The Wonder is, first and foremost, a forest. From the outside it seems wild and uninhabited, and indeed in many areas at certain times of year it is toxic to human life, but it is also a place of vibrancy and colour, the air vibrating with a million species of plant, bird and insect.
Its people are hardy – they have made such a place their home against all the odds. They also value beauty in the natural world around them; where others might see chaos they see the great variety of life. Wonderfolk are masters of making use of the biomes they live inside, crafting everything they might need from the materials the Wonder offers them. Indeed the innate magic of the forests seems to have an effect on goods that are imported to them from afar – clothing, weapons, artisanal goods, even food; all seem to last for a shorter time than they should, while the same items crafted from materials on their doorstep, provided by the forest, have a longevity beyond normal expectations.
Wonderfolk are not custodians of the land, they have no great agreement to protect the forests with spirits or Gods – they are not so arrogant. Theirs is a symbiotic alliance. The Wonder is their home, and they respect it in turn, offering assistance to the ecosystem as needed and preventing pests from running rampant. Sylvans; sentient tree-like creatures, commonly aid the Wonderfolk in battle and defence, but only do so willingly, having formed a bond with one citizen of the nation who they are oathsworn to as allies.
But it is not all arboreal idyll. The Wonder has paid dearly in the recent incursion from the Corrupted, losing one territory and watching its forest burn to ash. Volunteers in The Ashen Vigil watch their Northern border now, from a gigantic series of treehouses, keeping watch for the whole of the Crownlands. Such an act of service takes a magical toll on all those who take on the burden, however. It may be soon that the nation has no more volunteers to keep this front under observation.
Geography
The nation has retained three biomes of its forest which are inhabited, while a fourth is being explored, and a sliver of the fifth still held on to by the Ashen Vigil, although little else of this biome is left. There may be others beyond that have been lost and forgotten since the war against the Corruption, and the Fading that causes so much beyond to be lost to memory.
Around these inhabited areas, the forest itself seems to twist and shift. Routes between them are seasonal, or sometimes depend on other more esoteric factors; some routes only available to traverse by the light of a full moon, or when the travellers sprinkle pollen from a particular tree, or are accompanied by a Sylvan. Some Grovehearts claim that there are routes the forests will only show a traveller when it wants them to know them. Much of this land is a mystery, and very little stays the same year on year.
The Biomes that are currently part of the Wonder’s ecosystem are:
Æbelgard, the Golden Boughs
A pocket of temperate forest of oak, ash, elm and yew, among others. This mossy region is likely the longest continuously inhabited by humans, and home to the Hollowed Shrine, a massive ancient Willow tree that is a place of pilgrimage for Wonderfolk, and also to Crownlanders and others beyond her borders. Æbelgard is the breadbasket of the nation where orchards and crops grow on every scrap of land, though in a wilder state than other nations would consider properly agricultural.
The practice of living in treetop abodes began here, where the densest area of Wonder citizens still congregate in webs of treehouses attached to ancient boughs. In spring, the river Edda commonly bursts its banks and the people of Æbelgard celebrate a festival week of flooding with hanging displays of artistic and craft endeavour, treetop performances of music and sporting competitions.
Gloomgard, the Land that Breathes Beneath
Though Gloomgard looks to an outsider like a normal forest, albeit one with an unusual variety and quantity of fungi on display, if dug into deeper it shows its true colours. The land is one enormous entity, a single mycelium network intertwining every other tree and shrub, that seems to shift and move when the weather is particularly hot or cold, which gives the land its epithet – the land that Breathes Beneath. Less poetic and more jovial bards have over the years given it another nickname – the ‘humongous fungus’. It is not a home that is taken to lightly however; for a quarter of the year the surface is completely uninhabitable as toxic spores fill the air, and most Gloomgarders move out temporarily while others take up shelter underground.
The Meering, the Hidden Trees
Unlike the other biomes of The Wonder where settlements are usually clustered around heart trees in a central point of the region, the Meering instead follows the path of the River Edda to the sea. The climate here is humid, and the land unpredictable. At its mouth sits the town of Eddmeer, a network of floating crannogs that shifts with the tides of the brackish water below. The trees here are numerous – mostly mangroves and other saltwater varieties – but not as tall as in most biomes. Food is still abundant however, with enormous kelp forests cultivated underwater, invisible from the surface giving the region its nickname. Sea grapes and samphire grow with abandon, and shoals of fish are regularly herded from open water to fish traps and nets upriver, chased by Kelpies and the occasional Kelp Dragon. Inland there are coppiced standings of trees grown and cared for in order to use in shipbuilding, and beyond that pockets of true wilderness, where travellers claim to see apparitions of strange creatures. Fable magic is especially strong in these areas, and many travellers who wander off are never again seen on the mortal sphere.
Other Locations
Thornsthorpe, the Peaks of Rue (Lost)
With a colder climate than the rest of the nation, Thornsthope is the frontier of the land that has been lost to the enemy. Thornsthorpe was the site of a devastating battle several decades ago and continues to be a wasteland devoid of life; pockets of smoke-filled gases spurt from the earth unexpectedly and all attempts to regrow it have so far failed. A strip of land on the border with the rest of the nation is the only part still occupied by the Ashen Vigil, an organisation of volunteers who take watch at the border.
Most of the surviving inhabitants left en mass to explore the undeveloped Ettergard, while others travelled to Æbelgard, Gloomgard and the Myring to rebuild their lives from scratch.
Ettermora, the Forests of Life and Death
A region not yet fully mapped, Ettermora, or the Ettergards as it is also known is a forest that the inhabitants of the Wonder have only recently began to settle in. The region is largely filled with poisonous – and on occasion venomous – plants that make up a rainforest, with small habitable pockets of human settlement within. The Ettergards are known as “the Forests of Life and Death” and this is not given lightly; though carnivorous plants are scattered throughout the region, it is also home to a vast ecosystem of birds and insects, with cultivation of oversized bees and butterflies making up two of the most profitable enterprises within the whole of the Wonder. Many of those who have made the Ettergards home originally came from settlements in Thornsthorpe before it was destroyed, but its exploration has attracted citizens from all over the nation.
Heartholm
Heartholm is another location of note, but one that is particularly difficult to find and there are those who believe it to be only a story, or perhaps a place from the Sphere of Fable that is only found through magic. In theory located on the River Edda but apparently unmappable, it is a small island covered in a thicket of brambles, with a pair of heart-trees at its centre. The “Lover’s Trees” are so named because they lean into one another, and “seeking Heartholm” is a common phrase used for those in a relationship who set out on their own path together. For some this is a metaphor, but some fledgeling lovers set out to find it for themselves as a symbol of their devotion to each other. Lovers who find the place and spend the night underneath it together are thought to be bestowed by luck in love by the Traveller and the Guardian, the Gods who are most commonly worshipped in The Wonder.