Molaesmyr

Its symbol, as displayed in tapestries found in its ruins, shows a white tree (the same that now appears in the symbol of Uthodurn) that corkscrews upwards, its branches reaching out, its roots doing the same in the direction of a subterranean white sun.

Description

The ruins of Molaesmyr are located in the northern Savalirwood near the Boreal Omen River. From a distance, multiple needle-like towers are visible, leaning in different directions as though the ground were collapsing beneath them. The ruins themselves lie below a dense forest canopy that blocks out most sunlight, and the rubble and collapsing towers are covered in thorny vines and toxic fungi. The area is shrouded in perpetual fog, and many of the trees closest to the center of the former city are diseased. On the ground, the cracks that emit the miasma of the Savalirwood are particularly numerous. Some of the corrupted trees and vines in the ruins are adorned with the corpses of the elven families that were trapped before having the chance of escaping. Moreover, a specific kind of tree with a reddish coloration seems to have been created from the bodies of some of the inhabitants of the city, and they still display fragments of their bones or deformed versions of their faces; these trees seem to be sentient to some degree, reacting when people are around.

While the elves who survived the fall of the city have long since fled, strange fey creatures live amid the ruins, along with the mutated creatures of the surrounding Savalirwood and even some monstrous former elves, transformed by the strange, purple and gray shadow that spelled the fall of the city.

In more recent years, Uthodurn has sent expeditions to discover a way to fight the corruption, as well as to search for relics of Molaesmyr. Mercenaries and looters from Shadycreek Run have also ventured to the ruins, in an attempt to profit from the treasure or elven secrets they may find.

History

Molaesmyr was once a powerful elven nation, at one point the most prominent elven society on Wildemount. It was founded after the "100-year fire" that followed the Divergence, an arcane forest fire that slowly burned the trees of the Greying Wildlands for decades, leaving only one section of the woods intact, thanks to the blessings of the Arch Heart and the Wildmother protecting the wood elves that had stayed in the forest. Those survivors, along with the kin that eventually returned from the Fey Realm, created a new city within the Veluthil Forest, upon "a powerful natural magic font, a deep-set well of power" which its inhabitants did not entirely understand. Explorations beneath the city were uncovering an increasingly deep series of caverns from which the power seemed to originate; there was a crystal well of chaotic and expanding magical potential, and while some saw it as a divine blessing of the Arch Heart, others thought it might have been an arcane creation that fell from an old floating city. By 443 PD the city of Molaesmyr had been already completed.

However, in 585 PD, Ludinus Da'leth, who for a long time had been interested in the strange presence in Ruidus, had plans to secretly redirect the energy from the crystal well under the city to communicate with and potentially free the entity in the red moon during its flare in the Apogee Solstice. Those factors, combined with their interaction with Aeorian technology that had been brought to the city, led to a cataclysm that began beneath Molaesmyr, and an unexpected corruption spread throughout it and the surrounding forest, now known as the Savalirwood, like a toxic shadow that killed or transformed whatever it touched. The elves scattered in two directions: some fled westward to Bysaes Tyl in the Empire and eventually throughout the rest of Western Wynandir; the others, including Imathan Talviel, went northward and were given refuge in Uthodurn, which had previously been founded by the dwarves.

Dwueth'var, the Star Razor, was sundered in a terrible battle deep within the ruins of Molaesmyr.

The corruption of the Savalirwood that encroached on the Blooming Grove originated from the ruins of Molaesmyr. While they were exploring the ruins of Aeor, the Mighty Nein noticed that the corruption of trees found there was very similar to that of the Savalirwood, although Caduceus was reluctant to investigate further.

Immediately after the apogee solstice of 843 PD, the members of Bells Hells who were transported to Wildemount decided to travel to the city's ruins within the Savalirwood, after learning about Ludinus' past there. They battled ghosts and a Hatemonger, and narrowly escaped the Wolf-King. Within the city, they discovered the ruined Gildhollow Tower, the former home of Ludinus Da'leth, and his notes on the crystal well and theories concerning the potential harnessing of its power.

Points of interest

Caes Mosor was the central tower of Molaesmyr, and it is thought that the source of the corruption came from the labyrinth below that tower. As of 831 PD hags could be found there, and between 835 and 836 PD a coven of green hags (Auntie Rottongue, Nanny Filthtouch, and Granny Pustreat) had settled in the underground labyrinth beneath the tower, where their minions brought children from Shadycreek Run to use them in their dark rituals. By 843 PD a strange winged creature had nested in the tower as well.

The mage Ludinus Da'leth worked in the Gildhollow Tower in the northwestern part of the city, isolated from the rest of his community.