Blood Wood

This article is part of a series on Nations of Barsaive

The Blood Wood
Setting	Earthdawn
Epoch	The Fourth World
Polity Info
Type	Queendom
Founded	Pre-Scourge
Capital	Alachia's Palace
Region	Barsaive
Monarch	Alachia

The Blood Wood was a large woodland in northern Barsaive, located in between the Scol and Scytha mountain ranges. In the Earthdawn setting, the Blood Wood as a title is used interchangeably with the region and the political body of Alachia's Elven Court.

History

According to the lore of the Elves, the foundations of Blood Wood trace back to the planting of Oakheart by the Passion Jaspree. From that founding, the region was Named Wyrm Wood was the center of elven civiilization in the Fourth World. As the centuries bore on, the elves of the wood spread west and north, until eventually Schism and Seperation lead to the breakdown of the central elven government as the elven communities in the larger world adopted new tradtiions and ways. In a tragic event that changed the history of elfkind, Queen Dalia die on an expedition to treat with the farflung communities who still adhered to the authority of the Elven Court of Wyrm Wood.

Tales differ on what occured, but all tales agree that the Great Dragon Alamaise was involved. Queen Failla followed as ruler of the Wood, take a strict traditionalist stance on the wayward Elven communities. This lead to a decree of Seperation, formally severing them from the Elven Court.

In the years before the Scourge, it was Failla's successor, Alachia, who's name was most known in Barsaive. An elf, Elianar Messias, of the Wyrm Wood was the first to raise the alarm on the upcoming Scourge, but for his work, Alachia exiled him. The Court of the Wyrm Wood continued this stance in the near thousand years leading to the Scourge, consistantly rebuffing efforts by the Therans to force the Rites of Protection and Passage upon them. In the plans of Alachia, when the Scourge came, the elves of Wood would weave their own kaer of True Earth, Fire, and Air from the Wood itself, and it would stand against the Scourge.

It did not.

When Barsaive awoke from the Scourge, the Wyrm Wood stood no more. In its place was the Blood Wood, a twisted and darkened thing, populated not by the elves of the larger world, but strange alien elves that bloody barbs growing out of their skin. Sometime during the Scourge, the defenses of the Wyrm Woods wooden kaer failed over time, and Horrors began to make their way into the wood to prey on its inhabitants. In response, Alachia approved the Ritual of Thorns, a vile rite that bound the elves of the wood to nature spirits, who's constant growth left the recipient elf in constant pain. The effects of the Ritual made its recipients unappealing to Horrors, and the greater Named Horrors moved on.

The elves of the Blood Wood, called Blood Elves by many, maintain a strongly isolationist policy with the neighbor nations of Barsaive. None are aloud entry within the Blood Wood, save other elves.

Notable Namegivers

• Elianar Messias
• Queen Alachia
• Queen Dallia
• Queen Failla

See Also

• Blood Elves
• The Elven Nations

Rumours

• It is said that those elves who visit the Wood, are given the ultimatum to undergo the Ritual of Thorns or leave.