At the geographical centre of the southern continent is a mushroom of immense size. It towers miles into the sky to rival the spires of the Stormlords that dot the lands beyond, an impossible structure born from a mastery of the magic arts that outmatches the human.

From the cap descends an energy field, a dome to protect the forest, the Awakened Wood that sprawls like a green sea to define the wheel of the Stormcircle. The forest and the Worldcap are older than old, elder even in the memory of the earliest known Scions of the Blood.

Around the stalk of the Worldcap is the mysterious city of the Crantiré. Immortal beings of living wood, they are few in number, but near every one is a powerful Magus - Heartwrights and Communers, for the most parts; Magi of Mind and Life.
As such their city, their technology, even the whole forest are made to some grand design. An immense living mechanism forged with Magic to unclear ends, where even the fauna are designed for purpose.

Beyond the city dwell the Elementals, humans imbued with mystic powers, traits of animals and nature. In contrast to the metropolitan Crantiré, the Elementals live in nomadic bands that thrive in symbiosis with the forest; they tend to the trees and the beasts, manage the flows of Magic through the woods, and reap the benefits in return. They regard the Crantiré as gods; it is generally understood the Crantiré think of them no differently than they do the birds or the wolves. A vital part of the engineered ecosystem, but not their equals. Despite this, the Elementals have never seen themselves as oppressed or derided, as they are most often left to their own devices and live comfortably enough. The ebb and flow of the Wood leads them into wars with each other, and suspiciously well-timed sicknesses keep their population within the right bounds to maintain the Wood without being able to challenge the Crantiré.

Several times in history, the Wood has sought to expand. It has cast immense seedpods into the world beyond and sent Elementals to guard them, to nurture them, sacred duties the Elementals have executed with a violence that has not endeared them to the rest of the world. Each time these excursions have been driven back, and by some secretive treaty after The Third Seed, Djuke Imperus was able to check the ambitions of the Crantiré.

The Wood remains a mystery, and a terror, to those born outside.

Sometimes you will find Crantiré defectors in the world, cast out for transgressions against orthodoxy or simply for being Dims - beings with no Magical power - that the Crantiré have no use for. Elementals who leave may be exiled, or seized by wanderlust, or decided they did not trust the sylvan gods of their home and their dictates.