatures, mountains rise above enormous valleys, and the seas of Aquallor support ecosystems as varied as those found across entire worlds.

Arborea has two known layers: Arvandor and Aquallor.

The Emerald Wilds, divine realm of Yssarel, the Wildmother, extend across one of the natural passages between them.

Structure and Environment

Arborea is fertile and highly varied.

Arvandor contains forests, mountain ranges, grasslands, rivers, wetlands, cultivated regions, deserts, and extensive settled territories. Aquallor consists primarily of a great sea containing islands, reefs, coastal regions, deep trenches, and extensive underwater habitats.

Natural change is constant throughout the plane.

Rivers gradually alter their courses, forests spread into open land, animals migrate with changing conditions, fires clear old growth, storms reshape coastlines, and new life fills places left behind.

These changes follow the ordinary causes and relationships of living systems. Arborea is not unpredictable because its landscapes respond to passing emotions or whims. Its instability comes from the fact that life and weather are always changing.

Much of the plane exists on a greater scale than similar environments in Eldareth. Trees may rise hundreds of feet above the forest floor, rivers can divide entire regions, and mountain systems can require weeks to cross.

Freedom and Passion

Arborea places great value on self-direction.

Its settlements vary enormously in government, custom, and culture. Some are governed by councils or elected leaders, while others rely on informal agreements, respected elders, guilds, families, or temporary alliances formed around a particular need.

Authority is generally expected to justify itself rather than being obeyed simply because it exists.

The plane is also associated with strong emotion and vivid experience.

Music, food, physical exertion, celebration, friendship, grief, competition, affection, and triumph can all feel unusually immediate to those who spend time there.

Arborea does not dictate what a visitor feels, nor does the environment reshape itself in response to emotion. Rather, experiences often seem harder to approach with indifference.

Challenge and Adventure

Many Arborean cultures place value on experience pursued for its own sake.

Mountain climbs, races, sailing contests, hunts, athletic competitions, exploration, storytelling, music, craft, and friendly combat are common forms of recreation and accomplishment.

The purpose is rarely to establish permanent superiority over another person.

Competition is generally valued for the challenge it provides, the skill it develops, and the stories created through taking part.

Arborea's wilderness reinforces this attitude. Large regions remain difficult or dangerous to cross, and many inhabitants willingly undertake journeys into them simply to see what lies beyond familiar territory.

Movement and Travel

Arborea can be crossed by conventional means, but its scale makes travel demanding.

Established roads and paths connect many settled regions of Arvandor. Beyond them, dense forests, broad rivers, mountain ranges, open grasslands, and deserts can greatly increase journey times.

Distances themselves do not normally change.

A mountain that appears distant may simply be much larger and farther away than a traveler initially assumed.

Aquallor requires ships, swimming, flight, or some other means of crossing the sea. Island chains and coastal routes provide safer travel, while open-water voyages can involve long distances between places of shelter.

Connections to Other Planes

Arborea can be reached through the Astral Plane and through established planar portals.

The River Oceanus provides one of the most important connections between Arborea and Elysium. After passing through Elysium, the river eventually reaches Aquallor and becomes part of its wider waters.

Other permanent crossings exist throughout the plane, particularly around major settlements and divine realms.

Rare portals may connect Arborea to more distant planes, but these are exceptions rather than part of its ordinary planar geography.

Day, Night, and Weather

Arvandor experiences a recognizable cycle of day and night.

Days are commonly bright and clear, while nights are warm and filled with dense fields of stars.

Weather can change rapidly as natural systems develop across the enormous landscape. Storms may form over mountain ranges, heavy rain can sweep across valleys, and seasonal winds influence migrations and plant growth.

These changes are not responses to the emotions or actions of individual travelers.

Aquallor experiences similarly active weather. Calm seas can give way to powerful storms, while strong currents and seasonal changes affect both surface and underwater life.

Inhabitants

Arborea supports an enormous variety of living creatures.

Ordinary animals, celestial beasts, petitioners, planar peoples, and nature spirits inhabit its forests, mountains, grasslands, coastlines, and seas.

