Arborea

Outer Plane
Layers:	Olympus Ossa Pelion
Primary Faction:	Society of Sensation
Sect:	Children of the Vine

Arborea is named after its endless, rolling forests, but half of it's a land of field, orchards, and meadows. Most of Arborea is harmless, and most of the time a cutter's as safe as a sheep in the fold. But there's wolves in the hinterlands, and even prowling powers. Arborea doesn't have the wild, bloody dangers of the Beastlands or the obvious deathtraps of the Abyss, but all the same, a cutter'd better watch herself. The powers and the nature spirits demand their due, and woe to the berk who doesn't appease them - or worse, scorns their might.

Arborea's a land of deep emotions and powerful curses, loves, and hatreds. Petitioners are quick to react with anger, lust, greed, and envy. The good news is that charity, love, justice, and kindness run just as strong on the plane. Enchantments and charms function very well in the emotionally charged atmosphere of Arborea. 'Course, like emotions, the backlash is stronger if a spell fails.

Magic requires small sacrifices to the natures spirits that rule every brook and grove of the plane. Spell keys in Arborea take the form of ritual offerings to the earth and nature spirits that make the spells function. Wine, oat cakes, milk, gold, olive oil, fine idols, unblemished animals, and a mage's blood are typical offerings that make magic possible. Unfortunately, each school and sometimes each spell has its own offering that serves as a key, enough to make even a mage's head ache.

Arboreans live unrestrained lives of hedonism. Lots of bashers think it's because Arborea is the home of the Sensates, but that's only half the chant. After all, the curses of the powers can bring about tragic ends, including such ugly fates as exile, slavery, patricide, and blindness. Comparing oneself favorably to the gods, failing to make a sacrifice, offering an insufficient sacrifice, breaking an oath - these things are all trouble. Sad truth is, any sod can make a mistake, but in Arborea the powers might hold it against him. That's chaos, but it ain't pretty.

The greatest number of petitioners are the elves of Arvandor, and the humans of Olympus. Sensates can be found in both camps, and the factions seems to rule the plane. In addition, the petitioners of Arborea include almost all sylvan races from centaurs, elves, gnomes, and humans to satyrs, nixies, and harpies. They're the commoners of the plane, tending to the good of the woodlands and meadows. Though not as wild as the Beastlands, Arborea still has many ancient groves in need of care. The Arborean petitioners treat this work with as much diligence and concern as peasants treat their crops elsewhere.

The petitioners are just pikers compared to the nature spirits that rule the land: every tree, every brook, and every hillock of Arborea. The elfin arasi are the water spirits, the powerful oreads rule every peak - including Mount Olypmus - and dryads and sylphs rule the woods and the heights. The spirits require sacrifices in many springs, sacred groves, and ancient caverns of prophecy and judgement - small shrines alert travelers that a spirit lives nearby. Ignoring them brings bad luck, and any traveler barmy enough to give 'em the laugh pays the price.

Worse are the bacchae: roving gangs of bubbers, capering half-mad mobs of pleasure and destruction that roam the countryside. If they tell a basher to drink with them, she drinks. Trouble is, she's likely to become one of them if she starts to enjoy their company and they accept her. Petitioners in Arborea don't always stay petitioners until they merge with the plane - they become bacchae as often as planars do. How it happens isn't clear, but the magic of music and dance is said to trigger it. The powers blame the creation of the bacchae on Dionysus, though Pan is sometimes named as well. Whatever their origins, they're a danger to all travelers, especially those who provoke them. Most anything provokes a bacchae: failure to offer wine, offering inferior wine, or failing to be as joyous and drunk as they are.

Philosophers of Thrassos and the Guvners still argue whether petitioners who become bacchae ever regain their normal form. 'Course, what really matters is that they lost it in the first place. A basher should just be grateful that no planar's ever become one against his will.