Sheinwood

Feel free to reference or use this location in your lore, but please don't edit this page. Thank you!Sheinwood is a village on the shore of the Worldedge Wetland. 
There's only one trade route through the wetlands, and Sheinwood is along it, at the entrance to the rest of Worldedge. A small river, the Anatey, winds through the Shrieking Wilds, coming to rest in the mangroves that Sheinwood guards. A peaceful fishing village, Sheinwood doesn't have much contact with the rest of Sornieth, but migrants from other flights do make their way past the village and into the wetlands.
==Lore==
====Natureflight Villages====
Villages in the Viridian Labyrinth are independently governed; the Gladekeeper holds supreme law, but she is quite mellow and hardly organizes her children for any reason, at least in peaceful times. Communities function similar to familial clans, and in fact many began as clans that have grown to the extent that they are village-sized.
Many villages are governed by a "gladechief," who is elected out of a pool of eligible, skilled dragons. Gladechiefs function as mayors who monitor the community, decide where funds go, and propose laws. Gladechiefs also, however, serve as a healer for their community. While most of their mayoral duties are managerial and impersonal, they also visit the elderly and terribly ill, because when they are elected they receive a boost of healing Nature magic from Gladekeeper. Because of this, gladechiefs need to already be educated in healing without magic as well as elemental nature magic itself, and they are expected to be very nurturing individuals.
Some communities that began as family clans have, instead of an elected gladechief, a matriarch, or less commonly a patriarch. They function as a cross between a sort of "head of house" and a mayor. They have the same managerial duties as a gladechief, but instead of healing they typically take an active role in education and caring for the young in the community. In general, Natureflight highly values elders and their wisdom. It's expected that when older dragons retire they will take up a role in childcare, as a teacher or caretaker. Hatchlings in Natureflight villages live with their families, but are raised communally.
====Natureflight Architecture====
Natureflight villages sometimes build wooden structures, especially in towns where there is a high population of immigrants from other elemental regions, but most often there are nest-like structures either in old-growth trees or, in younger forests, on the ground. These nest-houses are usually constructed of fallen leaves and branches.
Some villages with large populations of very skilled Nature mages can grow young trees into structures, similar in idea to the giant-knothole hovels in the Tangled Wood, but furnished with soft moss and grown into houses with several rooms. These are most popular with Fae dragons, for whom the inside of an ancient tree home is a giant mansion.
Those villages that build wooden homes can be either in the boughs, or on the ground. The houses are usually very simple and small, but come in a variety of shapes. Some are rectangular or like longhouses, some tiny pyramids, and some are similar to igloos. All structures in Natureflight villages are very flammable, though, so there are designated firepits in clearings away from the village, and every village that uses fire has a watchman to ensure no fires get out of control.
Inhabited places, especially in older forests, will have designated clearings where saplings are transplanted, and elsewhere under the taller trees saplings will be moved away, and leaf litter cleared. The paths and forests surrounding villages have clear ground where the softest grass in Sornieth grows.
====Small Gods====
The elemental Deities are the most well known metaphysical powers in Sornieth, but they aren't the only ones. While almost all dragons celebrate the deities, there are smaller powers that dragons also interact with. Gods are not affiliated with raw elements. Gods are, most of the time, tied to the land, but some can be of concepts or groups. The majority of gods are small, gods of local streams or trees. Some can spread to an entire river or forest. Some can even be gods of entire regions, though this is very rare. Gods can be of something as small and seemingly inconsequential as "The god of wooden dice that most commonly roll threes," or of a concept as general as simply "fortune."
Dragons pray to gods, which gives them more power, and that is why most gods tied to a landmark simply stay at the same influence they always have. The god of a small waterfall will have a handful of dragons praying not to slip, and so they don't gain much power; but the god of a major river will have towns full of dragons praying for clean water or the prevention of floods, and so will remain powerful. Gods are beings that have influence over a particular place or idea, and the span of that influence is dependent on their power, gained by prayer. Gods need dragons for prayer; without dragons, gods would cease to exist.
Gods can't always answer prayers, though all wish to (if a god doesn't answer a prayer, how likely is that dragon to pray again?). Gods have limited power, and of course not every prayer to a specific god actually falls within their domain.
====Spirits====
Spirits are beings that are representations of something. There are no spirits of ideas, only places. Unlike gods, which have influence over a place, spirits are a place. A river spirit is the river. Spirits can take many forms, like animals, or sprites, or just a being of water or air or whatever their landmark is. Dragons can communicate with spirits and make deals with them for favors.
Spirits can be large or small, and some are subregions of another spirit's domain. A desert spirit might have several smaller spirits of oases or dunes. Their relationship is complicated and difficult to understand; they are distinct entities, but in a way the smaller spirits are an aspect or portion of the larger spirit. It's a common misconception that smaller and larger spirits in the same area dislike or view one another as threats, but this isn't true. They coexist peacefully, since they are, in some ways, the same being.
Spirits can have an undercurrent of elemental magic, since the natural world of Sornieth is soaked with it, but spirits aren't tied to that element. Even spirits such as wind spirits aren't made of Wind magic; if the elemental magic of the world was drained away, wind spirits would continue to be wind spirits. They're a manifestation of a natural force. Spirits like those aren't elementally fluid; wind spirits in Dragonhome still use Wind magic rather than Earth. Other spirits, however, are flexible; a spirit whose forest lied in the Tangled Wood can use Shadow magic, but if the border somehow shifted and that forest was absorbed by the Sunbeam Ruins, that spirit could utilize Light magic just as easily. In general, spirits don't rely much on elemental magic, but it can influence their personality and how they treat dragons.
Category:Communal Locations
Category:Nature