Spirit Glow Forest

The forest that surrounds the entirety of Kyoto Double 60's, The Infinite City, Kabe, and Kariko this forest spans most of the the center of the Eastern Nation.The forest itself is expansive filled with monsters, wild Yokai, and large spirits which are known to wipe away most small settlements that are set up within the forest making most people consider it to be irreclaimable land. There are large cities being set up in areas along the coast, mountains, and flat lands where the expansive of mangroves and trees can not freely expand and as such the spirits could not spread out into these specific lands, causing the monsters within the forest not to hunt in these areas. This allowed for the four major cities located on the outer expanses to flourish.

Most of the plants within the forest are enchanted due to the extreme expanses of magic spilling from within the Yomi Wellspring which runs through the entire forest. It has caused everything from Blood Magic to forbidden forms of magic to infest the plants creating massive growths to form where spirits were born instead of the usual two to three it caused hundreds of extremely powerful spirits to be born. It even caused the mutation of the local magical beings and Yokai, regressing some into deadly animistic creatures usually known as Wilds. This came to be thanks to the large amount of magic within every plant and animal, causing everything within the ecosystem to mutate. While the large spirits and monsters can be mostly seen living through out all of the Spirit Glow Forest, the Wilds mostly stick within places known as The Depths.

## The Depths

The Depths are possibly the most dangerous location within all of the forest, forming when a magic concentrations grows too strong and too many spirits form with no natural predators. When this happens it causes the magic to build until it explodes downwards hundreds to thousands of feet the plants mutating into near sentient living beings that devour the spirits. Of course this draws in thousands of monsters the attraction brings in large concentrations of Wilds who devour the monsters, mutating due to the massive amounts of spiritual energy trapped within the monsters. The blood from these kills soaks into the ground, causing every animal that eats them to also become Wilds thus creating a zone of some of the most powerful and dangerous supernatural beings. It is because of this no one tries to settle within the Depths but exploration of the Depths have also lead to the appearance of one of the most valuable resources within all of Yoma, the Primordial Wells.

### Grand Temples

The Depths seemed to have grown from massive temples that appeared from the Asian nations of Earth, when lands were transferred into Yoma they were dropped along the Yomi's Wellspring. The original thought was that the temples could draw power from the Wellspring while purifying it to now allow wild magic to flow through out the forest. The opposite affect happened as the temples exploded outwards acting instead of small wells of spiritual energy, became massive geysers that all bursts. It created large ravines and interconnecting caverns which burst with the energy of the Yomi Wellspring, acting as the creation of the Depths. Most of the temples were completely overgrown and surrounded by plants, forever keeping their shape while usually destroying everything inside that was not made of metal or stone. Each of the temples act as the main center point of the forest, acting as what could be considered the organs to the living heart of the forest.

## Primordial Wells

Also known as Wells of Life, after hundreds of years of hunting within The Depths the blood and bodies of the decomposing creatures eventually grow into a sort of oil that pools beneath the ground. Due to the supernatural power of all of the blood and bodies, the oil retains the living essence and DNA which over time is refined by the land into what could be considered the original source of life itself. One would think that people would over use it for fuel but it's bioactive nature makes it too unstable to be used as a fuel source, but when ingested by Yokai and Supernatural beings it caused a renewal within supernatural beings. Due to the War of Extermination that occurred thousands of years ago most Supernatural beings were let so sick that over time they lost the being to have children or those that were born were extremely sickly and died off. Introduction of the Primordial Wells to the Supernatural beings actually caused the sickness to disappear in the younger generation. The older generation regained their lost fertility as well as regain their health. There was one final side effect to the Primordial Wells, this is the random mutation known as Kami-Den that appears within certain Yokai, only achieved thanks to it passing across generations.

## Spirit Gates

One of the most appealing features of the Spirit Glow Forest which are massive overgrown trees with massive sickly welts seemingly growing from them. In reality they are large growths formed by Tunneling Worms, spirits that dig into trees and create massive tunnels through the interconnecting networks. These tunnels defy spacial laws forming massive amounts of space even though it is simply connections through the roots of the trees. It allows one to pass in and out of the different tunnels, freely. Of course the tunnels are nearly infinite with tunnels leading in every direction and theoretically a person could be lost in there forever. The Yokai Council set up specialized groups of people who would live, die, and have children within the tunnels to map them out until there was a full map of the tunnels documenting every twist and turn. Of course groups that had walked in two to three hundred years ago have never been heard from again. The only proof they were still alive was the massive spikes sealing up the tunnels and chains keeping people from falling through into the endless tunnels.

## Trivia

* The original inspiration for Spirit Glow Forest came from the video game Tales of Vesperia and the Aer Krene's as well as Over The Garden Wall
* Originally all of the locations in Yoma were supposed to be massive forests with cities built into the trees but this was later changed to give more diversity to the world.
* Most of the Spirit Glow Forest was inspired by Mushishi