It is said that to reach Runera, the [[Elves|elves]] journeyed for a thousand days and nights through the verdant expanses of the Emerald Forest. And what a journey it must have been, to be bathed every morning in a warm green glow, fueled by the sun’s dappled light bursting jade-like through the viridescent canopy; to be swaddled in a soft darkness come sundown, as the stars brilliantly broke open the inky blackness of the night sky, piercing the maze of branches with their radiance. Such is the ephemeral and ancient beauty of the Emerald Forest; a beauty which hides a devious treachery. The forest spans the entire lands betwixt the mountain ranges of the First Divide and the Blackened Peaks, comprising an area larger than the whole of [[Andar]] and [[Wlendén]] combined. Beyond this, it stretches westward for uncountable miles, so far that not only do none know the true extent of its size, but at its farthest reaches even the most distant treetops recede gloomily into the dusky haze of the horizon. It is from this vast country that the [[Elves]] first emerged, and to which they did not return for hundreds of generations, likely for they still remembered the many dangers the beguiling wood harbors. Within in its depths dwell not only the many [[monsters]] that plague the rest of Runera, but also far older and more cunning creatures than of which neither vellum nor stone retain record. Among them, the deadly Dhaeryg-an-Diabhail, enormous insect-like creatures with dark carapaces so devoid of color and light that they are said to disappear into the shadows of the underbrush as does a drop of water into the ocean. Despite this natural camouflage and the lethal venom which oozes from their fangs, young [[Elves|elves]] from the clans of [[Tir Lhyrfél]] hunt the Dhaeryg as a rite of passage to prove they are strong, fast, and cunning enough to survive in the oft-inhospitable forest. Legends abound as to what precisely lies beyond this wilderness, or if in truth anything lies beyond it. The [[Tir Lhyrfél|Lhyrfélan]] have their own myths, claiming that at its heart lies the trunk of the World Tree, whose roots run beneath the forest and all Runera. Some [[Elves|elvish]] clans have perhaps attempted to either prove or disprove this myth, year after year venturing further into the west, until finally they fail to reunite with their brethren during the winter gathering of Aelyhaíne. Perhaps these clans became lost in the darkest and deepest parts of the forest and could not find their way home; perhaps their lives were cut short by unspeakable horrors and their bones now nurture the soil; or perhaps they found something in those far western lands, and thought it very much worth remaining lost for. Whatever the truth may be, however, none can say.