The Arboriad are among the eldest and most enigmatic of the First Ones—primordial beings born of the Endless Night’s deep, dreaming calm. Manifesting the slow growth and enduring strength of nature, they are neither plant nor animal, neither spirit nor god, but something stranger: sentient dreams of life itself. Of all the First Ones, the Arboriad are most closely tied to the living world, and it is through their hand that the forests, plants, and great ecosystems of the earth first came to be.

Origins in the Dream

The Arboriad were the third of the First Ones to emerge from the dreaming mind of the Endless Night. Born from dreams of “creeping calm”—those slow, steady imaginings that unfold without urgency or end—they came into the waking world not in fire or fury, but in stillness and seed. Where the Necrist were horror, and the Leviathans were mystery, the Arboriad were growth: calm, deep-rooted, inevitable.

Unlike their siblings, they had no desire for dominion, destruction, or isolation. Their earliest utterance, spoken beneath a starless sky, was simple:

“All things grow. Let us cover the lands.”

And so they did.

Nature and Philosophy

The Arboriad believe in expansion through balance, growth through patience, and endurance through change. They hold no borders, for roots do not recognize them. They build no kingdoms, for forests require none. To the Arboriad, the world itself is a body that must be healed, filled, and nurtured.

While they seldom spoke, when they did, their words were measured, slow, and resonant—like wind through leaves or water through soil. Their philosophy aligns them most closely with the Elder Giants and the Radiant, though they distrusted the Dragons' hunger for ownership and the Necrist’s disdain for existence.

They stood in alliance with the Radiant and the Giants before the War of the First Ones, desiring a world rich in diversity, life, and peaceful wisdom.

The War of the First Ones

Though not born for violence, the Arboriad did not remain neutral. As war erupted among the First Ones—its origins disputed, its consequences catastrophic—they stood against the Dragons and the Necrist. They did not seek conquest or vengeance, but protection: of the forests they had grown, of the balance they had maintained, and of the many children of the world they had helped shape.

Though powerful, the Arboriad were not invincible. The war ravaged even the deepest groves, split continents, and burned sacred woods to ash. When it ended, they were scattered, like seeds in the wind.

Retreat into the Roots

After the Radiant fell and the Necrist dissolved, the Arboriad chose to retreat rather than perish. They seeded themselves into the world’s forests, becoming part of the oldest trees, the deepest roots, and the sacred groves hidden from mortal eyes. Their conscious forms were lost, but their essence survived—as dryads, tree-spirits, living glades, and the green magic that lingers wherever life endures.

Some scholars believe the Arboriad are not gone but merely sleeping, dreaming still within ancient forests, and that certain trees—vast, gnarled, and impossibly old—are their true bodies, unmoving but alive.