Many creatures familiar to Eldareth have counterparts in Arborea, though some grow considerably larger or display unusual coloration, longevity, or resilience.

Nature spirits are widespread but differ from the Animal Lords. They may be tied to individual creatures, particular territories, rivers, forests, mountains, or other natural features. Some are minor, while others have guarded the same region for centuries.

Fey can also be encountered in Arborea, particularly as travelers or established communities, but they are not among the plane's defining native peoples.

Animal Lords

Animal Lords are rare and ancient celestial beings associated with broad kinds of animal life.

Each is a singular being. A Wolf Lord is not simply an unusually powerful wolf spirit, but a being associated with wolves as a whole and with qualities that have become inseparable from their way of life.

Animal Lords may appear as immense idealized animals, as humanoid figures carrying animal traits, or in forms that combine both.

Their personalities differ as widely as the creatures with which they are associated. Some are social and protective, others solitary or territorial, while others wander across vast regions following migrations, seasons, or changes in the environment.

They are neither gods nor demigods and possess no divine authority over mortal worshippers.

Animal spirits may recognize or seek out an Animal Lord associated with their kind, but no universal hierarchy binds them together.

Many traditions connect the Animal Lords with the first great flourishing of life under Yssarel. Some cultures call them Yssarel's First Beasts or the Great Children of Yssarel, though these titles do not imply that she commands them.

Animal Lords are ageless but can be slain. Those destroyed may eventually reform within Arborea, though such a return can take many years and is not guaranteed to occur quickly.

Natural Hazards

Arborea is hospitable to mortal life, but much of its wilderness remains dangerous.

Predators hunt throughout the plane, and many are considerably larger or stronger than comparable animals in Eldareth.

Rivers flood, mountains experience avalanches and rockfalls, wildfires can spread through dry regions, and storms can make travel dangerous with little warning.

These events are regarded as parts of natural systems rather than evidence that the plane has become hostile.

Nature spirits and Animal Lords can also respond aggressively when territories or populations under their protection are deliberately devastated.

The greatest risks usually come from underestimating the scale, wildlife, or environmental conditions of the region being crossed.

Survival

Air, fresh water, and food are readily available throughout much of Arvandor.

Travelers familiar with hunting, gathering, farming, or wilderness survival can often live for long periods without depending upon settlements.

This abundance does not make every region easy to survive. Deserts, high mountains, remote forests, and regions occupied by large predators still require preparation.

Aquallor demands greater care because travelers may spend long periods at sea.

Navigation, weather, and distance are generally greater concerns than the fundamental conditions of the plane.

Arvandor

Arvandor is the terrestrial layer of Arborea.

Its landscapes include immense forests, open grasslands, mountain ranges, river valleys, wetlands, cultivated regions, and extensive wilderness.

Broadleaf forests containing oak, maple, birch, linden, and many other trees cover large portions of the layer. In older forests, the canopy can rise hundreds of feet above relatively open ground covered by mosses, ferns, streams, and scattered glades.

Elsewhere, the forests give way to grasslands supporting large migrating herds, fertile valleys containing farms and vineyards, and mountain systems inhabited by both settled communities and wild creatures.

Food grows readily across much of Arvandor. Fruit, grain, vegetables, wild plants, fish, and game are abundant, though local inhabitants generally take care not to exhaust the populations upon which they depend.

Settlements range from small villages and isolated homesteads to large cities and communities built around trade, craft, agriculture, art, or particular traditions.

Great Migrations

Animal migrations are among the most dramatic natural events in Arvandor.

Herds can cross entire regions as seasons, rainfall, breeding cycles, or changes in available food draw them onward.

Predators follow many of these movements, while birds and other creatures travel alongside them in equally large numbers.

Some settlements maintain roads and fields around known migration routes rather than attempting to block them.

Animal Lords are occasionally seen among these movements, particularly those associated with migratory creatures.

Mithardir, the White Desert

Mithardir is a vast desert region of Arvandor.

