Heartwood Isle

### The story of how it began:

Long ago, before Heartwood Isle was thriving with cities and its citizens, it was filled with forests and wild places that were full of animals and creatures of the unknown. Somewhere in the center of the island stood a monster who is siting next to a tree. All around the beast is piles of dead men who the monster calls failures because they failed to pass the test the Beast has offered them. One day a woman approaches the island and ventures into the center of the isle. As the woman faces the monster, he called to her in a booming voice, “Place your hand on the tree and tell me what you see within the tree.” The woman agrees and does as she was told to do. After a moment has passed and the monster believed that the woman was also a failure and was about to kill her, the woman speaks up which made the beast jumps. “I see a heart within the tree as if it is asking me to carve out a heart from within.” She looks to the beast to see if she got the answer right, to her surprise the monster, struck with shock. When he found his voice, the monster speaks to the woman. “You are the one to break my curse, you read the tree’s mind and understood it. You must be the one to break my curse.” The woman and the monster fell in love, and their love broke the monster's spell, which changed him into a man. They soon invited people across the world to thrive on the island. Many years have passed, and no one has seen or heard of the couple nor did they show them the heartwood that represents the island. Some say that the couple used some powerful magic to hide them and the heartwood itself from those who have greedy hearts. Others say that they died of old age but invited no one to their funerals. It is still a mystery on the location of the couple, and the heartwood is even if the heartwood still exists. The island was soon named Heartwood Isle because of the stories and the mysterious tree that brought the couple together with love, thus calling it heartwood.

### Overview of Heartwood Isle

Heartwood Isle is a small island within the northern chain but is not a large waring place. Heartwood Isle is more on trading and spreading the knowledge of what they learned from the outside world, most of the time are stories and languages from different places. It is a very high human population there plus there are elves, and various other races except for tieflings and half-orcs.

### Prelude

Once an island filled with the unknown and untold stories. Ever since that day where the heroine breaks the curse and created the island anew. Now many have come for either vacations or to find a new means in life to make some trades either in the island or out.

### Government Structure

Every main city or town are all part of the Representative Democracy on the island. Each known city or town has their own leader or mayor in the town and every month the leaders of said towns go to Evershore to have a discussion on what has been going on the pas month and if there was any changes to be made to help the island flourish a bit either if it is from trades or any encounters from enemies. For every two to three years a new mayor is elected for office and the citizens get the right to vote for the new office head. The citizens on the island has the right to vote on certain laws and if they wanted certain changes in the government.

* Figure on the left is the Heartwood crest

## Areas/Region

### The East Fishing Region

From the two towns, Lakeshore and Northon, they are known for fishing either in the lake of Lakeshore and the ocean near Norton. Northon is the major fishing city and mostly brings all of the fish inward mostly in Northon but a few of the trades travel inland to the other cities/towns.

### Heartwood Region

Evershore and the Heartwood Grove make up the Heartwood Region because not only it is the central of the island, it is also where it is believed that is where the myth started. Now it is a place for the main government for the whole island and the brain of the whole operation on the island.

### Mountain Region

Behind the Calm Rise is a city called Rockport are called the Mountain Region, Rockport makes up the most Moutain region because it is close to mines and a have a larger military unit than in Evershore. The Calm Rise are a series of mountains and have a small pathway in the caverns to go to a town or city plus it has trading routes on what the miners find in the mines.

### The Druid Region

Around the area of Frew Grove and Mistward is the hangout for druids in the Druid Region. The Druid region is surrounded by forests and a town, yet this is where a small group of druids cluster up and figure out what to do to protect the nature in Heartwood Isle.

### The Beach Region

From Barnsley to Dewhurst the whole area is a well known and popular place for tourists to go and have fun on a beach. There are small houses between the towns but most of them are farms that are closer to Dewhurst. The houses or inns around Barnsley are mostly used for tourists who are visiting the island.

### The "Unknown" lands

From the Mighty peaks mountains and to the secret covert, they are known as the "unknown" lands. Not a lot of information on it but many believed that the magic there goes crazy or that the real heartwood is at. Some say that the beast and the woman are still alive and are immortal which is why they hide from the "unknown" lands. Of course these are all rumors because no one has ventured through there.

## Popular areas

The most visited and popular areas are Barnsley and Evershore for tourist spots. Most of the tourists hang out in Barnsley because there is a beach and gift shops there. People go there for vacation or honeymoons to relax and have a fun time. Evershore is a large city where people either finds a job or find a good trading business in the city.

## Beast Encounters

The only encounters that are very known in Heartwood are Goblins and Orcs. They believe that there really is a magic tree that controls the island and wanted to use the power to control the island or other things to the Heartwood tree. Other than that there is nothing major that has ever attacked the island.

## Holidays or Events

Heartwood celebrates the major holidays that are celebrating from around the world but they have their own holiday to celebrate. It is the holiday or an event of the story of the creation of Heartwood.

### What to expect there

There will be exquisite food, games and parties that lasts for days. There are plays as well that are performed by children and traditional songs are sung at the event. The songs there are about the creation and the happy times for the beast and the woman. The songs they perform are a bit different from what most bards hear music wise, but to the natives of Heartwood its a song that their people used to sing back when Heartwood was first created.

## Cities/Towns/ Villages

* Evershore
* Rockport
* Northon
* Barnsley
* Dewhurst
* Lakeshore
* Mistward