Its landscape is dominated by pale dunes, chalk-white stone, dry valleys, salt flats, and distant mountain ridges.

Life is less obvious than in Arborea's forests and grasslands but no less established.

Hardy plants grow around seasonal waterways and isolated springs, while reptiles, burrowing creatures, insects, birds, and large desert animals occupy regions that appear empty at first glance.

Rainfall is rare but can transform parts of Mithardir quickly. Dormant seeds germinate, temporary pools form, and broad stretches of desert may flower for a short period before dry conditions return.

Ancient ruins can be found in some parts of the desert, though little reliable information survives concerning the people who built them.

Mithardir is difficult to cross because of heat, distance, limited water, and the scarcity of permanent settlements rather than because it is devoid of life.

Aquallor

Aquallor is the maritime layer of Arborea.

It consists primarily of an immense green-blue sea containing islands, reefs, coastal shallows, underwater valleys, and deep ocean trenches.

Unlike the Elemental Plane of Water, Aquallor possesses a clear surface, seabed, weather, tides, and distinct marine ecosystems.

Large portions of the sea are relatively shallow and filled with reefs, kelp forests, seagrass beds, and other productive habitats.

Farther from the surface, deep trenches descend into regions where natural light disappears and creatures adapted to darkness become increasingly common.

Life of Aquallor

Aquallor supports enormous populations of marine life.

Schools of fish can stretch for miles, while whales and other great creatures follow migration routes across the sea.

Reefs support dense ecosystems, and coastal islands provide breeding grounds for seabirds, reptiles, and other creatures.

Marine Animal Lords also inhabit Aquallor.

These beings reflect the lives of sea creatures rather than behaving as terrestrial guardians adapted to water. Their territories and movements may follow currents, migration routes, reefs, spawning grounds, or the open sea.

Permanent communities exist both above and beneath the water, particularly around islands, reefs, sheltered coastal regions, and reliable sections of Oceanus.

Storms and Voyages

Weather is one of Aquallor's greatest hazards.

Storms can produce enormous waves, powerful winds, and currents capable of carrying vessels far from their intended routes.

Long voyages are nevertheless common.

Sailing races, exploratory expeditions, fishing journeys, and voyages between distant islands form an important part of many Aqualloran cultures.

For some inhabitants, crossing dangerous water is valued for the same reason others in Arvandor climb mountains or cross wilderness: the journey itself is worth experiencing.

Oceanus

The River Oceanus reaches Arborea through Aquallor after passing through Elysium.

Where it enters the layer, its waters gradually merge with the surrounding sea rather than ending at a conventional river mouth.

Experienced navigators can still distinguish Oceanus by its current and other subtle characteristics, allowing them to follow the river back toward Elysium.

The route is one of the most dependable forms of travel between the two Upper Planes.

The Emerald Wilds

The Emerald Wilds are the divine realm of Yssarel, the Wildmother.

They extend across one of the natural passages between Arvandor and Aquallor.

Their terrestrial reaches contain forests, grasslands, rivers, wetlands, mountains, gardens, and cultivated land. Farther toward the boundary between the layers, rivers broaden into estuaries and coastal wetlands before giving way to islands, reefs, kelp forests, and open sea.

The transition occurs gradually within the realm. Travelers following its waterways can pass from Arvandor into Aquallor without crossing a conventional portal.

Life throughout the Emerald Wilds exists in great abundance.

Animals migrate, predators hunt, plants compete for space and light, forests spread, storms alter coastlines, and fallen life sustains what follows.

Yssarel's followers do not attempt to prevent these processes. Their concern is with maintaining the conditions that allow them to continue.

Hunting, fishing, cultivation, and harvesting are permitted, but taking more than the surrounding environment can replace is strongly discouraged.

Animal Lords and lesser nature spirits sometimes enter the Emerald Wilds, though neither exists there under Yssarel's command.

Since Yssarel ceased speaking following Lyrael's death, those who seek her guidance within the realm instead watch the wind and changes in the natural world for signs of her attention.